the tales of chekhov volume the horse stealers and other stories by anton tchekhov translated by constance garnett contents the horse-stealers ward no. the petchenyeg a dead body a happy ending the looking-glass old age darkness the beggar a story without a title in trouble frost a slander minds in ferment gone astray an avenger the jeune premier a defenceless creature an enigmatic nature a happy man a troublesome visitor an actor's end the horse-stealers a hospital assistant, called yergunov, an empty-headed fellow, known throughout the district as a great braggart and drunkard, was returning one evening in christmas week from the hamlet of ryepino, where he had been to make some purchases for the hospital. that he might get home in good time and not be late, the doctor had lent him his very best horse. at first it had been a still day, but at eight o'clock a violent snow-storm came on, and when he was only about four miles from home yergunov completely lost his way. he did not know how to drive, he did not know the road, and he drove on at random, hoping that the horse would find the way of itself. two hours passed; the horse was exhausted, he himself was chilled, and already began to fancy that he was not going home, but back towards ryepino. but at last above the uproar of the storm he heard the far-away barking of a dog, and a murky red blur came into sight ahead of him: little by little, the outlines of a high gate could be discerned, then a long fence on which there were nails with their points uppermost, and beyond the fence there stood the slanting crane of a well. the wind drove away the mist of snow from before the eyes, and where there had been a red blur, there sprang up a small, squat little house with a steep thatched roof. of the three little windows one, covered on the inside with something red, was lighted up. what sort of place was it? yergunov remembered that to the right of the road, three and a half or four miles from the hospital, there was andrey tchirikov's tavern. he remembered, too, that this tchirikov, who had been lately killed by some sledge-drivers, had left a wife and a daughter called lyubka, who had come to the hospital two years before as a patient. the inn had a bad reputation, and to visit it late in the evening, and especially with someone else's horse, was not free from risk. but there was no help for it. yergunov fumbled in his knapsack for his revolver, and, coughing sternly, tapped at the window-frame with his whip. "hey! who is within?" he cried. "hey, granny! let me come in and get warm!" with a hoarse bark a black dog rolled like a ball under the horse's feet, then another white one, then another black one--there must have been a dozen of them. yergunov looked to see which was the biggest, swung his whip and lashed at it with all his might. a small, long-legged puppy turned its sharp muzzle upwards and set up a shrill, piercing howl. yergunov stood for a long while at the window, tapping. but at last the hoar-frost on the trees near the house glowed red, and a muffled female figure appeared with a lantern in her hands. "let me in to get warm, granny," said yergunov. "i was driving to the hospital, and i have lost my way. it's such weather, god preserve us. don't be afraid; we are your own people, granny." "all my own people are at home, and we didn't invite strangers," said the figure grimly. "and what are you knocking for? the gate is not locked." yergunov drove into the yard and stopped at the steps. "bid your labourer take my horse out, granny," said he. "i am not granny." and indeed she was not a granny. while she was putting out the lantern the light fell on her face, and yergunov saw black eyebrows, and recognized lyubka. "there are no labourers about now," she said as she went into the house. "some are drunk and asleep, and some have been gone to ryepino since the morning. it's a holiday. . . ." as he fastened his horse up in the shed, yergunov heard a neigh, and distinguished in the darkness another horse, and felt on it a cossack saddle. so there must be someone else in the house besides the woman and her daughter. for greater security yergunov unsaddled his horse, and when he went into the house, took with him both his purchases and his saddle. the first room into which he went was large and very hot, and smelt of freshly washed floors. a short, lean peasant of about forty, with a small, fair beard, wearing a dark blue shirt, was sitting at the table under the holy images. it was kalashnikov, an arrant scoundrel and horse-stealer, whose father and uncle kept a tavern in bogalyovka, and disposed of the stolen horses where they could. he too had been to the hospital more than once, not for medical treatment, but to see the doctor about horses--to ask whether he had not one for sale, and whether his honour would not like to swop his bay mare for a dun-coloured gelding. now his head was pomaded and a silver ear-ring glittered in his ear, and altogether he had a holiday air. frowning and dropping his lower lip, he was looking intently at a big dog's-eared picture-book. another peasant lay stretched on the floor near the stove; his head, his shoulders, and his chest were covered with a sheepskin--he was probably asleep; beside his new boots, with shining bits of metal on the heels, there were two dark pools of melted snow. seeing the hospital assistant, kalashnikov greeted him. "yes, it is weather," said yergunov, rubbing his chilled knees with his open hands. "the snow is up to one's neck; i am soaked to the skin, i can tell you. and i believe my revolver is, too. . . ." he took out his revolver, looked it all over, and put it back in his knapsack. but the revolver made no impression at all; the peasant went on looking at the book. "yes, it is weather. . . . i lost my way, and if it had not been for the dogs here, i do believe it would have been my death. there would have been a nice to-do. and where are the women?" "the old woman has gone to ryepino, and the girl is getting supper ready . . ." answered kalashnikov. silence followed. yergunov, shivering and gasping, breathed on his hands, huddled up, and made a show of being very cold and exhausted. the still angry dogs could be heard howling outside. it was dreary. "you come from bogalyovka, don't you?" he asked the peasant sternly. "yes, from bogalyovka." and to while away the time yergunov began to think about bogalyovka. it was a big village and it lay in a deep ravine, so that when one drove along the highroad on a moonlight night, and looked down into the dark ravine and then up at the sky, it seemed as though the moon were hanging over a bottomless abyss and it were the end of the world. the path going down was steep, winding, and so narrow that when one drove down to bogalyovka on account of some epidemic or to vaccinate the people, one had to shout at the top of one's voice, or whistle all the way, for if one met a cart coming up one could not pass. the peasants of bogalyovka had the reputation of being good gardeners and horse-stealers. they had well-stocked gardens. in spring the whole village was buried in white cherry-blossom, and in the summer they sold cherries at three kopecks a pail. one could pay three kopecks and pick as one liked. their women were handsome and looked well fed, they were fond of finery, and never did anything even on working-days, but spent all their time sitting on the ledge in front of their houses and searching in each other's heads. but at last there was the sound of footsteps. lyubka, a girl of twenty, with bare feet and a red dress, came into the room. . . . she looked sideways at yergunov and walked twice from one end of the room to the other. she did not move simply, but with tiny steps, thrusting forward her bosom; evidently she enjoyed padding about with her bare feet on the freshly washed floor, and had taken off her shoes on purpose. kalashnikov laughed at something and beckoned her with his finger. she went up to the table, and he showed her a picture of the prophet elijah, who, driving three horses abreast, was dashing up to the sky. lyubka put her elbow on the table; her plait fell across her shoulder--a long chestnut plait tied with red ribbon at the end--and it almost touched the floor. she, too, smiled. "a splendid, wonderful picture," said kalashnikov. "wonderful," he repeated, and motioned with his hand as though he wanted to take the reins instead of elijah. the wind howled in the stove; something growled and squeaked as though a big dog had strangled a rat. "ugh! the unclean spirits are abroad!" said lyubka. "that's the wind," said kalashnikov; and after a pause he raised his eyes to yergunov and asked: "and what is your learned opinion, osip vassilyitch--are there devils in this world or not?" "what's one to say, brother?" said yergunov, and he shrugged one shoulder. "if one reasons from science, of course there are no devils, for it's a superstition; but if one looks at it simply, as you and i do now, there are devils, to put it shortly. . . . i have seen a great deal in my life. . . . when i finished my studies i served as medical assistant in the army in a regiment of the dragoons, and i have been in the war, of course. i have a medal and a decoration from the red cross, but after the treaty of san stefano i returned to russia and went into the service of the zemstvo. and in consequence of my enormous circulation about the world, i may say i have seen more than many another has dreamed of. it has happened to me to see devils, too; that is, not devils with horns and a tail--that is all nonsense--but just, to speak precisely, something of the sort." "where?" asked kalashnikov. "in various places. there is no need to go far. last year i met him here--speak of him not at night--near this very inn. i was driving, i remember, to golyshino; i was going there to vaccinate. of course, as usual, i had the racing droshky and a horse, and all the necessary paraphernalia, and, what's more, i had a watch and all the rest of it, so i was on my guard as i drove along, for fear of some mischance. there are lots of tramps of all sorts. i came up to the zmeinoy ravine--damnation take it--and was just going down it, when all at once somebody comes up to me--such a fellow! black hair, black eyes, and his whole face looked smutted with soot . . . . he comes straight up to the horse and takes hold of the left rein: 'stop!' he looked at the horse, then at me, then dropped the reins, and without saying a bad word, 'where are you going?' says he. and he showed his teeth in a grin, and his eyes were spiteful-looking. "'ah,' thought i, 'you are a queer customer!' 'i am going to vaccinate for the smallpox,' said i. 'and what is that to you?' 'well, if that's so,' says he, 'vaccinate me. he bared his arm and thrust it under my nose. of course, i did not bandy words with him; i just vaccinated him to get rid of him. afterwards i looked at my lancet and it had gone rusty." the peasant who was asleep near the stove suddenly turned over and flung off the sheepskin; to his great surprise, yergunov recognized the stranger he had met that day at zmeinoy ravine. this peasant's hair, beard, and eyes were black as soot; his face was swarthy; and, to add to the effect, there was a black spot the size of a lentil on his right cheek. he looked mockingly at the hospital assistant and said: "i did take hold of the left rein--that was so; but about the smallpox you are lying, sir. and there was not a word said about the smallpox between us." yergunov was disconcerted. "i'm not talking about you," he said. "lie down, since you are lying down." the dark-skinned peasant had never been to the hospital, and yergunov did not know who he was or where he came from; and now, looking at him, he made up his mind that the man must be a gypsy. the peasant got up and, stretching and yawning loudly, went up to lyubka and kalashnikov, and sat down beside them, and he, too, began looking at the book. his sleepy face softened and a look of envy came into it. "look, merik," lyubka said to him; "get me such horses and i will drive to heaven." "sinners can't drive to heaven," said kalashnikov. "that's for holiness." then lyubka laid the table and brought in a big piece of fat bacon, salted cucumbers, a wooden platter of boiled meat cut up into little pieces, then a frying-pan, in which there were sausages and cabbage spluttering. a cut-glass decanter of vodka, which diffused a smell of orange-peel all over the room when it was poured out, was put on the table also. yergunov was annoyed that kalashnikov and the dark fellow merik talked together and took no notice of him at all, behaving exactly as though he were not in the room. and he wanted to talk to them, to brag, to drink, to have a good meal, and if possible to have a little fun with lyubka, who sat down near him half a dozen times while they were at supper, and, as though by accident, brushed against him with her handsome shoulders and passed her hands over her broad hips. she was a healthy, active girl, always laughing and never still: she would sit down, then get up, and when she was sitting down she would keep turning first her face and then her back to her neighbour, like a fidgety child, and never failed to brush against him with her elbows or her knees. and he was displeased, too, that the peasants drank only a glass each and no more, and it was awkward for him to drink alone. but he could not refrain from taking a second glass, all the same, then a third, and he ate all the sausage. he brought himself to flatter the peasants, that they might accept him as one of the party instead of holding him at arm's length. "you are a fine set of fellows in bogalyovka!" he said, and wagged his head. "in what way fine fellows?" enquired kalashnikov. "why, about horses, for instance. fine fellows at stealing!" "h'm! fine fellows, you call them. nothing but thieves and drunkards." "they have had their day, but it is over," said merik, after a pause. "but now they have only filya left, and he is blind." "yes, there is no one but filya," said kalashnikov, with a sigh. "reckon it up, he must be seventy; the german settlers knocked out one of his eyes, and he does not see well with the other. it is cataract. in old days the police officer would shout as soon as he saw him: 'hey, you shamil!' and all the peasants called him that--he was shamil all over the place; and now his only name is one-eyed filya. but he was a fine fellow! lyuba's father, andrey grigoritch, and he stole one night into rozhnovo--there were cavalry regiments stationed there--and carried off nine of the soldiers' horses, the very best of them. they weren't frightened of the sentry, and in the morning they sold all the horses for twenty roubles to the gypsy afonka. yes! but nowadays a man contrives to carry off a horse whose rider is drunk or asleep, and has no fear of god, but will take the very boots from a drunkard, and then slinks off and goes away a hundred and fifty miles with a horse, and haggles at the market, haggles like a jew, till the policeman catches him, the fool. there is no fun in it; it is simply a disgrace! a paltry set of people, i must say." "what about merik?" asked lyubka. "merik is not one of us," said kalashnikov. "he is a harkov man from mizhiritch. but that he is a bold fellow, that's the truth; there's no gainsaying that he is a fine fellow." lyubka looked slily and gleefully at merik, and said: "it wasn't for nothing they dipped him in a hole in the ice." "how was that?" asked yergunov. "it was like this . . ." said merik, and he laughed. "filya carried off three horses from the samoylenka tenants, and they pitched upon me. there were ten of the tenants at samoylenka, and with their labourers there were thirty altogether, and all of them molokans . . . . so one of them says to me at the market: 'come and have a look, merik; we have brought some new horses from the fair.' i was interested, of course. i went up to them, and the whole lot of them, thirty men, tied my hands behind me and led me to the river. 'we'll show you fine horses,' they said. one hole in the ice was there already; they cut another beside it seven feet away. then, to be sure, they took a cord and put a noose under my armpits, and tied a crooked stick to the other end, long enough to reach both holes. they thrust the stick in and dragged it through. i went plop into the ice-hole just as i was, in my fur coat and my high boots, while they stood and shoved me, one with his foot and one with his stick, then dragged me under the ice and pulled me out of the other hole." lyubka shuddered and shrugged. "at first i was in a fever from the cold," merik went on, "but when they pulled me out i was helpless, and lay in the snow, and the molokans stood round and hit me with sticks on my knees and my elbows. it hurt fearfully. they beat me and they went away . . . and everything on me was frozen, my clothes were covered with ice. i got up, but i couldn't move. thank god, a woman drove by and gave me a lift." meanwhile yergunov had drunk five or six glasses of vodka; his heart felt lighter, and he longed to tell some extraordinary, wonderful story too, and to show that he, too, was a bold fellow and not afraid of anything. "i'll tell you what happened to us in penza province . . ." he began. either because he had drunk a great deal and was a little tipsy, or perhaps because he had twice been detected in a lie, the peasants took not the slightest notice of him, and even left off answering his questions. what was worse, they permitted themselves a frankness in his presence that made him feel uncomfortable and cold all over, and that meant that they took no notice of him. kalashnikov had the dignified manners of a sedate and sensible man; he spoke weightily, and made the sign of the cross over his mouth every time he yawned, and no one could have supposed that this was a thief, a heartless thief who had stripped poor creatures, who had already been twice in prison, and who had been sentenced by the commune to exile in siberia, and had been bought off by his father and uncle, who were as great thieves and rogues as he was. merik gave himself the airs of a bravo. he saw that lyubka and kalashnikov were admiring him, and looked upon himself as a very fine fellow, and put his arms akimbo, squared his chest, or stretched so that the bench creaked under him. . . . after supper kalashnikov prayed to the holy image without getting up from his seat, and shook hands with merik; the latter prayed too, and shook kalashnikov's hand. lyubka cleared away the supper, shook out on the table some peppermint biscuits, dried nuts, and pumpkin seeds, and placed two bottles of sweet wine. "the kingdom of heaven and peace everlasting to andrey grigoritch," said kalashnikov, clinking glasses with merik. "when he was alive we used to gather together here or at his brother martin's, and--my word! my word! what men, what talks! remarkable conversations! martin used to be here, and filya, and fyodor stukotey. . . . it was all done in style, it was all in keeping. . . . and what fun we had! we did have fun, we did have fun!" lyubka went out and soon afterwards came back wearing a green kerchief and beads. "look, merik, what kalashnikov brought me to-day," she said. she looked at herself in the looking-glass, and tossed her head several times to make the beads jingle. and then she opened a chest and began taking out, first, a cotton dress with red and blue flowers on it, and then a red one with flounces which rustled and crackled like paper, then a new kerchief, dark blue, shot with many colours--and all these things she showed and flung up her hands, laughing as though astonished that she had such treasures. kalashnikov tuned the balalaika and began playing it, but yergunov could not make out what sort of song he was singing, and whether it was gay or melancholy, because at one moment it was so mournful he wanted to cry, and at the next it would be merry. merik suddenly jumped up and began tapping with his heels on the same spot, then, brandishing his arms, he moved on his heels from the table to the stove, from the stove to the chest, then he bounded up as though he had been stung, clicked the heels of his boots together in the air, and began going round and round in a crouching position. lyubka waved both her arms, uttered a desperate shriek, and followed him. at first she moved sideways, like a snake, as though she wanted to steal up to someone and strike him from behind. she tapped rapidly with her bare heels as merik had done with the heels of his boots, then she turned round and round like a top and crouched down, and her red dress was blown out like a bell. merik, looking angrily at her, and showing his teeth in a grin, flew towards her in the same crouching posture as though he wanted to crush her with his terrible legs, while she jumped up, flung back her head, and waving her arms as a big bird does its wings, floated across the room scarcely touching the floor. . . . "what a flame of a girl!" thought yergunov, sitting on the chest, and from there watching the dance. "what fire! give up everything for her, and it would be too little . . . ." and he regretted that he was a hospital assistant, and not a simple peasant, that he wore a reefer coat and a chain with a gilt key on it instead of a blue shirt with a cord tied round the waist. then he could boldly have sung, danced, flung both arms round lyubka as merik did. . . . the sharp tapping, shouts, and whoops set the crockery ringing in the cupboard and the flame of the candle dancing. the thread broke and the beads were scattered all over the floor, the green kerchief slipped off, and lyubka was transformed into a red cloud flitting by and flashing black eyes, and it seemed as though in another second merik's arms and legs would drop off. but finally merik stamped for the last time, and stood still as though turned to stone. exhausted and almost breathless, lyubka sank on to his bosom and leaned against him as against a post, and he put his arms round her, and looking into her eyes, said tenderly and caressingly, as though in jest: "i'll find out where your old mother's money is hidden, i'll murder her and cut your little throat for you, and after that i will set fire to the inn. . . . people will think you have perished in the fire, and with your money i shall go to kuban. i'll keep droves of horses and flocks of sheep. . . ." lyubka made no answer, but only looked at him with a guilty air, and asked: "and is it nice in kuban, merik?" he said nothing, but went to the chest, sat down, and sank into thought; most likely he was dreaming of kuban. "it's time for me to be going," said kalashnikov, getting up. "filya must be waiting for me. goodbye, lyuba." yergunov went out into the yard to see that kalashnikov did not go off with his horse. the snowstorm still persisted. white clouds were floating about the yard, their long tails clinging to the rough grass and the bushes, while on the other side of the fence in the open country huge giants in white robes with wide sleeves were whirling round and falling to the ground, and getting up again to wave their arms and fight. and the wind, the wind! the bare birches and cherry-trees, unable to endure its rude caresses, bowed low down to the ground and wailed: "god, for what sin hast thou bound us to the earth and will not let us go free?" "wo!" said kalashnikov sternly, and he got on his horse; one half of the gate was opened, and by it lay a high snowdrift. "well, get on!" shouted kalashnikov. his little short-legged nag set off, and sank up to its stomach in the drift at once. kalashnikov was white all over with the snow, and soon vanished from sight with his horse. when yergunov went back into the room, lyubka was creeping about the floor picking up her beads; merik was not there. "a splendid girl!" thought yergunov, as he lay down on the bench and put his coat under his head. "oh, if only merik were not here." lyubka excited him as she crept about the floor by the bench, and he thought that if merik had not been there he would certainly have got up and embraced her, and then one would see what would happen. it was true she was only a girl, but not likely to be chaste; and even if she were--need one stand on ceremony in a den of thieves? lyubka collected her beads and went out. the candle burnt down and the flame caught the paper in the candlestick. yergunov laid his revolver and matches beside him, and put out the candle. the light before the holy images flickered so much that it hurt his eyes, and patches of light danced on the ceiling, on the floor, and on the cupboard, and among them he had visions of lyubka, buxom, full-bosomed: now she was turning round like a top, now she was exhausted and breathless. . . . "oh, if the devils would carry off that merik," he thought. the little lamp gave a last flicker, spluttered, and went out. someone, it must have been merik, came into the room and sat down on the bench. he puffed at his pipe, and for an instant lighted up a dark cheek with a patch on it. yergunov's throat was irritated by the horrible fumes of the tobacco smoke. "what filthy tobacco you have got--damnation take it!" said yergunov. "it makes me positively sick." "i mix my tobacco with the flowers of the oats," answered merik after a pause. "it is better for the chest." he smoked, spat, and went out again. half an hour passed, and all at once there was the gleam of a light in the passage. merik appeared in a coat and cap, then lyubka with a candle in her hand. "do stay, merik," said lyubka in an imploring voice. "no, lyuba, don't keep me." "listen, merik," said lyubka, and her voice grew soft and tender. "i know you will find mother's money, and will do for her and for me, and will go to kuban and love other girls; but god be with you. i only ask you one thing, sweetheart: do stay!" "no, i want some fun . . ." said merik, fastening his belt. "but you have nothing to go on. . . . you came on foot; what are you going on?" merik bent down to lyubka and whispered something in her ear; she looked towards the door and laughed through her tears. "he is asleep, the puffed-up devil . . ." she said. merik embraced her, kissed her vigorously, and went out. yergunov thrust his revolver into his pocket, jumped up, and ran after him. "get out of the way!" he said to lyubka, who hurriedly bolted the door of the entry and stood across the threshold. "let me pass! why are you standing here?" "what do you want to go out for?" "to have a look at my horse." lyubka gazed up at him with a sly and caressing look. "why look at it? you had better look at me . . . ." she said, then she bent down and touched with her finger the gilt watch-key that hung on his chain. "let me pass, or he will go off on my horse," said yergunov. "let me go, you devil!" he shouted, and giving her an angry blow on the shoulder, he pressed his chest against her with all his might to push her away from the door, but she kept tight hold of the bolt, and was like iron. "let me go!" he shouted, exhausted; "he will go off with it, i tell you." "why should he? he won't." breathing hard and rubbing her shoulder, which hurt, she looked up at him again, flushed a little and laughed. "don't go away, dear heart," she said; "i am dull alone." yergunov looked into her eyes, hesitated, and put his arms round her; she did not resist. "come, no nonsense; let me go," he begged her. she did not speak. "i heard you just now," he said, "telling merik that you love him." "i dare say. . . . my heart knows who it is i love." she put her finger on the key again, and said softly: "give me that." yergunov unfastened the key and gave it to her. she suddenly craned her neck and listened with a grave face, and her expression struck yergunov as cold and cunning; he thought of his horse, and now easily pushed her aside and ran out into the yard. in the shed a sleepy pig was grunting with lazy regularity and a cow was knocking her horn. yergunov lighted a match and saw the pig, and the cow, and the dogs, which rushed at him on all sides at seeing the light, but there was no trace of the horse. shouting and waving his arms at the dogs, stumbling over the drifts and sticking in the snow, he ran out at the gate and fell to gazing into the darkness. he strained his eyes to the utmost, and saw only the snow flying and the snowflakes distinctly forming into all sorts of shapes; at one moment the white, laughing face of a corpse would peep out of the darkness, at the next a white horse would gallop by with an amazon in a muslin dress upon it, at the next a string of white swans would fly overhead. . . . shaking with anger and cold, and not knowing what to do, yergunov fired his revolver at the dogs, and did not hit one of them; then he rushed back to the house. when he went into the entry he distinctly heard someone scurry out of the room and bang the door. it was dark in the room. yergunov pushed against the door; it was locked. then, lighting match after match, he rushed back into the entry, from there into the kitchen, and from the kitchen into a little room where all the walls were hung with petticoats and dresses, where there was a smell of cornflowers and fennel, and a bedstead with a perfect mountain of pillows, standing in the corner by the stove; this must have been the old mother's room. from there he passed into another little room, and here he saw lyubka. she was lying on a chest, covered with a gay-coloured patchwork cotton quilt, pretending to be asleep. a little ikon-lamp was burning in the corner above the pillow. "where is my horse?" yergunov asked. lyubka did not stir. "where is my horse, i am asking you?" yergunov repeated still more sternly, and he tore the quilt off her. "i am asking you, she-devil!" he shouted. she jumped up on her knees, and with one hand holding her shift and with the other trying to clutch the quilt, huddled against the wall . . . . she looked at yergunov with repulsion and terror in her eyes, and, like a wild beast in a trap, kept cunning watch on his faintest movement. "tell me where my horse is, or i'll knock the life out of you," shouted yergunov. "get away, dirty brute!" she said in a hoarse voice. yergunov seized her by the shift near the neck and tore it. and then he could not restrain himself, and with all his might embraced the girl. but hissing with fury, she slipped out of his arms, and freeing one hand--the other was tangled in the torn shift--hit him a blow with her fist on the skull. his head was dizzy with the pain, there was a ringing and rattling in his ears, he staggered back, and at that moment received another blow--this time on the temple. reeling and clutching at the doorposts, that he might not fall, he made his way to the room where his things were, and lay down on the bench; then after lying for a little time, took the matchbox out of his pocket and began lighting match after match for no object: he lit it, blew it out, and threw it under the table, and went on till all the matches were gone. meanwhile the air began to turn blue outside, the cocks began to crow, but his head still ached, and there was an uproar in his ears as though he were sitting under a railway bridge and hearing the trains passing over his head. he got, somehow, into his coat and cap; the saddle and the bundle of his purchases he could not find, his knapsack was empty: it was not for nothing that someone had scurried out of the room when he came in from the yard. he took a poker from the kitchen to keep off the dogs, and went out into the yard, leaving the door open. the snow-storm had subsided and it was calm outside. . . . when he went out at the gate, the white plain looked dead, and there was not a single bird in the morning sky. on both sides of the road and in the distance there were bluish patches of young copse. yergunov began thinking how he would be greeted at the hospital and what the doctor would say to him; it was absolutely necessary to think of that, and to prepare beforehand to answer questions he would be asked, but this thought grew blurred and slipped away. he walked along thinking of nothing but lyubka, of the peasants with whom he had passed the night; he remembered how, after lyubka struck him the second time, she had bent down to the floor for the quilt, and how her loose hair had fallen on the floor. his mind was in a maze, and he wondered why there were in the world doctors, hospital assistants, merchants, clerks, and peasants instead of simple free men? there are, to be sure, free birds, free beasts, a free merik, and they are not afraid of anyone, and don't need anyone! and whose idea was it, who had decreed that one must get up in the morning, dine at midday, go to bed in the evening; that a doctor takes precedence of a hospital assistant; that one must live in rooms and love only one's wife? and why not the contrary--dine at night and sleep in the day? ah, to jump on a horse without enquiring whose it is, to ride races with the wind like a devil, over fields and forests and ravines, to make love to girls, to mock at everyone . . . . yergunov thrust the poker into the snow, pressed his forehead to the cold white trunk of a birch-tree, and sank into thought; and his grey, monotonous life, his wages, his subordinate position, the dispensary, the everlasting to-do with the bottles and blisters, struck him as contemptible, sickening. "who says it's a sin to enjoy oneself?" he asked himself with vexation. "those who say that have never lived in freedom like merik and kalashnikov, and have never loved lyubka; they have been beggars all their lives, have lived without any pleasure, and have only loved their wives, who are like frogs." and he thought about himself that he had not hitherto been a thief, a swindler, or even a brigand, simply because he could not, or had not yet met with a suitable opportunity. ---- a year and a half passed. in spring, after easter, yergunov, who had long before been dismissed from the hospital and was hanging about without a job, came out of the tavern in ryepino and sauntered aimlessly along the street. he went out into the open country. here there was the scent of spring, and a warm caressing wind was blowing. the calm, starry night looked down from the sky on the earth. my god, how infinite the depth of the sky, and with what fathomless immensity it stretched over the world! the world is created well enough, only why and with what right do people, thought yergunov, divide their fellows into the sober and the drunken, the employed and the dismissed, and so on. why do the sober and well fed sleep comfortably in their homes while the drunken and the hungry must wander about the country without a refuge? why was it that if anyone had not a job and did not get a salary he had to go hungry, without clothes and boots? whose idea was it? why was it the birds and the wild beasts in the woods did not have jobs and get salaries, but lived as they pleased? far away in the sky a beautiful crimson glow lay quivering, stretched wide over the horizon. yergunov stopped, and for a long time he gazed at it, and kept wondering why was it that if he had carried off someone else's samovar the day before and sold it for drink in the taverns it would be a sin? why was it? two carts drove by on the road; in one of them there was a woman asleep, in the other sat an old man without a cap on. "grandfather, where is that fire?" asked yergunov. "andrey tchirikov's inn," answered the old man. and yergunov recalled what had happened to him eighteen months before in the winter, in that very inn, and how merik had boasted; and he imagined the old woman and lyubka, with their throats cut, burning, and he envied merik. and when he walked back to the tavern, looking at the houses of the rich publicans, cattle-dealers, and blacksmiths, he reflected how nice it would be to steal by night into some rich man's house! ward no. i in the hospital yard there stands a small lodge surrounded by a perfect forest of burdocks, nettles, and wild hemp. its roof is rusty, the chimney is tumbling down, the steps at the front-door are rotting away and overgrown with grass, and there are only traces left of the stucco. the front of the lodge faces the hospital; at the back it looks out into the open country, from which it is separated by the grey hospital fence with nails on it. these nails, with their points upwards, and the fence, and the lodge itself, have that peculiar, desolate, god-forsaken look which is only found in our hospital and prison buildings. if you are not afraid of being stung by the nettles, come by the narrow footpath that leads to the lodge, and let us see what is going on inside. opening the first door, we walk into the entry. here along the walls and by the stove every sort of hospital rubbish lies littered about. mattresses, old tattered dressing-gowns, trousers, blue striped shirts, boots and shoes no good for anything--all these remnants are piled up in heaps, mixed up and crumpled, mouldering and giving out a sickly smell. the porter, nikita, an old soldier wearing rusty good-conduct stripes, is always lying on the litter with a pipe between his teeth. he has a grim, surly, battered-looking face, overhanging eyebrows which give him the expression of a sheep-dog of the steppes, and a red nose; he is short and looks thin and scraggy, but he is of imposing deportment and his fists are vigorous. he belongs to the class of simple-hearted, practical, and dull-witted people, prompt in carrying out orders, who like discipline better than anything in the world, and so are convinced that it is their duty to beat people. he showers blows on the face, on the chest, on the back, on whatever comes first, and is convinced that there would be no order in the place if he did not. next you come into a big, spacious room which fills up the whole lodge except for the entry. here the walls are painted a dirty blue, the ceiling is as sooty as in a hut without a chimney--it is evident that in the winter the stove smokes and the room is full of fumes. the windows are disfigured by iron gratings on the inside. the wooden floor is grey and full of splinters. there is a stench of sour cabbage, of smouldering wicks, of bugs, and of ammonia, and for the first minute this stench gives you the impression of having walked into a menagerie. there are bedsteads screwed to the floor. men in blue hospital dressing-gowns, and wearing nightcaps in the old style, are sitting and lying on them. these are the lunatics. there are five of them in all here. only one is of the upper class, the rest are all artisans. the one nearest the door--a tall, lean workman with shining red whiskers and tear-stained eyes--sits with his head propped on his hand, staring at the same point. day and night he grieves, shaking his head, sighing and smiling bitterly. he takes a part in conversation and usually makes no answer to questions; he eats and drinks mechanically when food is offered him. from his agonizing, throbbing cough, his thinness, and the flush on his cheeks, one may judge that he is in the first stage of consumption. next to him is a little, alert, very lively old man, with a pointed beard and curly black hair like a negro's. by day he walks up and down the ward from window to window, or sits on his bed, cross-legged like a turk, and, ceaselessly as a bullfinch whistles, softly sings and titters. he shows his childish gaiety and lively character at night also when he gets up to say his prayers--that is, to beat himself on the chest with his fists, and to scratch with his fingers at the door. this is the jew moiseika, an imbecile, who went crazy twenty years ago when his hat factory was burnt down. and of all the inhabitants of ward no. , he is the only one who is allowed to go out of the lodge, and even out of the yard into the street. he has enjoyed this privilege for years, probably because he is an old inhabitant of the hospital--a quiet, harmless imbecile, the buffoon of the town, where people are used to seeing him surrounded by boys and dogs. in his wretched gown, in his absurd night-cap, and in slippers, sometimes with bare legs and even without trousers, he walks about the streets, stopping at the gates and little shops, and begging for a copper. in one place they will give him some kvass, in another some bread, in another a copper, so that he generally goes back to the ward feeling rich and well fed. everything that he brings back nikita takes from him for his own benefit. the soldier does this roughly, angrily turning the jew's pockets inside out, and calling god to witness that he will not let him go into the street again, and that breach of the regulations is worse to him than anything in the world. moiseika likes to make himself useful. he gives his companions water, and covers them up when they are asleep; he promises each of them to bring him back a kopeck, and to make him a new cap; he feeds with a spoon his neighbour on the left, who is paralyzed. he acts in this way, not from compassion nor from any considerations of a humane kind, but through imitation, unconsciously dominated by gromov, his neighbour on the right hand. ivan dmitritch gromov, a man of thirty-three, who is a gentleman by birth, and has been a court usher and provincial secretary, suffers from the mania of persecution. he either lies curled up in bed, or walks from corner to corner as though for exercise; he very rarely sits down. he is always excited, agitated, and overwrought by a sort of vague, undefined expectation. the faintest rustle in the entry or shout in the yard is enough to make him raise his head and begin listening: whether they are coming for him, whether they are looking for him. and at such times his face expresses the utmost uneasiness and repulsion. i like his broad face with its high cheek-bones, always pale and unhappy, and reflecting, as though in a mirror, a soul tormented by conflict and long-continued terror. his grimaces are strange and abnormal, but the delicate lines traced on his face by profound, genuine suffering show intelligence and sense, and there is a warm and healthy light in his eyes. i like the man himself, courteous, anxious to be of use, and extraordinarily gentle to everyone except nikita. when anyone drops a button or a spoon, he jumps up from his bed quickly and picks it up; every day he says good-morning to his companions, and when he goes to bed he wishes them good-night. besides his continually overwrought condition and his grimaces, his madness shows itself in the following way also. sometimes in the evenings he wraps himself in his dressing-gown, and, trembling all over, with his teeth chattering, begins walking rapidly from corner to corner and between the bedsteads. it seems as though he is in a violent fever. from the way he suddenly stops and glances at his companions, it can be seen that he is longing to say something very important, but, apparently reflecting that they would not listen, or would not understand him, he shakes his head impatiently and goes on pacing up and down. but soon the desire to speak gets the upper hand of every consideration, and he will let himself go and speak fervently and passionately. his talk is disordered and feverish like delirium, disconnected, and not always intelligible, but, on the other hand, something extremely fine may be felt in it, both in the words and the voice. when he talks you recognize in him the lunatic and the man. it is difficult to reproduce on paper his insane talk. he speaks of the baseness of mankind, of violence trampling on justice, of the glorious life which will one day be upon earth, of the window-gratings, which remind him every minute of the stupidity and cruelty of oppressors. it makes a disorderly, incoherent potpourri of themes old but not yet out of date. ii some twelve or fifteen years ago an official called gromov, a highly respectable and prosperous person, was living in his own house in the principal street of the town. he had two sons, sergey and ivan. when sergey was a student in his fourth year he was taken ill with galloping consumption and died, and his death was, as it were, the first of a whole series of calamities which suddenly showered on the gromov family. within a week of sergey's funeral the old father was put on trial for fraud and misappropriation, and he died of typhoid in the prison hospital soon afterwards. the house, with all their belongings, was sold by auction, and ivan dmitritch and his mother were left entirely without means. hitherto in his father's lifetime, ivan dmitritch, who was studying in the university of petersburg, had received an allowance of sixty or seventy roubles a month, and had had no conception of poverty; now he had to make an abrupt change in his life. he had to spend his time from morning to night giving lessons for next to nothing, to work at copying, and with all that to go hungry, as all his earnings were sent to keep his mother. ivan dmitritch could not stand such a life; he lost heart and strength, and, giving up the university, went home. here, through interest, he obtained the post of teacher in the district school, but could not get on with his colleagues, was not liked by the boys, and soon gave up the post. his mother died. he was for six months without work, living on nothing but bread and water; then he became a court usher. he kept this post until he was dismissed owing to his illness. he had never even in his young student days given the impression of being perfectly healthy. he had always been pale, thin, and given to catching cold; he ate little and slept badly. a single glass of wine went to his head and made him hysterical. he always had a craving for society, but, owing to his irritable temperament and suspiciousness, he never became very intimate with anyone, and had no friends. he always spoke with contempt of his fellow-townsmen, saying that their coarse ignorance and sleepy animal existence seemed to him loathsome and horrible. he spoke in a loud tenor, with heat, and invariably either with scorn and indignation, or with wonder and enthusiasm, and always with perfect sincerity. whatever one talked to him about he always brought it round to the same subject: that life was dull and stifling in the town; that the townspeople had no lofty interests, but lived a dingy, meaningless life, diversified by violence, coarse profligacy, and hypocrisy; that scoundrels were well fed and clothed, while honest men lived from hand to mouth; that they needed schools, a progressive local paper, a theatre, public lectures, the co-ordination of the intellectual elements; that society must see its failings and be horrified. in his criticisms of people he laid on the colours thick, using only black and white, and no fine shades; mankind was divided for him into honest men and scoundrels: there was nothing in between. he always spoke with passion and enthusiasm of women and of love, but he had never been in love. in spite of the severity of his judgments and his nervousness, he was liked, and behind his back was spoken of affectionately as vanya. his innate refinement and readiness to be of service, his good breeding, his moral purity, and his shabby coat, his frail appearance and family misfortunes, aroused a kind, warm, sorrowful feeling. moreover, he was well educated and well read; according to the townspeople's notions, he knew everything, and was in their eyes something like a walking encyclopedia. he had read a great deal. he would sit at the club, nervously pulling at his beard and looking through the magazines and books; and from his face one could see that he was not reading, but devouring the pages without giving himself time to digest what he read. it must be supposed that reading was one of his morbid habits, as he fell upon anything that came into his hands with equal avidity, even last year's newspapers and calendars. at home he always read lying down. iii one autumn morning ivan dmitritch, turning up the collar of his greatcoat and splashing through the mud, made his way by side-streets and back lanes to see some artisan, and to collect some payment that was owing. he was in a gloomy mood, as he always was in the morning. in one of the side-streets he was met by two convicts in fetters and four soldiers with rifles in charge of them. ivan dmitritch had very often met convicts before, and they had always excited feelings of compassion and discomfort in him; but now this meeting made a peculiar, strange impression on him. it suddenly seemed to him for some reason that he, too, might be put into fetters and led through the mud to prison like that. after visiting the artisan, on the way home he met near the post office a police superintendent of his acquaintance, who greeted him and walked a few paces along the street with him, and for some reason this seemed to him suspicious. at home he could not get the convicts or the soldiers with their rifles out of his head all day, and an unaccountable inward agitation prevented him from reading or concentrating his mind. in the evening he did not light his lamp, and at night he could not sleep, but kept thinking that he might be arrested, put into fetters, and thrown into prison. he did not know of any harm he had done, and could be certain that he would never be guilty of murder, arson, or theft in the future either; but was it not easy to commit a crime by accident, unconsciously, and was not false witness always possible, and, indeed, miscarriage of justice? it was not without good reason that the agelong experience of the simple people teaches that beggary and prison are ills none can be safe from. a judicial mistake is very possible as legal proceedings are conducted nowadays, and there is nothing to be wondered at in it. people who have an official, professional relation to other men's sufferings--for instance, judges, police officers, doctors--in course of time, through habit, grow so callous that they cannot, even if they wish it, take any but a formal attitude to their clients; in this respect they are not different from the peasant who slaughters sheep and calves in the back-yard, and does not notice the blood. with this formal, soulless attitude to human personality the judge needs but one thing--time--in order to deprive an innocent man of all rights of property, and to condemn him to penal servitude. only the time spent on performing certain formalities for which the judge is paid his salary, and then--it is all over. then you may look in vain for justice and protection in this dirty, wretched little town a hundred and fifty miles from a railway station! and, indeed, is it not absurd even to think of justice when every kind of violence is accepted by society as a rational and consistent necessity, and every act of mercy--for instance, a verdict of acquittal--calls forth a perfect outburst of dissatisfied and revengeful feeling? in the morning ivan dmitritch got up from his bed in a state of horror, with cold perspiration on his forehead, completely convinced that he might be arrested any minute. since his gloomy thoughts of yesterday had haunted him so long, he thought, it must be that there was some truth in them. they could not, indeed, have come into his mind without any grounds whatever. a policeman walking slowly passed by the windows: that was not for nothing. here were two men standing still and silent near the house. why were they silent? and agonizing days and nights followed for ivan dmitritch. everyone who passed by the windows or came into the yard seemed to him a spy or a detective. at midday the chief of the police usually drove down the street with a pair of horses; he was going from his estate near the town to the police department; but ivan dmitritch fancied every time that he was driving especially quickly, and that he had a peculiar expression: it was evident that he was in haste to announce that there was a very important criminal in the town. ivan dmitritch started at every ring at the bell and knock at the gate, and was agitated whenever he came upon anyone new at his landlady's; when he met police officers and gendarmes he smiled and began whistling so as to seem unconcerned. he could not sleep for whole nights in succession expecting to be arrested, but he snored loudly and sighed as though in deep sleep, that his landlady might think he was asleep; for if he could not sleep it meant that he was tormented by the stings of conscience--what a piece of evidence! facts and common sense persuaded him that all these terrors were nonsense and morbidity, that if one looked at the matter more broadly there was nothing really terrible in arrest and imprisonment--so long as the conscience is at ease; but the more sensibly and logically he reasoned, the more acute and agonizing his mental distress became. it might be compared with the story of a hermit who tried to cut a dwelling-place for himself in a virgin forest; the more zealously he worked with his axe, the thicker the forest grew. in the end ivan dmitritch, seeing it was useless, gave up reasoning altogether, and abandoned himself entirely to despair and terror. he began to avoid people and to seek solitude. his official work had been distasteful to him before: now it became unbearable to him. he was afraid they would somehow get him into trouble, would put a bribe in his pocket unnoticed and then denounce him, or that he would accidentally make a mistake in official papers that would appear to be fraudulent, or would lose other people's money. it is strange that his imagination had never at other times been so agile and inventive as now, when every day he thought of thousands of different reasons for being seriously anxious over his freedom and honour; but, on the other hand, his interest in the outer world, in books in particular, grew sensibly fainter, and his memory began to fail him. in the spring when the snow melted there were found in the ravine near the cemetery two half-decomposed corpses--the bodies of an old woman and a boy bearing the traces of death by violence. nothing was talked of but these bodies and their unknown murderers. that people might not think he had been guilty of the crime, ivan dmitritch walked about the streets, smiling, and when he met acquaintances he turned pale, flushed, and began declaring that there was no greater crime than the murder of the weak and defenceless. but this duplicity soon exhausted him, and after some reflection he decided that in his position the best thing to do was to hide in his landlady's cellar. he sat in the cellar all day and then all night, then another day, was fearfully cold, and waiting till dusk, stole secretly like a thief back to his room. he stood in the middle of the room till daybreak, listening without stirring. very early in the morning, before sunrise, some workmen came into the house. ivan dmitritch knew perfectly well that they had come to mend the stove in the kitchen, but terror told him that they were police officers disguised as workmen. he slipped stealthily out of the flat, and, overcome by terror, ran along the street without his cap and coat. dogs raced after him barking, a peasant shouted somewhere behind him, the wind whistled in his ears, and it seemed to ivan dmitritch that the force and violence of the whole world was massed together behind his back and was chasing after him. he was stopped and brought home, and his landlady sent for a doctor. doctor andrey yefimitch, of whom we shall have more to say hereafter, prescribed cold compresses on his head and laurel drops, shook his head, and went away, telling the landlady he should not come again, as one should not interfere with people who are going out of their minds. as he had not the means to live at home and be nursed, ivan dmitritch was soon sent to the hospital, and was there put into the ward for venereal patients. he could not sleep at night, was full of whims and fancies, and disturbed the patients, and was soon afterwards, by andrey yefimitch's orders, transferred to ward no. . within a year ivan dmitritch was completely forgotten in the town, and his books, heaped up by his landlady in a sledge in the shed, were pulled to pieces by boys. iv ivan dmitritch's neighbour on the left hand is, as i have said already, the jew moiseika; his neighbour on the right hand is a peasant so rolling in fat that he is almost spherical, with a blankly stupid face, utterly devoid of thought. this is a motionless, gluttonous, unclean animal who has long ago lost all powers of thought or feeling. an acrid, stifling stench always comes from him. nikita, who has to clean up after him, beats him terribly with all his might, not sparing his fists; and what is dreadful is not his being beaten--that one can get used to--but the fact that this stupefied creature does not respond to the blows with a sound or a movement, nor by a look in the eyes, but only sways a little like a heavy barrel. the fifth and last inhabitant of ward no. is a man of the artisan class who had once been a sorter in the post office, a thinnish, fair little man with a good-natured but rather sly face. to judge from the clear, cheerful look in his calm and intelligent eyes, he has some pleasant idea in his mind, and has some very important and agreeable secret. he has under his pillow and under his mattress something that he never shows anyone, not from fear of its being taken from him and stolen, but from modesty. sometimes he goes to the window, and turning his back to his companions, puts something on his breast, and bending his head, looks at it; if you go up to him at such a moment, he is overcome with confusion and snatches something off his breast. but it is not difficult to guess his secret. "congratulate me," he often says to ivan dmitritch; "i have been presented with the stanislav order of the second degree with the star. the second degree with the star is only given to foreigners, but for some reason they want to make an exception for me," he says with a smile, shrugging his shoulders in perplexity. "that i must confess i did not expect." "i don't understand anything about that," ivan dmitritch replies morosely. "but do you know what i shall attain to sooner or later?" the former sorter persists, screwing up his eyes slyly. "i shall certainly get the swedish 'polar star.' that's an order it is worth working for, a white cross with a black ribbon. it's very beautiful." probably in no other place is life so monotonous as in this ward. in the morning the patients, except the paralytic and the fat peasant, wash in the entry at a big tab and wipe themselves with the skirts of their dressing-gowns; after that they drink tea out of tin mugs which nikita brings them out of the main building. everyone is allowed one mugful. at midday they have soup made out of sour cabbage and boiled grain, in the evening their supper consists of grain left from dinner. in the intervals they lie down, sleep, look out of window, and walk from one corner to the other. and so every day. even the former sorter always talks of the same orders. fresh faces are rarely seen in ward no. . the doctor has not taken in any new mental cases for a long time, and the people who are fond of visiting lunatic asylums are few in this world. once every two months semyon lazaritch, the barber, appears in the ward. how he cuts the patients' hair, and how nikita helps him to do it, and what a trepidation the lunatics are always thrown into by the arrival of the drunken, smiling barber, we will not describe. no one even looks into the ward except the barber. the patients are condemned to see day after day no one but nikita. a rather strange rumour has, however, been circulating in the hospital of late. it is rumoured that the doctor has begun to visit ward no. . v a strange rumour! dr. andrey yefimitch ragin is a strange man in his way. they say that when he was young he was very religious, and prepared himself for a clerical career, and that when he had finished his studies at the high school in he intended to enter a theological academy, but that his father, a surgeon and doctor of medicine, jeered at him and declared point-blank that he would disown him if he became a priest. how far this is true i don't know, but andrey yefimitch himself has more than once confessed that he has never had a natural bent for medicine or science in general. however that may have been, when he finished his studies in the medical faculty he did not enter the priesthood. he showed no special devoutness, and was no more like a priest at the beginning of his medical career than he is now. his exterior is heavy--coarse like a peasant's, his face, his beard, his flat hair, and his coarse, clumsy figure, suggest an overfed, intemperate, and harsh innkeeper on the highroad. his face is surly-looking and covered with blue veins, his eyes are little and his nose is red. with his height and broad shoulders he has huge hands and feet; one would think that a blow from his fist would knock the life out of anyone, but his step is soft, and his walk is cautious and insinuating; when he meets anyone in a narrow passage he is always the first to stop and make way, and to say, not in a bass, as one would expect, but in a high, soft tenor: "i beg your pardon!" he has a little swelling on his neck which prevents him from wearing stiff starched collars, and so he always goes about in soft linen or cotton shirts. altogether he does not dress like a doctor. he wears the same suit for ten years, and the new clothes, which he usually buys at a jewish shop, look as shabby and crumpled on him as his old ones; he sees patients and dines and pays visits all in the same coat; but this is not due to niggardliness, but to complete carelessness about his appearance. when andrey yefimitch came to the town to take up his duties the "institution founded to the glory of god" was in a terrible condition. one could hardly breathe for the stench in the wards, in the passages, and in the courtyards of the hospital. the hospital servants, the nurses, and their children slept in the wards together with the patients. they complained that there was no living for beetles, bugs, and mice. the surgical wards were never free from erysipelas. there were only two scalpels and not one thermometer in the whole hospital; potatoes were kept in the baths. the superintendent, the housekeeper, and the medical assistant robbed the patients, and of the old doctor, andrey yefimitch's predecessor, people declared that he secretly sold the hospital alcohol, and that he kept a regular harem consisting of nurses and female patients. these disorderly proceedings were perfectly well known in the town, and were even exaggerated, but people took them calmly; some justified them on the ground that there were only peasants and working men in the hospital, who could not be dissatisfied, since they were much worse off at home than in the hospital--they couldn't be fed on woodcocks! others said in excuse that the town alone, without help from the zemstvo, was not equal to maintaining a good hospital; thank god for having one at all, even a poor one. and the newly formed zemstvo did not open infirmaries either in the town or the neighbourhood, relying on the fact that the town already had its hospital. after looking over the hospital andrey yefimitch came to the conclusion that it was an immoral institution and extremely prejudicial to the health of the townspeople. in his opinion the most sensible thing that could be done was to let out the patients and close the hospital. but he reflected that his will alone was not enough to do this, and that it would be useless; if physical and moral impurity were driven out of one place, they would only move to another; one must wait for it to wither away of itself. besides, if people open a hospital and put up with having it, it must be because they need it; superstition and all the nastiness and abominations of daily life were necessary, since in process of time they worked out to something sensible, just as manure turns into black earth. there was nothing on earth so good that it had not something nasty about its first origin. when andrey yefimitch undertook his duties he was apparently not greatly concerned about the irregularities at the hospital. he only asked the attendants and nurses not to sleep in the wards, and had two cupboards of instruments put up; the superintendent, the housekeeper, the medical assistant, and the erysipelas remained unchanged. andrey yefimitch loved intelligence and honesty intensely, but he had no strength of will nor belief in his right to organize an intelligent and honest life about him. he was absolutely unable to give orders, to forbid things, and to insist. it seemed as though he had taken a vow never to raise his voice and never to make use of the imperative. it was difficult for him to say "fetch" or "bring"; when he wanted his meals he would cough hesitatingly and say to the cook, "how about tea?. . ." or "how about dinner? . . ." to dismiss the superintendent or to tell him to leave off stealing, or to abolish the unnecessary parasitic post altogether, was absolutely beyond his powers. when andrey yefimitch was deceived or flattered, or accounts he knew to be cooked were brought him to sign, he would turn as red as a crab and feel guilty, but yet he would sign the accounts. when the patients complained to him of being hungry or of the roughness of the nurses, he would be confused and mutter guiltily: "very well, very well, i will go into it later . . . . most likely there is some misunderstanding. . ." at first andrey yefimitch worked very zealously. he saw patients every day from morning till dinner-time, performed operations, and even attended confinements. the ladies said of him that he was attentive and clever at diagnosing diseases, especially those of women and children. but in process of time the work unmistakably wearied him by its monotony and obvious uselessness. to-day one sees thirty patients, and to-morrow they have increased to thirty-five, the next day forty, and so on from day to day, from year to year, while the mortality in the town did not decrease and the patients did not leave off coming. to be any real help to forty patients between morning and dinner was not physically possible, so it could but lead to deception. if twelve thousand patients were seen in a year it meant, if one looked at it simply, that twelve thousand men were deceived. to put those who were seriously ill into wards, and to treat them according to the principles of science, was impossible, too, because though there were principles there was no science; if he were to put aside philosophy and pedantically follow the rules as other doctors did, the things above all necessary were cleanliness and ventilation instead of dirt, wholesome nourishment instead of broth made of stinking, sour cabbage, and good assistants instead of thieves; and, indeed, why hinder people dying if death is the normal and legitimate end of everyone? what is gained if some shop-keeper or clerk lives an extra five or ten years? if the aim of medicine is by drugs to alleviate suffering, the question forces itself on one: why alleviate it? in the first place, they say that suffering leads man to perfection; and in the second, if mankind really learns to alleviate its sufferings with pills and drops, it will completely abandon religion and philosophy, in which it has hitherto found not merely protection from all sorts of trouble, but even happiness. pushkin suffered terrible agonies before his death, poor heine lay paralyzed for several years; why, then, should not some andrey yefimitch or matryona savishna be ill, since their lives had nothing of importance in them, and would have been entirely empty and like the life of an amoeba except for suffering? oppressed by such reflections, andrey yefimitch relaxed his efforts and gave up visiting the hospital every day. vi his life was passed like this. as a rule he got up at eight o'clock in the morning, dressed, and drank his tea. then he sat down in his study to read, or went to the hospital. at the hospital the out-patients were sitting in the dark, narrow little corridor waiting to be seen by the doctor. the nurses and the attendants, tramping with their boots over the brick floors, ran by them; gaunt-looking patients in dressing-gowns passed; dead bodies and vessels full of filth were carried by; the children were crying, and there was a cold draught. andrey yefimitch knew that such surroundings were torture to feverish, consumptive, and impressionable patients; but what could be done? in the consulting-room he was met by his assistant, sergey sergeyitch--a fat little man with a plump, well-washed shaven face, with soft, smooth manners, wearing a new loosely cut suit, and looking more like a senator than a medical assistant. he had an immense practice in the town, wore a white tie, and considered himself more proficient than the doctor, who had no practice. in the corner of the consulting-room there stood a large ikon in a shrine with a heavy lamp in front of it, and near it a candle-stand with a white cover on it. on the walls hung portraits of bishops, a view of the svyatogorsky monastery, and wreaths of dried cornflowers. sergey sergeyitch was religious, and liked solemnity and decorum. the ikon had been put up at his expense; at his instructions some one of the patients read the hymns of praise in the consulting-room on sundays, and after the reading sergey sergeyitch himself went through the wards with a censer and burned incense. there were a great many patients, but the time was short, and so the work was confined to the asking of a few brief questions and the administration of some drugs, such as castor-oil or volatile ointment. andrey yefimitch would sit with his cheek resting in his hand, lost in thought and asking questions mechanically. sergey sergeyitch sat down too, rubbing his hands, and from time to time putting in his word. "we suffer pain and poverty," he would say, "because we do not pray to the merciful god as we should. yes!" andrey yefimitch never performed any operation when he was seeing patients; he had long ago given up doing so, and the sight of blood upset him. when he had to open a child's mouth in order to look at its throat, and the child cried and tried to defend itself with its little hands, the noise in his ears made his head go round and brought tears to his eyes. he would make haste to prescribe a drug, and motion to the woman to take the child away. he was soon wearied by the timidity of the patients and their incoherence, by the proximity of the pious sergey sergeyitch, by the portraits on the walls, and by his own questions which he had asked over and over again for twenty years. and he would go away after seeing five or six patients. the rest would be seen by his assistant in his absence. with the agreeable thought that, thank god, he had no private practice now, and that no one would interrupt him, andrey yefimitch sat down to the table immediately on reaching home and took up a book. he read a great deal and always with enjoyment. half his salary went on buying books, and of the six rooms that made up his abode three were heaped up with books and old magazines. he liked best of all works on history and philosophy; the only medical publication to which he subscribed was _the doctor_, of which he always read the last pages first. he would always go on reading for several hours without a break and without being weary. he did not read as rapidly and impulsively as ivan dmitritch had done in the past, but slowly and with concentration, often pausing over a passage which he liked or did not find intelligible. near the books there always stood a decanter of vodka, and a salted cucumber or a pickled apple lay beside it, not on a plate, but on the baize table-cloth. every half-hour he would pour himself out a glass of vodka and drink it without taking his eyes off the book. then without looking at it he would feel for the cucumber and bite off a bit. at three o'clock he would go cautiously to the kitchen door; cough, and say, "daryushka, what about dinner? . ." after his dinner--a rather poor and untidily served one--andrey yefimitch would walk up and down his rooms with his arms folded, thinking. the clock would strike four, then five, and still he would be walking up and down thinking. occasionally the kitchen door would creak, and the red and sleepy face of daryushka would appear. "andrey yefimitch, isn't it time for you to have your beer?" she would ask anxiously. "no, it's not time yet . . ." he would answer. "i'll wait a little . . . . i'll wait a little. . ." towards the evening the postmaster, mihail averyanitch, the only man in town whose society did not bore andrey yefimitch, would come in. mihail averyanitch had once been a very rich landowner, and had served in the calvary, but had come to ruin, and was forced by poverty to take a job in the post office late in life. he had a hale and hearty appearance, luxuriant grey whiskers, the manners of a well-bred man, and a loud, pleasant voice. he was good-natured and emotional, but hot-tempered. when anyone in the post office made a protest, expressed disagreement, or even began to argue, mihail averyanitch would turn crimson, shake all over, and shout in a voice of thunder, "hold your tongue!" so that the post office had long enjoyed the reputation of an institution which it was terrible to visit. mihail averyanitch liked and respected andrey yefimitch for his culture and the loftiness of his soul; he treated the other inhabitants of the town superciliously, as though they were his subordinates. "here i am," he would say, going in to andrey yefimitch. "good evening, my dear fellow! i'll be bound, you are getting sick of me, aren't you?" "on the contrary, i am delighted," said the doctor. "i am always glad to see you." the friends would sit on the sofa in the study and for some time would smoke in silence. "daryushka, what about the beer?" andrey yefimitch would say. they would drink their first bottle still in silence, the doctor brooding and mihail averyanitch with a gay and animated face, like a man who has something very interesting to tell. the doctor was always the one to begin the conversation. "what a pity," he would say quietly and slowly, not looking his friend in the face (he never looked anyone in the face)--"what a great pity it is that there are no people in our town who are capable of carrying on intelligent and interesting conversation, or care to do so. it is an immense privation for us. even the educated class do not rise above vulgarity; the level of their development, i assure you, is not a bit higher than that of the lower orders." "perfectly true. i agree." "you know, of course," the doctor went on quietly and deliberately, "that everything in this world is insignificant and uninteresting except the higher spiritual manifestations of the human mind. intellect draws a sharp line between the animals and man, suggests the divinity of the latter, and to some extent even takes the place of the immortality which does not exist. consequently the intellect is the only possible source of enjoyment. we see and hear of no trace of intellect about us, so we are deprived of enjoyment. we have books, it is true, but that is not at all the same as living talk and converse. if you will allow me to make a not quite apt comparison: books are the printed score, while talk is the singing." "perfectly true." a silence would follow. daryushka would come out of the kitchen and with an expression of blank dejection would stand in the doorway to listen, with her face propped on her fist. "eh!" mihail averyanitch would sigh. "to expect intelligence of this generation!" and he would describe how wholesome, entertaining, and interesting life had been in the past. how intelligent the educated class in russia used to be, and what lofty ideas it had of honour and friendship; how they used to lend money without an iou, and it was thought a disgrace not to give a helping hand to a comrade in need; and what campaigns, what adventures, what skirmishes, what comrades, what women! and the caucasus, what a marvellous country! the wife of a battalion commander, a queer woman, used to put on an officer's uniform and drive off into the mountains in the evening, alone, without a guide. it was said that she had a love affair with some princeling in the native village. "queen of heaven, holy mother..." daryushka would sigh. "and how we drank! and how we ate! and what desperate liberals we were!" andrey yefimitch would listen without hearing; he was musing as he sipped his beer. "i often dream of intellectual people and conversation with them," he said suddenly, interrupting mihail averyanitch. "my father gave me an excellent education, but under the influence of the ideas of the sixties made me become a doctor. i believe if i had not obeyed him then, by now i should have been in the very centre of the intellectual movement. most likely i should have become a member of some university. of course, intellect, too, is transient and not eternal, but you know why i cherish a partiality for it. life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape. indeed, he is summoned without his choice by fortuitous circumstances from non-existence into life . . . what for? he tries to find out the meaning and object of his existence; he is told nothing, or he is told absurdities; he knocks and it is not opened to him; death comes to him--also without his choice. and so, just as in prison men held together by common misfortune feel more at ease when they are together, so one does not notice the trap in life when people with a bent for analysis and generalization meet together and pass their time in the interchange of proud and free ideas. in that sense the intellect is the source of an enjoyment nothing can replace." "perfectly true." not looking his friend in the face, andrey yefimitch would go on, quietly and with pauses, talking about intellectual people and conversation with them, and mihail averyanitch would listen attentively and agree: "perfectly true." "and you do not believe in the immortality of the soul?" he would ask suddenly. "no, honoured mihail averyanitch; i do not believe it, and have no grounds for believing it." "i must own i doubt it too. and yet i have a feeling as though i should never die. oh, i think to myself: 'old fogey, it is time you were dead!' but there is a little voice in my soul says: 'don't believe it; you won't die.'" soon after nine o'clock mihail averyanitch would go away. as he put on his fur coat in the entry he would say with a sigh: "what a wilderness fate has carried us to, though, really! what's most vexatious of all is to have to die here. ech! . ." vii after seeing his friend out andrey yefimitch would sit down at the table and begin reading again. the stillness of the evening, and afterwards of the night, was not broken by a single sound, and it seemed as though time were standing still and brooding with the doctor over the book, and as though there were nothing in existence but the books and the lamp with the green shade. the doctor's coarse peasant-like face was gradually lighted up by a smile of delight and enthusiasm over the progress of the human intellect. oh, why is not man immortal? he thought. what is the good of the brain centres and convolutions, what is the good of sight, speech, self-consciousness, genius, if it is all destined to depart into the soil, and in the end to grow cold together with the earth's crust, and then for millions of years to fly with the earth round the sun with no meaning and no object? to do that there was no need at all to draw man with his lofty, almost godlike intellect out of non-existence, and then, as though in mockery, to turn him into clay. the transmutation of substances! but what cowardice to comfort oneself with that cheap substitute for immortality! the unconscious processes that take place in nature are lower even than the stupidity of man, since in stupidity there is, anyway, consciousness and will, while in those processes there is absolutely nothing. only the coward who has more fear of death than dignity can comfort himself with the fact that his body will in time live again in the grass, in the stones, in the toad. to find one's immortality in the transmutation of substances is as strange as to prophesy a brilliant future for the case after a precious violin has been broken and become useless. when the clock struck, andrey yefimitch would sink back into his chair and close his eyes to think a little. and under the influence of the fine ideas of which he had been reading he would, unawares, recall his past and his present. the past was hateful--better not to think of it. and it was the same in the present as in the past. he knew that at the very time when his thoughts were floating together with the cooling earth round the sun, in the main building beside his abode people were suffering in sickness and physical impurity: someone perhaps could not sleep and was making war upon the insects, someone was being infected by erysipelas, or moaning over too tight a bandage; perhaps the patients were playing cards with the nurses and drinking vodka. according to the yearly return, twelve thousand people had been deceived; the whole hospital rested as it had done twenty years ago on thieving, filth, scandals, gossip, on gross quackery, and, as before, it was an immoral institution extremely injurious to the health of the inhabitants. he knew that nikita knocked the patients about behind the barred windows of ward no. , and that moiseika went about the town every day begging alms. on the other hand, he knew very well that a magical change had taken place in medicine during the last twenty-five years. when he was studying at the university he had fancied that medicine would soon be overtaken by the fate of alchemy and metaphysics; but now when he was reading at night the science of medicine touched him and excited his wonder, and even enthusiasm. what unexpected brilliance, what a revolution! thanks to the antiseptic system operations were performed such as the great pirogov had considered impossible even _in spe_. ordinary zemstvo doctors were venturing to perform the resection of the kneecap; of abdominal operations only one per cent. was fatal; while stone was considered such a trifle that they did not even write about it. a radical cure for syphilis had been discovered. and the theory of heredity, hypnotism, the discoveries of pasteur and of koch, hygiene based on statistics, and the work of zemstvo doctors! psychiatry with its modern classification of mental diseases, methods of diagnosis, and treatment, was a perfect elborus in comparison with what had been in the past. they no longer poured cold water on the heads of lunatics nor put strait-waistcoats upon them; they treated them with humanity, and even, so it was stated in the papers, got up balls and entertainments for them. andrey yefimitch knew that with modern tastes and views such an abomination as ward no. was possible only a hundred and fifty miles from a railway in a little town where the mayor and all the town council were half-illiterate tradesmen who looked upon the doctor as an oracle who must be believed without any criticism even if he had poured molten lead into their mouths; in any other place the public and the newspapers would long ago have torn this little bastille to pieces. "but, after all, what of it?" andrey yefimitch would ask himself, opening his eyes. "there is the antiseptic system, there is koch, there is pasteur, but the essential reality is not altered a bit; ill-health and mortality are still the same. they get up balls and entertainments for the mad, but still they don't let them go free; so it's all nonsense and vanity, and there is no difference in reality between the best vienna clinic and my hospital." but depression and a feeling akin to envy prevented him from feeling indifferent; it must have been owing to exhaustion. his heavy head sank on to the book, he put his hands under his face to make it softer, and thought: "i serve in a pernicious institution and receive a salary from people whom i am deceiving. i am not honest, but then, i of myself am nothing, i am only part of an inevitable social evil: all local officials are pernicious and receive their salary for doing nothing. . . . and so for my dishonesty it is not i who am to blame, but the times.... if i had been born two hundred years later i should have been different. . ." when it struck three he would put out his lamp and go into his bedroom; he was not sleepy. viii two years before, the zemstvo in a liberal mood had decided to allow three hundred roubles a year to pay for additional medical service in the town till the zemstvo hospital should be opened, and the district doctor, yevgeny fyodoritch hobotov, was invited to the town to assist andrey yefimitch. he was a very young man--not yet thirty--tall and dark, with broad cheek-bones and little eyes; his forefathers had probably come from one of the many alien races of russia. he arrived in the town without a farthing, with a small portmanteau, and a plain young woman whom he called his cook. this woman had a baby at the breast. yevgeny fyodoritch used to go about in a cap with a peak, and in high boots, and in the winter wore a sheepskin. he made great friends with sergey sergeyitch, the medical assistant, and with the treasurer, but held aloof from the other officials, and for some reason called them aristocrats. he had only one book in his lodgings, "the latest prescriptions of the vienna clinic for ." when he went to a patient he always took this book with him. he played billiards in the evening at the club: he did not like cards. he was very fond of using in conversation such expressions as "endless bobbery," "canting soft soap," "shut up with your finicking. . ." he visited the hospital twice a week, made the round of the wards, and saw out-patients. the complete absence of antiseptic treatment and the cupping roused his indignation, but he did not introduce any new system, being afraid of offending andrey yefimitch. he regarded his colleague as a sly old rascal, suspected him of being a man of large means, and secretly envied him. he would have been very glad to have his post. ix on a spring evening towards the end of march, when there was no snow left on the ground and the starlings were singing in the hospital garden, the doctor went out to see his friend the postmaster as far as the gate. at that very moment the jew moiseika, returning with his booty, came into the yard. he had no cap on, and his bare feet were thrust into goloshes; in his hand he had a little bag of coppers. "give me a kopeck!" he said to the doctor, smiling, and shivering with cold. andrey yefimitch, who could never refuse anyone anything, gave him a ten-kopeck piece. "how bad that is!" he thought, looking at the jew's bare feet with their thin red ankles. "why, it's wet." and stirred by a feeling akin both to pity and disgust, he went into the lodge behind the jew, looking now at his bald head, now at his ankles. as the doctor went in, nikita jumped up from his heap of litter and stood at attention. "good-day, nikita," andrey yefimitch said mildly. "that jew should be provided with boots or something, he will catch cold." "certainly, your honour. i'll inform the superintendent." "please do; ask him in my name. tell him that i asked." the door into the ward was open. ivan dmitritch, lying propped on his elbow on the bed, listened in alarm to the unfamiliar voice, and suddenly recognized the doctor. he trembled all over with anger, jumped up, and with a red and wrathful face, with his eyes starting out of his head, ran out into the middle of the road. "the doctor has come!" he shouted, and broke into a laugh. "at last! gentlemen, i congratulate you. the doctor is honouring us with a visit! cursed reptile!" he shrieked, and stamped in a frenzy such as had never been seen in the ward before. "kill the reptile! no, killing's too good. drown him in the midden-pit!" andrey yefimitch, hearing this, looked into the ward from the entry and asked gently: "what for?" "what for?" shouted ivan dmitritch, going up to him with a menacing air and convulsively wrapping himself in his dressing-gown. "what for? thief!" he said with a look of repulsion, moving his lips as though he would spit at him. "quack! hangman!" "calm yourself," said andrey yefimitch, smiling guiltily. "i assure you i have never stolen anything; and as to the rest, most likely you greatly exaggerate. i see you are angry with me. calm yourself, i beg, if you can, and tell me coolly what are you angry for?" "what are you keeping me here for?" "because you are ill." "yes, i am ill. but you know dozens, hundreds of madmen are walking about in freedom because your ignorance is incapable of distinguishing them from the sane. why am i and these poor wretches to be shut up here like scapegoats for all the rest? you, your assistant, the superintendent, and all your hospital rabble, are immeasurably inferior to every one of us morally; why then are we shut up and you not? where's the logic of it?" "morality and logic don't come in, it all depends on chance. if anyone is shut up he has to stay, and if anyone is not shut up he can walk about, that's all. there is neither morality nor logic in my being a doctor and your being a mental patient, there is nothing but idle chance." "that twaddle i don't understand. . ." ivan dmitritch brought out in a hollow voice, and he sat down on his bed. moiseika, whom nikita did not venture to search in the presence of the doctor, laid out on his bed pieces of bread, bits of paper, and little bones, and, still shivering with cold, began rapidly in a singsong voice saying something in yiddish. he most likely imagined that he had opened a shop. "let me out," said ivan dmitritch, and his voice quivered. "i cannot." "but why, why?" "because it is not in my power. think, what use will it be to you if i do let you out? go. the townspeople or the police will detain you or bring you back." "yes, yes, that's true," said ivan dmitritch, and he rubbed his forehead. "it's awful! but what am i to do, what?" andrey yefimitch liked ivan dmitritch's voice and his intelligent young face with its grimaces. he longed to be kind to the young man and soothe him; he sat down on the bed beside him, thought, and said: "you ask me what to do. the very best thing in your position would be to run away. but, unhappily, that is useless. you would be taken up. when society protects itself from the criminal, mentally deranged, or otherwise inconvenient people, it is invincible. there is only one thing left for you: to resign yourself to the thought that your presence here is inevitable." "it is no use to anyone." "so long as prisons and madhouses exist someone must be shut up in them. if not you, i. if not i, some third person. wait till in the distant future prisons and madhouses no longer exist, and there will be neither bars on the windows nor hospital gowns. of course, that time will come sooner or later." ivan dmitritch smiled ironically. "you are jesting," he said, screwing up his eyes. "such gentlemen as you and your assistant nikita have nothing to do with the future, but you may be sure, sir, better days will come! i may express myself cheaply, you may laugh, but the dawn of a new life is at hand; truth and justice will triumph, and--our turn will come! i shall not live to see it, i shall perish, but some people's great-grandsons will see it. i greet them with all my heart and rejoice, rejoice with them! onward! god be your help, friends!" with shining eyes ivan dmitritch got up, and stretching his hands towards the window, went on with emotion in his voice: "from behind these bars i bless you! hurrah for truth and justice! i rejoice!" "i see no particular reason to rejoice," said andrey yefimitch, who thought ivan dmitritch's movement theatrical, though he was delighted by it. "prisons and madhouses there will not be, and truth, as you have just expressed it, will triumph; but the reality of things, you know, will not change, the laws of nature will still remain the same. people will suffer pain, grow old, and die just as they do now. however magnificent a dawn lighted up your life, you would yet in the end be nailed up in a coffin and thrown into a hole." "and immortality?" "oh, come, now!" "you don't believe in it, but i do. somebody in dostoevsky or voltaire said that if there had not been a god men would have invented him. and i firmly believe that if there is no immortality the great intellect of man will sooner or later invent it." "well said," observed andrey yefimitch, smiling with pleasure; its a good thing you have faith. with such a belief one may live happily even shut up within walls. you have studied somewhere, i presume?" "yes, i have been at the university, but did not complete my studies." "you are a reflecting and a thoughtful man. in any surroundings you can find tranquillity in yourself. free and deep thinking which strives for the comprehension of life, and complete contempt for the foolish bustle of the world--those are two blessings beyond any that man has ever known. and you can possess them even though you lived behind threefold bars. diogenes lived in a tub, yet he was happier than all the kings of the earth." "your diogenes was a blockhead," said ivan dmitritch morosely. "why do you talk to me about diogenes and some foolish comprehension of life?" he cried, growing suddenly angry and leaping up. "i love life; i love it passionately. i have the mania of persecution, a continual agonizing terror; but i have moments when i am overwhelmed by the thirst for life, and then i am afraid of going mad. i want dreadfully to live, dreadfully!" he walked up and down the ward in agitation, and said, dropping his voice: "when i dream i am haunted by phantoms. people come to me, i hear voices and music, and i fancy i am walking through woods or by the seashore, and i long so passionately for movement, for interests . . . . come, tell me, what news is there?" asked ivan dmitritch; "what's happening?" "do you wish to know about the town or in general?" "well, tell me first about the town, and then in general." "well, in the town it is appallingly dull. . . . there's no one to say a word to, no one to listen to. there are no new people. a young doctor called hobotov has come here recently." "he had come in my time. well, he is a low cad, isn't he?" "yes, he is a man of no culture. it's strange, you know. . . . judging by every sign, there is no intellectual stagnation in our capital cities; there is a movement--so there must be real people there too; but for some reason they always send us such men as i would rather not see. it's an unlucky town!" "yes, it is an unlucky town," sighed ivan dmitritch, and he laughed. "and how are things in general? what are they writing in the papers and reviews?" it was by now dark in the ward. the doctor got up, and, standing, began to describe what was being written abroad and in russia, and the tendency of thought that could be noticed now. ivan dmitritch listened attentively and put questions, but suddenly, as though recalling something terrible, clutched at his head and lay down on the bed with his back to the doctor. "what's the matter?" asked andrey yefimitch. "you will not hear another word from me," said ivan dmitritch rudely. "leave me alone." "why so?" "i tell you, leave me alone. why the devil do you persist?" andrey yefimitch shrugged his shoulders, heaved a sigh, and went out. as he crossed the entry he said: "you might clear up here, nikita . . . there's an awfully stuffy smell." "certainly, your honour." "what an agreeable young man!" thought andrey yefimitch, going back to his flat. "in all the years i have been living here i do believe he is the first i have met with whom one can talk. he is capable of reasoning and is interested in just the right things." while he was reading, and afterwards, while he was going to bed, he kept thinking about ivan dmitritch, and when he woke next morning he remembered that he had the day before made the acquaintance of an intelligent and interesting man, and determined to visit him again as soon as possible. x ivan dmitritch was lying in the same position as on the previous day, with his head clutched in both hands and his legs drawn up. his face was not visible. "good-day, my friend," said andrey yefimitch. "you are not asleep, are you?" "in the first place, i am not your friend," ivan dmitritch articulated into the pillow; "and in the second, your efforts are useless; you will not get one word out of me." "strange," muttered andrey yefimitch in confusion. "yesterday we talked peacefully, but suddenly for some reason you took offence and broke off all at once. . . . probably i expressed myself awkwardly, or perhaps gave utterance to some idea which did not fit in with your convictions. . . ." "yes, a likely idea!" said ivan dmitritch, sitting up and looking at the doctor with irony and uneasiness. his eyes were red. "you can go and spy and probe somewhere else, it's no use your doing it here. i knew yesterday what you had come for." "a strange fancy," laughed the doctor. "so you suppose me to be a spy?" "yes, i do. . . . a spy or a doctor who has been charged to test me--it's all the same ----" "oh excuse me, what a queer fellow you are really!" the doctor sat down on the stool near the bed and shook his head reproachfully. "but let us suppose you are right," he said, "let us suppose that i am treacherously trying to trap you into saying something so as to betray you to the police. you would be arrested and then tried. but would you be any worse off being tried and in prison than you are here? if you are banished to a settlement, or even sent to penal servitude, would it be worse than being shut up in this ward? i imagine it would be no worse. . . . what, then, are you afraid of?" these words evidently had an effect on ivan dmitritch. he sat down quietly. it was between four and five in the afternoon--the time when andrey yefimitch usually walked up and down his rooms, and daryushka asked whether it was not time for his beer. it was a still, bright day. "i came out for a walk after dinner, and here i have come, as you see," said the doctor. "it is quite spring." "what month is it? march?" asked ivan dmitritch. "yes, the end of march." "is it very muddy?" "no, not very. there are already paths in the garden." "it would be nice now to drive in an open carriage somewhere into the country," said ivan dmitritch, rubbing his red eyes as though he were just awake, "then to come home to a warm, snug study, and . . . and to have a decent doctor to cure one's headache. . . . it's so long since i have lived like a human being. it's disgusting here! insufferably disgusting!" after his excitement of the previous day he was exhausted and listless, and spoke unwillingly. his fingers twitched, and from his face it could be seen that he had a splitting headache. "there is no real difference between a warm, snug study and this ward," said andrey yefimitch. "a man's peace and contentment do not lie outside a man, but in himself." "what do you mean?" "the ordinary man looks for good and evil in external things--that is, in carriages, in studies--but a thinking man looks for it in himself." "you should go and preach that philosophy in greece, where it's warm and fragrant with the scent of pomegranates, but here it is not suited to the climate. with whom was it i was talking of diogenes? was it with you?" "yes, with me yesterday." "diogenes did not need a study or a warm habitation; it's hot there without. you can lie in your tub and eat oranges and olives. but bring him to russia to live: he'd be begging to be let indoors in may, let alone december. he'd be doubled up with the cold." "no. one can be insensible to cold as to every other pain. marcus aurelius says: 'a pain is a vivid idea of pain; make an effort of will to change that idea, dismiss it, cease to complain, and the pain will disappear.' that is true. the wise man, or simply the reflecting, thoughtful man, is distinguished precisely by his contempt for suffering; he is always contented and surprised at nothing." "then i am an idiot, since i suffer and am discontented and surprised at the baseness of mankind." "you are wrong in that; if you will reflect more on the subject you will understand how insignificant is all that external world that agitates us. one must strive for the comprehension of life, and in that is true happiness." "comprehension . . ." repeated ivan dmitritch frowning. "external, internal. . . . excuse me, but i don't understand it. i only know," he said, getting up and looking angrily at the doctor--"i only know that god has created me of warm blood and nerves, yes, indeed! if organic tissue is capable of life it must react to every stimulus. and i do! to pain i respond with tears and outcries, to baseness with indignation, to filth with loathing. to my mind, that is just what is called life. the lower the organism, the less sensitive it is, and the more feebly it reacts to stimulus; and the higher it is, the more responsively and vigorously it reacts to reality. how is it you don't know that? a doctor, and not know such trifles! to despise suffering, to be always contented, and to be surprised at nothing, one must reach this condition"--and ivan dmitritch pointed to the peasant who was a mass of fat--"or to harden oneself by suffering to such a point that one loses all sensibility to it--that is, in other words, to cease to live. you must excuse me, i am not a sage or a philosopher," ivan dmitritch continued with irritation, "and i don't understand anything about it. i am not capable of reasoning." "on the contrary, your reasoning is excellent." "the stoics, whom you are parodying, were remarkable people, but their doctrine crystallized two thousand years ago and has not advanced, and will not advance, an inch forward, since it is not practical or living. it had a success only with the minority which spends its life in savouring all sorts of theories and ruminating over them; the majority did not understand it. a doctrine which advocates indifference to wealth and to the comforts of life, and a contempt for suffering and death, is quite unintelligible to the vast majority of men, since that majority has never known wealth or the comforts of life; and to despise suffering would mean to it despising life itself, since the whole existence of man is made up of the sensations of hunger, cold, injury, and a hamlet-like dread of death. the whole of life lies in these sensations; one may be oppressed by it, one may hate it, but one cannot despise it. yes, so, i repeat, the doctrine of the stoics can never have a future; from the beginning of time up to to-day you see continually increasing the struggle, the sensibility to pain, the capacity of responding to stimulus." ivan dmitritch suddenly lost the thread of his thoughts, stopped, and rubbed his forehead with vexation. "i meant to say something important, but i have lost it," he said. "what was i saying? oh, yes! this is what i mean: one of the stoics sold himself into slavery to redeem his neighbour, so, you see, even a stoic did react to stimulus, since, for such a generous act as the destruction of oneself for the sake of one's neighbour, he must have had a soul capable of pity and indignation. here in prison i have forgotten everything i have learned, or else i could have recalled something else. take christ, for instance: christ responded to reality by weeping, smiling, being sorrowful and moved to wrath, even overcome by misery. he did not go to meet his sufferings with a smile, he did not despise death, but prayed in the garden of gethsemane that this cup might pass him by." ivan dmitritch laughed and sat down. "granted that a man's peace and contentment lie not outside but in himself," he said, "granted that one must despise suffering and not be surprised at anything, yet on what ground do you preach the theory? are you a sage? a philosopher?" "no, i am not a philosopher, but everyone ought to preach it because it is reasonable." "no, i want to know how it is that you consider yourself competent to judge of 'comprehension,' contempt for suffering, and so on. have you ever suffered? have you any idea of suffering? allow me to ask you, were you ever thrashed in your childhood?" "no, my parents had an aversion for corporal punishment." "my father used to flog me cruelly; my father was a harsh, sickly government clerk with a long nose and a yellow neck. but let us talk of you. no one has laid a finger on you all your life, no one has scared you nor beaten you; you are as strong as a bull. you grew up under your father's wing and studied at his expense, and then you dropped at once into a sinecure. for more than twenty years you have lived rent free with heating, lighting, and service all provided, and had the right to work how you pleased and as much as you pleased, even to do nothing. you were naturally a flabby, lazy man, and so you have tried to arrange your life so that nothing should disturb you or make you move. you have handed over your work to the assistant and the rest of the rabble while you sit in peace and warmth, save money, read, amuse yourself with reflections, with all sorts of lofty nonsense, and" (ivan dmitritch looked at the doctor's red nose) "with boozing; in fact, you have seen nothing of life, you know absolutely nothing of it, and are only theoretically acquainted with reality; you despise suffering and are surprised at nothing for a very simple reason: vanity of vanities, the external and the internal, contempt for life, for suffering and for death, comprehension, true happiness--that's the philosophy that suits the russian sluggard best. you see a peasant beating his wife, for instance. why interfere? let him beat her, they will both die sooner or later, anyway; and, besides, he who beats injures by his blows, not the person he is beating, but himself. to get drunk is stupid and unseemly, but if you drink you die, and if you don't drink you die. a peasant woman comes with toothache . . . well, what of it? pain is the idea of pain, and besides 'there is no living in this world without illness; we shall all die, and so, go away, woman, don't hinder me from thinking and drinking vodka.' a young man asks advice, what he is to do, how he is to live; anyone else would think before answering, but you have got the answer ready: strive for 'comprehension' or for true happiness. and what is that fantastic 'true happiness'? there's no answer, of course. we are kept here behind barred windows, tortured, left to rot; but that is very good and reasonable, because there is no difference at all between this ward and a warm, snug study. a convenient philosophy. you can do nothing, and your conscience is clear, and you feel you are wise . . . . no, sir, it is not philosophy, it's not thinking, it's not breadth of vision, but laziness, fakirism, drowsy stupefaction. yes," cried ivan dmitritch, getting angry again, "you despise suffering, but i'll be bound if you pinch your finger in the door you will howl at the top of your voice." "and perhaps i shouldn't howl," said andrey yefimitch, with a gentle smile. "oh, i dare say! well, if you had a stroke of paralysis, or supposing some fool or bully took advantage of his position and rank to insult you in public, and if you knew he could do it with impunity, then you would understand what it means to put people off with comprehension and true happiness." "that's original," said andrey yefimitch, laughing with pleasure and rubbing his hands. "i am agreeably struck by your inclination for drawing generalizations, and the sketch of my character you have just drawn is simply brilliant. i must confess that talking to you gives me great pleasure. well, i've listened to you, and now you must graciously listen to me." xi the conversation went on for about an hour longer, and apparently made a deep impression on andrey yefimitch. he began going to the ward every day. he went there in the mornings and after dinner, and often the dusk of evening found him in conversation with ivan dmitritch. at first ivan dmitritch held aloof from him, suspected him of evil designs, and openly expressed his hostility. but afterwards he got used to him, and his abrupt manner changed to one of condescending irony. soon it was all over the hospital that the doctor, andrey yefimitch, had taken to visiting ward no. . no one--neither sergey sergevitch, nor nikita, nor the nurses--could conceive why he went there, why he stayed there for hours together, what he was talking about, and why he did not write prescriptions. his actions seemed strange. often mihail averyanitch did not find him at home, which had never happened in the past, and daryushka was greatly perturbed, for the doctor drank his beer now at no definite time, and sometimes was even late for dinner. one day--it was at the end of june--dr. hobotov went to see andrey yefimitch about something. not finding him at home, he proceeded to look for him in the yard; there he was told that the old doctor had gone to see the mental patients. going into the lodge and stopping in the entry, hobotov heard the following conversation: "we shall never agree, and you will not succeed in converting me to your faith," ivan dmitritch was saying irritably; "you are utterly ignorant of reality, and you have never known suffering, but have only like a leech fed beside the sufferings of others, while i have been in continual suffering from the day of my birth till to-day. for that reason, i tell you frankly, i consider myself superior to you and more competent in every respect. it's not for you to teach me." "i have absolutely no ambition to convert you to my faith," said andrey yefimitch gently, and with regret that the other refused to understand him. "and that is not what matters, my friend; what matters is not that you have suffered and i have not. joy and suffering are passing; let us leave them, never mind them. what matters is that you and i think; we see in each other people who are capable of thinking and reasoning, and that is a common bond between us however different our views. if you knew, my friend, how sick i am of the universal senselessness, ineptitude, stupidity, and with what delight i always talk with you! you are an intelligent man, and i enjoyed your company." hobotov opened the door an inch and glanced into the ward; ivan dmitritch in his night-cap and the doctor andrey yefimitch were sitting side by side on the bed. the madman was grimacing, twitching, and convulsively wrapping himself in his gown, while the doctor sat motionless with bowed head, and his face was red and look helpless and sorrowful. hobotov shrugged his shoulders, grinned, and glanced at nikita. nikita shrugged his shoulders too. next day hobotov went to the lodge, accompanied by the assistant. both stood in the entry and listened. "i fancy our old man has gone clean off his chump!" said hobotov as he came out of the lodge. "lord have mercy upon us sinners!" sighed the decorous sergey sergeyitch, scrupulously avoiding the puddles that he might not muddy his polished boots. "i must own, honoured yevgeny fyodoritch, i have been expecting it for a long time." xii after this andrey yefimitch began to notice a mysterious air in all around him. the attendants, the nurses, and the patients looked at him inquisitively when they met him, and then whispered together. the superintendent's little daughter masha, whom he liked to meet in the hospital garden, for some reason ran away from him now when he went up with a smile to stroke her on the head. the postmaster no longer said, "perfectly true," as he listened to him, but in unaccountable confusion muttered, "yes, yes, yes . . ." and looked at him with a grieved and thoughtful expression; for some reason he took to advising his friend to give up vodka and beer, but as a man of delicate feeling he did not say this directly, but hinted it, telling him first about the commanding officer of his battalion, an excellent man, and then about the priest of the regiment, a capital fellow, both of whom drank and fell ill, but on giving up drinking completely regained their health. on two or three occasions andrey yefimitch was visited by his colleague hobotov, who also advised him to give up spirituous liquors, and for no apparent reason recommended him to take bromide. in august andrey yefimitch got a letter from the mayor of the town asking him to come on very important business. on arriving at the town hall at the time fixed, andrey yefimitch found there the military commander, the superintendent of the district school, a member of the town council, hobotov, and a plump, fair gentleman who was introduced to him as a doctor. this doctor, with a polish surname difficult to pronounce, lived at a pedigree stud-farm twenty miles away, and was now on a visit to the town. "there's something that concerns you," said the member of the town council, addressing andrey yefimitch after they had all greeted one another and sat down to the table. "here yevgeny fyodoritch says that there is not room for the dispensary in the main building, and that it ought to be transferred to one of the lodges. that's of no consequence--of course it can be transferred, but the point is that the lodge wants doing up." "yes, it would have to be done up," said andrey yefimitch after a moment's thought. "if the corner lodge, for instance, were fitted up as a dispensary, i imagine it would cost at least five hundred roubles. an unproductive expenditure!" everyone was silent for a space. "i had the honour of submitting to you ten years ago," andrey yefimitch went on in a low voice, "that the hospital in its present form is a luxury for the town beyond its means. it was built in the forties, but things were different then. the town spends too much on unnecessary buildings and superfluous staff. i believe with a different system two model hospitals might be maintained for the same money." "well, let us have a different system, then!" the member of the town council said briskly. "i have already had the honour of submitting to you that the medical department should be transferred to the supervision of the zemstvo." "yes, transfer the money to the zemstvo and they will steal it," laughed the fair-haired doctor. "that's what it always comes to," the member of the council assented, and he also laughed. andrey yefimitch looked with apathetic, lustreless eyes at the fair-haired doctor and said: "one should be just." again there was silence. tea was brought in. the military commander, for some reason much embarrassed, touched andrey yefimitch's hand across the table and said: "you have quite forgotten us, doctor. but of course you are a hermit: you don't play cards and don't like women. you would be dull with fellows like us." they all began saying how boring it was for a decent person to live in such a town. no theatre, no music, and at the last dance at the club there had been about twenty ladies and only two gentlemen. the young men did not dance, but spent all the time crowding round the refreshment bar or playing cards. not looking at anyone and speaking slowly in a low voice, andrey yefimitch began saying what a pity, what a terrible pity it was that the townspeople should waste their vital energy, their hearts, and their minds on cards and gossip, and should have neither the power nor the inclination to spend their time in interesting conversation and reading, and should refuse to take advantage of the enjoyments of the mind. the mind alone was interesting and worthy of attention, all the rest was low and petty. hobotov listened to his colleague attentively and suddenly asked: "andrey yefimitch, what day of the month is it?" having received an answer, the fair-haired doctor and he, in the tone of examiners conscious of their lack of skill, began asking andrey yefimitch what was the day of the week, how many days there were in the year, and whether it was true that there was a remarkable prophet living in ward no. . in response to the last question andrey yefimitch turned rather red and said: "yes, he is mentally deranged, but he is an interesting young man." they asked him no other questions. when he was putting on his overcoat in the entry, the military commander laid a hand on his shoulder and said with a sigh: "it's time for us old fellows to rest!" as he came out of the hall, andrey yefimitch understood that it had been a committee appointed to enquire into his mental condition. he recalled the questions that had been asked him, flushed crimson, and for some reason, for the first time in his life, felt bitterly grieved for medical science. "my god. . ." he thought, remembering how these doctors had just examined him; "why, they have only lately been hearing lectures on mental pathology; they had passed an examination--what's the explanation of this crass ignorance? they have not a conception of mental pathology!" and for the first time in his life he felt insulted and moved to anger. in the evening of the same day mihail averyanitch came to see him. the postmaster went up to him without waiting to greet him, took him by both hands, and said in an agitated voice: "my dear fellow, my dear friend, show me that you believe in my genuine affection and look on me as your friend!" and preventing andrey yefimitch from speaking, he went on, growing excited: "i love you for your culture and nobility of soul. listen to me, my dear fellow. the rules of their profession compel the doctors to conceal the truth from you, but i blurt out the plain truth like a soldier. you are not well! excuse me, my dear fellow, but it is the truth; everyone about you has been noticing it for a long time. dr. yevgeny fyodoritch has just told me that it is essential for you to rest and distract your mind for the sake of your health. perfectly true! excellent! in a day or two i am taking a holiday and am going away for a sniff of a different atmosphere. show that you are a friend to me, let us go together! let us go for a jaunt as in the good old days." "i feel perfectly well," said andrey yefimitch after a moment's thought. "i can't go away. allow me to show you my friendship in some other way." to go off with no object, without his books, without his daryushka, without his beer, to break abruptly through the routine of life, established for twenty years--the idea for the first minute struck him as wild and fantastic, but he remembered the conversation at the zemstvo committee and the depressing feelings with which he had returned home, and the thought of a brief absence from the town in which stupid people looked on him as a madman was pleasant to him. "and where precisely do you intend to go?" he asked. "to moscow, to petersburg, to warsaw. . . . i spent the five happiest years of my life in warsaw. what a marvellous town! let us go, my dear fellow!" xiii a week later it was suggested to andrey yefimitch that he should have a rest--that is, send in his resignation--a suggestion he received with indifference, and a week later still, mihail averyanitch and he were sitting in a posting carriage driving to the nearest railway station. the days were cool and bright, with a blue sky and a transparent distance. they were two days driving the hundred and fifty miles to the railway station, and stayed two nights on the way. when at the posting station the glasses given them for their tea had not been properly washed, or the drivers were slow in harnessing the horses, mihail averyanitch would turn crimson, and quivering all over would shout: "hold your tongue! don't argue!" and in the carriage he talked without ceasing for a moment, describing his campaigns in the caucasus and in poland. what adventures he had had, what meetings! he talked loudly and opened his eyes so wide with wonder that he might well be thought to be lying. moreover, as he talked he breathed in andrey yefimitch's face and laughed into his ear. this bothered the doctor and prevented him from thinking or concentrating his mind. in the train they travelled, from motives of economy, third-class in a non-smoking compartment. half the passengers were decent people. mihail averyanitch soon made friends with everyone, and moving from one seat to another, kept saying loudly that they ought not to travel by these appalling lines. it was a regular swindle! a very different thing riding on a good horse: one could do over seventy miles a day and feel fresh and well after it. and our bad harvests were due to the draining of the pinsk marshes; altogether, the way things were done was dreadful. he got excited, talked loudly, and would not let others speak. this endless chatter to the accompaniment of loud laughter and expressive gestures wearied andrey yefimitch. "which of us is the madman?" he thought with vexation. "i, who try not to disturb my fellow-passengers in any way, or this egoist who thinks that he is cleverer and more interesting than anyone here, and so will leave no one in peace?" in moscow mihail averyanitch put on a military coat without epaulettes and trousers with red braid on them. he wore a military cap and overcoat in the street, and soldiers saluted him. it seemed to andrey yefimitch, now, that his companion was a man who had flung away all that was good and kept only what was bad of all the characteristics of a country gentleman that he had once possessed. he liked to be waited on even when it was quite unnecessary. the matches would be lying before him on the table, and he would see them and shout to the waiter to give him the matches; he did not hesitate to appear before a maidservant in nothing but his underclothes; he used the familiar mode of address to all footmen indiscriminately, even old men, and when he was angry called them fools and blockheads. this, andrey yefimitch thought, was like a gentleman, but disgusting. first of all mihail averyanitch led his friend to the iversky madonna. he prayed fervently, shedding tears and bowing down to the earth, and when he had finished, heaved a deep sigh and said: "even though one does not believe it makes one somehow easier when one prays a little. kiss the ikon, my dear fellow." andrey yefimitch was embarrassed and he kissed the image, while mihail averyanitch pursed up his lips and prayed in a whisper, and again tears came into his eyes. then they went to the kremlin and looked there at the tsar-cannon and the tsar-bell, and even touched them with their fingers, admired the view over the river, visited st. saviour's and the rumyantsev museum. they dined at tyestov's. mihail averyanitch looked a long time at the menu, stroking his whiskers, and said in the tone of a gourmand accustomed to dine in restaurants: "we shall see what you give us to eat to-day, angel!" xiv the doctor walked about, looked at things, ate and drank, but he had all the while one feeling: annoyance with mihail averyanitch. he longed to have a rest from his friend, to get away from him, to hide himself, while the friend thought it was his duty not to let the doctor move a step away from him, and to provide him with as many distractions as possible. when there was nothing to look at he entertained him with conversation. for two days andrey yefimitch endured it, but on the third he announced to his friend that he was ill and wanted to stay at home for the whole day; his friend replied that in that case he would stay too--that really he needed rest, for he was run off his legs already. andrey yefimitch lay on the sofa, with his face to the back, and clenching his teeth, listened to his friend, who assured him with heat that sooner or later france would certainly thrash germany, that there were a great many scoundrels in moscow, and that it was impossible to judge of a horse's quality by its outward appearance. the doctor began to have a buzzing in his ears and palpitations of the heart, but out of delicacy could not bring himself to beg his friend to go away or hold his tongue. fortunately mihail averyanitch grew weary of sitting in the hotel room, and after dinner he went out for a walk. as soon as he was alone andrey yefimitch abandoned himself to a feeling of relief. how pleasant to lie motionless on the sofa and to know that one is alone in the room! real happiness is impossible without solitude. the fallen angel betrayed god probably because he longed for solitude, of which the angels know nothing. andrey yefimitch wanted to think about what he had seen and heard during the last few days, but he could not get mihail averyanitch out of his head. "why, he has taken a holiday and come with me out of friendship, out of generosity," thought the doctor with vexation; "nothing could be worse than this friendly supervision. i suppose he is good-natured and generous and a lively fellow, but he is a bore. an insufferable bore. in the same way there are people who never say anything but what is clever and good, yet one feels that they are dull-witted people." for the following days andrey yefimitch declared himself ill and would not leave the hotel room; he lay with his face to the back of the sofa, and suffered agonies of weariness when his friend entertained him with conversation, or rested when his friend was absent. he was vexed with himself for having come, and with his friend, who grew every day more talkative and more free-and-easy; he could not succeed in attuning his thoughts to a serious and lofty level. "this is what i get from the real life ivan dmitritch talked about," he thought, angry at his own pettiness. "it's of no consequence, though. . . . i shall go home, and everything will go on as before . . . ." it was the same thing in petersburg too; for whole days together he did not leave the hotel room, but lay on the sofa and only got up to drink beer. mihail averyanitch was all haste to get to warsaw. "my dear man, what should i go there for?" said andrey yefimitch in an imploring voice. "you go alone and let me get home! i entreat you!" "on no account," protested mihail averyanitch. "it's a marvellous town." andrey yefimitch had not the strength of will to insist on his own way, and much against his inclination went to warsaw. there he did not leave the hotel room, but lay on the sofa, furious with himself, with his friend, and with the waiters, who obstinately refused to understand russian; while mihail averyanitch, healthy, hearty, and full of spirits as usual, went about the town from morning to night, looking for his old acquaintances. several times he did not return home at night. after one night spent in some unknown haunt he returned home early in the morning, in a violently excited condition, with a red face and tousled hair. for a long time he walked up and down the rooms muttering something to himself, then stopped and said: "honour before everything." after walking up and down a little longer he clutched his head in both hands and pronounced in a tragic voice: "yes, honour before everything! accursed be the moment when the idea first entered my head to visit this babylon! my dear friend," he added, addressing the doctor, "you may despise me, i have played and lost; lend me five hundred roubles!" andrey yefimitch counted out five hundred roubles and gave them to his friend without a word. the latter, still crimson with shame and anger, incoherently articulated some useless vow, put on his cap, and went out. returning two hours later he flopped into an easy-chair, heaved a loud sigh, and said: "my honour is saved. let us go, my friend; i do not care to remain another hour in this accursed town. scoundrels! austrian spies!" by the time the friends were back in their own town it was november, and deep snow was lying in the streets. dr. hobotov had andrey yefimitch's post; he was still living in his old lodgings, waiting for andrey yefimitch to arrive and clear out of the hospital apartments. the plain woman whom he called his cook was already established in one of the lodges. fresh scandals about the hospital were going the round of the town. it was said that the plain woman had quarrelled with the superintendent, and that the latter had crawled on his knees before her begging forgiveness. on the very first day he arrived andrey yefimitch had to look out for lodgings. "my friend," the postmaster said to him timidly, "excuse an indiscreet question: what means have you at your disposal?" andrey yefimitch, without a word, counted out his money and said: "eighty-six roubles." "i don't mean that," mihail averyanitch brought out in confusion, misunderstanding him; "i mean, what have you to live on?" "i tell you, eighty-six roubles . . . i have nothing else." mihail averyanitch looked upon the doctor as an honourable man, yet he suspected that he had accumulated a fortune of at least twenty thousand. now learning that andrey yefimitch was a beggar, that he had nothing to live on he was for some reason suddenly moved to tears and embraced his friend. xv andrey yefimitch now lodged in a little house with three windows. there were only three rooms besides the kitchen in the little house. the doctor lived in two of them which looked into the street, while daryushka and the landlady with her three children lived in the third room and the kitchen. sometimes the landlady's lover, a drunken peasant who was rowdy and reduced the children and daryushka to terror, would come for the night. when he arrived and established himself in the kitchen and demanded vodka, they all felt very uncomfortable, and the doctor would be moved by pity to take the crying children into his room and let them lie on his floor, and this gave him great satisfaction. he got up as before at eight o'clock, and after his morning tea sat down to read his old books and magazines: he had no money for new ones. either because the books were old, or perhaps because of the change in his surroundings, reading exhausted him, and did not grip his attention as before. that he might not spend his time in idleness he made a detailed catalogue of his books and gummed little labels on their backs, and this mechanical, tedious work seemed to him more interesting than reading. the monotonous, tedious work lulled his thoughts to sleep in some unaccountable way, and the time passed quickly while he thought of nothing. even sitting in the kitchen, peeling potatoes with daryushka or picking over the buckwheat grain, seemed to him interesting. on saturdays and sundays he went to church. standing near the wall and half closing his eyes, he listened to the singing and thought of his father, of his mother, of the university, of the religions of the world; he felt calm and melancholy, and as he went out of the church afterwards he regretted that the service was so soon over. he went twice to the hospital to talk to ivan dmitritch. but on both occasions ivan dmitritch was unusually excited and ill-humoured; he bade the doctor leave him in peace, as he had long been sick of empty chatter, and declared, to make up for all his sufferings, he asked from the damned scoundrels only one favour--solitary confinement. surely they would not refuse him even that? on both occasions when andrey yefimitch was taking leave of him and wishing him good-night, he answered rudely and said: "go to hell!" and andrey yefimitch did not know now whether to go to him for the third time or not. he longed to go. in old days andrey yefimitch used to walk about his rooms and think in the interval after dinner, but now from dinner-time till evening tea he lay on the sofa with his face to the back and gave himself up to trivial thoughts which he could not struggle against. he was mortified that after more than twenty years of service he had been given neither a pension nor any assistance. it is true that he had not done his work honestly, but, then, all who are in the service get a pension without distinction whether they are honest or not. contemporary justice lies precisely in the bestowal of grades, orders, and pensions, not for moral qualities or capacities, but for service whatever it may have been like. why was he alone to be an exception? he had no money at all. he was ashamed to pass by the shop and look at the woman who owned it. he owed thirty-two roubles for beer already. there was money owing to the landlady also. daryushka sold old clothes and books on the sly, and told lies to the landlady, saying that the doctor was just going to receive a large sum of money. he was angry with himself for having wasted on travelling the thousand roubles he had saved up. how useful that thousand roubles would have been now! he was vexed that people would not leave him in peace. hobotov thought it his duty to look in on his sick colleague from time to time. everything about him was revolting to andrey yefimitch--his well-fed face and vulgar, condescending tone, and his use of the word "colleague," and his high top-boots; the most revolting thing was that he thought it was his duty to treat andrey yefimitch, and thought that he really was treating him. on every visit he brought a bottle of bromide and rhubarb pills. mihail averyanitch, too, thought it his duty to visit his friend and entertain him. every time he went in to andrey yefimitch with an affectation of ease, laughed constrainedly, and began assuring him that he was looking very well to-day, and that, thank god, he was on the highroad to recovery, and from this it might be concluded that he looked on his friend's condition as hopeless. he had not yet repaid his warsaw debt, and was overwhelmed by shame; he was constrained, and so tried to laugh louder and talk more amusingly. his anecdotes and descriptions seemed endless now, and were an agony both to andrey yefimitch and himself. in his presence andrey yefimitch usually lay on the sofa with his face to the wall, and listened with his teeth clenched; his soul was oppressed with rankling disgust, and after every visit from his friend he felt as though this disgust had risen higher, and was mounting into his throat. to stifle petty thoughts he made haste to reflect that he himself, and hobotov, and mihail averyanitch, would all sooner or later perish without leaving any trace on the world. if one imagined some spirit flying by the earthly globe in space in a million years he would see nothing but clay and bare rocks. everything--culture and the moral law--would pass away and not even a burdock would grow out of them. of what consequence was shame in the presence of a shopkeeper, of what consequence was the insignificant hobotov or the wearisome friendship of mihail averyanitch? it was all trivial and nonsensical. but such reflections did not help him now. scarcely had he imagined the earthly globe in a million years, when hobotov in his high top-boots or mihail averyanitch with his forced laugh would appear from behind a bare rock, and he even heard the shamefaced whisper: "the warsaw debt. . . . i will repay it in a day or two, my dear fellow, without fail. . . ." xvi one day mihail averyanitch came after dinner when andrey yefimitch was lying on the sofa. it so happened that hobotov arrived at the same time with his bromide. andrey yefimitch got up heavily and sat down, leaning both arms on the sofa. "you have a much better colour to-day than you had yesterday, my dear man," began mihail averyanitch. "yes, you look jolly. upon my soul, you do!" "it's high time you were well, dear colleague," said hobotov, yawning. "i'll be bound, you are sick of this bobbery." "and we shall recover," said mihail averyanitch cheerfully. "we shall live another hundred years! to be sure!" "not a hundred years, but another twenty," hobotov said reassuringly. "it's all right, all right, colleague; don't lose heart. . . . don't go piling it on!" "we'll show what we can do," laughed mihail averyanitch, and he slapped his friend on the knee. "we'll show them yet! next summer, please god, we shall be off to the caucasus, and we will ride all over it on horseback--trot, trot, trot! and when we are back from the caucasus i shouldn't wonder if we will all dance at the wedding." mihail averyanitch gave a sly wink. "we'll marry you, my dear boy, we'll marry you. . . ." andrey yefimitch felt suddenly that the rising disgust had mounted to his throat, his heart began beating violently. "that's vulgar," he said, getting up quickly and walking away to the window. "don't you understand that you are talking vulgar nonsense?" he meant to go on softly and politely, but against his will he suddenly clenched his fists and raised them above his head. "leave me alone," he shouted in a voice unlike his own, blushing crimson and shaking all over. "go away, both of you!" mihail averyanitch and hobotov got up and stared at him first with amazement and then with alarm. "go away, both!" andrey yefimitch went on shouting. "stupid people! foolish people! i don't want either your friendship or your medicines, stupid man! vulgar! nasty!" hobotov and mihail averyanitch, looking at each other in bewilderment, staggered to the door and went out. andrey yefimitch snatched up the bottle of bromide and flung it after them; the bottle broke with a crash on the door-frame. "go to the devil!" he shouted in a tearful voice, running out into the passage. "to the devil!" when his guests were gone andrey yefimitch lay down on the sofa, trembling as though in a fever, and went on for a long while repeating: "stupid people! foolish people!" when he was calmer, what occurred to him first of all was the thought that poor mihail averyanitch must be feeling fearfully ashamed and depressed now, and that it was all dreadful. nothing like this had ever happened to him before. where was his intelligence and his tact? where was his comprehension of things and his philosophical indifference? the doctor could not sleep all night for shame and vexation with himself, and at ten o'clock next morning he went to the post office and apologized to the postmaster. "we won't think again of what has happened," mihail averyanitch, greatly touched, said with a sigh, warmly pressing his hand. "let bygones be bygones. lyubavkin," he suddenly shouted so loud that all the postmen and other persons present started, "hand a chair; and you wait," he shouted to a peasant woman who was stretching out a registered letter to him through the grating. "don't you see that i am busy? we will not remember the past," he went on, affectionately addressing andrey yefimitch; "sit down, i beg you, my dear fellow." for a minute he stroked his knees in silence, and then said: "i have never had a thought of taking offence. illness is no joke, i understand. your attack frightened the doctor and me yesterday, and we had a long talk about you afterwards. my dear friend, why won't you treat your illness seriously? you can't go on like this . . . . excuse me speaking openly as a friend," whispered mihail averyanitch. "you live in the most unfavourable surroundings, in a crowd, in uncleanliness, no one to look after you, no money for proper treatment. . . . my dear friend, the doctor and i implore you with all our hearts, listen to our advice: go into the hospital! there you will have wholesome food and attendance and treatment. though, between ourselves, yevgeny fyodoritch is _mauvais ton_, yet he does understand his work, you can fully rely upon him. he has promised me he will look after you." andrey yefimitch was touched by the postmaster's genuine sympathy and the tears which suddenly glittered on his cheeks. "my honoured friend, don't believe it!" he whispered, laying his hand on his heart; "don't believe them. it's all a sham. my illness is only that in twenty years i have only found one intelligent man in the whole town, and he is mad. i am not ill at all, it's simply that i have got into an enchanted circle which there is no getting out of. i don't care; i am ready for anything." "go into the hospital, my dear fellow." "i don't care if it were into the pit." "give me your word, my dear man, that you will obey yevgeny fyodoritch in everything." "certainly i will give you my word. but i repeat, my honoured friend, i have got into an enchanted circle. now everything, even the genuine sympathy of my friends, leads to the same thing--to my ruin. i am going to my ruin, and i have the manliness to recognize it." "my dear fellow, you will recover." "what's the use of saying that?" said andrey yefimitch, with irritation. "there are few men who at the end of their lives do not experience what i am experiencing now. when you are told that you have something such as diseased kidneys or enlarged heart, and you begin being treated for it, or are told you are mad or a criminal--that is, in fact, when people suddenly turn their attention to you--you may be sure you have got into an enchanted circle from which you will not escape. you will try to escape and make things worse. you had better give in, for no human efforts can save you. so it seems to me." meanwhile the public was crowding at the grating. that he might not be in their way, andrey yefimitch got up and began to take leave. mihail averyanitch made him promise on his honour once more, and escorted him to the outer door. towards evening on the same day hobotov, in his sheepskin and his high top-boots, suddenly made his appearance, and said to andrey yefimitch in a tone as though nothing had happened the day before: "i have come on business, colleague. i have come to ask you whether you would not join me in a consultation. eh?" thinking that hobotov wanted to distract his mind with an outing, or perhaps really to enable him to earn something, andrey yefimitch put on his coat and hat, and went out with him into the street. he was glad of the opportunity to smooth over his fault of the previous day and to be reconciled, and in his heart thanked hobotov, who did not even allude to yesterday's scene and was evidently sparing him. one would never have expected such delicacy from this uncultured man. "where is your invalid?" asked andrey yefimitch. "in the hospital. . . . i have long wanted to show him to you. a very interesting case." they went into the hospital yard, and going round the main building, turned towards the lodge where the mental cases were kept, and all this, for some reason, in silence. when they went into the lodge nikita as usual jumped up and stood at attention. "one of the patients here has a lung complication." hobotov said in an undertone, going into the yard with andrey yefimitch. "you wait here, i'll be back directly. i am going for a stethoscope." and he went away. xvii it was getting dusk. ivan dmitritch was lying on his bed with his face thrust unto his pillow; the paralytic was sitting motionless, crying quietly and moving his lips. the fat peasant and the former sorter were asleep. it was quiet. andrey yefimitch sat down on ivan dmitritch's bed and waited. but half an hour passed, and instead of hobotov, nikita came into the ward with a dressing-gown, some underlinen, and a pair of slippers in a heap on his arm. "please change your things, your honour," he said softly. "here is your bed; come this way," he added, pointing to an empty bedstead which had obviously recently been brought into the ward. "it's all right; please god, you will recover." andrey yefimitch understood it all. without saying a word he crossed to the bed to which nikita pointed and sat down; seeing that nikita was standing waiting, he undressed entirely and he felt ashamed. then he put on the hospital clothes; the drawers were very short, the shirt was long, and the dressing-gown smelt of smoked fish. "please god, you will recover," repeated nikita, and he gathered up andrey yefimitch's clothes into his arms, went out, and shut the door after him. "no matter . . ." thought andrey yefimitch, wrapping himself in his dressing-gown in a shamefaced way and feeling that he looked like a convict in his new costume. "it's no matter. . . . it does not matter whether it's a dress-coat or a uniform or this dressing-gown." but how about his watch? and the notebook that was in the side-pocket? and his cigarettes? where had nikita taken his clothes? now perhaps to the day of his death he would not put on trousers, a waistcoat, and high boots. it was all somehow strange and even incomprehensible at first. andrey yefimitch was even now convinced that there was no difference between his landlady's house and ward no. , that everything in this world was nonsense and vanity of vanities. and yet his hands were trembling, his feet were cold, and he was filled with dread at the thought that soon ivan dmitritch would get up and see that he was in a dressing-gown. he got up and walked across the room and sat down again. here he had been sitting already half an hour, an hour, and he was miserably sick of it: was it really possible to live here a day, a week, and even years like these people? why, he had been sitting here, had walked about and sat down again; he could get up and look out of window and walk from corner to corner again, and then what? sit so all the time, like a post, and think? no, that was scarcely possible. andrey yefimitch lay down, but at once got up, wiped the cold sweat from his brow with his sleeve and felt that his whole face smelt of smoked fish. he walked about again. "it's some misunderstanding . . ." he said, turning out the palms of his hands in perplexity. "it must be cleared up. there is a misunderstanding." meanwhile ivan dmitritch woke up; he sat up and propped his cheeks on his fists. he spat. then he glanced lazily at the doctor, and apparently for the first minute did not understand; but soon his sleepy face grew malicious and mocking. "aha! so they have put you in here, too, old fellow?" he said in a voice husky from sleepiness, screwing up one eye. "very glad to see you. you sucked the blood of others, and now they will suck yours. excellent!" "it's a misunderstanding . . ." andrey yefimitch brought out, frightened by ivan dmitritch's words; he shrugged his shoulders and repeated: "it's some misunderstanding." ivan dmitritch spat again and lay down. "cursed life," he grumbled, "and what's bitter and insulting, this life will not end in compensation for our sufferings, it will not end with apotheosis as it would in an opera, but with death; peasants will come and drag one's dead body by the arms and the legs to the cellar. ugh! well, it does not matter. . . . we shall have our good time in the other world. . . . i shall come here as a ghost from the other world and frighten these reptiles. i'll turn their hair grey." moiseika returned, and, seeing the doctor, held out his hand. "give me one little kopeck," he said. xviii andrey yefimitch walked away to the window and looked out into the open country. it was getting dark, and on the horizon to the right a cold crimson moon was mounting upwards. not far from the hospital fence, not much more than two hundred yards away, stood a tall white house shut in by a stone wall. this was the prison. "so this is real life," thought andrey yefimitch, and he felt frightened. the moon and the prison, and the nails on the fence, and the far-away flames at the bone-charring factory were all terrible. behind him there was the sound of a sigh. andrey yefimitch looked round and saw a man with glittering stars and orders on his breast, who was smiling and slyly winking. and this, too, seemed terrible. andrey yefimitch assured himself that there was nothing special about the moon or the prison, that even sane persons wear orders, and that everything in time will decay and turn to earth, but he was suddenly overcome with desire; he clutched at the grating with both hands and shook it with all his might. the strong grating did not yield. then that it might not be so dreadful he went to ivan dmitritch's bed and sat down. "i have lost heart, my dear fellow," he muttered, trembling and wiping away the cold sweat, "i have lost heart." "you should be philosophical," said ivan dmitritch ironically. "my god, my god. . . . yes, yes. . . . you were pleased to say once that there was no philosophy in russia, but that all people, even the paltriest, talk philosophy. but you know the philosophizing of the paltriest does not harm anyone," said andrey yefimitch in a tone as if he wanted to cry and complain. "why, then, that malignant laugh, my friend, and how can these paltry creatures help philosophizing if they are not satisfied? for an intelligent, educated man, made in god's image, proud and loving freedom, to have no alternative but to be a doctor in a filthy, stupid, wretched little town, and to spend his whole life among bottles, leeches, mustard plasters! quackery, narrowness, vulgarity! oh, my god!" "you are talking nonsense. if you don't like being a doctor you should have gone in for being a statesman." "i could not, i could not do anything. we are weak, my dear friend . . . . i used to be indifferent. i reasoned boldly and soundly, but at the first coarse touch of life upon me i have lost heart. . . . prostration. . . . . we are weak, we are poor creatures . . . and you, too, my dear friend, you are intelligent, generous, you drew in good impulses with your mother's milk, but you had hardly entered upon life when you were exhausted and fell ill. . . . weak, weak!" andrey yefimitch was all the while at the approach of evening tormented by another persistent sensation besides terror and the feeling of resentment. at last he realized that he was longing for a smoke and for beer. "i am going out, my friend," he said. "i will tell them to bring a light; i can't put up with this. . . . i am not equal to it. . . ." andrey yefimitch went to the door and opened it, but at once nikita jumped up and barred his way. "where are you going? you can't, you can't!" he said. "it's bedtime." "but i'm only going out for a minute to walk about the yard," said andrey yefimitch. "you can't, you can't; it's forbidden. you know that yourself." "but what difference will it make to anyone if i do go out?" asked andrey yefimitch, shrugging his shoulders. "i don't understand. nikita, i must go out!" he said in a trembling voice. "i must." "don't be disorderly, it's not right," nikita said peremptorily. "this is beyond everything," ivan dmitritch cried suddenly, and he jumped up. "what right has he not to let you out? how dare they keep us here? i believe it is clearly laid down in the law that no one can be deprived of freedom without trial! it's an outrage! it's tyranny!" "of course it's tyranny," said andrey yefimitch, encouraged by ivan dmitritch's outburst. "i must go out, i want to. he has no right! open, i tell you." "do you hear, you dull-witted brute?" cried ivan dmitritch, and he banged on the door with his fist. "open the door, or i will break it open! torturer!" "open the door," cried andrey yefimitch, trembling all over; "i insist!" "talk away!" nikita answered through the door, "talk away. . . ." "anyhow, go and call yevgeny fyodoritch! say that i beg him to come for a minute!" "his honour will come of himself to-morrow." "they will never let us out," ivan dmitritch was going on meanwhile. "they will leave us to rot here! oh, lord, can there really be no hell in the next world, and will these wretches be forgiven? where is justice? open the door, you wretch! i am choking!" he cried in a hoarse voice, and flung himself upon the door. "i'll dash out my brains, murderers!" nikita opened the door quickly, and roughly with both his hands and his knee shoved andrey yefimitch back, then swung his arm and punched him in the face with his fist. it seemed to andrey yefimitch as though a huge salt wave enveloped him from his head downwards and dragged him to the bed; there really was a salt taste in his mouth: most likely the blood was running from his teeth. he waved his arms as though he were trying to swim out and clutched at a bedstead, and at the same moment felt nikita hit him twice on the back. ivan dmitritch gave a loud scream. he must have been beaten too. then all was still, the faint moonlight came through the grating, and a shadow like a net lay on the floor. it was terrible. andrey yefimitch lay and held his breath: he was expecting with horror to be struck again. he felt as though someone had taken a sickle, thrust it into him, and turned it round several times in his breast and bowels. he bit the pillow from pain and clenched his teeth, and all at once through the chaos in his brain there flashed the terrible unbearable thought that these people, who seemed now like black shadows in the moonlight, had to endure such pain day by day for years. how could it have happened that for more than twenty years he had not known it and had refused to know it? he knew nothing of pain, had no conception of it, so he was not to blame, but his conscience, as inexorable and as rough as nikita, made him turn cold from the crown of his head to his heels. he leaped up, tried to cry out with all his might, and to run in haste to kill nikita, and then hobotov, the superintendent and the assistant, and then himself; but no sound came from his chest, and his legs would not obey him. gasping for breath, he tore at the dressing-gown and the shirt on his breast, rent them, and fell senseless on the bed. xix next morning his head ached, there was a droning in his ears and a feeling of utter weakness all over. he was not ashamed at recalling his weakness the day before. he had been cowardly, had even been afraid of the moon, had openly expressed thoughts and feelings such as he had not expected in himself before; for instance, the thought that the paltry people who philosophized were really dissatisfied. but now nothing mattered to him. he ate nothing; he drank nothing. he lay motionless and silent. "it is all the same to me," he thought when they asked him questions. "i am not going to answer. . . . it's all the same to me." after dinner mihail averyanitch brought him a quarter pound of tea and a pound of fruit pastilles. daryushka came too and stood for a whole hour by the bed with an expression of dull grief on her face. dr. hobotov visited him. he brought a bottle of bromide and told nikita to fumigate the ward with something. towards evening andrey yefimitch died of an apoplectic stroke. at first he had a violent shivering fit and a feeling of sickness; something revolting as it seemed, penetrating through his whole body, even to his finger-tips, strained from his stomach to his head and flooded his eyes and ears. there was a greenness before his eyes. andrey yefimitch understood that his end had come, and remembered that ivan dmitritch, mihail averyanitch, and millions of people believed in immortality. and what if it really existed? but he did not want immortality--and he thought of it only for one instant. a herd of deer, extraordinarily beautiful and graceful, of which he had been reading the day before, ran by him; then a peasant woman stretched out her hand to him with a registered letter . . . . mihail averyanitch said something, then it all vanished, and andrey yefimitch sank into oblivion for ever. the hospital porters came, took him by his arms and legs, and carried him away to the chapel. there he lay on the table, with open eyes, and the moon shed its light upon him at night. in the morning sergey sergeyitch came, prayed piously before the crucifix, and closed his former chief's eyes. next day andrey yefimitch was buried. mihail averyanitch and daryushka were the only people at the funeral. the petchenyeg ivan abramitch zhmuhin, a retired cossack officer, who had once served in the caucasus, but now lived on his own farm, and who had once been young, strong, and vigorous, but now was old, dried up, and bent, with shaggy eyebrows and a greenish-grey moustache, was returning from the town to his farm one hot summer's day. in the town he had confessed and received absolution, and had made his will at the notary's (a fortnight before he had had a slight stroke), and now all the while he was in the railway carriage he was haunted by melancholy, serious thoughts of approaching death, of the vanity of vanities, of the transitoriness of all things earthly. at the station of provalye--there is such a one on the donetz line--a fair-haired, plump, middle-aged gentleman with a shabby portfolio stepped into the carriage and sat down opposite. they got into conversation. "yes," said ivan abramitch, looking pensively out of window, "it is never too late to marry. i myself married when i was forty-eight; i was told it was late, but it has turned out that it was not late or early, but simply that it would have been better not to marry at all. everyone is soon tired of his wife, but not everyone tells the truth, because, you know, people are ashamed of an unhappy home life and conceal it. it's 'manya this' and 'manya that' with many a man by his wife's side, but if he had his way he'd put that manya in a sack and drop her in the water. it's dull with one's wife, it's mere foolishness. and it's no better with one's children, i make bold to assure you. i have two of them, the rascals. there's nowhere for them to be taught out here in the steppe; i haven't the money to send them to school in novo tcherkask, and they live here like young wolves. next thing they will be murdering someone on the highroad." the fair-haired gentleman listened attentively, answered questions briefly in a low voice, and was apparently a gentleman of gentle and modest disposition. he mentioned that he was a lawyer, and that he was going to the village dyuevka on business. "why, merciful heavens, that is six miles from me!" said zhmuhin in a tone of voice as though someone were disputing with him. "but excuse me, you won't find horses at the station now. to my mind, the very best thing you can do, you know, is to come straight to me, stay the night, you know, and in the morning drive over with my horses." the lawyer thought a moment and accepted the invitation. when they reached the station the sun was already low over the steppe. they said nothing all the way from the station to the farm: the jolting prevented conversation. the trap bounded up and down, squeaked, and seemed to be sobbing, and the lawyer, who was sitting very uncomfortably, stared before him, miserably hoping to see the farm. after they had driven five or six miles there came into view in the distance a low-pitched house and a yard enclosed by a fence made of dark, flat stones standing on end; the roof was green, the stucco was peeling off, and the windows were little narrow slits like screwed-up eyes. the farm stood in the full sunshine, and there was no sign either of water or trees anywhere round. among the neighbouring landowners and the peasants it was known as the petchenyegs' farm. many years before, a land surveyor, who was passing through the neighbourhood and put up at the farm, spent the whole night talking to ivan abramitch, was not favourably impressed, and as he was driving away in the morning said to him grimly: "you are a petchenyeg,* my good sir!" * the petchenyegs were a tribe of wild mongolian nomads who made frequent inroads upon the russians in the tenth and eleventh centuries.--_translator's note._ from this came the nickname, the petchenyegs' farm, which stuck to the place even more when zhmuhin's boys grew up and began to make raids on the orchards and kitchen-gardens. ivan abramitch was called "you know," as he usually talked a very great deal and frequently made use of that expression. in the yard near a barn zhmuhin's sons were standing, one a young man of nineteen, the other a younger lad, both barefoot and bareheaded. just at the moment when the trap drove into the yard the younger one flung high up a hen which, cackling, described an arc in the air; the elder shot at it with a gun and the hen fell dead on the earth. "those are my boys learning to shoot birds flying," said zhmuhin. in the entry the travellers were met by a little thin woman with a pale face, still young and beautiful; from her dress she might have been taken for a servant. "and this, allow me to introduce her," said zhmuhin, "is the mother of my young cubs. come, lyubov osipovna," he said, addressing her, "you must be spry, mother, and get something for our guest. let us have supper. look sharp!" the house consisted of two parts: in one was the parlour and beside it old zhmuhin's bedroom, both stuffy rooms with low ceilings and multitudes of flies and wasps, and in the other was the kitchen in which the cooking and washing was done and the labourers had their meals; here geese and turkey-hens were sitting on their eggs under the benches, and here were the beds of lyubov osipovna and her two sons. the furniture in the parlour was unpainted and evidently roughly made by a carpenter; guns, game-bags, and whips were hanging on the walls, and all this old rubbish was covered with the rust of years and looked grey with dust. there was not one picture; in the corner was a dingy board which had at one time been an ikon. a young little russian woman laid the table and handed ham, then beetroot soup. the visitor refused vodka and ate only bread and cucumbers. "how about ham?" asked zhmuhin. "thank you, i don't eat it," answered the visitor, "i don't eat meat at all." "why is that?" "i am a vegetarian. killing animals is against my principles." zhmuhin thought a minute and then said slowly with a sigh: "yes . . . to be sure. . . . i saw a man who did not eat meat in town, too. it's a new religion they've got now. well, it's good. we can't go on always shooting and slaughtering, you know; we must give it up some day and leave even the beasts in peace. it's a sin to kill, it's a sin, there is no denying it. sometimes one kills a hare and wounds him in the leg, and he cries like a child. . . . so it must hurt him!" "of course it hurts him; animals suffer just like human beings." "that's true," zhmuhin assented. "i understand that very well," he went on, musing, "only there is this one thing i don't understand: suppose, you know, everyone gave up eating meat, what would become of the domestic animals--fowls and geese, for instance?" "fowls and geese would live in freedom like wild birds." "now i understand. to be sure, crows and jackdaws get on all right without us. yes. . . . fowls and geese and hares and sheep, all will live in freedom, rejoicing, you know, and praising god; and they will not fear us, peace and concord will come. only there is one thing, you know, i can't understand," zhmuhin went on, glancing at the ham. "how will it be with the pigs? what is to be done with them?" "they will be like all the rest--that is, they will live in freedom." "ah! yes. but allow me to say, if they were not slaughtered they would multiply, you know, and then good-bye to the kitchen-gardens and the meadows. why, a pig, if you let it free and don't look after it, will ruin everything in a day. a pig is a pig, and it is not for nothing it is called a pig. . . ." they finished supper. zhmuhin got up from the table and for a long while walked up and down the room, talking and talking. . . . he was fond of talking of something important or serious and was fond of meditating, and in his old age he had a longing to reach some haven, to be reassured, that he might not be so frightened of dying. he had a longing for meekness, spiritual calm, and confidence in himself, such as this guest of theirs had, who had satisfied his hunger on cucumbers and bread, and believed that doing so made him more perfect; he was sitting on a chest, plump and healthy, keeping silent and patiently enduring his boredom, and in the dusk when one glanced at him from the entry he looked like a big round stone which one could not move from its place. if a man has something to lay hold of in life he is all right. zhmuhin went through the entry to the porch, and then he could be heard sighing and saying reflectively to himself: "yes. . . . to be sure. . . . " by now it was dark, and here and there stars could be seen in the sky. they had not yet lighted up indoors. someone came into the parlour as noiselessly as a shadow and stood still near the door. it was lyubov osipovna, zhmuhin's wife. "are you from the town?" she asked timidly, not looking at her visitor. "yes, i live in the town." "perhaps you are something in the learned way, sir; be so kind as to advise us. we ought to send in a petition." "to whom?" asked the visitor. "we have two sons, kind gentleman, and they ought to have been sent to school long ago, but we never see anyone and have no one to advise us. and i know nothing. for if they are not taught they will have to serve in the army as common cossacks. it's not right, sir! they can't read and write, they are worse than peasants, and ivan abramitch himself can't stand them and won't let them indoors. but they are not to blame. the younger one, at any rate, ought to be sent to school, it is such a pity!" she said slowly, and there was a quiver in her voice; and it seemed incredible that a woman so small and so youthful could have grown-up children. "oh, it's such a pity!" "you don't know anything about it, mother, and it is not your affair," said zhmuhin, appearing in the doorway. "don't pester our guest with your wild talk. go away, mother!" lyubov osipovna went out, and in the entry repeated once more in a thin little voice: "oh, it's such a pity!" a bed was made up for the visitor on the sofa in the parlour, and that it might not be dark for him they lighted the lamp before the ikon. zhmuhin went to bed in his own room. and as he lay there he thought of his soul, of his age, of his recent stroke which had so frightened him and made him think of death. he was fond of philosophizing when he was in quietness by himself, and then he fancied that he was a very earnest, deep thinker, and that nothing in this world interested him but serious questions. and now he kept thinking and he longed to pitch upon some one significant thought unlike others, which would be a guide to him in life, and he wanted to think out principles of some sort for himself so as to make his life as deep and earnest as he imagined that he felt himself to be. it would be a good thing for an old man like him to abstain altogether from meat, from superfluities of all sorts. the time when men give up killing each other and animals would come sooner or later, it could not but be so, and he imagined that time to himself and clearly pictured himself living in peace with all the animals, and suddenly he thought again of the pigs, and everything was in a tangle in his brain. "it's a queer business, lord have mercy upon us," he muttered, sighing heavily. "are you asleep?" he asked. "no." zhmuhin got out of bed and stopped in the doorway with nothing but his shirt on, displaying to his guest his sinewy legs, that looked as dry as sticks. "nowadays, you know," he began, "all sorts of telegraphs, telephones, and marvels of all kinds, in fact, have come in, but people are no better than they were. they say that in our day, thirty or forty years ago, men were coarse and cruel; but isn't it just the same now? we certainly did not stand on ceremony in our day. i remember in the caucasus when we were stationed by a little river with nothing to do for four whole months--i was an under-officer at that time--something queer happened, quite in the style of a novel. just on the banks of that river, you know, where our division was encamped, a wretched prince whom we had killed not long before was buried. and at night, you know, the princess used to come to his grave and weep. she would wail and wail, and moan and moan, and make us so depressed we couldn't sleep, and that's the fact. we couldn't sleep one night, we couldn't sleep a second; well, we got sick of it. and from a common-sense point of view you really can't go without your sleep for the devil knows what (excuse the expression). we took that princess and gave her a good thrashing, and she gave up coming. there's an instance for you. nowadays, of course, there is not the same class of people, and they are not given to thrashing and they live in cleaner style, and there is more learning, but, you know, the soul is just the same: there is no change. now, look here, there's a landowner living here among us; he has mines, you know; all sorts of tramps without passports who don't know where to go work for him. on saturdays he has to settle up with the workmen, but he doesn't care to pay them, you know, he grudges the money. so he's got hold of a foreman who is a tramp too, though he does wear a hat. 'don't you pay them anything,' he says, 'not a kopeck; they'll beat you, and let them beat you,' says he, 'but you put up with it, and i'll pay you ten roubles every saturday for it.' so on the saturday evening the workmen come to settle up in the usual way; the foreman says to them: 'nothing!' well, word for word, as the master said, they begin swearing and using their fists. . . . they beat him and they kick him . . . you know, they are a set of men brutalized by hunger--they beat him till he is senseless, and then they go each on his way. the master gives orders for cold water to be poured on the foreman, then flings ten roubles in his face. and he takes it and is pleased too, for indeed he'd be ready to be hanged for three roubles, let alone ten. yes . . . and on monday a new gang of workmen arrive; they work, for they have nowhere to go . . . . on saturday it is the same story over again." the visitor turned over on the other side with his face to the back of the sofa and muttered something. "and here's another instance," zhmuhin went on. "we had the siberian plague here, you know--the cattle die off like flies, i can tell you--and the veterinary surgeons came here, and strict orders were given that the dead cattle were to be buried at a distance deep in the earth, that lime was to be thrown over them, and so on, you know, on scientific principles. my horse died too. i buried it with every precaution, and threw over three hundredweight of lime over it. and what do you think? my fine fellows--my precious sons, i mean--dug it up, skinned it, and sold the hide for three roubles; there's an instance for you. so people have grown no better, and however you feed a wolf he will always look towards the forest; there it is. it gives one something to think about, eh? how do you look at it?" on one side a flash of lightning gleamed through a chink in the window-blinds. there was the stifling feeling of a storm coming, the gnats were biting, and zhmuhin, as he lay in his bedroom meditating, sighed and groaned and said to himself: "yes, to be sure ----" and there was no possibility of getting to sleep. somewhere far, far away there was a growl of thunder. "are you asleep?" "no," answered the visitor. zhmuhin got up, and thudding with his heels walked through the parlour and the entry to the kitchen to get a drink of water. "the worst thing in the world, you know, is stupidity," he said a little later, coming back with a dipper. "my lyubov osipovna is on her knees saying her prayers. she prays every night, you know, and bows down to the ground, first that her children may be sent to school; she is afraid her boys will go into the army as simple cossacks, and that they will be whacked across their backs with sabres. but for teaching one must have money, and where is one to get it? you may break the floor beating your head against it, but if you haven't got it you haven't. and the other reason she prays is because, you know, every woman imagines there is no one in the world as unhappy as she is. i am a plain-spoken man, and i don't want to conceal anything from you. she comes of a poor family, a village priest's daughter. i married her when she was seventeen, and they accepted my offer chiefly because they hadn't enough to eat; it was nothing but poverty and misery, while i have anyway land, you see--a farm--and after all i am an officer; it was a step up for her to marry me, you know. on the very first day when she was married she cried, and she has been crying ever since, all these twenty years; she has got a watery eye. and she's always sitting and thinking, and what do you suppose she is thinking about? what can a woman think about? why, nothing. i must own i don't consider a woman a human being." the visitor got up abruptly and sat on the bed. "excuse me, i feel stifled," he said; "i will go outside." zhmuhin, still talking about women, drew the bolt in the entry and they both went out. a full moon was floating in the sky just over the yard, and in the moonlight the house and barn looked whiter than by day; and on the grass brilliant streaks of moonlight, white too, stretched between the black shadows. far away on the right could be seen the steppe, above it the stars were softly glowing--and it was all mysterious, infinitely far away, as though one were gazing into a deep abyss; while on the left heavy storm-clouds, black as soot, were piling up one upon another above the steppe; their edges were lighted up by the moon, and it looked as though there were mountains there with white snow on their peaks, dark forests, the sea. there was a flash of lightning, a faint rumble of thunder, and it seemed as though a battle were being fought in the mountains. quite close to the house a little night-owl screeched monotonously: "asleep! asleep!" "what time is it now?" asked the visitor. "just after one." "how long it is still to dawn!" they went back to the house and lay down again. it was time to sleep, and one can usually sleep so splendidly before rain; but the old man had a hankering after serious, weighty thoughts; he wanted not simply to think but to meditate, and he meditated how good it would be, as death was near at hand, for the sake of his soul to give up the idleness which so imperceptibly swallowed up day after day, year after year, leaving no trace; to think out for himself some great exploit--for instance, to walk on foot far, far away, or to give up meat like this young man. and again he pictured to himself the time when animals would not be killed, pictured it clearly and distinctly as though he were living through that time himself; but suddenly it was all in a tangle again in his head and all was muddled. the thunderstorm had passed over, but from the edges of the storm-clouds came rain softly pattering on the roof. zhmuhin got up, stretching and groaning with old age, and looked into the parlour. noticing that his visitor was not asleep, he said: "when we were in the caucasus, you know, there was a colonel there who was a vegetarian, too; he didn't eat meat, never went shooting, and would not let his servants catch fish. of course, i understand that every animal ought to live in freedom and enjoy its life; only i don't understand how a pig can go about where it likes without being looked after. . . ." the visitor got up and sat down. his pale, haggard face expressed weariness and vexation; it was evident that he was exhausted, and only his gentleness and the delicacy of his soul prevented him from expressing his vexation in words. "it's getting light," he said mildly. "please have the horse brought round for me." "why so? wait a little and the rain will be over." "no, i entreat you," said the visitor in horror, with a supplicating voice; "it is essential for me to go at once." and he began hurriedly dressing. by the time the horse was harnessed the sun was rising. it had just left off raining, the clouds were racing swiftly by, and the patches of blue were growing bigger and bigger in the sky. the first rays of the sun were timidly reflected below in the big puddles. the visitor walked through the entry with his portfolio to get into the trap, and at that moment zhmuhin's wife, pale, and it seemed paler than the day before, with tear-stained eyes, looked at him intently without blinking, with the naïve expression of a little girl, and it was evident from her dejected face that she was envying him his freedom--oh, with what joy she would have gone away from there!--and she wanted to say something to him, most likely to ask advice about her children. and what a pitiable figure she was! this was not a wife, not the head of a house, not even a servant, but more like a dependent, a poor relation not wanted by anyone, a nonentity . . . . her husband, fussing about, talking unceasingly, was seeing his visitor off, continually running in front of him, while she huddled up to the wall with a timid, guilty air, waiting for a convenient minute to speak. "please come again another time," the old man kept repeating incessantly; "what we have we are glad to offer, you know." the visitor hurriedly got into the trap, evidently with relief, as though he were afraid every minute that they would detain him. the trap lurched about as it had the day before, squeaked, and furiously rattled the pail that was tied on at the back. he glanced round at zhmuhin with a peculiar expression; it looked as though he wanted to call him a petchenyeg, as the surveyor had once done, or some such name, but his gentleness got the upper hand. he controlled himself and said nothing. but in the gateway he suddenly could not restrain himself; he got up and shouted loudly and angrily: "you have bored me to death." and he disappeared through the gate. near the barn zhmuhin's sons were standing; the elder held a gun, while the younger had in his hands a grey cockerel with a bright red comb. the younger flung up the cockerel with all his might; the bird flew upwards higher than the house and turned over in the air like a pigeon. the elder boy fired and the cockerel fell like a stone. the old man, overcome with confusion, not knowing how to explain the visitor's strange, unexpected shout, went slowly back into the house. and sitting down at the table he spent a long while meditating on the intellectual tendencies of the day, on the universal immorality, on the telegraph, on the telephone, on velocipedes, on how unnecessary it all was; little by little he regained his composure, then slowly had a meal, drank five glasses of tea, and lay down for a nap. a dead body a still august night. a mist is rising slowly from the fields and casting an opaque veil over everything within eyesight. lighted up by the moon, the mist gives the impression at one moment of a calm, boundless sea, at the next of an immense white wall. the air is damp and chilly. morning is still far off. a step from the bye-road which runs along the edge of the forest a little fire is gleaming. a dead body, covered from head to foot with new white linen, is lying under a young oak-tree. a wooden ikon is lying on its breast. beside the corpse almost on the road sits the "watch"--two peasants performing one of the most disagreeable and uninviting of peasants' duties. one, a tall young fellow with a scarcely perceptible moustache and thick black eyebrows, in a tattered sheepskin and bark shoes, is sitting on the wet grass, his feet stuck out straight in front of him, and is trying to while away the time with work. he bends his long neck, and breathing loudly through his nose, makes a spoon out of a big crooked bit of wood; the other--a little scraggy, pock-marked peasant with an aged face, a scanty moustache, and a little goat's beard--sits with his hands dangling loose on his knees, and without moving gazes listlessly at the light. a small camp-fire is lazily burning down between them, throwing a red glow on their faces. there is perfect stillness. the only sounds are the scrape of the knife on the wood and the crackling of damp sticks in the fire. "don't you go to sleep, syoma . . ." says the young man. "i . . . i am not asleep . . ." stammers the goat-beard. "that's all right. . . . it would be dreadful to sit here alone, one would be frightened. you might tell me something, syoma." "you are a queer fellow, syomushka! other people will laugh and tell a story and sing a song, but you--there is no making you out. you sit like a scarecrow in the garden and roll your eyes at the fire. you can't say anything properly . . . when you speak you seem frightened. i dare say you are fifty, but you have less sense than a child. aren't you sorry that you are a simpleton?" "i am sorry," the goat-beard answers gloomily. "and we are sorry to see your foolishness, you may be sure. you are a good-natured, sober peasant, and the only trouble is that you have no sense in your head. you should have picked up some sense for yourself if the lord has afflicted you and given you no understanding. you must make an effort, syoma. . . . you should listen hard when anything good's being said, note it well, and keep thinking and thinking. . . . if there is any word you don't understand, you should make an effort and think over in your head in what meaning the word is used. do you see? make an effort! if you don't gain some sense for yourself you'll be a simpleton and of no account at all to your dying day." all at once a long drawn-out, moaning sound is heard in the forest. something rustles in the leaves as though torn from the very top of the tree and falls to the ground. all this is faintly repeated by the echo. the young man shudders and looks enquiringly at his companion. "it's an owl at the little birds," says syoma, gloomily. "why, syoma, it's time for the birds to fly to the warm countries!" "to be sure, it is time." "it is chilly at dawn now. it is co-old. the crane is a chilly creature, it is tender. such cold is death to it. i am not a crane, but i am frozen. . . . put some more wood on!" syoma gets up and disappears in the dark undergrowth. while he is busy among the bushes, breaking dry twigs, his companion puts his hand over his eyes and starts at every sound. syoma brings an armful of wood and lays it on the fire. the flame irresolutely licks the black twigs with its little tongues, then suddenly, as though at the word of command, catches them and throws a crimson light on the faces, the road, the white linen with its prominences where the hands and feet of the corpse raise it, the ikon. the "watch" is silent. the young man bends his neck still lower and sets to work with still more nervous haste. the goat-beard sits motionless as before and keeps his eyes fixed on the fire. . . . "ye that love not zion . . . shall be put to shame by the lord." a falsetto voice is suddenly heard singing in the stillness of the night, then slow footsteps are audible, and the dark figure of a man in a short monkish cassock and a broad-brimmed hat, with a wallet on his shoulders, comes into sight on the road in the crimson firelight. "thy will be done, o lord! holy mother!" the figure says in a husky falsetto. "i saw the fire in the outer darkness and my soul leapt for joy. . . . at first i thought it was men grazing a drove of horses, then i thought it can't be that, since no horses were to be seen. 'aren't they thieves,' i wondered, 'aren't they robbers lying in wait for a rich lazarus? aren't they the gypsy people offering sacrifices to idols? and my soul leapt for joy. 'go, feodosy, servant of god,' i said to myself, 'and win a martyr's crown!' and i flew to the fire like a light-winged moth. now i stand before you, and from your outer aspect i judge of your souls: you are not thieves and you are not heathens. peace be to you!" "good-evening." "good orthodox people, do you know how to reach the makuhinsky brickyards from here?" "it's close here. you go straight along the road; when you have gone a mile and a half there will be ananova, our village. from the village, father, you turn to the right by the river-bank, and so you will get to the brickyards. it's two miles from ananova." "god give you health. and why are you sitting here?" "we are sitting here watching. you see, there is a dead body. . . ." "what? what body? holy mother!" the pilgrim sees the white linen with the ikon on it, and starts so violently that his legs give a little skip. this unexpected sight has an overpowering effect upon him. he huddles together and stands as though rooted to the spot, with wide-open mouth and staring eyes. for three minutes he is silent as though he could not believe his eyes, then begins muttering: "o lord! holy mother! i was going along not meddling with anyone, and all at once such an affliction." "what may you be?" enquires the young man. "of the clergy?" "no . . . no. . . . i go from one monastery to another. . . . do you know mi . . . mihail polikarpitch, the foreman of the brickyard? well, i am his nephew. . . . thy will be done, o lord! why are you here?" "we are watching . . . we are told to." "yes, yes . . ." mutters the man in the cassock, passing his hand over his eyes. "and where did the deceased come from?" "he was a stranger." "such is life! but i'll . . . er . . . be getting on, brothers. . . . i feel flustered. i am more afraid of the dead than of anything, my dear souls! and only fancy! while this man was alive he wasn't noticed, while now when he is dead and given over to corruption we tremble before him as before some famous general or a bishop. . . . such is life; was he murdered, or what?" "the lord knows! maybe he was murdered, or maybe he died of himself." "yes, yes. . . . who knows, brothers? maybe his soul is now tasting the joys of paradise." "his soul is still hovering here, near his body," says the young man. "it does not depart from the body for three days." "h'm, yes! . . . how chilly the nights are now! it sets one's teeth chattering. . . . so then i am to go straight on and on? . . ." "till you get to the village, and then you turn to the right by the river-bank." "by the river-bank. . . . to be sure. . . . why am i standing still? i must go on. farewell, brothers." the man in the cassock takes five steps along the road and stops. "i've forgotten to put a kopeck for the burying," he says. "good orthodox friends, can i give the money?" "you ought to know best, you go the round of the monasteries. if he died a natural death it would go for the good of his soul; if it's a suicide it's a sin." "that's true. . . . and maybe it really was a suicide! so i had better keep my money. oh, sins, sins! give me a thousand roubles and i would not consent to sit here. . . . farewell, brothers." the cassock slowly moves away and stops again. "i can't make up my mind what i am to do," he mutters. "to stay here by the fire and wait till daybreak. . . . i am frightened; to go on is dreadful, too. the dead man will haunt me all the way in the darkness. . . . the lord has chastised me indeed! over three hundred miles i have come on foot and nothing happened, and now i am near home and there's trouble. i can't go on. . . ." "it is dreadful, that is true." "i am not afraid of wolves, of thieves, or of darkness, but i am afraid of the dead. i am afraid of them, and that is all about it. good orthodox brothers, i entreat you on my knees, see me to the village." "we've been told not to go away from the body." "no one will see, brothers. upon my soul, no one will see! the lord will reward you a hundredfold! old man, come with me, i beg! old man! why are you silent?" "he is a bit simple," says the young man. "you come with me, friend; i will give you five kopecks." "for five kopecks i might," says the young man, scratching his head, "but i was told not to. if syoma here, our simpleton, will stay alone, i will take you. syoma, will you stay here alone?" "i'll stay," the simpleton consents. "well, that's all right, then. come along!" the young man gets up, and goes with the cassock. a minute later the sound of their steps and their talk dies away. syoma shuts his eyes and gently dozes. the fire begins to grow dim, and a big black shadow falls on the dead body. a happy ending lyubov grigoryevna, a substantial, buxom lady of forty who undertook matchmaking and many other matters of which it is usual to speak only in whispers, had come to see stytchkin, the head guard, on a day when he was off duty. stytchkin, somewhat embarrassed, but, as always, grave, practical, and severe, was walking up and down the room, smoking a cigar and saying: "very pleased to make your acquaintance. semyon ivanovitch recommended you on the ground that you may be able to assist me in a delicate and very important matter affecting the happiness of my life. i have, lyubov grigoryevna, reached the age of fifty-two; that is a period of life at which very many have already grown-up children. my position is a secure one. though my fortune is not large, yet i am in a position to support a beloved being and children at my side. i may tell you between ourselves that apart from my salary i have also money in the bank which my manner of living has enabled me to save. i am a practical and sober man, i lead a sensible and consistent life, so that i may hold myself up as an example to many. but one thing i lack--a domestic hearth of my own and a partner in life, and i live like a wandering magyar, moving from place to place without any satisfaction. i have no one with whom to take counsel, and when i am ill no one to give me water, and so on. apart from that, lyubov grigoryevna, a married man has always more weight in society than a bachelor. . . . i am a man of the educated class, with money, but if you look at me from a point of view, what am i? a man with no kith and kin, no better than some polish priest. and therefore i should be very desirous to be united in the bonds of hymen--that is, to enter into matrimony with some worthy person." "an excellent thing," said the matchmaker, with a sigh. "i am a solitary man and in this town i know no one. where can i go, and to whom can i apply, since all the people here are strangers to me? that is why semyon ivanovitch advised me to address myself to a person who is a specialist in this line, and makes the arrangement of the happiness of others her profession. and therefore i most earnestly beg you, lyubov grigoryevna, to assist me in ordering my future. you know all the marriageable young ladies in the town, and it is easy for you to accommodate me." "i can. . . ." "a glass of wine, i beg you. . . ." with an habitual gesture the matchmaker raised her glass to her mouth and tossed it off without winking. "i can," she repeated. "and what sort of bride would you like, nikolay nikolayitch?" "should i like? the bride fate sends me." "well, of course it depends on your fate, but everyone has his own taste, you know. one likes dark ladies, the other prefers fair ones." "you see, lyubov grigoryevna," said stytchkin, sighing sedately, "i am a practical man and a man of character; for me beauty and external appearance generally take a secondary place, for, as you know yourself, beauty is neither bowl nor platter, and a pretty wife involves a great deal of anxiety. the way i look at it is, what matters most in a woman is not what is external, but what lies within--that is, that she should have soul and all the qualities. a glass of wine, i beg. . . . of course, it would be very agreeable that one's wife should be rather plump, but for mutual happiness it is not of great consequence; what matters is the mind. properly speaking, a woman does not need mind either, for if she has brains she will have too high an opinion of herself, and take all sorts of ideas into her head. one cannot do without education nowadays, of course, but education is of different kinds. it would be pleasing for one's wife to know french and german, to speak various languages, very pleasing; but what's the use of that if she can't sew on one's buttons, perhaps? i am a man of the educated class: i am just as much at home, i may say, with prince kanitelin as i am with you here now. but my habits are simple, and i want a girl who is not too much a fine lady. above all, she must have respect for me and feel that i have made her happiness." "to be sure." "well, now as regards the essential. . . . i do not want a wealthy bride; i would never condescend to anything so low as to marry for money. i desire not to be kept by my wife, but to keep her, and that she may be sensible of it. but i do not want a poor girl either. though i am a man of means, and am marrying not from mercenary motives, but from love, yet i cannot take a poor girl, for, as you know yourself, prices have gone up so, and there will be children." "one might find one with a dowry," said the matchmaker. "a glass of wine, i beg. . . ." there was a pause of five minutes. the matchmaker heaved a sigh, took a sidelong glance at the guard, and asked: "well, now, my good sir . . . do you want anything in the bachelor line? i have some fine bargains. one is a french girl and one is a greek. well worth the money." the guard thought a moment and said: "no, i thank you. in view of your favourable disposition, allow me to enquire now how much you ask for your exertions in regard to a bride?" "i don't ask much. give me twenty-five roubles and the stuff for a dress, as is usual, and i will say thank you . . . but for the dowry, that's a different account." stytchkin folded his arms over his chest and fell to pondering in silence. after some thought he heaved a sigh and said: "that's dear. . . ." "it's not at all dear, nikolay nikolayitch! in old days when there were lots of weddings one did do it cheaper, but nowadays what are our earnings? if you make fifty roubles in a month that is not a fast, you may be thankful. it's not on weddings we make our money, my good sir." stytchkin looked at the matchmaker in amazement and shrugged his shoulders. "h'm! . . . do you call fifty roubles little?" he asked. "of course it is little! in old days we sometimes made more than a hundred." "h'm! i should never have thought it was possible to earn such a sum by these jobs. fifty roubles! it is not every man that earns as much! pray drink your wine. . . ." the matchmaker drained her glass without winking. stytchkin looked her over from head to foot in silence, then said: "fifty roubles. . . . why, that is six hundred roubles a year. . . . please take some more. . . with such dividends, you know, lyubov grigoryevna, you would have no difficulty in making a match for yourself. . . ." "for myself," laughed the matchmaker, "i am an old woman." "not at all. . . . you have such a figure, and your face is plump and fair, and all the rest of it." the matchmaker was embarrassed. stytchkin was also embarrassed and sat down beside her. "you are still very attractive," said he; "if you met with a practical, steady, careful husband, with his salary and your earnings you might even attract him very much, and you'd get on very well together. . . ." "goodness knows what you are saying, nikolay nikolayitch." "well, i meant no harm. . . ." a silence followed. stytchkin began loudly blowing his nose, while the matchmaker turned crimson, and looking bashfully at him, asked: "and how much do you get, nikolay nikolayitch?" "i? seventy-five roubles, besides tips. . . . apart from that we make something out of candles and hares." "you go hunting, then?" "no. passengers who travel without tickets are called hares with us." another minute passed in silence. stytchkin got up and walked about the room in excitement. "i don't want a young wife," said he. "i am a middle-aged man, and i want someone who . . . as it might be like you . . . staid and settled and a figure something like yours. . . ." "goodness knows what you are saying . . ." giggled the matchmaker, hiding her crimson face in her kerchief. "there is no need to be long thinking about it. you are after my own heart, and you suit me in your qualities. i am a practical, sober man, and if you like me . . . what could be better? allow me to make you a proposal!" the matchmaker dropped a tear, laughed, and, in token of her consent, clinked glasses with stytchkin. "well," said the happy railway guard, "now allow me to explain to you the behaviour and manner of life i desire from you. . . . i am a strict, respectable, practical man. i take a gentlemanly view of everything. and i desire that my wife should be strict also, and should understand that to her i am a benefactor and the foremost person in the world." he sat down, and, heaving a deep sigh, began expounding to his bride-elect his views on domestic life and a wife's duties. the looking-glass new year's eve. nellie, the daughter of a landowner and general, a young and pretty girl, dreaming day and night of being married, was sitting in her room, gazing with exhausted, half-closed eyes into the looking-glass. she was pale, tense, and as motionless as the looking-glass. the non-existent but apparent vista of a long, narrow corridor with endless rows of candles, the reflection of her face, her hands, of the frame--all this was already clouded in mist and merged into a boundless grey sea. the sea was undulating, gleaming and now and then flaring crimson. . . . looking at nellie's motionless eyes and parted lips, one could hardly say whether she was asleep or awake, but nevertheless she was seeing. at first she saw only the smile and soft, charming expression of someone's eyes, then against the shifting grey background there gradually appeared the outlines of a head, a face, eyebrows, beard. it was he, the destined one, the object of long dreams and hopes. the destined one was for nellie everything, the significance of life, personal happiness, career, fate. outside him, as on the grey background of the looking-glass, all was dark, empty, meaningless. and so it was not strange that, seeing before her a handsome, gently smiling face, she was conscious of bliss, of an unutterably sweet dream that could not be expressed in speech or on paper. then she heard his voice, saw herself living under the same roof with him, her life merged into his. months and years flew by against the grey background. and nellie saw her future distinctly in all its details. picture followed picture against the grey background. now nellie saw herself one winter night knocking at the door of stepan lukitch, the district doctor. the old dog hoarsely and lazily barked behind the gate. the doctor's windows were in darkness. all was silence. "for god's sake, for god's sake!" whispered nellie. but at last the garden gate creaked and nellie saw the doctor's cook. "is the doctor at home?" "his honour's asleep," whispered the cook into her sleeve, as though afraid of waking her master. "he's only just got home from his fever patients, and gave orders he was not to be waked." but nellie scarcely heard the cook. thrusting her aside, she rushed headlong into the doctor's house. running through some dark and stuffy rooms, upsetting two or three chairs, she at last reached the doctor's bedroom. stepan lukitch was lying on his bed, dressed, but without his coat, and with pouting lips was breathing into his open hand. a little night-light glimmered faintly beside him. without uttering a word nellie sat down and began to cry. she wept bitterly, shaking all over. "my husband is ill!" she sobbed out. stepan lukitch was silent. he slowly sat up, propped his head on his hand, and looked at his visitor with fixed, sleepy eyes. "my husband is ill!" nellie continued, restraining her sobs. "for mercy's sake come quickly. make haste. . . . make haste!" "eh?" growled the doctor, blowing into his hand. "come! come this very minute! or . . . it's terrible to think! for mercy's sake!" and pale, exhausted nellie, gasping and swallowing her tears, began describing to the doctor her husband's illness, her unutterable terror. her sufferings would have touched the heart of a stone, but the doctor looked at her, blew into his open hand, and--not a movement. "i'll come to-morrow!" he muttered. "that's impossible!" cried nellie. "i know my husband has typhus! at once . . . this very minute you are needed!" "i . . . er . . . have only just come in," muttered the doctor. "for the last three days i've been away, seeing typhus patients, and i'm exhausted and ill myself. . . . i simply can't! absolutely! i've caught it myself! there!" and the doctor thrust before her eyes a clinical thermometer. "my temperature is nearly forty. . . . i absolutely can't. i can scarcely sit up. excuse me. i'll lie down. . . ." the doctor lay down. "but i implore you, doctor," nellie moaned in despair. "i beseech you! help me, for mercy's sake! make a great effort and come! i will repay you, doctor!" "oh, dear! . . . why, i have told you already. ah!" nellie leapt up and walked nervously up and down the bedroom. she longed to explain to the doctor, to bring him to reason. . . . she thought if only he knew how dear her husband was to her and how unhappy she was, he would forget his exhaustion and his illness. but how could she be eloquent enough? "go to the zemstvo doctor," she heard stepan lukitch's voice. "that's impossible! he lives more than twenty miles from here, and time is precious. and the horses can't stand it. it is thirty miles from us to you, and as much from here to the zemstvo doctor. no, it's impossible! come along, stepan lukitch. i ask of you an heroic deed. come, perform that heroic deed! have pity on us!" "it's beyond everything. . . . i'm in a fever . . . my head's in a whirl . . . and she won't understand! leave me alone!" "but you are in duty bound to come! you cannot refuse to come! it's egoism! a man is bound to sacrifice his life for his neighbour, and you . . . you refuse to come! i will summon you before the court." nellie felt that she was uttering a false and undeserved insult, but for her husband's sake she was capable of forgetting logic, tact, sympathy for others. . . . in reply to her threats, the doctor greedily gulped a glass of cold water. nellie fell to entreating and imploring like the very lowest beggar. . . . at last the doctor gave way. he slowly got up, puffing and panting, looking for his coat. "here it is!" cried nellie, helping him. "let me put it on to you. come along! i will repay you. . . . all my life i shall be grateful to you. . . ." but what agony! after putting on his coat the doctor lay down again. nellie got him up and dragged him to the hall. then there was an agonizing to-do over his goloshes, his overcoat. . . . his cap was lost. . . . but at last nellie was in the carriage with the doctor. now they had only to drive thirty miles and her husband would have a doctor's help. the earth was wrapped in darkness. one could not see one's hand before one's face. . . . a cold winter wind was blowing. there were frozen lumps under their wheels. the coachman was continually stopping and wondering which road to take. nellie and the doctor sat silent all the way. it was fearfully jolting, but they felt neither the cold nor the jolts. "get on, get on!" nellie implored the driver. at five in the morning the exhausted horses drove into the yard. nellie saw the familiar gates, the well with the crane, the long row of stables and barns. at last she was at home. "wait a moment, i will be back directly," she said to stepan lukitch, making him sit down on the sofa in the dining-room. "sit still and wait a little, and i'll see how he is going on." on her return from her husband, nellie found the doctor lying down. he was lying on the sofa and muttering. "doctor, please! . . . doctor!" "eh? ask domna!" muttered stepan lukitch. "what?" "they said at the meeting . . . vlassov said . . . who? . . . what?" and to her horror nellie saw that the doctor was as delirious as her husband. what was to be done? "i must go for the zemstvo doctor," she decided. then again there followed darkness, a cutting cold wind, lumps of frozen earth. she was suffering in body and in soul, and delusive nature has no arts, no deceptions to compensate these sufferings. . . . then she saw against the grey background how her husband every spring was in straits for money to pay the interest for the mortgage to the bank. he could not sleep, she could not sleep, and both racked their brains till their heads ached, thinking how to avoid being visited by the clerk of the court. she saw her children: the everlasting apprehension of colds, scarlet fever, diphtheria, bad marks at school, separation. out of a brood of five or six one was sure to die. the grey background was not untouched by death. that might well be. a husband and wife cannot die simultaneously. whatever happened one must bury the other. and nellie saw her husband dying. this terrible event presented itself to her in every detail. she saw the coffin, the candles, the deacon, and even the footmarks in the hall made by the undertaker. "why is it, what is it for?" she asked, looking blankly at her husband's face. and all the previous life with her husband seemed to her a stupid prelude to this. something fell from nellie's hand and knocked on the floor. she started, jumped up, and opened her eyes wide. one looking-glass she saw lying at her feet. the other was standing as before on the table. she looked into the looking-glass and saw a pale, tear-stained face. there was no grey background now. "i must have fallen asleep," she thought with a sigh of relief. old age uzelkov, an architect with the rank of civil councillor, arrived in his native town, to which he had been invited to restore the church in the cemetery. he had been born in the town, had been at school, had grown up and married in it. but when he got out of the train he scarcely recognized it. everything was changed. . . . eighteen years ago when he had moved to petersburg the street-boys used to catch marmots, for instance, on the spot where now the station was standing; now when one drove into the chief street, a hotel of four storeys stood facing one; in old days there was an ugly grey fence just there; but nothing--neither fences nor houses--had changed as much as the people. from his enquiries of the hotel waiter uzelkov learned that more than half of the people he remembered were dead, reduced to poverty, forgotten. "and do you remember uzelkov?" he asked the old waiter about himself. "uzelkov the architect who divorced his wife? he used to have a house in svirebeyevsky street . . . you must remember." "i don't remember, sir." "how is it you don't remember? the case made a lot of noise, even the cabmen all knew about it. think, now! shapkin the attorney managed my divorce for me, the rascal . . . the notorious cardsharper, the fellow who got a thrashing at the club. . . ." "ivan nikolaitch?" "yes, yes. . . . well, is he alive? is he dead?" "alive, sir, thank god. he is a notary now and has an office. he is very well off. he has two houses in kirpitchny street. . . . his daughter was married the other day." uzelkov paced up and down the room, thought a bit, and in his boredom made up his mind to go and see shapkin at his office. when he walked out of the hotel and sauntered slowly towards kirpitchny street it was midday. he found shapkin at his office and scarcely recognized him. from the once well-made, adroit attorney with a mobile, insolent, and always drunken face shapkin had changed into a modest, grey-headed, decrepit old man. "you don't recognize me, you have forgotten me," began uzelkov. "i am your old client, uzelkov." "uzelkov, what uzelkov? ah!" shapkin remembered, recognized, and was struck all of a heap. there followed a shower of exclamations, questions, recollections. "this is a surprise! this is unexpected!" cackled shapkin. "what can i offer you? do you care for champagne? perhaps you would like oysters? my dear fellow, i have had so much from you in my time that i can't offer you anything equal to the occasion. . . ." "please don't put yourself out . . ." said uzelkov. "i have no time to spare. i must go at once to the cemetery and examine the church; i have undertaken the restoration of it." "that's capital! we'll have a snack and a drink and drive together. i have capital horses. i'll take you there and introduce you to the church-warden; i will arrange it all. . . . but why is it, my angel, you seem to be afraid of me and hold me at arm's length? sit a little nearer! there is no need for you to be afraid of me nowadays. he-he! . . . at one time, it is true, i was a cunning blade, a dog of a fellow . . . no one dared approach me; but now i am stiller than water and humbler than the grass. i have grown old, i am a family man, i have children. it's time i was dead." the friends had lunch, had a drink, and with a pair of horses drove out of the town to the cemetery. "yes, those were times!" shapkin recalled as he sat in the sledge. "when you remember them you simply can't believe in them. do you remember how you divorced your wife? it's nearly twenty years ago, and i dare say you have forgotten it all; but i remember it as though i'd divorced you yesterday. good lord, what a lot of worry i had over it! i was a sharp fellow, tricky and cunning, a desperate character. . . . sometimes i was burning to tackle some ticklish business, especially if the fee were a good one, as, for instance, in your case. what did you pay me then? five or six thousand! that was worth taking trouble for, wasn't it? you went off to petersburg and left the whole thing in my hands to do the best i could, and, though sofya mihailovna, your wife, came only of a merchant family, she was proud and dignified. to bribe her to take the guilt on herself was difficult, awfully difficult! i would go to negotiate with her, and as soon as she saw me she called to her maid: 'masha, didn't i tell you not to admit that scoundrel?' well, i tried one thing and another. . . . i wrote her letters and contrived to meet her accidentally--it was no use! i had to act through a third person. i had a lot of trouble with her for a long time, and she only gave in when you agreed to give her ten thousand. . . . she couldn't resist ten thousand, she couldn't hold out. . . . she cried, she spat in my face, but she consented, she took the guilt on herself!" "i thought it was fifteen thousand she had from me, not ten," said uzelkov. "yes, yes . . . fifteen--i made a mistake," said shapkin in confusion. "it's all over and done with, though, it's no use concealing it. i gave her ten and the other five i collared for myself. i deceived you both. . . . it's all over and done with, it's no use to be ashamed. and indeed, judge for yourself, boris petrovitch, weren't you the very person for me to get money out of? . . . you were a wealthy man and had everything you wanted. . . . your marriage was an idle whim, and so was your divorce. you were making a lot of money. . . . i remember you made a scoop of twenty thousand over one contract. whom should i have fleeced if not you? and i must own i envied you. if you grabbed anything they took off their caps to you, while they would thrash me for a rouble and slap me in the face at the club. . . . but there, why recall it? it is high time to forget it." "tell me, please, how did sofya mihailovna get on afterwards?" "with her ten thousand? very badly. god knows what it was--she lost her head, perhaps, or maybe her pride and her conscience tormented her at having sold her honour, or perhaps she loved you; but, do you know, she took to drink. . . . as soon as she got her money she was off driving about with officers. it was drunkenness, dissipation, debauchery. . . . when she went to a restaurant with officers she was not content with port or anything light, she must have strong brandy, fiery stuff to stupefy her." "yes, she was eccentric. . . . i had a lot to put up with from her . . . sometimes she would take offence at something and begin being hysterical. . . . and what happened afterwards?" "one week passed and then another. . . . i was sitting at home, writing something. all at once the door opened and she walked in . . . drunk. 'take back your cursed money,' she said, and flung a roll of notes in my face. . . . so she could not keep it up. i picked up the notes and counted them. it was five hundred short of the ten thousand, so she had only managed to get through five hundred." "where did you put the money?" "it's all ancient history . . . there's no reason to conceal it now. . . . in my pocket, of course. why do you look at me like that? wait a bit for what will come later. . . . it's a regular novel, a pathological study. a couple of months later i was going home one night in a nasty drunken condition. . . . i lighted a candle, and lo and behold! sofya mihailovna was sitting on my sofa, and she was drunk, too, and in a frantic state--as wild as though she had run out of bedlam. 'give me back my money,' she said, 'i have changed my mind; if i must go to ruin i won't do it by halves, i'll have my fling! be quick, you scoundrel, give me my money!' a disgraceful scene!" "and you . . . gave it her?" "i gave her, i remember, ten roubles." "oh! how could you?" cried uzelkov, frowning. "if you couldn't or wouldn't have given it her, you might have written to me. . . . and i didn't know! i didn't know!" "my dear fellow, what use would it have been for me to write, considering that she wrote to you herself when she was lying in the hospital afterwards?" "yes, but i was so taken up then with my second marriage. i was in such a whirl that i had no thoughts to spare for letters. . . . but you were an outsider, you had no antipathy for sofya. . . why didn't you give her a helping hand? . . ." "you can't judge by the standards of to-day, boris petrovitch; that's how we look at it now, but at the time we thought very differently. . . . now maybe i'd give her a thousand roubles, but then even that ten-rouble note i did not give her for nothing. it was a bad business! . . . we must forget it. . . . but here we are. . . ." the sledge stopped at the cemetery gates. uzelkov and shapkin got out of the sledge, went in at the gate, and walked up a long, broad avenue. the bare cherry-trees and acacias, the grey crosses and tombstones, were silvered with hoar-frost, every little grain of snow reflected the bright, sunny day. there was the smell there always is in cemeteries, the smell of incense and freshly dug earth. . . . "our cemetery is a pretty one," said uzelkov, "quite a garden!" "yes, but it is a pity thieves steal the tombstones. . . . and over there, beyond that iron monument on the right, sofya mihailovna is buried. would you like to see?" the friends turned to the right and walked through the deep snow to the iron monument. "here it is," said shapkin, pointing to a little slab of white marble. "a lieutenant put the stone on her grave." uzelkov slowly took off his cap and exposed his bald head to the sun. shapkin, looking at him, took off his cap too, and another bald patch gleamed in the sunlight. there was the stillness of the tomb all around as though the air, too, were dead. the friends looked at the grave, pondered, and said nothing. "she sleeps in peace," said shapkin, breaking the silence. "it's nothing to her now that she took the blame on herself and drank brandy. you must own, boris petrovitch . . . ." "own what?" uzelkov asked gloomily. "why. . . . however hateful the past, it was better than this." and shapkin pointed to his grey head. "i used not to think of the hour of death. . . . i fancied i could have given death points and won the game if we had had an encounter; but now. . . . but what's the good of talking!" uzelkov was overcome with melancholy. he suddenly had a passionate longing to weep, as once he had longed for love, and he felt those tears would have tasted sweet and refreshing. a moisture came into his eyes and there was a lump in his throat, but . . . shapkin was standing beside him and uzelkov was ashamed to show weakness before a witness. he turned back abruptly and went into the church. only two hours later, after talking to the churchwarden and looking over the church, he seized a moment when shapkin was in conversation with the priest and hastened away to weep. . . . he stole up to the grave secretly, furtively, looking round him every minute. the little white slab looked at him pensively, mournfully, and innocently as though a little girl lay under it instead of a dissolute, divorced wife. "to weep, to weep!" thought uzelkov. but the moment for tears had been missed; though the old man blinked his eyes, though he worked up his feelings, the tears did not flow nor the lump come in his throat. after standing for ten minutes, with a gesture of despair, uzelkov went to look for shapkin. darkness a young peasant, with white eyebrows and eyelashes and broad cheekbones, in a torn sheepskin and big black felt overboots, waited till the zemstvo doctor had finished seeing his patients and came out to go home from the hospital; then he went up to him, diffidently. "please, your honour," he said. "what do you want?" the young man passed the palm of his hand up and over his nose, looked at the sky, and then answered: "please, your honour. . . . you've got my brother vaska the blacksmith from varvarino in the convict ward here, your honour. . . ." "yes, what then?" "i am vaska's brother, you see. . . . father has the two of us: him, vaska, and me, kirila; besides us there are three sisters, and vaska's a married man with a little one. . . . there are a lot of us and no one to work. . . . in the smithy it's nearly two years now since the forge has been heated. i am at the cotton factory, i can't do smith's work, and how can father work? let alone work, he can't eat properly, he can't lift the spoon to his mouth." "what do you want from me?" "be merciful! let vaska go!" the doctor looked wonderingly at kirila, and without saying a word walked on. the young peasant ran on in front and flung himself in a heap at his feet. "doctor, kind gentleman!" he besought him, blinking and again passing his open hand over his nose. "show heavenly mercy; let vaska go home! we shall remember you in our prayers for ever! your honour, let him go! they are all starving! mother's wailing day in, day out, vaska's wife's wailing . . . it's worse than death! i don't care to look upon the light of day. be merciful; let him go, kind gentleman!" "are you stupid or out of your senses?" asked the doctor angrily. "how can i let him go? why, he is a convict." kirila began crying. "let him go!" "tfoo, queer fellow! what right have i? am i a gaoler or what? they brought him to the hospital for me to treat him, but i have as much right to let him out as i have to put you in prison, silly fellow!" "but they have shut him up for nothing! he was in prison a year before the trial, and now there is no saying what he is there for. it would have been a different thing if he had murdered someone, let us say, or stolen horses; but as it is, what is it all about?" "very likely, but how do i come in?" "they shut a man up and they don't know themselves what for. he was drunk, your honour, did not know what he was doing, and even hit father on the ear and scratched his own cheek on a branch, and two of our fellows--they wanted some turkish tobacco, you see-began telling him to go with them and break into the armenian's shop at night for tobacco. being drunk, he obeyed them, the fool. they broke the lock, you know, got in, and did no end of mischief; they turned everything upside down, broke the windows, and scattered the flour about. they were drunk, that is all one can say! well, the constable turned up . . . and with one thing and another they took them off to the magistrate. they have been a whole year in prison, and a week ago, on the wednesday, they were all three tried in the town. a soldier stood behind them with a gun . . . people were sworn in. vaska was less to blame than any, but the gentry decided that he was the ringleader. the other two lads were sent to prison, but vaska to a convict battalion for three years. and what for? one should judge like a christian!" "i have nothing to do with it, i tell you again. go to the authorities." "i have been already! i've been to the court; i have tried to send in a petition--they wouldn't take a petition; i have been to the police captain, and i have been to the examining magistrate, and everyone says, 'it is not my business!' whose business is it, then? but there is no one above you here in the hospital; you do what you like, your honour." "you simpleton," sighed the doctor, "once the jury have found him guilty, not the governor, not even the minister, could do anything, let alone the police captain. it's no good your trying to do anything!" "and who judged him, then?" "the gentlemen of the jury. . . ." "they weren't gentlemen, they were our peasants! andrey guryev was one; aloshka huk was one." "well, i am cold talking to you. . . ." the doctor waved his hand and walked quickly to his own door. kirila was on the point of following him, but, seeing the door slam, he stopped. for ten minutes he stood motionless in the middle of the hospital yard, and without putting on his cap stared at the doctor's house, then he heaved a deep sigh, slowly scratched himself, and walked towards the gate. "to whom am i to go?" he muttered as he came out on to the road. "one says it is not his business, another says it is not his business. whose business is it, then? no, till you grease their hands you will get nothing out of them. the doctor says that, but he keeps looking all the while at my fist to see whether i am going to give him a blue note. well, brother, i'll go, if it has to be to the governor." shifting from one foot to the other and continually looking round him in an objectless way, he trudged lazily along the road and was apparently wondering where to go. . . . it was not cold and the snow faintly crunched under his feet. not more than half a mile in front of him the wretched little district town in which his brother had just been tried lay outstretched on the hill. on the right was the dark prison with its red roof and sentry-boxes at the corners; on the left was the big town copse, now covered with hoar-frost. it was still; only an old man, wearing a woman's short jacket and a huge cap, was walking ahead, coughing and shouting to a cow which he was driving to the town. "good-day, grandfather," said kirila, overtaking him. "good-day. . . ." "are you driving it to the market?" "no," the old man answered lazily. "are you a townsman?" they got into conversation; kirila told him what he had come to the hospital for, and what he had been talking about to the doctor. "the doctor does not know anything about such matters, that is a sure thing," the old man said to him as they were both entering the town; "though he is a gentleman, he is only taught to cure by every means, but to give you real advice, or, let us say, write out a petition for you--that he cannot do. there are special authorities to do that. you have been to the justice of the peace and to the police captain--they are no good for your business either." "where am i to go?" "the permanent member of the rural board is the chief person for peasants' affairs. go to him, mr. sineokov." "the one who is at zolotovo?" "why, yes, at zolotovo. he is your chief man. if it is anything that has to do with you peasants even the police captain has no authority against him." "it's a long way to go, old man. . . . i dare say it's twelve miles and may be more." "one who needs something will go seventy." "that is so. . . . should i send in a petition to him, or what?" "you will find out there. if you should have a petition the clerk will write you one quick enough. the permanent member has a clerk." after parting from the old man kirila stood still in the middle of the square, thought a little, and walked back out of the town. he made up his mind to go to zolotovo. five days later, as the doctor was on his way home after seeing his patients, he caught sight of kirila again in his yard. this time the young peasant was not alone, but with a gaunt, very pale old man who nodded his head without ceasing, like a pendulum, and mumbled with his lips. "your honour, i have come again to ask your gracious mercy," began kirila. "here i have come with my father. be merciful, let vaska go! the permanent member would not talk to me. he said: 'go away!'" "your honour," the old man hissed in his throat, raising his twitching eyebrows, "be merciful! we are poor people, we cannot repay your honour, but if you graciously please, kiryushka or vaska can repay you in work. let them work." "we will pay with work," said kirila, and he raised his hand above his head as though he would take an oath. "let him go! they are starving, they are crying day and night, your honour!" the young peasant bent a rapid glance on his father, pulled him by the sleeve, and both of them, as at the word of command, fell at the doctor's feet. the latter waved his hand in despair, and, without looking round, walked quickly in at his door. the beggar "kind sir, be so good as to notice a poor, hungry man. i have not tasted food for three days. i have not a five-kopeck piece for a night's lodging. i swear by god! for five years i was a village schoolmaster and lost my post through the intrigues of the zemstvo. i was the victim of false witness. i have been out of a place for a year now." skvortsov, a petersburg lawyer, looked at the speaker's tattered dark blue overcoat, at his muddy, drunken eyes, at the red patches on his cheeks, and it seemed to him that he had seen the man before. "and now i am offered a post in the kaluga province," the beggar continued, "but i have not the means for the journey there. graciously help me! i am ashamed to ask, but . . . i am compelled by circumstances." skvortsov looked at his goloshes, of which one was shallow like a shoe, while the other came high up the leg like a boot, and suddenly remembered. "listen, the day before yesterday i met you in sadovoy street," he said, "and then you told me, not that you were a village schoolmaster, but that you were a student who had been expelled. do you remember?" "n-o. no, that cannot be so!" the beggar muttered in confusion. "i am a village schoolmaster, and if you wish it i can show you documents to prove it." "that's enough lies! you called yourself a student, and even told me what you were expelled for. do you remember?" skvortsov flushed, and with a look of disgust on his face turned away from the ragged figure. "it's contemptible, sir!" he cried angrily. "it's a swindle! i'll hand you over to the police, damn you! you are poor and hungry, but that does not give you the right to lie so shamelessly!" the ragged figure took hold of the door-handle and, like a bird in a snare, looked round the hall desperately. "i . . . i am not lying," he muttered. "i can show documents." "who can believe you?" skvortsov went on, still indignant. "to exploit the sympathy of the public for village schoolmasters and students--it's so low, so mean, so dirty! it's revolting!" skvortsov flew into a rage and gave the beggar a merciless scolding. the ragged fellow's insolent lying aroused his disgust and aversion, was an offence against what he, skvortsov, loved and prized in himself: kindliness, a feeling heart, sympathy for the unhappy. by his lying, by his treacherous assault upon compassion, the individual had, as it were, defiled the charity which he liked to give to the poor with no misgivings in his heart. the beggar at first defended himself, protested with oaths, then he sank into silence and hung his head, overcome with shame. "sir!" he said, laying his hand on his heart, "i really was . . . lying! i am not a student and not a village schoolmaster. all that's mere invention! i used to be in the russian choir, and i was turned out of it for drunkenness. but what can i do? believe me, in god's name, i can't get on without lying--when i tell the truth no one will give me anything. with the truth one may die of hunger and freeze without a night's lodging! what you say is true, i understand that, but . . . what am i to do?" "what are you to do? you ask what are you to do?" cried skvortsov, going close up to him. "work--that's what you must do! you must work!" "work. . . . i know that myself, but where can i get work?" "nonsense. you are young, strong, and healthy, and could always find work if you wanted to. but you know you are lazy, pampered, drunken! you reek of vodka like a pothouse! you have become false and corrupt to the marrow of your bones and fit for nothing but begging and lying! if you do graciously condescend to take work, you must have a job in an office, in the russian choir, or as a billiard-marker, where you will have a salary and have nothing to do! but how would you like to undertake manual labour? i'll be bound, you wouldn't be a house porter or a factory hand! you are too genteel for that!" "what things you say, really . . ." said the beggar, and he gave a bitter smile. "how can i get manual work? it's rather late for me to be a shopman, for in trade one has to begin from a boy; no one would take me as a house porter, because i am not of that class . . . . and i could not get work in a factory; one must know a trade, and i know nothing." "nonsense! you always find some justification! wouldn't you like to chop wood?" "i would not refuse to, but the regular woodchoppers are out of work now." "oh, all idlers argue like that! as soon as you are offered anything you refuse it. would you care to chop wood for me?" "certainly i will. . ." "very good, we shall see. . . . excellent. we'll see!" skvortsov, in nervous haste; and not without malignant pleasure, rubbing his hands, summoned his cook from the kitchen. "here, olga," he said to her, "take this gentleman to the shed and let him chop some wood." the beggar shrugged his shoulders as though puzzled, and irresolutely followed the cook. it was evident from his demeanour that he had consented to go and chop wood, not because he was hungry and wanted to earn money, but simply from shame and _amour propre_, because he had been taken at his word. it was clear, too, that he was suffering from the effects of vodka, that he was unwell, and felt not the faintest inclination to work. skvortsov hurried into the dining-room. there from the window which looked out into the yard he could see the woodshed and everything that happened in the yard. standing at the window, skvortsov saw the cook and the beggar come by the back way into the yard and go through the muddy snow to the woodshed. olga scrutinized her companion angrily, and jerking her elbow unlocked the woodshed and angrily banged the door open. "most likely we interrupted the woman drinking her coffee," thought skvortsov. "what a cross creature she is!" then he saw the pseudo-schoolmaster and pseudo-student seat himself on a block of wood, and, leaning his red cheeks upon his fists, sink into thought. the cook flung an axe at his feet, spat angrily on the ground, and, judging by the expression of her lips, began abusing him. the beggar drew a log of wood towards him irresolutely, set it up between his feet, and diffidently drew the axe across it. the log toppled and fell over. the beggar drew it towards him, breathed on his frozen hands, and again drew the axe along it as cautiously as though he were afraid of its hitting his golosh or chopping off his fingers. the log fell over again. skvortsov's wrath had passed off by now, he felt sore and ashamed at the thought that he had forced a pampered, drunken, and perhaps sick man to do hard, rough work in the cold. "never mind, let him go on . . ." he thought, going from the dining-room into his study. "i am doing it for his good!" an hour later olga appeared and announced that the wood had been chopped up. "here, give him half a rouble," said skvortsov. "if he likes, let him come and chop wood on the first of every month. . . . there will always be work for him." on the first of the month the beggar turned up and again earned half a rouble, though he could hardly stand. from that time forward he took to turning up frequently, and work was always found for him: sometimes he would sweep the snow into heaps, or clear up the shed, at another he used to beat the rugs and the mattresses. he always received thirty to forty kopecks for his work, and on one occasion an old pair of trousers was sent out to him. when he moved, skvortsov engaged him to assist in packing and moving the furniture. on this occasion the beggar was sober, gloomy, and silent; he scarcely touched the furniture, walked with hanging head behind the furniture vans, and did not even try to appear busy; he merely shivered with the cold, and was overcome with confusion when the men with the vans laughed at his idleness, feebleness, and ragged coat that had once been a gentleman's. after the removal skvortsov sent for him. "well, i see my words have had an effect upon you," he said, giving him a rouble. "this is for your work. i see that you are sober and not disinclined to work. what is your name?" "lushkov." "i can offer you better work, not so rough, lushkov. can you write?" "yes, sir." "then go with this note to-morrow to my colleague and he will give you some copying to do. work, don't drink, and don't forget what i said to you. good-bye." skvortsov, pleased that he had put a man in the path of rectitude, patted lushkov genially on the shoulder, and even shook hands with him at parting. lushkov took the letter, departed, and from that time forward did not come to the back-yard for work. two years passed. one day as skvortsov was standing at the ticket-office of a theatre, paying for his ticket, he saw beside him a little man with a lambskin collar and a shabby cat's-skin cap. the man timidly asked the clerk for a gallery ticket and paid for it with kopecks. "lushkov, is it you?" asked skvortsov, recognizing in the little man his former woodchopper. "well, what are you doing? are you getting on all right?" "pretty well. . . . i am in a notary's office now. i earn thirty-five roubles." "well, thank god, that's capital. i rejoice for you. i am very, very glad, lushkov. you know, in a way, you are my godson. it was i who shoved you into the right way. do you remember what a scolding i gave you, eh? you almost sank through the floor that time. well, thank you, my dear fellow, for remembering my words." "thank you too," said lushkov. "if i had not come to you that day, maybe i should be calling myself a schoolmaster or a student still. yes, in your house i was saved, and climbed out of the pit." "i am very, very glad." "thank you for your kind words and deeds. what you said that day was excellent. i am grateful to you and to your cook, god bless that kind, noble-hearted woman. what you said that day was excellent; i am indebted to you as long as i live, of course, but it was your cook, olga, who really saved me." "how was that?" "why, it was like this. i used to come to you to chop wood and she would begin: 'ah, you drunkard! you god-forsaken man! and yet death does not take you!' and then she would sit opposite me, lamenting, looking into my face and wailing: 'you unlucky fellow! you have no gladness in this world, and in the next you will burn in hell, poor drunkard! you poor sorrowful creature!' and she always went on in that style, you know. how often she upset herself, and how many tears she shed over me i can't tell you. but what affected me most--she chopped the wood for me! do you know, sir, i never chopped a single log for you--she did it all! how it was she saved me, how it was i changed, looking at her, and gave up drinking, i can't explain. i only know that what she said and the noble way she behaved brought about a change in my soul, and i shall never forget it. it's time to go up, though, they are just going to ring the bell." lushkov bowed and went off to the gallery. a story without a title in the fifth century, just as now, the sun rose every morning and every evening retired to rest. in the morning, when the first rays kissed the dew, the earth revived, the air was filled with the sounds of rapture and hope; while in the evening the same earth subsided into silence and plunged into gloomy darkness. one day was like another, one night like another. from time to time a storm-cloud raced up and there was the angry rumble of thunder, or a negligent star fell out of the sky, or a pale monk ran to tell the brotherhood that not far from the monastery he had seen a tiger--and that was all, and then each day was like the next. the monks worked and prayed, and their father superior played on the organ, made latin verses, and wrote music. the wonderful old man possessed an extraordinary gift. he played on the organ with such art that even the oldest monks, whose hearing had grown somewhat dull towards the end of their lives, could not restrain their tears when the sounds of the organ floated from his cell. when he spoke of anything, even of the most ordinary things--for instance of the trees, of the wild beasts, or of the sea--they could not listen to him without a smile or tears, and it seemed that the same chords vibrated in his soul as in the organ. if he were moved to anger or abandoned himself to intense joy, or began speaking of something terrible or grand, then a passionate inspiration took possession of him, tears came into his flashing eyes, his face flushed, and his voice thundered, and as the monks listened to him they felt that their souls were spell-bound by his inspiration; at such marvellous, splendid moments his power over them was boundless, and if he had bidden his elders fling themselves into the sea, they would all, every one of them, have hastened to carry out his wishes. his music, his voice, his poetry in which he glorified god, the heavens and the earth, were a continual source of joy to the monks. it sometimes happened that through the monotony of their lives they grew weary of the trees, the flowers, the spring, the autumn, their ears were tired of the sound of the sea, and the song of the birds seemed tedious to them, but the talents of their father superior were as necessary to them as their daily bread. dozens of years passed by, and every day was like every other day, every night was like every other night. except the birds and the wild beasts, not one soul appeared near the monastery. the nearest human habitation was far away, and to reach it from the monastery, or to reach the monastery from it, meant a journey of over seventy miles across the desert. only men who despised life, who had renounced it, and who came to the monastery as to the grave, ventured to cross the desert. what was the amazement of the monks, therefore, when one night there knocked at their gate a man who turned out to be from the town, and the most ordinary sinner who loved life. before saying his prayers and asking for the father superior's blessing, this man asked for wine and food. to the question how he had come from the town into the desert, he answered by a long story of hunting; he had gone out hunting, had drunk too much, and lost his way. to the suggestion that he should enter the monastery and save his soul, he replied with a smile: "i am not a fit companion for you!" when he had eaten and drunk he looked at the monks who were serving him, shook his head reproachfully, and said: "you don't do anything, you monks. you are good for nothing but eating and drinking. is that the way to save one's soul? only think, while you sit here in peace, eat and drink and dream of beatitude, your neighbours are perishing and going to hell. you should see what is going on in the town! some are dying of hunger, others, not knowing what to do with their gold, sink into profligacy and perish like flies stuck in honey. there is no faith, no truth in men. whose task is it to save them? whose work is it to preach to them? it is not for me, drunk from morning till night as i am. can a meek spirit, a loving heart, and faith in god have been given you for you to sit here within four walls doing nothing?" the townsman's drunken words were insolent and unseemly, but they had a strange effect upon the father superior. the old man exchanged glances with his monks, turned pale, and said: "my brothers, he speaks the truth, you know. indeed, poor people in their weakness and lack of understanding are perishing in vice and infidelity, while we do not move, as though it did not concern us. why should i not go and remind them of the christ whom they have forgotten?" the townsman's words had carried the old man away. the next day he took his staff, said farewell to the brotherhood, and set off for the town. and the monks were left without music, and without his speeches and verses. they spent a month drearily, then a second, but the old man did not come back. at last after three months had passed the familiar tap of his staff was heard. the monks flew to meet him and showered questions upon him, but instead of being delighted to see them he wept bitterly and did not utter a word. the monks noticed that he looked greatly aged and had grown thinner; his face looked exhausted and wore an expression of profound sadness, and when he wept he had the air of a man who has been outraged. the monks fell to weeping too, and began with sympathy asking him why he was weeping, why his face was so gloomy, but he locked himself in his cell without uttering a word. for seven days he sat in his cell, eating and drinking nothing, weeping and not playing on his organ. to knocking at his door and to the entreaties of the monks to come out and share his grief with them he replied with unbroken silence. at last he came out. gathering all the monks around him, with a tear-stained face and with an expression of grief and indignation, he began telling them of what had befallen him during those three months. his voice was calm and his eyes were smiling while he described his journey from the monastery to the town. on the road, he told them, the birds sang to him, the brooks gurgled, and sweet youthful hopes agitated his soul; he marched on and felt like a soldier going to battle and confident of victory; he walked on dreaming, and composed poems and hymns, and reached the end of his journey without noticing it. but his voice quivered, his eyes flashed, and he was full of wrath when he came to speak of the town and of the men in it. never in his life had he seen or even dared to imagine what he met with when he went into the town. only then for the first time in his life, in his old age, he saw and understood how powerful was the devil, how fair was evil and how weak and faint-hearted and worthless were men. by an unhappy chance the first dwelling he entered was the abode of vice. some fifty men in possession of much money were eating and drinking wine beyond measure. intoxicated by the wine, they sang songs and boldly uttered terrible, revolting words such as a god-fearing man could not bring himself to pronounce; boundlessly free, self-confident, and happy, they feared neither god nor the devil, nor death, but said and did what they liked, and went whither their lust led them. and the wine, clear as amber, flecked with sparks of gold, must have been irresistibly sweet and fragrant, for each man who drank it smiled blissfully and wanted to drink more. to the smile of man it responded with a smile and sparkled joyfully when they drank it, as though it knew the devilish charm it kept hidden in its sweetness. the old man, growing more and more incensed and weeping with wrath, went on to describe what he had seen. on a table in the midst of the revellers, he said, stood a sinful, half-naked woman. it was hard to imagine or to find in nature anything more lovely and fascinating. this reptile, young, longhaired, dark-skinned, with black eyes and full lips, shameless and insolent, showed her snow-white teeth and smiled as though to say: "look how shameless, how beautiful i am." silk and brocade fell in lovely folds from her shoulders, but her beauty would not hide itself under her clothes, but eagerly thrust itself through the folds, like the young grass through the ground in spring. the shameless woman drank wine, sang songs, and abandoned herself to anyone who wanted her. then the old man, wrathfully brandishing his arms, described the horse-races, the bull-fights, the theatres, the artists' studios where they painted naked women or moulded them of clay. he spoke with inspiration, with sonorous beauty, as though he were playing on unseen chords, while the monks, petrified, greedily drank in his words and gasped with rapture. . . . after describing all the charms of the devil, the beauty of evil, and the fascinating grace of the dreadful female form, the old man cursed the devil, turned and shut himself up in his cell. . . . when he came out of his cell in the morning there was not a monk left in the monastery; they had all fled to the town. in trouble pyotr semyonitch, the bank manager, together with the book-keeper, his assistant, and two members of the board, were taken in the night to prison. the day after the upheaval the merchant avdeyev, who was one of the committee of auditors, was sitting with his friends in the shop saying: "so it is god's will, it seems. there is no escaping your fate. here to-day we are eating caviare and to-morrow, for aught we know, it will be prison, beggary, or maybe death. anything may happen. take pyotr semyonitch, for instance. . . ." he spoke, screwing up his drunken eyes, while his friends went on drinking, eating caviare, and listening. having described the disgrace and helplessness of pyotr semyonitch, who only the day before had been powerful and respected by all, avdeyev went on with a sigh: "the tears of the mouse come back to the cat. serve them right, the scoundrels! they could steal, the rooks, so let them answer for it!" "you'd better look out, ivan danilitch, that you don't catch it too!" one of his friends observed. "what has it to do with me?" "why, they were stealing, and what were you auditors thinking about? i'll be bound, you signed the audit." "it's all very well to talk!" laughed avdeyev: "signed it, indeed! they used to bring the accounts to my shop and i signed them. as though i understood! give me anything you like, i'll scrawl my name to it. if you were to write that i murdered someone i'd sign my name to it. i haven't time to go into it; besides, i can't see without my spectacles." after discussing the failure of the bank and the fate of pyotr semyonitch, avdeyev and his friends went to eat pie at the house of a friend whose wife was celebrating her name-day. at the name-day party everyone was discussing the bank failure. avdeyev was more excited than anyone, and declared that he had long foreseen the crash and knew two years before that things were not quite right at the bank. while they were eating pie he described a dozen illegal operations which had come to his knowledge. "if you knew, why did you not give information?" asked an officer who was present. "i wasn't the only one: the whole town knew of it," laughed avdeyev. "besides, i haven't the time to hang about the law courts, damn them!" he had a nap after the pie and then had dinner, then had another nap, then went to the evening service at the church of which he was a warden; after the service he went back to the name-day party and played preference till midnight. everything seemed satisfactory. but when avdeyev hurried home after midnight the cook, who opened the door to him, looked pale, and was trembling so violently that she could not utter a word. his wife, elizaveta trofimovna, a flabby, overfed woman, with her grey hair hanging loose, was sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room quivering all over, and vacantly rolling her eyes as though she were drunk. her elder son, vassily, a high-school boy, pale too, and extremely agitated, was fussing round her with a glass of water. "what's the matter?" asked avdeyev, and looked angrily sideways at the stove (his family was constantly being upset by the fumes from it). "the examining magistrate has just been with the police," answered vassily; "they've made a search." avdeyev looked round him. the cupboards, the chests, the tables--everything bore traces of the recent search. for a minute avdeyev stood motionless as though petrified, unable to understand; then his whole inside quivered and seemed to grow heavy, his left leg went numb, and, unable to endure his trembling, he lay down flat on the sofa. he felt his inside heaving and his rebellious left leg tapping against the back of the sofa. in the course of two or three minutes he recalled the whole of his past, but could not remember any crime deserving of the attention of the police. "it's all nonsense," he said, getting up. "they must have slandered me. to-morrow i must lodge a complaint of their having dared to do such a thing." next morning after a sleepless night avdeyev, as usual, went to his shop. his customers brought him the news that during the night the public prosecutor had sent the deputy manager and the head-clerk to prison as well. this news did not disturb avdeyev. he was convinced that he had been slandered, and that if he were to lodge a complaint to-day the examining magistrate would get into trouble for the search of the night before. between nine and ten o'clock he hurried to the town hall to see the secretary, who was the only educated man in the town council. "vladimir stepanitch, what's this new fashion?" he said, bending down to the secretary's ear. "people have been stealing, but how do i come in? what has it to do with me? my dear fellow," he whispered, "there has been a search at my house last night! upon my word! have they gone crazy? why touch me?" "because one shouldn't be a sheep," the secretary answered calmly. "before you sign you ought to look." "look at what? but if i were to look at those accounts for a thousand years i could not make head or tail of them! it's all greek to me! i am no book-keeper. they used to bring them to me and i signed them." "excuse me. apart from that you and your committee are seriously compromised. you borrowed nineteen thousand from the bank, giving no security." "lord have mercy upon us!" cried avdeyev in amazement. "i am not the only one in debt to the bank! the whole town owes it money. i pay the interest and i shall repay the debt. what next! and besides, to tell the honest truth, it wasn't i myself borrowed the money. pyotr semyonitch forced it upon me. 'take it,' he said, 'take it. if you don't take it,' he said, 'it means that you don't trust us and fight shy of us. you take it,' he said, 'and build your father a mill.' so i took it." "well, you see, none but children or sheep can reason like that. in any case, _signor_, you need not be anxious. you can't escape trial, of course, but you are sure to be acquitted." the secretary's indifference and calm tone restored avdeyev's composure. going back to his shop and finding friends there, he again began drinking, eating caviare, and airing his views. he almost forgot the police search, and he was only troubled by one circumstance which he could not help noticing: his left leg was strangely numb, and his stomach for some reason refused to do its work. that evening destiny dealt another overwhelming blow at avdeyev: at an extraordinary meeting of the town council all members who were on the staff of the bank, avdeyev among them, were asked to resign, on the ground that they were charged with a criminal offence. in the morning he received a request to give up immediately his duties as churchwarden. after that avdeyev lost count of the blows dealt him by fate, and strange, unprecedented days flitted rapidly by, one after another, and every day brought some new, unexpected surprise. among other things, the examining magistrate sent him a summons, and he returned home after the interview, insulted and red in the face. "he gave me no peace, pestering me to tell him why i had signed. i signed, that's all about it. i didn't do it on purpose. they brought the papers to the shop and i signed them. i am no great hand at reading writing." young men with unconcerned faces arrived, sealed up the shop, and made an inventory of all the furniture of the house. suspecting some intrigue behind this, and, as before, unconscious of any wrongdoing, avdeyev in his mortification ran from one government office to another lodging complaints. he spent hours together in waiting-rooms, composed long petitions, shed tears, swore. to his complaints the public prosecutor and the examining magistrate made the indifferent and rational reply: "come to us when you are summoned: we have not time to attend to you now." while others answered: "it is not our business." the secretary, an educated man, who, avdeyev thought, might have helped him, merely shrugged his shoulders and said: "it's your own fault. you shouldn't have been a sheep." the old man exerted himself to the utmost, but his left leg was still numb, and his digestion was getting worse and worse. when he was weary of doing nothing and was getting poorer and poorer, he made up his mind to go to his father's mill, or to his brother, and begin dealing in corn. his family went to his father's and he was left alone. the days flitted by, one after another. without a family, without a shop, and without money, the former churchwarden, an honoured and respected man, spent whole days going the round of his friends' shops, drinking, eating, and listening to advice. in the mornings and in the evenings, to while away the time, he went to church. looking for hours together at the ikons, he did not pray, but pondered. his conscience was clear, and he ascribed his position to mistake and misunderstanding; to his mind, it was all due to the fact that the officials and the examining magistrates were young men and inexperienced. it seemed to him that if he were to talk it over in detail and open his heart to some elderly judge, everything would go right again. he did not understand his judges, and he fancied they did not understand him. the days raced by, and at last, after protracted, harassing delays, the day of the trial came. avdeyev borrowed fifty roubles, and providing himself with spirit to rub on his leg and a decoction of herbs for his digestion, set off for the town where the circuit court was being held. the trial lasted for ten days. throughout the trial avdeyev sat among his companions in misfortune with the stolid composure and dignity befitting a respectable and innocent man who is suffering for no fault of his own: he listened and did not understand a word. he was in an antagonistic mood. he was angry at being detained so long in the court, at being unable to get lenten food anywhere, at his defending counsel's not understanding him, and, as he thought, saying the wrong thing. he thought that the judges did not understand their business. they took scarcely any notice of avdeyev, they only addressed him once in three days, and the questions they put to him were of such a character that avdeyev raised a laugh in the audience each time he answered them. when he tried to speak of the expenses he had incurred, of his losses, and of his meaning to claim his costs from the court, his counsel turned round and made an incomprehensible grimace, the public laughed, and the judge announced sternly that that had nothing to do with the case. the last words that he was allowed to say were not what his counsel had instructed him to say, but something quite different, which raised a laugh again. during the terrible hour when the jury were consulting in their room he sat angrily in the refreshment bar, not thinking about the jury at all. he did not understand why they were so long deliberating when everything was so clear, and what they wanted of him. getting hungry, he asked the waiter to give him some cheap lenten dish. for forty kopecks they gave him some cold fish and carrots. he ate it and felt at once as though the fish were heaving in a chilly lump in his stomach; it was followed by flatulence, heartburn, and pain. afterwards, as he listened to the foreman of the jury reading out the questions point by point, there was a regular revolution taking place in his inside, his whole body was bathed in a cold sweat, his left leg was numb; he did not follow, understood nothing, and suffered unbearably at not being able to sit or lie down while the foreman was reading. at last, when he and his companions were allowed to sit down, the public prosecutor got up and said something unintelligible, and all at once, as though they had sprung out of the earth, some police officers appeared on the scene with drawn swords and surrounded all the prisoners. avdeyev was told to get up and go. now he understood that he was found guilty and in charge of the police, but he was not frightened nor amazed; such a turmoil was going on in his stomach that he could not think about his guards. "so they won't let us go back to the hotel?" he asked one of his companions. "but i have three roubles and an untouched quarter of a pound of tea in my room there." he spent the night at the police station; all night he was aware of a loathing for fish, and was thinking about the three roubles and the quarter of a pound of tea. early in the morning, when the sky was beginning to turn blue, he was told to dress and set off. two soldiers with bayonets took him to prison. never before had the streets of the town seemed to him so long and endless. he walked not on the pavement but in the middle of the road in the muddy, thawing snow. his inside was still at war with the fish, his left leg was numb; he had forgotten his goloshes either in the court or in the police station, and his feet felt frozen. five days later all the prisoners were brought before the court again to hear their sentence. avdeyev learnt that he was sentenced to exile in the province of tobolsk. and that did not frighten nor amaze him either. he fancied for some reason that the trial was not yet over, that there were more adjournments to come, and that the final decision had not been reached yet. . . . he went on in the prison expecting this final decision every day. only six months later, when his wife and his son vassily came to say good-bye to him, and when in the wasted, wretchedly dressed old woman he scarcely recognized his once fat and dignified elizaveta trofimovna, and when he saw his son wearing a short, shabby reefer-jacket and cotton trousers instead of the high-school uniform, he realized that his fate was decided, and that whatever new "decision" there might be, his past would never come back to him. and for the first time since the trial and his imprisonment the angry expression left his face, and he wept bitterly. frost a "popular" fête with a philanthropic object had been arranged on the feast of epiphany in the provincial town of n----. they had selected a broad part of the river between the market and the bishop's palace, fenced it round with a rope, with fir-trees and with flags, and provided everything necessary for skating, sledging, and tobogganing. the festivity was organized on the grandest scale possible. the notices that were distributed were of huge size and promised a number of delights: skating, a military band, a lottery with no blank tickets, an electric sun, and so on. but the whole scheme almost came to nothing owing to the hard frost. from the eve of epiphany there were twenty-eight degrees of frost with a strong wind; it was proposed to put off the fête, and this was not done only because the public, which for a long while had been looking forward to the fête impatiently, would not consent to any postponement. "only think, what do you expect in winter but a frost!" said the ladies persuading the governor, who tried to insist that the fête should be postponed. "if anyone is cold he can go and warm himself." the trees, the horses, the men's beards were white with frost; it even seemed that the air itself crackled, as though unable to endure the cold; but in spite of that the frozen public were skating. immediately after the blessing of the waters and precisely at one o'clock the military band began playing. between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, when the festivity was at its height, the select society of the place gathered together to warm themselves in the governor's pavilion, which had been put up on the river-bank. the old governor and his wife, the bishop, the president of the local court, the head master of the high school, and many others, were there. the ladies were sitting in armchairs, while the men crowded round the wide glass door, looking at the skating. "holy saints!" said the bishop in surprise; "what flourishes they execute with their legs! upon my soul, many a singer couldn't do a twirl with his voice as those cut-throats do with their legs. aie! he'll kill himself!" "that's smirnov. . . . that's gruzdev . . ." said the head master, mentioning the names of the schoolboys who flew by the pavilion. "bah! he's all alive-oh!" laughed the governor. "look, gentlemen, our mayor is coming. . . . he is coming this way. . . . that's a nuisance, he will talk our heads off now." a little thin old man, wearing a big cap and a fur-lined coat hanging open, came from the opposite bank towards the pavilion, avoiding the skaters. this was the mayor of the town, a merchant, eremeyev by name, a millionaire and an old inhabitant of n----. flinging wide his arms and shrugging at the cold, he skipped along, knocking one golosh against the other, evidently in haste to get out of the wind. half-way he suddenly bent down, stole up to some lady, and plucked at her sleeve from behind. when she looked round he skipped away, and probably delighted at having succeeded in frightening her, went off into a loud, aged laugh. "lively old fellow," said the governor. "it's a wonder he's not skating." as he got near the pavilion the mayor fell into a little tripping trot, waved his hands, and, taking a run, slid along the ice in his huge golosh boots up to the very door. "yegor ivanitch, you ought to get yourself some skates!" the governor greeted him. "that's just what i am thinking," he answered in a squeaky, somewhat nasal tenor, taking off his cap. "i wish you good health, your excellency! your holiness! long life to all the other gentlemen and ladies! here's a frost! yes, it is a frost, bother it! it's deadly!" winking with his red, frozen eyes, yegor ivanitch stamped on the floor with his golosh boots and swung his arms together like a frozen cabman. "such a damnable frost, worse than any dog!" he went on talking, smiling all over his face. "it's a real affliction!" "it's healthy," said the governor; "frost strengthens a man and makes him vigorous. . . ." "though it may be healthy, it would be better without it at all," said the mayor, wiping his wedge-shaped beard with a red handkerchief. "it would be a good riddance! to my thinking, your excellency, the lord sends it us as a punishment--the frost, i mean. we sin in the summer and are punished in the winter. . . . yes!" yegor ivanitch looked round him quickly and flung up his hands. "why, where's the needful . . . to warm us up?" he asked, looking in alarm first at the governor and then at the bishop. "your excellency! your holiness! i'll be bound, the ladies are frozen too! we must have something, this won't do!" everyone began gesticulating and declaring that they had not come to the skating to warm themselves, but the mayor, heeding no one, opened the door and beckoned to someone with his crooked finger. a workman and a fireman ran up to him. "here, run off to savatin," he muttered, "and tell him to make haste and send here . . . what do you call it? . . . what's it to be? tell him to send a dozen glasses . . . a dozen glasses of mulled wine, the very hottest, or punch, perhaps. . . ." there was laughter in the pavilion. "a nice thing to treat us to!" "never mind, we will drink it," muttered the mayor; "a dozen glasses, then . . . and some benedictine, perhaps . . . and tell them to warm two bottles of red wine. . . . oh, and what for the ladies? well, you tell them to bring cakes, nuts . . . sweets of some sort, perhaps. . . . there, run along, look sharp!" the mayor was silent for a minute and then began again abusing the frost, banging his arms across his chest and thumping with his golosh boots. "no, yegor ivanitch," said the governor persuasively, "don't be unfair, the russian frost has its charms. i was reading lately that many of the good qualities of the russian people are due to the vast expanse of their land and to the climate, the cruel struggle for existence . . . that's perfectly true!" "it may be true, your excellency, but it would be better without it. the frost did drive out the french, of course, and one can freeze all sorts of dishes, and the children can go skating--that's all true! for the man who is well fed and well clothed the frost is only a pleasure, but for the working man, the beggar, the pilgrim, the crazy wanderer, it's the greatest evil and misfortune. it's misery, your holiness! in a frost like this poverty is twice as hard, and the thief is more cunning and evildoers more violent. there's no gainsaying it! i am turned seventy, i've a fur coat now, and at home i have a stove and rums and punches of all sorts. the frost means nothing to me now; i take no notice of it, i don't care to know of it, but how it used to be in old days, holy mother! it's dreadful to recall it! my memory is failing me with years and i have forgotten everything; my enemies, and my sins and troubles of all sorts--i forget them all, but the frost--ough! how i remember it! when my mother died i was left a little devil--this high--a homeless orphan . . . no kith nor kin, wretched, ragged, little clothes, hungry, nowhere to sleep--in fact, 'we have here no abiding city, but seek the one to come.' in those days i used to lead an old blind woman about the town for five kopecks a day . . . the frosts were cruel, wicked. one would go out with the old woman and begin suffering torments. my creator! first of all you would be shivering as in a fever, shrugging and dancing about. then your ears, your fingers, your feet, would begin aching. they would ache as though someone were squeezing them with pincers. but all that would have been nothing, a trivial matter, of no great consequence. the trouble was when your whole body was chilled. one would walk for three blessed hours in the frost, your holiness, and lose all human semblance. your legs are drawn up, there is a weight on your chest, your stomach is pinched; above all, there is a pain in your heart that is worse than anything. your heart aches beyond all endurance, and there is a wretchedness all over your body as though you were leading death by the hand instead of an old woman. you are numb all over, turned to stone like a statue; you go on and feel as though it were not you walking, but someone else moving your legs instead of you. when your soul is frozen you don't know what you are doing: you are ready to leave the old woman with no one to guide her, or to pull a hot roll from off a hawker's tray, or to fight with someone. and when you come to your night's lodging into the warmth after the frost, there is not much joy in that either! you lie awake till midnight, crying, and don't know yourself what you are crying for. . . ." "we must walk about the skating-ground before it gets dark," said the governor's wife, who was bored with listening. "who's coming with me?" the governor's wife went out and the whole company trooped out of the pavilion after her. only the governor, the bishop, and the mayor remained. "queen of heaven! and what i went through when i was a shopboy in a fish-shop!" yegor ivanitch went on, flinging up his arms so that his fox-lined coat fell open. "one would go out to the shop almost before it was light . . . by eight o'clock i was completely frozen, my face was blue, my fingers were stiff so that i could not fasten my buttons nor count the money. one would stand in the cold, turn numb, and think, 'lord, i shall have to stand like this right on till evening!' by dinner-time my stomach was pinched and my heart was aching. . . . yes! and i was not much better afterwards when i had a shop of my own. the frost was intense and the shop was like a mouse-trap with draughts blowing in all directions; the coat i had on was, pardon me, mangy, as thin as paper, threadbare. . . . one would be chilled through and through, half dazed, and turn as cruel as the frost oneself: i would pull one by the ear so that i nearly pulled the ear off; i would smack another on the back of the head; i'd glare at a customer like a ruffian, a wild beast, and be ready to fleece him; and when i got home in the evening and ought to have gone to bed, i'd be ill-humoured and set upon my family, throwing it in their teeth that they were living upon me; i would make a row and carry on so that half a dozen policemen couldn't have managed me. the frost makes one spiteful and drives one to drink." yegor ivanitch clasped his hands and went on: "and when we were taking fish to moscow in the winter, holy mother!" and spluttering as he talked, he began describing the horrors he endured with his shopmen when he was taking fish to moscow. . . . "yes," sighed the governor, "it is wonderful what a man can endure! you used to take wagon-loads of fish to moscow, yegor ivanitch, while i in my time was at the war. i remember one extraordinary instance. . . ." and the governor described how, during the last russo-turkish war, one frosty night the division in which he was had stood in the snow without moving for thirteen hours in a piercing wind; from fear of being observed the division did not light a fire, nor make a sound or a movement; they were forbidden to smoke. . . . reminiscences followed. the governor and the mayor grew lively and good-humoured, and, interrupting each other, began recalling their experiences. and the bishop told them how, when he was serving in siberia, he had travelled in a sledge drawn by dogs; how one day, being drowsy, in a time of sharp frost he had fallen out of the sledge and been nearly frozen; when the tunguses turned back and found him he was barely alive. then, as by common agreement, the old men suddenly sank into silence, sat side by side, and mused. "ech!" whispered the mayor; "you'd think it would be time to forget, but when you look at the water-carriers, at the schoolboys, at the convicts in their wretched gowns, it brings it all back! why, only take those musicians who are playing now. i'll be bound, there is a pain in their hearts; a pinch at their stomachs, and their trumpets are freezing to their lips. . . . they play and think: 'holy mother! we have another three hours to sit here in the cold.'" the old men sank into thought. they thought of that in man which is higher than good birth, higher than rank and wealth and learning, of that which brings the lowest beggar near to god: of the helplessness of man, of his sufferings and his patience. . . . meanwhile the air was turning blue . . . the door opened and two waiters from savatin's walked in, carrying trays and a big muffled teapot. when the glasses had been filled and there was a strong smell of cinnamon and clove in the air, the door opened again, and there came into the pavilion a beardless young policeman whose nose was crimson, and who was covered all over with frost; he went up to the governor, and, saluting, said: "her excellency told me to inform you that she has gone home." looking at the way the policeman put his stiff, frozen fingers to his cap, looking at his nose, his lustreless eyes, and his hood covered with white frost near the mouth, they all for some reason felt that this policeman's heart must be aching, that his stomach must feel pinched, and his soul numb. . . . "i say," said the governor hesitatingly, "have a drink of mulled wine!" "it's all right . . . it's all right! drink it up!" the mayor urged him, gesticulating; "don't be shy!" the policeman took the glass in both hands, moved aside, and, trying to drink without making any sound, began discreetly sipping from the glass. he drank and was overwhelmed with embarrassment while the old men looked at him in silence, and they all fancied that the pain was leaving the young policeman's heart, and that his soul was thawing. the governor heaved a sigh. "it's time we were at home," he said, getting up. "good-bye! i say," he added, addressing the policeman, "tell the musicians there to . . . leave off playing, and ask pavel semyonovitch from me to see they are given . . . beer or vodka." the governor and the bishop said good-bye to the mayor and went out of the pavilion. yegor ivanitch attacked the mulled wine, and before the policeman had finished his glass succeeded in telling him a great many interesting things. he could not be silent. a slander serge kapitonich ahineev, the writing master, was marrying his daughter to the teacher of history and geography. the wedding festivities were going off most successfully. in the drawing room there was singing, playing, and dancing. waiters hired from the club were flitting distractedly about the rooms, dressed in black swallow-tails and dirty white ties. there was a continual hubbub and din of conversation. sitting side by side on the sofa, the teacher of mathematics, tarantulov, the french teacher, pasdequoi, and the junior assessor of taxes, mzda, were talking hurriedly and interrupting one another as they described to the guests cases of persons being buried alive, and gave their opinions on spiritualism. none of them believed in spiritualism, but all admitted that there were many things in this world which would always be beyond the mind of man. in the next room the literature master, dodonsky, was explaining to the visitors the cases in which a sentry has the right to fire on passers-by. the subjects, as you perceive, were alarming, but very agreeable. persons whose social position precluded them from entering were looking in at the windows from the yard. just at midnight the master of the house went into the kitchen to see whether everything was ready for supper. the kitchen from floor to ceiling was filled with fumes composed of goose, duck, and many other odours. on two tables the accessories, the drinks and light refreshments, were set out in artistic disorder. the cook, marfa, a red-faced woman whose figure was like a barrel with a belt around it, was bustling about the tables. "show me the sturgeon, marfa," said ahineev, rubbing his hands and licking his lips. "what a perfume! i could eat up the whole kitchen. come, show me the sturgeon." marfa went up to one of the benches and cautiously lifted a piece of greasy newspaper. under the paper on an immense dish there reposed a huge sturgeon, masked in jelly and decorated with capers, olives, and carrots. ahineev gazed at the sturgeon and gasped. his face beamed, he turned his eyes up. he bent down and with his lips emitted the sound of an ungreased wheel. after standing a moment he snapped his fingers with delight and once more smacked his lips. "ah-ah! the sound of a passionate kiss. . . . who is it you're kissing out there, little marfa?" came a voice from the next room, and in the doorway there appeared the cropped head of the assistant usher, vankin. "who is it? a-a-h! . . . delighted to meet you! sergei kapitonich! you're a fine grandfather, i must say! _tête-à-tête_ with the fair sex--tette!" "i'm not kissing," said ahineev in confusion. "who told you so, you fool? i was only . . . i smacked my lips . . . in reference to . . . as an indication of . . . pleasure . . . at the sight of the fish." "tell that to the marines!" the intrusive face vanished, wearing a broad grin. ahineev flushed. "hang it!" he thought, "the beast will go now and talk scandal. he'll disgrace me to all the town, the brute." ahineev went timidly into the drawing-room and looked stealthily round for vankin. vankin was standing by the piano, and, bending down with a jaunty air, was whispering something to the inspector's sister-in-law, who was laughing. "talking about me!" thought ahineev. "about me, blast him! and she believes it . . . believes it! she laughs! mercy on us! no, i can't let it pass . . . i can't. i must do something to prevent his being believed. . . . i'll speak to them all, and he'll be shown up for a fool and a gossip." ahineev scratched his head, and still overcome with embarrassment, went up to pasdequoi. "i've just been in the kitchen to see after the supper," he said to the frenchman. "i know you are fond of fish, and i've a sturgeon, my dear fellow, beyond everything! a yard and a half long! ha, ha, ha! and, by the way . . . i was just forgetting. . . . in the kitchen just now, with that sturgeon . . . quite a little story! i went into the kitchen just now and wanted to look at the supper dishes. i looked at the sturgeon and i smacked my lips with relish . . . at the piquancy of it. and at the very moment that fool vankin came in and said: . . . 'ha, ha, ha! . . . so you're kissing here!' kissing marfa, the cook! what a thing to imagine, silly fool! the woman is a perfect fright, like all the beasts put together, and he talks about kissing! queer fish!" "who's a queer fish?" asked tarantulov, coming up. "why he, over there--vankin! i went into the kitchen . . ." and he told the story of vankin. ". . . he amused me, queer fish! i'd rather kiss a dog than marfa, if you ask me," added ahineev. he looked round and saw behind him mzda. "we were talking of vankin," he said. "queer fish, he is! he went into the kitchen, saw me beside marfa, and began inventing all sorts of silly stories. 'why are you kissing?' he says. he must have had a drop too much. 'and i'd rather kiss a turkeycock than marfa,' i said, 'and i've a wife of my own, you fool,' said i. he did amuse me!" "who amused you?" asked the priest who taught scripture in the school, going up to ahineev. "vankin. i was standing in the kitchen, you know, looking at the sturgeon. . . ." and so on. within half an hour or so all the guests knew the incident of the sturgeon and vankin. "let him tell away now!" thought ahineev, rubbing his hands. "let him! he'll begin telling his story and they'll say to him at once, 'enough of your improbable nonsense, you fool, we know all about it!'" and ahineev was so relieved that in his joy he drank four glasses too many. after escorting the young people to their room, he went to bed and slept like an innocent babe, and next day he thought no more of the incident with the sturgeon. but, alas! man proposes, but god disposes. an evil tongue did its evil work, and ahineev's strategy was of no avail. just a week later--to be precise, on wednesday after the third lesson--when ahineev was standing in the middle of the teacher's room, holding forth on the vicious propensities of a boy called visekin, the head master went up to him and drew him aside: "look here, sergei kapitonich," said the head master, "you must excuse me. . . . it's not my business; but all the same i must make you realize. . . . it's my duty. you see, there are rumors that you are romancing with that . . . cook. . . . it's nothing to do with me, but . . . flirt with her, kiss her . . . as you please, but don't let it be so public, please. i entreat you! don't forget that you're a schoolmaster." ahineev turned cold and faint. he went home like a man stung by a whole swarm of bees, like a man scalded with boiling water. as he walked home, it seemed to him that the whole town was looking at him as though he were smeared with pitch. at home fresh trouble awaited him. "why aren't you gobbling up your food as usual?" his wife asked him at dinner. "what are you so pensive about? brooding over your amours? pining for your marfa? i know all about it, mohammedan! kind friends have opened my eyes! o-o-o! . . . you savage!" and she slapped him in the face. he got up from the table, not feeling the earth under his feet, and without his hat or coat, made his way to vankin. he found him at home. "you scoundrel!" he addressed him. "why have you covered me with mud before all the town? why did you set this slander going about me?" "what slander? what are you talking about?" "who was it gossiped of my kissing marfa? wasn't it you? tell me that. wasn't it you, you brigand?" vankin blinked and twitched in every fibre of his battered countenance, raised his eyes to the icon and articulated, "god blast me! strike me blind and lay me out, if i said a single word about you! may i be left without house and home, may i be stricken with worse than cholera!" vankin's sincerity did not admit of doubt. it was evidently not he who was the author of the slander. "but who, then, who?" ahineev wondered, going over all his acquaintances in his mind and beating himself on the breast. "who, then?" who, then? we, too, ask the reader. minds in ferment _(from the annals of a town)_ the earth was like an oven. the afternoon sun blazed with such energy that even the thermometer hanging in the excise officer's room lost its head: it ran up to . and stopped there, irresolute. the inhabitants streamed with perspiration like overdriven horses, and were too lazy to mop their faces. two of the inhabitants were walking along the market-place in front of the closely shuttered houses. one was potcheshihin, the local treasury clerk, and the other was optimov, the agent, for many years a correspondent of the _son of the fatherland_ newspaper. they walked in silence, speechless from the heat. optimov felt tempted to find fault with the local authorities for the dust and disorder of the market-place, but, aware of the peace-loving disposition and moderate views of his companion, he said nothing. in the middle of the market-place potcheshihin suddenly halted and began gazing into the sky. "what are you looking at?" "those starlings that flew up. i wonder where they have settled. clouds and clouds of them. . . . if one were to go and take a shot at them, and if one were to pick them up . . . and if . . . they have settled in the father prebendary's garden!" "oh no! they are not in the father prebendary's, they are in the father deacon's. if you did have a shot at them from here you wouldn't kill anything. fine shot won't carry so far; it loses its force. and why should you kill them, anyway? they're birds destructive of the fruit, that's true; still, they're fowls of the air, works of the lord. the starling sings, you know. . . . and what does it sing, pray? a song of praise. . . . 'all ye fowls of the air, praise ye the lord.' no. i do believe they have settled in the father prebendary's garden." three old pilgrim women, wearing bark shoes and carrying wallets, passed noiselessly by the speakers. looking enquiringly at the gentlemen who were for some unknown reason staring at the father prebendary's house, they slackened their pace, and when they were a few yards off stopped, glanced at the friends once more, and then fell to gazing at the house themselves. "yes, you were right; they have settled in the father prebendary's," said optimov. "his cherries are ripe now, so they have gone there to peck them." from the garden gate emerged the father prebendary himself, accompanied by the sexton. seeing the attention directed upon his abode and wondering what people were staring at, he stopped, and he, too, as well as the sexton, began looking upwards to find out. "the father is going to a service somewhere, i suppose," said potcheshihin. "the lord be his succour!" some workmen from purov's factory, who had been bathing in the river, passed between the friends and the priest. seeing the latter absorbed in contemplation of the heavens and the pilgrim women, too, standing motionless with their eyes turned upwards, they stood still and stared in the same direction. a small boy leading a blind beggar and a peasant, carrying a tub of stinking fish to throw into the market-place, did the same. "there must be something the matter, i should think," said potcheshihin, "a fire or something. but there's no sign of smoke anywhere. hey! kuzma!" he shouted to the peasant, "what's the matter?" the peasant made some reply, but potcheshihin and optimov did not catch it. sleepy-looking shopmen made their appearance at the doors of all the shops. some plasterers at work on a warehouse near left their ladders and joined the workmen. the fireman, who was describing circles with his bare feet, on the watch-tower, halted, and, after looking steadily at them for a few minutes, came down. the watch-tower was left deserted. this seemed suspicious. "there must be a fire somewhere. don't shove me! you damned swine!" "where do you see the fire? what fire? pass on, gentlemen! i ask you civilly!" "it must be a fire indoors!" "asks us civilly and keeps poking with his elbows. keep your hands to yourself! though you are a head constable, you have no sort of right to make free with your fists!" "he's trodden on my corn! ah! i'll crush you!" "crushed? who's crushed? lads! a man's been crushed! "what's the meaning of this crowd? what do you want?" "a man's been crushed, please your honour!" "where? pass on! i ask you civilly! i ask you civilly, you blockheads!" "you may shove a peasant, but you daren't touch a gentleman! hands off!" "did you ever know such people? there's no doing anything with them by fair words, the devils! sidorov, run for akim danilitch! look sharp! it'll be the worse for you, gentlemen! akim danilitch is coming, and he'll give it to you! you here, parfen? a blind man, and at his age too! can't see, but he must be like other people and won't do what he's told. smirnov, put his name down!" "yes, sir! and shall i write down the men from purov's? that man there with the swollen cheek, he's from purov's works." "don't put down the men from purov's. it's purov's birthday to-morrow." the starlings rose in a black cloud from the father prebendary's garden, but potcheshihin and optimov did not notice them. they stood staring into the air, wondering what could have attracted such a crowd, and what it was looking at. akim danilitch appeared. still munching and wiping his lips, he cut his way into the crowd, bellowing: "firemen, be ready! disperse! mr. optimov, disperse, or it'll be the worse for you! instead of writing all kinds of things about decent people in the papers, you had better try to behave yourself more conformably! no good ever comes of reading the papers!" "kindly refrain from reflections upon literature!" cried optimov hotly. "i am a literary man, and i will allow no one to make reflections upon literature! though, as is the duty of a citizen, i respect you as a father and benefactor!" "firemen, turn the hose on them!" "there's no water, please your honour!" "don't answer me! go and get some! look sharp!" "we've nothing to get it in, your honour. the major has taken the fire-brigade horses to drive his aunt to the station." "disperse! stand back, damnation take you! is that to your taste? put him down, the devil!" "i've lost my pencil, please your honour!" the crowd grew larger and larger. there is no telling what proportions it might have reached if the new organ just arrived from moscow had not fortunately begun playing in the tavern close by. hearing their favourite tune, the crowd gasped and rushed off to the tavern. so nobody ever knew why the crowd had assembled, and potcheshihin and optimov had by now forgotten the existence of the starlings who were innocently responsible for the proceedings. an hour later the town was still and silent again, and only a solitary figure was to be seen--the fireman pacing round and round on the watch-tower. the same evening akim danilitch sat in the grocer's shop drinking _limonade gaseuse_ and brandy, and writing: "in addition to the official report, i venture, your excellency, to append a few supplementary observations of my own. father and benefactor! in very truth, but for the prayers of your virtuous spouse in her salubrious villa near our town, there's no knowing what might not have come to pass. what i have been through to-day i can find no words to express. the efficiency of krushensky and of the major of the fire brigade are beyond all praise! i am proud of such devoted servants of our country! as for me, i did all that a weak man could do, whose only desire is the welfare of his neighbour; and sitting now in the bosom of my family, with tears in my eyes i thank him who spared us bloodshed! in absence of evidence, the guilty parties remain in custody, but i propose to release them in a week or so. it was their ignorance that led them astray!" gone astray a country village wrapped in the darkness of night. one o'clock strikes from the belfry. two lawyers, called kozyavkin and laev, both in the best of spirits and a little unsteady on their legs, come out of the wood and turn towards the cottages. "well, thank god, we've arrived," says kozyavkin, drawing a deep breath. "tramping four miles from the station in our condition is a feat. i am fearfully done up! and, as ill-luck would have it, not a fly to be seen." "petya, my dear fellow. . . . i can't. . . . i feel like dying if i'm not in bed in five minutes." "in bed! don't you think it, my boy! first we'll have supper and a glass of red wine, and then you can go to bed. verotchka and i will wake you up. . . . ah, my dear fellow, it's a fine thing to be married! you don't understand it, you cold-hearted wretch! i shall be home in a minute, worn out and exhausted. . . . a loving wife will welcome me, give me some tea and something to eat, and repay me for my hard work and my love with such a fond and loving look out of her darling black eyes that i shall forget how tired i am, and forget the burglary and the law courts and the appeal division . . . . it's glorious!" "yes--i say, i feel as though my legs were dropping off, i can scarcely get along. . . . i am frightfully thirsty. . . ." "well, here we are at home." the friends go up to one of the cottages, and stand still under the nearest window. "it's a jolly cottage," said kozyavkin. "you will see to-morrow what views we have! there's no light in the windows. verotchka must have gone to bed, then; she must have got tired of sitting up. she's in bed, and must be worrying at my not having turned up." (he pushes the window with his stick, and it opens.) "plucky girl! she goes to bed without bolting the window." (he takes off his cape and flings it with his portfolio in at the window.) "i am hot! let us strike up a serenade and make her laugh!" (he sings.) "the moon floats in the midnight sky. . . . faintly stir the tender breezes . . . . faintly rustle in the treetops. . . . sing, sing, alyosha! verotchka, shall we sing you schubert's serenade?" (he sings.) his performance is cut short by a sudden fit of coughing. "tphoo! verotchka, tell aksinya to unlock the gate for us!" (a pause.) "verotchka! don't be lazy, get up, darling!" (he stands on a stone and looks in at the window.) "verotchka, my dumpling; verotchka, my poppet . . . my little angel, my wife beyond compare, get up and tell aksinya to unlock the gate for us! you are not asleep, you know. little wife, we are really so done up and exhausted that we're not in the mood for jokes. we've trudged all the way from the station! don't you hear? ah, hang it all!" (he makes an effort to climb up to the window and falls down.) "you know this isn't a nice trick to play on a visitor! i see you are just as great a schoolgirl as ever, vera, you are always up to mischief!" "perhaps vera stepanovna is asleep," says laev. "she isn't asleep! i bet she wants me to make an outcry and wake up the whole neighbourhood. i'm beginning to get cross, vera! ach, damn it all! give me a leg up, alyosha; i'll get in. you are a naughty girl, nothing but a regular schoolgirl. . . give me a hoist." puffing and panting, laev gives him a leg up, and kozyavkin climbs in at the window and vanishes into the darkness within. "vera!" laev hears a minute later, "where are you? . . . d--damnation! tphoo! i've put my hand into something! tphoo!" there is a rustling sound, a flapping of wings, and the desperate cackling of a fowl. "a nice state of things," laev hears. "vera, where on earth did these chickens come from? why, the devil, there's no end of them! there's a basket with a turkey in it. . . . it pecks, the nasty creature." two hens fly out of the window, and cackling at the top of their voices, flutter down the village street. "alyosha, we've made a mistake!" says kozyavkin in a lachrymose voice. "there are a lot of hens here. . . . i must have mistaken the house. confound you, you are all over the place, you cursed brutes!" "well, then, make haste and come down. do you hear? i am dying of thirst!" "in a minute. . . . i am looking for my cape and portfolio." "light a match." "the matches are in the cape. . . . i was a crazy idiot to get into this place. the cottages are exactly alike; the devil himself couldn't tell them apart in the dark. aie, the turkey's pecked my cheek, nasty creature!" "make haste and get out or they'll think we are stealing the chickens." "in a minute. . . . i can't find my cape anywhere. . . . there are lots of old rags here, and i can't tell where the cape is. throw me a match." "i haven't any." "we are in a hole, i must say! what am i to do? i can't go without my cape and my portfolio. i must find them." "i can't understand a man's not knowing his own cottage," says laev indignantly. "drunken beast. . . . if i'd known i was in for this sort of thing i would never have come with you. i should have been at home and fast asleep by now, and a nice fix i'm in here. . . . i'm fearfully done up and thirsty, and my head is going round." "in a minute, in a minute. . . . you won't expire." a big cock flies crowing over laev's head. laev heaves a deep sigh, and with a hopeless gesture sits down on a stone. he is beset with a burning thirst, his eyes are closing, his head drops forward. . . . five minutes pass, ten, twenty, and kozyavkin is still busy among the hens. "petya, will you be long?" "a minute. i found the portfolio, but i have lost it again." laev lays his head on his fists, and closes his eyes. the cackling of the fowls grows louder and louder. the inhabitants of the empty cottage fly out of the window and flutter round in circles, he fancies, like owls over his head. his ears ring with their cackle, he is overwhelmed with terror. "the beast!" he thinks. "he invited me to stay, promising me wine and junket, and then he makes me walk from the station and listen to these hens. . . ." in the midst of his indignation his chin sinks into his collar, he lays his head on his portfolio, and gradually subsides. weariness gets the upper hand and he begins to doze. "i've found the portfolio!" he hears kozyavkin cry triumphantly. "i shall find the cape in a minute and then off we go!" then through his sleep he hears the barking of dogs. first one dog barks, then a second, and a third. . . . and the barking of the dogs blends with the cackling of the fowls into a sort of savage music. someone comes up to laev and asks him something. then he hears someone climb over his head into the window, then a knocking and a shouting. . . . a woman in a red apron stands beside him with a lantern in her hand and asks him something. "you've no right to say so," he hears kozyavkin's voice. "i am a lawyer, a bachelor of laws--kozyavkin--here's my visiting card." "what do i want with your card?" says someone in a husky bass. "you've disturbed all my fowls, you've smashed the eggs! look what you've done. the turkey poults were to have come out to-day or to-morrow, and you've smashed them. what's the use of your giving me your card, sir?" "how dare you interfere with me! no! i won't have it!" "i am thirsty," thinks laev, trying to open his eyes, and he feels somebody climb down from the window over his head. "my name is kozyavkin! i have a cottage here. everyone knows me." "we don't know anyone called kozyavkin." "what are you saying? call the elder. he knows me." "don't get excited, the constable will be here directly. . . . we know all the summer visitors here, but i've never seen you in my life." "i've had a cottage in rottendale for five years." "whew! do you take this for the dale? this is sicklystead, but rottendale is farther to the right, beyond the match factory. it's three miles from here." "bless my soul! then i've taken the wrong turning!" the cries of men and fowls mingle with the barking of dogs, and the voice of kozyavkin rises above the chaos of confused sounds: "you shut up! i'll pay. i'll show you whom you have to deal with!" little by little the voices die down. laev feels himself being shaken by the shoulder. . . . an avenger shortly after finding his wife _in flagrante delicto_ fyodor fyodorovitch sigaev was standing in schmuck and co.'s, the gunsmiths, selecting a suitable revolver. his countenance expressed wrath, grief, and unalterable determination. "i know what i must do," he was thinking. "the sanctities of the home are outraged, honour is trampled in the mud, vice is triumphant, and therefore as a citizen and a man of honour i must be their avenger. first, i will kill her and her lover and then myself." he had not yet chosen a revolver or killed anyone, but already in imagination he saw three bloodstained corpses, broken skulls, brains oozing from them, the commotion, the crowd of gaping spectators, the post-mortem. . . . with the malignant joy of an insulted man he pictured the horror of the relations and the public, the agony of the traitress, and was mentally reading leading articles on the destruction of the traditions of the home. the shopman, a sprightly little frenchified figure with rounded belly and white waistcoat, displayed the revolvers, and smiling respectfully and scraping with his little feet observed: ". . . i would advise you, m'sieur, to take this superb revolver, the smith and wesson pattern, the last word in the science of firearms: triple-action, with ejector, kills at six hundred paces, central sight. let me draw your attention, m'sieu, to the beauty of the finish. the most fashionable system, m'sieu. we sell a dozen every day for burglars, wolves, and lovers. very correct and powerful action, hits at a great distance, and kills wife and lover with one bullet. as for suicide, m'sieu, i don't know a better pattern." the shopman pulled and cocked the trigger, breathed on the barrel, took aim, and affected to be breathless with delight. looking at his ecstatic countenance, one might have supposed that he would readily have put a bullet through his brains if he had only possessed a revolver of such a superb pattern as a smith-wesson. "and what price?" asked sigaev. "forty-five roubles, m'sieu." "mm! . . . that's too dear for me." "in that case, m'sieu, let me offer you another make, somewhat cheaper. here, if you'll kindly look, we have an immense choice, at all prices. . . . here, for instance, this revolver of the lefaucher pattern costs only eighteen roubles, but . . ." (the shopman pursed up his face contemptuously) ". . . but, m'sieu, it's an old-fashioned make. they are only bought by hysterical ladies or the mentally deficient. to commit suicide or shoot one's wife with a lefaucher revolver is considered bad form nowadays. smith-wesson is the only pattern that's correct style." "i don't want to shoot myself or to kill anyone," said sigaev, lying sullenly. "i am buying it simply for a country cottage . . . to frighten away burglars. . . ." "that's not our business, what object you have in buying it." the shopman smiled, dropping his eyes discreetly. "if we were to investigate the object in each case, m'sieu, we should have to close our shop. to frighten burglars lefaucher is not a suitable pattern, m'sieu, for it goes off with a faint, muffled sound. i would suggest mortimer's, the so-called duelling pistol. . . ." "shouldn't i challenge him to a duel?" flashed through sigaev's mind. "it's doing him too much honour, though. . . . beasts like that are killed like dogs. . . ." the shopman, swaying gracefully and tripping to and fro on his little feet, still smiling and chattering, displayed before him a heap of revolvers. the most inviting and impressive of all was the smith and wesson's. sigaev picked up a pistol of that pattern, gazed blankly at it, and sank into brooding. his imagination pictured how he would blow out their brains, how blood would flow in streams over the rug and the parquet, how the traitress's legs would twitch in her last agony. . . . but that was not enough for his indignant soul. the picture of blood, wailing, and horror did not satisfy him. he must think of something more terrible. "i know! i'll kill myself and him," he thought, "but i'll leave her alive. let her pine away from the stings of conscience and the contempt of all surrounding her. for a sensitive nature like hers that will be far more agonizing than death." and he imagined his own funeral: he, the injured husband, lies in his coffin with a gentle smile on his lips, and she, pale, tortured by remorse, follows the coffin like a niobe, not knowing where to hide herself to escape from the withering, contemptuous looks cast upon her by the indignant crowd. "i see, m'sieu, that you like the smith and wesson make," the shopman broke in upon his broodings. "if you think it too dear, very well, i'll knock off five roubles. . . . but we have other makes, cheaper." the little frenchified figure turned gracefully and took down another dozen cases of revolvers from the shelf. "here, m'sieu, price thirty roubles. that's not expensive, especially as the rate of exchange has dropped terribly and the customs duties are rising every hour. m'sieu, i vow i am a conservative, but even i am beginning to murmur. why, with the rate of exchange and the customs tariff, only the rich can purchase firearms. there's nothing left for the poor but tula weapons and phosphorus matches, and tula weapons are a misery! you may aim at your wife with a tula revolver and shoot yourself through the shoulder-blade." sigaev suddenly felt mortified and sorry that he would be dead, and would miss seeing the agonies of the traitress. revenge is only sweet when one can see and taste its fruits, and what sense would there be in it if he were lying in his coffin, knowing nothing about it? "hadn't i better do this?" he pondered. "i'll kill him, then i'll go to his funeral and look on, and after the funeral i'll kill myself. they'd arrest me, though, before the funeral, and take away my pistol. . . . and so i'll kill him, she shall remain alive, and i . . . for the time, i'll not kill myself, but go and be arrested. i shall always have time to kill myself. there will be this advantage about being arrested, that at the preliminary investigation i shall have an opportunity of exposing to the authorities and to the public all the infamy of her conduct. if i kill myself she may, with her characteristic duplicity and impudence, throw all the blame on me, and society will justify her behaviour and will very likely laugh at me. . . . if i remain alive, then . . ." a minute later he was thinking: "yes, if i kill myself i may be blamed and suspected of petty feeling. . . . besides, why should i kill myself? that's one thing. and for another, to shoot oneself is cowardly. and so i'll kill him and let her live, and i'll face my trial. i shall be tried, and she will be brought into court as a witness. . . . i can imagine her confusion, her disgrace when she is examined by my counsel! the sympathies of the court, of the press, and of the public will certainly be with me." while he deliberated the shopman displayed his wares, and felt it incumbent upon him to entertain his customer. "here are english ones, a new pattern, only just received," he prattled on. "but i warn you, m'sieu, all these systems pale beside the smith and wesson. the other day--as i dare say you have read--an officer bought from us a smith and wesson. he shot his wife's lover, and-would you believe it?--the bullet passed through him, pierced the bronze lamp, then the piano, and ricochetted back from the piano, killing the lap-dog and bruising the wife. a magnificent record redounding to the honour of our firm! the officer is now under arrest. he will no doubt be convicted and sent to penal servitude. in the first place, our penal code is quite out of date; and, secondly, m'sieu, the sympathies of the court are always with the lover. why is it? very simple, m'sieu. the judges and the jury and the prosecutor and the counsel for the defence are all living with other men's wives, and it'll add to their comfort that there will be one husband the less in russia. society would be pleased if the government were to send all the husbands to sahalin. oh, m'sieu, you don't know how it excites my indignation to see the corruption of morals nowadays. to love other men's wives is as much the regular thing to-day as to smoke other men's cigarettes and to read other men's books. every year our trade gets worse and worse--it doesn't mean that wives are more faithful, but that husbands resign themselves to their position and are afraid of the law and penal servitude." the shopman looked round and whispered: "and whose fault is it, m'sieu? the government's." "to go to sahalin for the sake of a pig like that--there's no sense in that either," sigaev pondered. "if i go to penal servitude it will only give my wife an opportunity of marrying again and deceiving a second husband. she would triumph. . . . and so i will leave _her_ alive, i won't kill myself, _him_ . . . i won't kill either. i must think of something more sensible and more effective. i will punish them with my contempt, and will take divorce proceedings that will make a scandal." "here, m'sieu, is another make," said the shopman, taking down another dozen from the shelf. "let me call your attention to the original mechanism of the lock." in view of his determination a revolver was now of no use to sigaev, but the shopman, meanwhile, getting more and more enthusiastic, persisted in displaying his wares before him. the outraged husband began to feel ashamed that the shopman should be taking so much trouble on his account for nothing, that he should be smiling, wasting time, displaying enthusiasm for nothing. "very well, in that case," he muttered, "i'll look in again later on . . . or i'll send someone." he didn't see the expression of the shopman's face, but to smooth over the awkwardness of the position a little he felt called upon to make some purchase. but what should he buy? he looked round the walls of the shop to pick out something inexpensive, and his eyes rested on a green net hanging near the door. "that's . . . what's that?" he asked. "that's a net for catching quails." "and what price is it?" "eight roubles, m'sieu." "wrap it up for me. . . ." the outraged husband paid his eight roubles, took the net, and, feeling even more outraged, walked out of the shop. the jeune premier yevgeny alexeyitch podzharov, the _jeune premier_, a graceful, elegant young man with an oval face and little bags under his eyes, had come for the season to one of the southern towns of russia, and tried at once to make the acquaintance of a few of the leading families of the place. "yes, signor," he would often say, gracefully swinging his foot and displaying his red socks, "an artist ought to act upon the masses, both directly and indirectly; the first aim is attained by his work on the stage, the second by an acquaintance with the local inhabitants. on my honour, _parole d'honneur_, i don't understand why it is we actors avoid making acquaintance with local families. why is it? to say nothing of dinners, name-day parties, feasts, _soirées fixes_, to say nothing of these entertainments, think of the moral influence we may have on society! is it not agreeable to feel one has dropped a spark in some thick skull? the types one meets! the women! _mon dieu_, what women! they turn one's head! one penetrates into some huge merchant's house, into the sacred retreats, and picks out some fresh and rosy little peach--it's heaven, _parole d'honneur!_" in the southern town, among other estimable families he made the acquaintance of that of a manufacturer called zybaev. whenever he remembers that acquaintance now he frowns contemptuously, screws up his eyes, and nervously plays with his watch-chain. one day--it was at a name-day party at zybaev's--the actor was sitting in his new friends' drawing-room and holding forth as usual. around him "types" were sitting in armchairs and on the sofa, listening affably; from the next room came feminine laughter and the sounds of evening tea. . . . crossing his legs, after each phrase sipping tea with rum in it, and trying to assume an expression of careless boredom, he talked of his stage triumphs. "i am a provincial actor principally," he said, smiling condescendingly, "but i have played in petersburg and moscow too. . . . by the way, i will describe an incident which illustrates pretty well the state of mind of to-day. at my benefit in moscow the young people brought me such a mass of laurel wreaths that i swear by all i hold sacred i did not know where to put them! _parole d'honneur!_ later on, at a moment when funds were short, i took the laurel wreaths to the shop, and . . . guess what they weighed. eighty pounds altogether. ha, ha! you can't think how useful the money was. artists, indeed, are often hard up. to-day i have hundreds, thousands, tomorrow nothing. . . . to-day i haven't a crust of bread, to-morrow i have oysters and anchovies, hang it all!" the local inhabitants sipped their glasses decorously and listened. the well-pleased host, not knowing how to make enough of his cultured and interesting visitor, presented to him a distant relative who had just arrived, one pavel ignatyevitch klimov, a bulky gentleman about forty, wearing a long frock-coat and very full trousers. "you ought to know each other," said zybaev as he presented klimov; "he loves theatres, and at one time used to act himself. he has an estate in the tula province." podzharov and klimov got into conversation. it appeared, to the great satisfaction of both, that the tula landowner lived in the very town in which the _jeune premier_ had acted for two seasons in succession. enquiries followed about the town, about common acquaintances, and about the theatre. . . . "do you know, i like that town awfully," said the jeune premier, displaying his red socks. "what streets, what a charming park, and what society! delightful society!" "yes, delightful society," the landowner assented. "a commercial town, but extremely cultured. . . . for instance, er-er-er . . . the head master of the high school, the public prosecutor . . . the officers. . . . the police captain, too, was not bad, a man, as the french say, enchanté, and the women, allah, what women!" "yes, the women . . . certainly. . . ." "perhaps i am partial; the fact is that in your town, i don't know why, i was devilishly lucky with the fair sex! i could write a dozen novels. to take this episode, for instance. . . . i was staying in yegoryevsky street, in the very house where the treasury is. . . ." "the red house without stucco?" "yes, yes . . . without stucco. . . . close by, as i remember now, lived a local beauty, varenka. . . ." "not varvara nikolayevna?" asked klimov, and he beamed with satisfaction. "she really is a beauty . . . the most beautiful girl in the town." "the most beautiful girl in the town! a classic profile, great black eyes . . . . and hair to her waist! she saw me in 'hamlet,' she wrote me a letter _à la_ pushkin's 'tatyana.' . . . i answered, as you may guess. . . ." podzharov looked round, and having satisfied himself that there were no ladies in the room, rolled his eyes, smiled mournfully, and heaved a sigh. "i came home one evening after a performance," he whispered, "and there she was, sitting on my sofa. there followed tears, protestations of love, kisses. . . . oh, that was a marvellous, that was a divine night! our romance lasted two months, but that night was never repeated. it was a night, parole d'honneur!" "excuse me, what's that?" muttered klimov, turning crimson and gazing open-eyed at the actor. "i know varvara nikolayevna well: she's my niece." podzharov was embarrassed, and he, too, opened his eyes wide. "how's this?" klimov went on, throwing up his hands. "i know the girl, and . . . and . . . i am surprised. . . ." "i am very sorry this has come up," muttered the actor, getting up and rubbing something out of his left eye with his little finger. "though, of course . . . of course, you as her uncle . . ." the other guests, who had hitherto been listening to the actor with pleasure and rewarding him with smiles, were embarrassed and dropped their eyes. "please, do be so good . . . take your words back . . ." said klimov in extreme embarrassment. "i beg you to do so!" "if . . . er-er-er . . . it offends you, certainly," answered the actor, with an undefined movement of his hand. "and confess you have told a falsehood." "i, no . . . er-er-er. . . . it was not a lie, but i greatly regret having spoken too freely. . . . and, in fact . . . i don't understand your tone!" klimov walked up and down the room in silence, as though in uncertainty and hesitation. his fleshy face grew more and more crimson, and the veins in his neck swelled up. after walking up and down for about two minutes he went up to the actor and said in a tearful voice: "no, do be so good as to confess that you told a lie about varenka! have the goodness to do so!" "it's queer," said the actor, with a strained smile, shrugging his shoulders and swinging his leg. "this is positively insulting!" "so you will not confess it?" "i do-on't understand!" "you will not? in that case, excuse me . . . i shall have to resort to unpleasant measures. either, sir, i shall insult you at once on the spot, or . . . if you are an honourable man, you will kindly accept my challenge to a duel. . . . we will fight!" "certainly!" rapped out the jeune premier, with a contemptuous gesture. "certainly." extremely perturbed, the guests and the host, not knowing what to do, drew klimov aside and began begging him not to get up a scandal. astonished feminine countenances appeared in the doorway. . . . the jeune premier turned round, said a few words, and with an air of being unable to remain in a house where he was insulted, took his cap and made off without saying good-bye. on his way home the jeune premier smiled contemptuously and shrugged his shoulders, but when he reached his hotel room and stretched himself on his sofa he felt exceedingly uneasy. "the devil take him!" he thought. "a duel does not matter, he won't kill me, but the trouble is the other fellows will hear of it, and they know perfectly well it was a yarn. it's abominable! i shall be disgraced all over russia. . . ." podzharov thought a little, smoked, and to calm himself went out into the street. "i ought to talk to this bully, ram into his stupid noddle that he is a blockhead and a fool, and that i am not in the least afraid of him. . . ." the jeune premier stopped before zybaev's house and looked at the windows. lights were still burning behind the muslin curtains and figures were moving about. "i'll wait for him!" the actor decided. it was dark and cold. a hateful autumn rain was drizzling as though through a sieve. podzharov leaned his elbow on a lamp-post and abandoned himself to a feeling of uneasiness. he was wet through and exhausted. at two o'clock in the night the guests began coming out of zybaev's house. the landowner from tula was the last to make his appearance. he heaved a sigh that could be heard by the whole street and scraped the pavement with his heavy overboots. "excuse me!" said the jeune premier, overtaking him. "one minute." klimov stopped. the actor gave a smile, hesitated, and began, stammering: "i . . . i confess . . . i told a lie." "no, sir, you will please confess that publicly," said klimov, and he turned crimson again. "i can't leave it like that. . . ." "but you see i am apologizing! i beg you . . . don't you understand? i beg you because you will admit a duel will make talk, and i am in a position. . . . my fellow-actors . . . goodness knows what they may think. . . ." the jeune premier tried to appear unconcerned, to smile, to stand erect, but his body would not obey him, his voice trembled, his eyes blinked guiltily, and his head drooped. for a good while he went on muttering something. klimov listened to him, thought a little, and heaved a sigh. "well, so be it," he said. "may god forgive you. only don't lie in future, young man. nothing degrades a man like lying . . . yes, indeed! you are a young man, you have had a good education. . . ." the landowner from tula, in a benignant, fatherly way, gave him a lecture, while the jeune premier listened and smiled meekly. . . . when it was over he smirked, bowed, and with a guilty step and a crestfallen air set off for his hotel. as he went to bed half an hour later he felt that he was out of danger and was already in excellent spirits. serene and satisfied that the misunderstanding had ended so satisfactorily, he wrapped himself in the bedclothes, soon fell asleep, and slept soundly till ten o'clock next morning. a defenceless creature in spite of a violent attack of gout in the night and the nervous exhaustion left by it, kistunov went in the morning to his office and began punctually seeing the clients of the bank and persons who had come with petitions. he looked languid and exhausted, and spoke in a faint voice hardly above a whisper, as though he were dying. "what can i do for you?" he asked a lady in an antediluvian mantle, whose back view was extremely suggestive of a huge dung-beetle. "you see, your excellency," the petitioner in question began, speaking rapidly, "my husband shtchukin, a collegiate assessor, was ill for five months, and while he, if you will excuse my saying so, was laid up at home, he was for no sort of reason dismissed, your excellency; and when i went for his salary they deducted, if you please, your excellency, twenty-four roubles thirty-six kopecks from his salary. 'what for?' i asked. 'he borrowed from the club fund,' they told me, 'and the other clerks had stood security for him.' how was that? how could he have borrowed it without my consent? it's impossible, your excellency. what's the reason of it? i am a poor woman, i earn my bread by taking in lodgers. i am a weak, defenceless woman . . . i have to put up with ill-usage from everyone and never hear a kind word. . ." the petitioner was blinking, and dived into her mantle for her handkerchief. kistunov took her petition from her and began reading it. "excuse me, what's this?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders. "i can make nothing of it. evidently you have come to the wrong place, madam. your petition has nothing to do with us at all. you will have to apply to the department in which your husband was employed." "why, my dear sir, i have been to five places already, and they would not even take the petition anywhere," said madame shtchukin. "i'd quite lost my head, but, thank goodness--god bless him for it--my son-in-law, boris matveyitch, advised me to come to you. 'you go to mr. kistunov, mamma: he is an influential man, he can do anything for you. . . .' help me, your excellency!" "we can do nothing for you, madame shtchukin. you must understand: your husband served in the army medical department, and our establishment is a purely private commercial undertaking, a bank. surely you must understand that!" kistunov shrugged his shoulders again and turned to a gentleman in a military uniform, with a swollen face. "your excellency," piped madame shtchukin in a pitiful voice, "i have the doctor's certificate that my husband was ill! here it is, if you will kindly look at it." "very good, i believe you," kistunov said irritably, "but i repeat it has nothing to do with us. it's queer and positively absurd! surely your husband must know where you are to apply?" "he knows nothing, your excellency. he keeps on: 'it's not your business! get away!'--that's all i can get out of him. . . . whose business is it, then? it's i have to keep them all!" kistunov again turned to madame shtchukin and began explaining to her the difference between the army medical department and a private bank. she listened attentively, nodded in token of assent, and said: "yes . . . yes . . . yes . . . i understand, sir. in that case, your excellency, tell them to pay me fifteen roubles at least! i agree to take part on account!" "ough!" sighed kistunov, letting his head drop back. "there's no making you see reason. do understand that to apply to us with such a petition is as strange as to send in a petition concerning divorce, for instance, to a chemist's or to the assaying board. you have not been paid your due, but what have we to do with it?" "your excellency, make me remember you in my prayers for the rest of my days, have pity on a lone, lorn woman," wailed madame shtchukin; "i am a weak, defenceless woman. . . . i am worried to death, i've to settle with the lodgers and see to my husband's affairs and fly round looking after the house, and i am going to church every day this week, and my son-in-law is out of a job. . . . i might as well not eat or drink. . . . i can scarcely keep on my feet. . . . i haven't slept all night. . . ." kistunov was conscious of the palpitation of his heart. with a face of anguish, pressing his hand on his heart, he began explaining to madame shtchukin again, but his voice failed him. "no, excuse me, i cannot talk to you," he said with a wave of his hand. "my head's going round. you are hindering us and wasting your time. ough! alexey nikolaitch," he said, addressing one of his clerks, "please will you explain to madame shtchukin?" kistunov, passing by all the petitioners, went to his private room and signed about a dozen papers while alexey nikolaitch was still engaged with madame shtchukin. as he sat in his room kistunov heard two voices: the monotonous, restrained bass of alexey nikolaitch and the shrill, wailing voice of madame shtchukin. "i am a weak, defenceless woman, i am a woman in delicate health," said madame shtchukin. "i look strong, but if you were to overhaul me there is not one healthy fibre in me. i can scarcely keep on my feet, and my appetite is gone. . . . i drank my cup of coffee this morning without the slightest relish. . . ." alexey nikolaitch explained to her the difference between the departments and the complicated system of sending in papers. he was soon exhausted, and his place was taken by the accountant. "a wonderfully disagreeable woman!" said kistunov, revolted, nervously cracking his fingers and continually going to the decanter of water. "she's a perfect idiot! she's worn me out and she'll exhaust them, the nasty creature! ough! . . . my heart is throbbing." half an hour later he rang his bell. alexey nikolaitch made his appearance. "how are things going?" kistunov asked languidly. "we can't make her see anything, pyotr alexandritch! we are simply done. we talk of one thing and she talks of something else." "i . . . i can't stand the sound of her voice. . . . i am ill . . . . i can't bear it." "send for the porter, pyotr alexandritch, let him put her out." "no, no," cried kistunov in alarm. "she will set up a squeal, and there are lots of flats in this building, and goodness knows what they would think of us. . . . do try and explain to her, my dear fellow. . . ." a minute later the deep drone of alexey nikolaitch's voice was audible again. a quarter of an hour passed, and instead of his bass there was the murmur of the accountant's powerful tenor. "re-mark-ably nasty woman," kistunov thought indignantly, nervously shrugging his shoulders. "no more brains than a sheep. i believe that's a twinge of the gout again. . . . my migraine is coming back. . . ." in the next room alexey nikolaitch, at the end of his resources, at last tapped his finger on the table and then on his own forehead. "the fact of the matter is you haven't a head on your shoulders," he said, "but this." "come, come," said the old lady, offended. "talk to your own wife like that. . . . you screw! . . . don't be too free with your hands." and looking at her with fury, with exasperation, as though he would devour her, alexey nikolaitch said in a quiet, stifled voice: "clear out." "wha-at?" squealed madame shtchukin. "how dare you? i am a weak, defenceless woman; i won't endure it. my husband is a collegiate assessor. you screw! . . . i will go to dmitri karlitch, the lawyer, and there will be nothing left of you! i've had the law of three lodgers, and i will make you flop down at my feet for your saucy words! i'll go to your general. your excellency, your excellency!" "be off, you pest," hissed alexey nikolaitch. kistunov opened his door and looked into the office. "what is it?" he asked in a tearful voice. madame shtchukin, as red as a crab, was standing in the middle of the room, rolling her eyes and prodding the air with her fingers. the bank clerks were standing round red in the face too, and, evidently harassed, were looking at each other distractedly. "your excellency," cried madame shtchukin, pouncing upon kistunov. "here, this man, he here . . . this man . . ." (she pointed to alexey nikolaitch) "tapped himself on the forehead and then tapped the table. . . . you told him to go into my case, and he's jeering at me! i am a weak, defenceless woman. . . . my husband is a collegiate assessor, and i am a major's daughter myself!" "very good, madam," moaned kistunov. "i will go into it . . . i will take steps. . . . go away . . . later!" "and when shall i get the money, your excellency? i need it to-day!" kistunov passed his trembling hand over his forehead, heaved a sigh, and began explaining again. "madam, i have told you already this is a bank, a private commercial establishment. . . . what do you want of us? and do understand that you are hindering us." madame shtchukin listened to him and sighed. "to be sure, to be sure," she assented. "only, your excellency, do me the kindness, make me pray for you for the rest of my life, be a father, protect me! if a medical certificate is not enough i can produce an affidavit from the police. . . . tell them to give me the money." everything began swimming before kistunov's eyes. he breathed out all the air in his lungs in a prolonged sigh and sank helpless on a chair. "how much do you want?" he asked in a weak voice. "twenty-four roubles and thirty-six kopecks." kistunov took his pocket-book out of his pocket, extracted a twenty-five rouble note and gave it to madame shtchukin. "take it and . . . and go away!" madame shtchukin wrapped the money up in her handkerchief, put it away, and pursing up her face into a sweet, mincing, even coquettish smile, asked: "your excellency, and would it be possible for my husband to get a post again?" "i am going . . . i am ill . . ." said kistunov in a weary voice. "i have dreadful palpitations." when he had driven home alexey nikolaitch sent nikita for some laurel drops, and, after taking twenty drops each, all the clerks set to work, while madame shtchukin stayed another two hours in the vestibule, talking to the porter and waiting for kistunov to return. . . . she came again next day. an enigmatic nature on the red velvet seat of a first-class railway carriage a pretty lady sits half reclining. an expensive fluffy fan trembles in her tightly closed fingers, a pince-nez keeps dropping off her pretty little nose, the brooch heaves and falls on her bosom, like a boat on the ocean. she is greatly agitated. on the seat opposite sits the provincial secretary of special commissions, a budding young author, who from time to time publishes long stories of high life, or "novelli" as he calls them, in the leading paper of the province. he is gazing into her face, gazing intently, with the eyes of a connoisseur. he is watching, studying, catching every shade of this exceptional, enigmatic nature. he understands it, he fathoms it. her soul, her whole psychology lies open before him. "oh, i understand, i understand you to your inmost depths!" says the secretary of special commissions, kissing her hand near the bracelet. "your sensitive, responsive soul is seeking to escape from the maze of ---- yes, the struggle is terrific, titanic. but do not lose heart, you will be triumphant! yes!" "write about me, voldemar!" says the pretty lady, with a mournful smile. "my life has been so full, so varied, so chequered. above all, i am unhappy. i am a suffering soul in some page of dostoevsky. reveal my soul to the world, voldemar. reveal that hapless soul. you are a psychologist. we have not been in the train an hour together, and you have already fathomed my heart." "tell me! i beseech you, tell me!" "listen. my father was a poor clerk in the service. he had a good heart and was not without intelligence; but the spirit of the age--of his environment--_vous comprenez?_--i do not blame my poor father. he drank, gambled, took bribes. my mother--but why say more? poverty, the struggle for daily bread, the consciousness of insignificance--ah, do not force me to recall it! i had to make my own way. you know the monstrous education at a boarding-school, foolish novel-reading, the errors of early youth, the first timid flutter of love. it was awful! the vacillation! and the agonies of losing faith in life, in oneself! ah, you are an author. you know us women. you will understand. unhappily i have an intense nature. i looked for happiness--and what happiness! i longed to set my soul free. yes. in that i saw my happiness!" "exquisite creature!" murmured the author, kissing her hand close to the bracelet. "it's not you i am kissing, but the suffering of humanity. do you remember raskolnikov and his kiss?" "oh, voldemar, i longed for glory, renown, success, like every--why affect modesty?--every nature above the commonplace. i yearned for something extraordinary, above the common lot of woman! and then--and then--there crossed my path--an old general--very well off. understand me, voldemar! it was self-sacrifice, renunciation! you must see that! i could do nothing else. i restored the family fortunes, was able to travel, to do good. yet how i suffered, how revolting, how loathsome to me were his embraces--though i will be fair to him--he had fought nobly in his day. there were moments--terrible moments--but i was kept up by the thought that from day to day the old man might die, that then i would begin to live as i liked, to give myself to the man i adore--be happy. there is such a man, voldemar, indeed there is!" the pretty lady flutters her fan more violently. her face takes a lachrymose expression. she goes on: "but at last the old man died. he left me something. i was free as a bird of the air. now is the moment for me to be happy, isn't it, voldemar? happiness comes tapping at my window, i had only to let it in--but--voldemar, listen, i implore you! now is the time for me to give myself to the man i love, to become the partner of his life, to help, to uphold his ideals, to be happy--to find rest--but--how ignoble, repulsive, and senseless all our life is! how mean it all is, voldemar. i am wretched, wretched, wretched! again there is an obstacle in my path! again i feel that my happiness is far, far away! ah, what anguish!--if only you knew what anguish!" "but what--what stands in your way? i implore you tell me! what is it?" "another old general, very well off----" the broken fan conceals the pretty little face. the author props on his fist his thought-heavy brow and ponders with the air of a master in psychology. the engine is whistling and hissing while the window curtains flush red with the glow of the setting sun. a happy man the passenger train is just starting from bologoe, the junction on the petersburg-moscow line. in a second-class smoking compartment five passengers sit dozing, shrouded in the twilight of the carriage. they had just had a meal, and now, snugly ensconced in their seats, they are trying to go to sleep. stillness. the door opens and in there walks a tall, lanky figure straight as a poker, with a ginger-coloured hat and a smart overcoat, wonderfully suggestive of a journalist in jules verne or on the comic stage. the figure stands still in the middle of the compartment for a long while, breathing heavily, screwing up his eyes and peering at the seats. "no, wrong again!" he mutters. "what the deuce! it's positively revolting! no, the wrong one again!" one of the passengers stares at the figure and utters a shout of joy: "ivan alexyevitch! what brings you here? is it you?" the poker-like gentleman starts, stares blankly at the passenger, and recognizing him claps his hands with delight. "ha! pyotr petrovitch," he says. "how many summers, how many winters! i didn't know you were in this train." "how are you getting on?" "i am all right; the only thing is, my dear fellow, i've lost my compartment and i simply can't find it. what an idiot i am! i ought to be thrashed!" the poker-like gentleman sways a little unsteadily and sniggers. "queer things do happen!" he continues. "i stepped out just after the second bell to get a glass of brandy. i got it, of course. well, i thought, since it's a long way to the next station, it would be as well to have a second glass. while i was thinking about it and drinking it the third bell rang. . . . i ran like mad and jumped into the first carriage. i am an idiot! i am the son of a hen!" "but you seem in very good spirits," observes pyotr petrovitch. "come and sit down! there's room and a welcome." "no, no. . . . i'm off to look for my carriage. good-bye!" "you'll fall between the carriages in the dark if you don't look out! sit down, and when we get to a station you'll find your own compartment. sit down!" ivan alexyevitch heaves a sigh and irresolutely sits down facing pyotr petrovitch. he is visibly excited, and fidgets as though he were sitting on thorns. "where are you travelling to?" pyotr petrovitch enquires. "i? into space. there is such a turmoil in my head that i couldn't tell where i am going myself. i go where fate takes me. ha-ha! my dear fellow, have you ever seen a happy fool? no? well, then, take a look at one. you behold the happiest of mortals! yes! don't you see something from my face?" "well, one can see you're a bit . . . a tiny bit so-so." "i dare say i look awfully stupid just now. ach! it's a pity i haven't a looking-glass, i should like to look at my counting-house. my dear fellow, i feel i am turning into an idiot, honour bright. ha-ha! would you believe it, i'm on my honeymoon. am i not the son of a hen?" "you? do you mean to say you are married?" "to-day, my dear boy. we came away straight after the wedding." congratulations and the usual questions follow. "well, you are a fellow!" laughs pyotr petrovitch. "that's why you are rigged out such a dandy." "yes, indeed. . . . to complete the illusion, i've even sprinkled myself with scent. i am over my ears in vanity! no care, no thought, nothing but a sensation of something or other . . . deuce knows what to call it . . . beatitude or something? i've never felt so grand in my life!" ivan alexyevitch shuts his eyes and waggles his head. "i'm revoltingly happy," he says. "just think; in a minute i shall go to my compartment. there on the seat near the window is sitting a being who is, so to say, devoted to you with her whole being. a little blonde with a little nose . . . little fingers. . . . my little darling! my angel! my little poppet! phylloxera of my soul! and her little foot! good god! a little foot not like our beetle-crushers, but something miniature, fairylike, allegorical. i could pick it up and eat it, that little foot! oh, but you don't understand! you're a materialist, of course, you begin analyzing at once, and one thing and another. you are cold-hearted bachelors, that's what you are! when you get married you'll think of me. 'where's ivan alexyevitch now?' you'll say. yes; so in a minute i'm going to my compartment. there she is waiting for me with impatience . . . in joyful anticipation of my appearance. she'll have a smile to greet me. i sit down beside her and take her chin with my two fingers." ivan alexyevitch waggles his head and goes off into a chuckle of delight. "then i lay my noddle on her shoulder and put my arm round her waist. around all is silence, you know . . . poetic twilight. i could embrace the whole world at such a moment. pyotr petrovitch, allow me to embrace you!" "delighted, i'm sure." the two friends embrace while the passengers laugh in chorus. and the happy bridegroom continues: "and to complete the idiocy, or, as the novelists say, to complete the illusion, one goes to the refreshment-room and tosses off two or three glasses. and then something happens in your head and your heart, finer than you can read of in a fairy tale. i am a man of no importance, but i feel as though i were limitless: i embrace the whole world!" the passengers, looking at the tipsy and blissful bridegroom, are infected by his cheerfulness and no longer feel sleepy. instead of one listener, ivan alexyevitch has now an audience of five. he wriggles and splutters, gesticulates, and prattles on without ceasing. he laughs and they all laugh. "gentlemen, gentlemen, don't think so much! damn all this analysis! if you want a drink, drink, no need to philosophize as to whether it's bad for you or not. . . . damn all this philosophy and psychology!" the guard walks through the compartment. "my dear fellow," the bridegroom addresses him, "when you pass through the carriage no. look out for a lady in a grey hat with a white bird and tell her i'm here!" "yes, sir. only there isn't a no. in this train; there's !" "well, , then! it's all the same. tell that lady, then, that her husband is all right!" ivan alexyevitch suddenly clutches his head and groans: "husband. . . . lady. . . . all in a minute! husband. . . . ha-ha! i am a puppy that needs thrashing, and here i am a husband! ach, idiot! but think of her! . . . yesterday she was a little girl, a midget . . . it s simply incredible!" "nowadays it really seems strange to see a happy man," observes one of the passengers; "one as soon expects to see a white elephant." "yes, and whose fault is it?" says ivan alexyevitch, stretching his long legs and thrusting out his feet with their very pointed toes. "if you are not happy it's your own fault! yes, what else do you suppose it is? man is the creator of his own happiness. if you want to be happy you will be, but you don't want to be! you obstinately turn away from happiness." "why, what next! how do you make that out?" "very simply. nature has ordained that at a certain stage in his life man should love. when that time comes you should love like a house on fire, but you won't heed the dictates of nature, you keep waiting for something. what's more, it's laid down by law that the normal man should enter upon matrimony. there's no happiness without marriage. when the propitious moment has come, get married. there's no use in shilly-shallying. . . . but you don't get married, you keep waiting for something! then the scriptures tell us that 'wine maketh glad the heart of man.' . . . if you feel happy and you want to feel better still, then go to the refreshment bar and have a drink. the great thing is not to be too clever, but to follow the beaten track! the beaten track is a grand thing!" "you say that man is the creator of his own happiness. how the devil is he the creator of it when a toothache or an ill-natured mother-in-law is enough to scatter his happiness to the winds? everything depends on chance. if we had an accident at this moment you'd sing a different tune." "stuff and nonsense!" retorts the bridegroom. "railway accidents only happen once a year. i'm not afraid of an accident, for there is no reason for one. accidents are exceptional! confound them! i don't want to talk of them! oh, i believe we're stopping at a station." "where are you going now?" asks pyotr petrovitch. "to moscow or somewhere further south? "why, bless you! how could i go somewhere further south, when i'm on my way to the north?" "but moscow isn't in the north." "i know that, but we're on our way to petersburg," says ivan alexyevitch. "we are going to moscow, mercy on us!" "to moscow? what do you mean?" says the bridegroom in amazement. "it's queer. . . . for what station did you take your ticket?" "for petersburg." "in that case i congratulate you. you've got into the wrong train." there follows a minute of silence. the bridegroom gets up and looks blankly round the company. "yes, yes," pyotr petrovitch explains. "you must have jumped into the wrong train at bologoe. . . . after your glass of brandy you succeeded in getting into the down-train." ivan alexyevitch turns pale, clutches his head, and begins pacing rapidly about the carriage. "ach, idiot that i am!" he says in indignation. "scoundrel! the devil devour me! whatever am i to do now? why, my wife is in that train! she's there all alone, expecting me, consumed by anxiety. ach, i'm a motley fool!" the bridegroom falls on the seat and writhes as though someone had trodden on his corns. "i am un-unhappy man!" he moans. "what am i to do, what am i to do?" "there, there!" the passengers try to console him. "it's all right . . . . you must telegraph to your wife and try to change into the petersburg express. in that way you'll overtake her." "the petersburg express!" weeps the bridegroom, the creator of his own happiness. "and how am i to get a ticket for the petersburg express? all my money is with my wife." the passengers, laughing and whispering together, make a collection and furnish the happy man with funds. a troublesome visitor in the low-pitched, crooked little hut of artyom, the forester, two men were sitting under the big dark ikon--artyom himself, a short and lean peasant with a wrinkled, aged-looking face and a little beard that grew out of his neck, and a well-grown young man in a new crimson shirt and big wading boots, who had been out hunting and come in for the night. they were sitting on a bench at a little three-legged table on which a tallow candle stuck into a bottle was lazily burning. outside the window the darkness of the night was full of the noisy uproar into which nature usually breaks out before a thunderstorm. the wind howled angrily and the bowed trees moaned miserably. one pane of the window had been pasted up with paper, and leaves torn off by the wind could be heard pattering against the paper. "i tell you what, good christian," said artyom in a hoarse little tenor half-whisper, staring with unblinking, scared-looking eyes at the hunter. "i am not afraid of wolves or bears, or wild beasts of any sort, but i am afraid of man. you can save yourself from beasts with a gun or some other weapon, but you have no means of saving yourself from a wicked man." "to be sure, you can fire at a beast, but if you shoot at a robber you will have to answer for it: you will go to siberia." "i've been forester, my lad, for thirty years, and i couldn't tell you what i have had to put up with from wicked men. there have been lots and lots of them here. the hut's on a track, it's a cart-road, and that brings them, the devils. every sort of ruffian turns up, and without taking off his cap or making the sign of the cross, bursts straight in upon one with: 'give us some bread, you old so-and-so.' and where am i to get bread for him? what claim has he? am i a millionaire to feed every drunkard that passes? they are half-blind with spite. . . . they have no cross on them, the devils . . . . they'll give you a clout on the ear and not think twice about it: 'give us bread!' well, one gives it. . . . one is not going to fight with them, the idols! some of them are two yards across the shoulders, and a great fist as big as your boot, and you see the sort of figure i am. one of them could smash me with his little finger. . . . well, one gives him bread and he gobbles it up, and stretches out full length across the hut with not a word of thanks. and there are some that ask for money. 'tell me, where is your money?' as though i had money! how should i come by it?" "a forester and no money!" laughed the hunter. "you get wages every month, and i'll be bound you sell timber on the sly." artyom took a timid sideway glance at his visitor and twitched his beard as a magpie twitches her tail. "you are still young to say a thing like that to me," he said. "you will have to answer to god for those words. whom may your people be? where do you come from?" "i am from vyazovka. i am the son of nefed the village elder." "you have gone out for sport with your gun. i used to like sport, too, when i was young. h'm! ah, our sins are grievous," said artyom, with a yawn. "it's a sad thing! there are few good folks, but villains and murderers no end--god have mercy upon us." "you seem to be frightened of me, too. . . ." "come, what next! what should i be afraid of you for? i see. . . . i understand. . . . you came in, and not just anyhow, but you made the sign of the cross, you bowed, all decent and proper. . . . i understand. . . . one can give you bread. . . . i am a widower, i don't heat the stove, i sold the samovar. . . . i am too poor to keep meat or anything else, but bread you are welcome to." at that moment something began growling under the bench: the growl was followed by a hiss. artyom started, drew up his legs, and looked enquiringly at the hunter. "it's my dog worrying your cat," said the hunter. "you devils!" he shouted under the bench. "lie down. you'll be beaten. i say, your cat's thin, mate! she is nothing but skin and bone." "she is old, it is time she was dead. . . . so you say you are from vyazovka?" "i see you don't feed her. though she's a cat she's a creature . . . every breathing thing. you should have pity on her!" "you are a queer lot in vyazovka," artyom went on, as though not listening. "the church has been robbed twice in one year. . . to think that there are such wicked men! so they fear neither man nor god! to steal what is the lord's! hanging's too good for them! in old days the governors used to have such rogues flogged." "however you punish, whether it is with flogging or anything else, it will be no good, you will not knock the wickedness out of a wicked man." "save and preserve us, queen of heaven!" the forester sighed abruptly. "save us from all enemies and evildoers. last week at volovy zaimishtchy, a mower struck another on the chest with his scythe . . . he killed him outright! and what was it all about, god bless me! one mower came out of the tavern . . . drunk. the other met him, drunk too." the young man, who had been listening attentively, suddenly started, and his face grew tense as he listened. "stay," he said, interrupting the forester. "i fancy someone is shouting." the hunter and the forester fell to listening with their eyes fixed on the window. through the noise of the forest they could hear sounds such as the strained ear can always distinguish in every storm, so that it was difficult to make out whether people were calling for help or whether the wind was wailing in the chimney. but the wind tore at the roof, tapped at the paper on the window, and brought a distinct shout of "help!" "talk of your murderers," said the hunter, turning pale and getting up. "someone is being robbed!" "lord have mercy on us," whispered the forester, and he, too, turned pale and got up. the hunter looked aimlessly out of window and walked up and down the hut. "what a night, what a night!" he muttered. "you can't see your hand before your face! the very time for a robbery. do you hear? there is a shout again." the forester looked at the ikon and from the ikon turned his eyes upon the hunter, and sank on to the bench, collapsing like a man terrified by sudden bad news. "good christian," he said in a tearful voice, "you might go into the passage and bolt the door. and we must put out the light." "what for?" "by ill-luck they may find their way here. . . . oh, our sins!" "we ought to be going, and you talk of bolting the door! you are a clever one! are you coming?" the hunter threw his gun over his shoulder and picked up his cap. "get ready, take your gun. hey, flerka, here," he called to his dog. "flerka!" a dog with long frayed ears, a mongrel between a setter and a house-dog, came out from under the bench. he stretched himself by his master's feet and wagged his tail. "why are you sitting there?" cried the hunter to the forester. "you mean to say you are not going?" "where?" "to help!" "how can i?" said the forester with a wave of his hand, shuddering all over. "i can't bother about it!" "why won't you come?" "after talking of such dreadful things i won't stir a step into the darkness. bless them! and what should i go for?" "what are you afraid of? haven't you got a gun? let us go, please do. it's scaring to go alone; it will be more cheerful, the two of us. do you hear? there was a shout again. get up!" "whatever do you think of me, lad?" wailed the forester. "do you think i am such a fool to go straight to my undoing?" "so you are not coming?" the forester did not answer. the dog, probably hearing a human cry, gave a plaintive whine. "are you coming, i ask you?" cried the hunter, rolling his eyes angrily. "you do keep on, upon my word," said the forester with annoyance. "go yourself." "ugh! . . . low cur," growled the hunter, turning towards the door. "flerka, here!" he went out and left the door open. the wind flew into the hut. the flame of the candle flickered uneasily, flared up, and went out. as he bolted the door after the hunter, the forester saw the puddles in the track, the nearest pine-trees, and the retreating figure of his guest lighted up by a flash of lightning. far away he heard the rumble of thunder. "holy, holy, holy," whispered the forester, making haste to thrust the thick bolt into the great iron rings. "what weather the lord has sent us!" going back into the room, he felt his way to the stove, lay down, and covered himself from head to foot. lying under the sheepskin and listening intently, he could no longer hear the human cry, but the peals of thunder kept growing louder and more prolonged. he could hear the big wind-lashed raindrops pattering angrily on the panes and on the paper of the window. "he's gone on a fool's errand," he thought, picturing the hunter soaked with rain and stumbling over the tree-stumps. "i bet his teeth are chattering with terror!" not more than ten minutes later there was a sound of footsteps, followed by a loud knock at the door. "who's there?" cried the forester. "it's i," he heard the young man's voice. "unfasten the door." the forester clambered down from the stove, felt for the candle, and, lighting it, went to the door. the hunter and his dog were drenched to the skin. they had come in for the heaviest of the downpour, and now the water ran from them as from washed clothes before they have been wrung out. "what was it?" asked the forester. "a peasant woman driving in a cart; she had got off the road . . ." answered the young man, struggling with his breathlessness. "she was caught in a thicket." "ah, the silly thing! she was frightened, then. . . . well, did you put her on the road?" "i don't care to talk to a scoundrel like you." the young man flung his wet cap on the bench and went on: "i know now that you are a scoundrel and the lowest of men. and you a keeper, too, getting a salary! you blackguard!" the forester slunk with a guilty step to the stove, cleared his throat, and lay down. the young man sat on the bench, thought a little, and lay down on it full length. not long afterwards he got up, put out the candle, and lay down again. during a particularly loud clap of thunder he turned over, spat on the floor, and growled out: "he's afraid. . . . and what if the woman were being murdered? whose business is it to defend her? and he an old man, too, and a christian . . . . he's a pig and nothing else." the forester cleared his throat and heaved a deep sigh. somewhere in the darkness flerka shook his wet coat vigorously, which sent drops of water flying about all over the room. "so you wouldn't care if the woman were murdered?" the hunter went on. "well--strike me, god--i had no notion you were that sort of man. . . ." a silence followed. the thunderstorm was by now over and the thunder came from far away, but it was still raining. "and suppose it hadn't been a woman but you shouting 'help!'?" said the hunter, breaking the silence. "how would you feel, you beast, if no one ran to your aid? you have upset me with your meanness, plague take you!" after another long interval the hunter said: "you must have money to be afraid of people! a man who is poor is not likely to be afraid. . . ." "for those words you will answer before god," artyom said hoarsely from the stove. "i have no money." "i dare say! scoundrels always have money. . . . why are you afraid of people, then? so you must have! i'd like to take and rob you for spite, to teach you a lesson! . . ." artyom slipped noiselessly from the stove, lighted a candle, and sat down under the holy image. he was pale and did not take his eyes off the hunter. "here, i'll rob you," said the hunter, getting up. "what do you think about it? fellows like you want a lesson. tell me, where is your money hidden?" artyom drew his legs up under him and blinked. "what are you wriggling for? where is your money hidden? have you lost your tongue, you fool? why don't you answer?" the young man jumped up and went up to the forester. "he is blinking like an owl! well? give me your money, or i will shoot you with my gun." "why do you keep on at me?" squealed the forester, and big tears rolled from his eyes. "what's the reason of it? god sees all! you will have to answer, for every word you say, to god. you have no right whatever to ask for my money." the young man looked at artyom's tearful face, frowned, and walked up and down the hut, then angrily clapped his cap on his head and picked up his gun. "ugh! . . . ugh! . . . it makes me sick to look at you," he filtered through his teeth. "i can't bear the sight of you. i won't sleep in your house, anyway. good-bye! hey, flerka!" the door slammed and the troublesome visitor went out with his dog. . . . artyom bolted the door after him, crossed himself, and lay down. an actor's end shtchiptsov, the "heavy father" and "good-hearted simpleton," a tall and thick-set old man, not so much distinguished by his talents as an actor as by his exceptional physical strength, had a desperate quarrel with the manager during the performance, and just when the storm of words was at its height felt as though something had snapped in his chest. zhukov, the manager, as a rule began at the end of every heated discussion to laugh hysterically and to fall into a swoon; on this occasion, however, shtchiptsov did not remain for this climax, but hurried home. the high words and the sensation of something ruptured in his chest so agitated him as he left the theatre that he forgot to wash off his paint, and did nothing but take off his beard. when he reached his hotel room, shtchiptsov spent a long time pacing up and down, then sat down on the bed, propped his head on his fists, and sank into thought. he sat like that without stirring or uttering a sound till two o'clock the next afternoon, when sigaev, the comic man, walked into his room. "why is it you did not come to the rehearsal, booby ivanitch?" the comic man began, panting and filling the room with fumes of vodka. "where have you been?" shtchiptsov made no answer, but simply stared at the comic man with lustreless eyes, under which there were smudges of paint. "you might at least have washed your phiz!" sigaev went on. "you are a disgraceful sight! have you been boozing, or . . . are you ill, or what? but why don't you speak? i am asking you: are you ill?" shtchiptsov did not speak. in spite of the paint on his face, the comic man could not help noticing his striking pallor, the drops of sweat on his forehead, and the twitching of his lips. his hands and feet were trembling too, and the whole huge figure of the "good-natured simpleton" looked somehow crushed and flattened. the comic man took a rapid glance round the room, but saw neither bottle nor flask nor any other suspicious vessel. "i say, mishutka, you know you are ill!" he said in a flutter. "strike me dead, you are ill! you don't look yourself!" shtchiptsov remained silent and stared disconsolately at the floor. "you must have caught cold," said sigaev, taking him by the hand. "oh, dear, how hot your hands are! what's the trouble?" "i wa-ant to go home," muttered shtchiptsov. "but you are at home now, aren't you?" "no. . . . to vyazma. . . ." "oh, my, anywhere else! it would take you three years to get to your vyazma. . . . what? do you want to go and see your daddy and mummy? i'll be bound, they've kicked the bucket years ago, and you won't find their graves. . . ." "my ho-ome's there." "come, it's no good giving way to the dismal dumps. these neurotic feelings are the limit, old man. you must get well, for you have to play mitka in 'the terrible tsar' to-morrow. there is nobody else to do it. drink something hot and take some castor-oil? have you got the money for some castor-oil? or, stay, i'll run and buy some." the comic man fumbled in his pockets, found a fifteen-kopeck piece, and ran to the chemist's. a quarter of an hour later he came back. "come, drink it," he said, holding the bottle to the "heavy father's" mouth. "drink it straight out of the bottle. . . . all at a go! that's the way. . . . now nibble at a clove that your very soul mayn't stink of the filthy stuff." the comic man sat a little longer with his sick friend, then kissed him tenderly, and went away. towards evening the _jeune premier_, brama-glinsky, ran in to see shtchiptsov. the gifted actor was wearing a pair of prunella boots, had a glove on his left hand, was smoking a cigar, and even smelt of heliotrope, yet nevertheless he strongly suggested a traveller cast away in some land in which there were neither baths nor laundresses nor tailors. . . . "i hear you are ill?" he said to shtchiptsov, twirling round on his heel. "what's wrong with you? what's wrong with you, really? . . ." shtchiptsov did not speak nor stir. "why don't you speak? do you feel giddy? oh well, don't talk, i won't pester you . . . don't talk. . . ." brama-glinsky (that was his stage name, in his passport he was called guskov) walked away to the window, put his hands in his pockets, and fell to gazing into the street. before his eyes stretched an immense waste, bounded by a grey fence beside which ran a perfect forest of last year's burdocks. beyond the waste ground was a dark, deserted factory, with windows boarded up. a belated jackdaw was flying round the chimney. this dreary, lifeless scene was beginning to be veiled in the dusk of evening. "i must go home!" the _jeune premier_ heard. "where is home?" "to vyazma . . . to my home. . . ." "it is a thousand miles to vyazma . . . my boy," sighed brama-glinsky, drumming on the window-pane. "and what do you want to go to vyazma for?" "i want to die there." "what next! now he's dying! he has fallen ill for the first time in his life, and already he fancies that his last hour is come. . . . no, my boy, no cholera will carry off a buffalo like you. you'll live to be a hundred. . . . where's the pain?" "there's no pain, but i . . . feel . . ." "you don't feel anything, it all comes from being too healthy. your surplus energy upsets you. you ought to get jolly tight--drink, you know, till your whole inside is topsy-turvy. getting drunk is wonderfully restoring. . . . do you remember how screwed you were at rostov on the don? good lord, the very thought of it is alarming! sashka and i together could only just carry in the barrel, and you emptied it alone, and even sent for rum afterwards. . . . you got so drunk you were catching devils in a sack and pulled a lamp-post up by the roots. do you remember? then you went off to beat the greeks. . . ." under the influence of these agreeable reminiscences shtchiptsov's face brightened a little and his eyes began to shine. "and do you remember how i beat savoikin the manager?" he muttered, raising his head. "but there! i've beaten thirty-three managers in my time, and i can't remember how many smaller fry. and what managers they were! men who would not permit the very winds to touch them! i've beaten two celebrated authors and one painter!" "what are you crying for?" "at kherson i killed a horse with my fists. and at taganrog some roughs fell upon me at night, fifteen of them. i took off their caps and they followed me, begging: 'uncle, give us back our caps.' that's how i used to go on." "what are you crying for, then, you silly?" "but now it's all over . . . i feel it. if only i could go to vyazma!" a pause followed. after a silence shtchiptsov suddenly jumped up and seized his cap. he looked distraught. "good-bye! i am going to vyazma!" he articulated, staggering. "and the money for the journey?" "h'm! . . . i shall go on foot!" "you are crazy. . . ." the two men looked at each other, probably because the same thought--of the boundless plains, the unending forests and swamps--struck both of them at once. "well, i see you have gone off your head," the _jeune premier_ commented. "i'll tell you what, old man. . . . first thing, go to bed, then drink some brandy and tea to put you into a sweat. and some castor-oil, of course. stay, where am i to get some brandy?" brama-glinsky thought a minute, then made up his mind to go to a shopkeeper called madame tsitrinnikov to try and get it from her on tick: who knows? perhaps the woman would feel for them and let them have it. the _jeune premier_ went off, and half an hour later returned with a bottle of brandy and some castor-oil. shtchiptsov was sitting motionless, as before, on the bed, gazing dumbly at the floor. he drank the castor-oil offered him by his friend like an automaton, with no consciousness of what he was doing. like an automaton he sat afterwards at the table, and drank tea and brandy; mechanically he emptied the whole bottle and let the _jeune premier_ put him to bed. the latter covered him up with a quilt and an overcoat, advised him to get into a perspiration, and went away. the night came on; shtchiptsov had drunk a great deal of brandy, but he did not sleep. he lay motionless under the quilt and stared at the dark ceiling; then, seeing the moon looking in at the window, he turned his eyes from the ceiling towards the companion of the earth, and lay so with open eyes till the morning. at nine o'clock in the morning zhukov, the manager, ran in. "what has put it into your head to be ill, my angel?" he cackled, wrinkling up his nose. "aie, aie! a man with your physique has no business to be ill! for shame, for shame! do you know, i was quite frightened. 'can our conversation have had such an effect on him?' i wondered. my dear soul, i hope it's not through me you've fallen ill! you know you gave me as good . . . er . . . and, besides, comrades can never get on without words. you called me all sorts of names . . . and have gone at me with your fists too, and yet i am fond of you! upon my soul, i am. i respect you and am fond of you! explain, my angel, why i am so fond of you. you are neither kith nor kin nor wife, but as soon as i heard you had fallen ill it cut me to the heart." zhukov spent a long time declaring his affection, then fell to kissing the invalid, and finally was so overcome by his feelings that he began laughing hysterically, and was even meaning to fall into a swoon, but, probably remembering that he was not at home nor at the theatre, put off the swoon to a more convenient opportunity and went away. soon after him adabashev, the tragic actor, a dingy, short-sighted individual who talked through his nose, made his appearance. . . . for a long while he looked at shtchiptsov, for a long while he pondered, and at last he made a discovery. "do you know what, mifa?" he said, pronouncing through his nose "f" instead of "sh," and assuming a mysterious expression. "do you know what? you ought to have a dose of castor-oil!" shtchiptsov was silent. he remained silent, too, a little later as the tragic actor poured the loathsome oil into his mouth. two hours later yevlampy, or, as the actors for some reason called him, rigoletto, the hairdresser of the company, came into the room. he too, like the tragic man, stared at shtchiptsov for a long time, then sighed like a steam-engine, and slowly and deliberately began untying a parcel he had brought with him. in it there were twenty cups and several little flasks. "you should have sent for me and i would have cupped you long ago," he said, tenderly baring shtchiptsov's chest. "it is easy to neglect illness." thereupon rigoletto stroked the broad chest of the "heavy father" and covered it all over with suction cups. "yes . . ." he said, as after this operation he packed up his paraphernalia, crimson with shtchiptsov's blood. "you should have sent for me, and i would have come. . . . you needn't trouble about payment. . . . i do it from sympathy. where are you to get the money if that idol won't pay you? now, please take these drops. they are nice drops! and now you must have a dose of this castor-oil. it's the real thing. that's right! i hope it will do you good. well, now, good-bye. . . ." rigoletto took his parcel and withdrew, pleased that he had been of assistance to a fellow-creature. the next morning sigaev, the comic man, going in to see shtchiptsov, found him in a terrible condition. he was lying under his coat, breathing in gasps, while his eyes strayed over the ceiling. in his hands he was crushing convulsively the crumpled quilt. "to vyazma!" he whispered, when he saw the comic man. "to vyazma." "come, i don't like that, old man!" said the comic man, flinging up his hands. "you see . . . you see . . . you see, old man, that's not the thing! excuse me, but . . . it's positively stupid. . . ." "to go to vyazma! my god, to vyazma!" "i . . . i did not expect it of you," the comic man muttered, utterly distracted. "what the deuce do you want to collapse like this for? aie . . . aie . . . aie! . . . that's not the thing. a giant as tall as a watch-tower, and crying. is it the thing for actors to cry?" "no wife nor children," muttered shtchiptsov. "i ought not to have gone for an actor, but have stayed at vyazma. my life has been wasted, semyon! oh, to be in vyazma!" "aie . . . aie . . . aie! . . . that's not the thing! you see, it's stupid . . . contemptible indeed!" recovering his composure and setting his feelings in order, sigaev began comforting shtchiptsov, telling him untruly that his comrades had decided to send him to the crimea at their expense, and so on, but the sick man did not listen and kept muttering about vyazma . . . . at last, with a wave of his hand, the comic man began talking about vyazma himself to comfort the invalid. "it's a fine town," he said soothingly, "a capital town, old man! it's famous for its cakes. the cakes are classical, but--between ourselves--h'm!--they are a bit groggy. for a whole week after eating them i was . . . h'm! . . . but what is fine there is the merchants! they are something like merchants. when they treat you they do treat you!" the comic man talked while shtchiptsov listened in silence and nodded his head approvingly. towards evening he died. the tales of chekhov volume the bishop and other stories by anton tchekhov translated by constance garnett contents the bishop the letter easter eve a nightmare the murder uprooted the steppe the bishop i the evening service was being celebrated on the eve of palm sunday in the old petrovsky convent. when they began distributing the palm it was close upon ten o'clock, the candles were burning dimly, the wicks wanted snuffing; it was all in a sort of mist. in the twilight of the church the crowd seemed heaving like the sea, and to bishop pyotr, who had been unwell for the last three days, it seemed that all the faces--old and young, men's and women's--were alike, that everyone who came up for the palm had the same expression in his eyes. in the mist he could not see the doors; the crowd kept moving and looked as though there were no end to it. the female choir was singing, a nun was reading the prayers for the day. how stifling, how hot it was! how long the service went on! bishop pyotr was tired. his breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat was parched, his shoulders ached with weariness, his legs were trembling. and it disturbed him unpleasantly when a religious maniac uttered occasional shrieks in the gallery. and then all of a sudden, as though in a dream or delirium, it seemed to the bishop as though his own mother marya timofyevna, whom he had not seen for nine years, or some old woman just like his mother, came up to him out of the crowd, and, after taking a palm branch from him, walked away looking at him all the while good-humouredly with a kind, joyful smile until she was lost in the crowd. and for some reason tears flowed down his face. there was peace in his heart, everything was well, yet he kept gazing fixedly towards the left choir, where the prayers were being read, where in the dusk of evening you could not recognize anyone, and--wept. tears glistened on his face and on his beard. here someone close at hand was weeping, then someone else farther away, then others and still others, and little by little the church was filled with soft weeping. and a little later, within five minutes, the nuns' choir was singing; no one was weeping and everything was as before. soon the service was over. when the bishop got into his carriage to drive home, the gay, melodious chime of the heavy, costly bells was filling the whole garden in the moonlight. the white walls, the white crosses on the tombs, the white birch-trees and black shadows, and the far-away moon in the sky exactly over the convent, seemed now living their own life, apart and incomprehensible, yet very near to man. it was the beginning of april, and after the warm spring day it turned cool; there was a faint touch of frost, and the breath of spring could be felt in the soft, chilly air. the road from the convent to the town was sandy, the horses had to go at a walking pace, and on both sides of the carriage in the brilliant, peaceful moonlight there were people trudging along home from church through the sand. and all was silent, sunk in thought; everything around seemed kindly, youthful, akin, everything--trees and sky and even the moon, and one longed to think that so it would be always. at last the carriage drove into the town and rumbled along the principal street. the shops were already shut, but at erakin's, the millionaire shopkeeper's, they were trying the new electric lights, which flickered brightly, and a crowd of people were gathered round. then came wide, dark, deserted streets, one after another; then the highroad, the open country, the fragrance of pines. and suddenly there rose up before the bishop's eyes a white turreted wall, and behind it a tall belfry in the full moonlight, and beside it five shining, golden cupolas: this was the pankratievsky monastery, in which bishop pyotr lived. and here, too, high above the monastery, was the silent, dreamy moon. the carriage drove in at the gate, crunching over the sand; here and there in the moonlight there were glimpses of dark monastic figures, and there was the sound of footsteps on the flag-stones. . . . "you know, your holiness, your mamma arrived while you were away," the lay brother informed the bishop as he went into his cell. "my mother? when did she come?" "before the evening service. she asked first where you were and then she went to the convent." "then it was her i saw in the church, just now! oh, lord!" and the bishop laughed with joy. "she bade me tell your holiness," the lay brother went on, "that she would come to-morrow. she had a little girl with her--her grandchild, i suppose. they are staying at ovsyannikov's inn." "what time is it now?" "a little after eleven." "oh, how vexing!" the bishop sat for a little while in the parlour, hesitating, and as it were refusing to believe it was so late. his arms and legs were stiff, his head ached. he was hot and uncomfortable. after resting a little he went into his bedroom, and there, too, he sat a little, still thinking of his mother; he could hear the lay brother going away, and father sisoy coughing the other side of the wall. the monastery clock struck a quarter. the bishop changed his clothes and began reading the prayers before sleep. he read attentively those old, long familiar prayers, and at the same time thought about his mother. she had nine children and about forty grandchildren. at one time, she had lived with her husband, the deacon, in a poor village; she had lived there a very long time from the age of seventeen to sixty. the bishop remembered her from early childhood, almost from the age of three, and--how he had loved her! sweet, precious childhood, always fondly remembered! why did it, that long-past time that could never return, why did it seem brighter, fuller, and more festive than it had really been? when in his childhood or youth he had been ill, how tender and sympathetic his mother had been! and now his prayers mingled with the memories, which gleamed more and more brightly like a flame, and the prayers did not hinder his thinking of his mother. when he had finished his prayers he undressed and lay down, and at once, as soon as it was dark, there rose before his mind his dead father, his mother, his native village lesopolye . . . the creak of wheels, the bleat of sheep, the church bells on bright summer mornings, the gypsies under the window--oh, how sweet to think of it! he remembered the priest of lesopolye, father simeon--mild, gentle, kindly; he was a lean little man, while his son, a divinity student, was a huge fellow and talked in a roaring bass voice. the priest's son had flown into a rage with the cook and abused her: "ah, you jehud's ass!" and father simeon overhearing it, said not a word, and was only ashamed because he could not remember where such an ass was mentioned in the bible. after him the priest at lesopolye had been father demyan, who used to drink heavily, and at times drank till he saw green snakes, and was even nicknamed demyan snakeseer. the schoolmaster at lesopolye was matvey nikolaitch, who had been a divinity student, a kind and intelligent man, but he, too, was a drunkard; he never beat the schoolchildren, but for some reason he always had hanging on his wall a bunch of birch-twigs, and below it an utterly meaningless inscription in latin: "betula kinderbalsamica secuta." he had a shaggy black dog whom he called syntax. and his holiness laughed. six miles from lesopolye was the village obnino with a wonder-working ikon. in the summer they used to carry the ikon in procession about the neighbouring villages and ring the bells the whole day long; first in one village and then in another, and it used to seem to the bishop then that joy was quivering in the air, and he (in those days his name was pavlusha) used to follow the ikon, bareheaded and barefoot, with naïve faith, with a naïve smile, infinitely happy. in obnino, he remembered now, there were always a lot of people, and the priest there, father alexey, to save time during mass, used to make his deaf nephew ilarion read the names of those for whose health or whose souls' peace prayers were asked. ilarion used to read them, now and then getting a five or ten kopeck piece for the service, and only when he was grey and bald, when life was nearly over, he suddenly saw written on one of the pieces of paper: "what a fool you are, ilarion." up to fifteen at least pavlusha was undeveloped and idle at his lessons, so much so that they thought of taking him away from the clerical school and putting him into a shop; one day, going to the post at obnino for letters, he had stared a long time at the post-office clerks and asked: "allow me to ask, how do you get your salary, every month or every day?" his holiness crossed himself and turned over on the other side, trying to stop thinking and go to sleep. "my mother has come," he remembered and laughed. the moon peeped in at the window, the floor was lighted up, and there were shadows on it. a cricket was chirping. through the wall father sisoy was snoring in the next room, and his aged snore had a sound that suggested loneliness, forlornness, even vagrancy. sisoy had once been housekeeper to the bishop of the diocese, and was called now "the former father housekeeper"; he was seventy years old, he lived in a monastery twelve miles from the town and stayed sometimes in the town, too. he had come to the pankratievsky monastery three days before, and the bishop had kept him that he might talk to him at his leisure about matters of business, about the arrangements here. . . . at half-past one they began ringing for matins. father sisoy could be heard coughing, muttering something in a discontented voice, then he got up and walked barefoot about the rooms. "father sisoy," the bishop called. sisoy went back to his room and a little later made his appearance in his boots, with a candle; he had on his cassock over his underclothes and on his head was an old faded skull-cap. "i can't sleep," said the bishop, sitting up. "i must be unwell. and what it is i don't know. fever!" "you must have caught cold, your holiness. you must be rubbed with tallow." sisoy stood a little and yawned. "o lord, forgive me, a sinner." "they had the electric lights on at erakin's today," he said; "i don't like it!" father sisoy was old, lean, bent, always dissatisfied with something, and his eyes were angry-looking and prominent as a crab's. "i don't like it," he said, going away. "i don't like it. bother it!" ii next day, palm sunday, the bishop took the service in the cathedral in the town, then he visited the bishop of the diocese, then visited a very sick old lady, the widow of a general, and at last drove home. between one and two o'clock he had welcome visitors dining with him--his mother and his niece katya, a child of eight years old. all dinner-time the spring sunshine was streaming in at the windows, throwing bright light on the white tablecloth and on katya's red hair. through the double windows they could hear the noise of the rooks and the notes of the starlings in the garden. "it is nine years since we have met," said the old lady. "and when i looked at you in the monastery yesterday, good lord! you've not changed a bit, except maybe you are thinner and your beard is a little longer. holy mother, queen of heaven! yesterday at the evening service no one could help crying. i, too, as i looked at you, suddenly began crying, though i couldn't say why. his holy will!" and in spite of the affectionate tone in which she said this, he could see she was constrained as though she were uncertain whether to address him formally or familiarly, to laugh or not, and that she felt herself more a deacon's widow than his mother. and katya gazed without blinking at her uncle, his holiness, as though trying to discover what sort of a person he was. her hair sprang up from under the comb and the velvet ribbon and stood out like a halo; she had a turned-up nose and sly eyes. the child had broken a glass before sitting down to dinner, and now her grandmother, as she talked, moved away from katya first a wineglass and then a tumbler. the bishop listened to his mother and remembered how many, many years ago she used to take him and his brothers and sisters to relations whom she considered rich; in those days she was taken up with the care of her children, now with her grandchildren, and she had brought katya. . . . "your sister, varenka, has four children," she told him; "katya, here, is the eldest. and your brother-in-law father ivan fell sick, god knows of what, and died three days before the assumption; and my poor varenka is left a beggar." "and how is nikanor getting on?" the bishop asked about his eldest brother. "he is all right, thank god. though he has nothing much, yet he can live. only there is one thing: his son, my grandson nikolasha, did not want to go into the church; he has gone to the university to be a doctor. he thinks it is better; but who knows! his holy will!" "nikolasha cuts up dead people," said katya, spilling water over her knees. "sit still, child," her grandmother observed calmly, and took the glass out of her hand. "say a prayer, and go on eating." "how long it is since we have seen each other!" said the bishop, and he tenderly stroked his mother's hand and shoulder; "and i missed you abroad, mother, i missed you dreadfully." "thank you." "i used to sit in the evenings at the open window, lonely and alone; often there was music playing, and all at once i used to be overcome with homesickness and felt as though i would give everything only to be at home and see you." his mother smiled, beamed, but at once she made a grave face and said: "thank you." his mood suddenly changed. he looked at his mother and could not understand how she had come by that respectfulness, that timid expression of face: what was it for? and he did not recognize her. he felt sad and vexed. and then his head ached just as it had the day before; his legs felt fearfully tired, and the fish seemed to him stale and tasteless; he felt thirsty all the time. . . . after dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived and sat for an hour and a half in silence with rigid countenances; the archimandrite, a silent, rather deaf man, came to see him about business. then they began ringing for vespers; the sun was setting behind the wood and the day was over. when he returned from church, he hurriedly said his prayers, got into bed, and wrapped himself up as warm as possible. it was disagreeable to remember the fish he had eaten at dinner. the moonlight worried him, and then he heard talking. in an adjoining room, probably in the parlour, father sisoy was talking politics: "there's war among the japanese now. they are fighting. the japanese, my good soul, are the same as the montenegrins; they are the same race. they were under the turkish yoke together." and then he heard the voice of marya timofyevna: "so, having said our prayers and drunk tea, we went, you know, to father yegor at novokatnoye, so. . ." and she kept on saying, "having had tea" or "having drunk tea," and it seemed as though the only thing she had done in her life was to drink tea. the bishop slowly, languidly, recalled the seminary, the academy. for three years he had been greek teacher in the seminary: by that time he could not read without spectacles. then he had become a monk; he had been made a school inspector. then he had defended his thesis for his degree. when he was thirty-two he had been made rector of the seminary, and consecrated archimandrite: and then his life had been so easy, so pleasant; it seemed so long, so long, no end was in sight. then he had begun to be ill, had grown very thin and almost blind, and by the advice of the doctors had to give up everything and go abroad. "and what then?" asked sisoy in the next room. "then we drank tea . . ." answered marya timofyevna. "good gracious, you've got a green beard," said katya suddenly in surprise, and she laughed. the bishop remembered that the grey-headed father sisoy's beard really had a shade of green in it, and he laughed. "god have mercy upon us, what we have to put up with with this girl!" said sisoy, aloud, getting angry. "spoilt child! sit quiet!" the bishop remembered the perfectly new white church in which he had conducted the services while living abroad, he remembered the sound of the warm sea. in his flat he had five lofty light rooms; in his study he had a new writing-table, lots of books. he had read a great deal and often written. and he remembered how he had pined for his native land, how a blind beggar woman had played the guitar under his window every day and sung of love, and how, as he listened, he had always for some reason thought of the past. but eight years had passed and he had been called back to russia, and now he was a suffragan bishop, and all the past had retreated far away into the mist as though it were a dream. . . . father sisoy came into the bedroom with a candle. "i say!" he said, wondering, "are you asleep already, your holiness?" "what is it?" "why, it's still early, ten o'clock or less. i bought a candle to-day; i wanted to rub you with tallow." "i am in a fever . . ." said the bishop, and he sat up. "i really ought to have something. my head is bad. . . ." sisoy took off the bishop's shirt and began rubbing his chest and back with tallow. "that's the way . . . that's the way . . ." he said. "lord jesus christ . . . that's the way. i walked to the town to-day; i was at what's-his-name's--the chief priest sidonsky's. . . . i had tea with him. i don't like him. lord jesus christ. . . . that's the way. i don't like him." iii the bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was ill with rheumatism or gout, and had been in bed for over a month. bishop pyotr went to see him almost every day, and saw all who came to ask his help. and now that he was unwell he was struck by the emptiness, the triviality of everything which they asked and for which they wept; he was vexed at their ignorance, their timidity; and all this useless, petty business oppressed him by the mass of it, and it seemed to him that now he understood the diocesan bishop, who had once in his young days written on "the doctrines of the freedom of the will," and now seemed to be all lost in trivialities, to have forgotten everything, and to have no thoughts of religion. the bishop must have lost touch with russian life while he was abroad; he did not find it easy; the peasants seemed to him coarse, the women who sought his help dull and stupid, the seminarists and their teachers uncultivated and at times savage. and the documents coming in and going out were reckoned by tens of thousands; and what documents they were! the higher clergy in the whole diocese gave the priests, young and old, and even their wives and children, marks for their behaviour--a five, a four, and sometimes even a three; and about this he had to talk and to read and write serious reports. and there was positively not one minute to spare; his soul was troubled all day long, and the bishop was only at peace when he was in church. he could not get used, either, to the awe which, through no wish of his own, he inspired in people in spite of his quiet, modest disposition. all the people in the province seemed to him little, scared, and guilty when he looked at them. everyone was timid in his presence, even the old chief priests; everyone "flopped" at his feet, and not long previously an old lady, a village priest's wife who had come to consult him, was so overcome by awe that she could not utter a single word, and went empty away. and he, who could never in his sermons bring himself to speak ill of people, never reproached anyone because he was so sorry for them, was moved to fury with the people who came to consult him, lost his temper and flung their petitions on the floor. the whole time he had been here, not one person had spoken to him genuinely, simply, as to a human being; even his old mother seemed now not the same! and why, he wondered, did she chatter away to sisoy and laugh so much; while with him, her son, she was grave and usually silent and constrained, which did not suit her at all. the only person who behaved freely with him and said what he meant was old sisoy, who had spent his whole life in the presence of bishops and had outlived eleven of them. and so the bishop was at ease with him, although, of course, he was a tedious and nonsensical man. after the service on tuesday, his holiness pyotr was in the diocesan bishop's house receiving petitions there; he got excited and angry, and then drove home. he was as unwell as before; he longed to be in bed, but he had hardly reached home when he was informed that a young merchant called erakin, who subscribed liberally to charities, had come to see him about a very important matter. the bishop had to see him. erakin stayed about an hour, talked very loud, almost shouted, and it was difficult to understand what he said. "god grant it may," he said as he went away. "most essential! according to circumstances, your holiness! i trust it may!" after him came the mother superior from a distant convent. and when she had gone they began ringing for vespers. he had to go to church. in the evening the monks sang harmoniously, with inspiration. a young priest with a black beard conducted the service; and the bishop, hearing of the bridegroom who comes at midnight and of the heavenly mansion adorned for the festival, felt no repentance for his sins, no tribulation, but peace at heart and tranquillity. and he was carried back in thought to the distant past, to his childhood and youth, when, too, they used to sing of the bridegroom and of the heavenly mansion; and now that past rose up before him--living, fair, and joyful as in all likelihood it never had been. and perhaps in the other world, in the life to come, we shall think of the distant past, of our life here, with the same feeling. who knows? the bishop was sitting near the altar. it was dark; tears flowed down his face. he thought that here he had attained everything a man in his position could attain; he had faith and yet everything was not clear, something was lacking still. he did not want to die; and he still felt that he had missed what was most important, something of which he had dimly dreamed in the past; and he was troubled by the same hopes for the future as he had felt in childhood, at the academy and abroad. "how well they sing to-day!" he thought, listening to the singing. "how nice it is!" iv on thursday he celebrated mass in the cathedral; it was the washing of feet. when the service was over and the people were going home, it was sunny, warm; the water gurgled in the gutters, and the unceasing trilling of the larks, tender, telling of peace, rose from the fields outside the town. the trees were already awakening and smiling a welcome, while above them the infinite, fathomless blue sky stretched into the distance, god knows whither. on reaching home his holiness drank some tea, then changed his clothes, lay down on his bed, and told the lay brother to close the shutters on the windows. the bedroom was darkened. but what weariness, what pain in his legs and his back, a chill heavy pain, what a noise in his ears! he had not slept for a long time--for a very long time, as it seemed to him now, and some trifling detail which haunted his brain as soon as his eyes were closed prevented him from sleeping. as on the day before, sounds reached him from the adjoining rooms through the walls, voices, the jingle of glasses and teaspoons. . . . marya timofyevna was gaily telling father sisoy some story with quaint turns of speech, while the latter answered in a grumpy, ill-humoured voice: "bother them! not likely! what next!" and the bishop again felt vexed and then hurt that with other people his old mother behaved in a simple, ordinary way, while with him, her son, she was shy, spoke little, and did not say what she meant, and even, as he fancied, had during all those three days kept trying in his presence to find an excuse for standing up, because she was embarrassed at sitting before him. and his father? he, too, probably, if he had been living, would not have been able to utter a word in the bishop's presence. . . . something fell down on the floor in the adjoining room and was broken; katya must have dropped a cup or a saucer, for father sisoy suddenly spat and said angrily: "what a regular nuisance the child is! lord forgive my transgressions! one can't provide enough for her." then all was quiet, the only sounds came from outside. and when the bishop opened his eyes he saw katya in his room, standing motionless, staring at him. her red hair, as usual, stood up from under the comb like a halo. "is that you, katya?" he asked. "who is it downstairs who keeps opening and shutting a door?" "i don't hear it," answered katya; and she listened. "there, someone has just passed by." "but that was a noise in your stomach, uncle." he laughed and stroked her on the head. "so you say cousin nikolasha cuts up dead people?" he asked after a pause. "yes, he is studying." "and is he kind?" "oh, yes, he's kind. but he drinks vodka awfully." "and what was it your father died of?" "papa was weak and very, very thin, and all at once his throat was bad. i was ill then, too, and brother fedya; we all had bad throats. papa died, uncle, and we got well." her chin began quivering, and tears gleamed in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. "your holiness," she said in a shrill voice, by now weeping bitterly, "uncle, mother and all of us are left very wretched. . . . give us a little money . . . do be kind . . . uncle darling. . . ." he, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time was too much touched to speak. then he stroked her on the head, patted her on the shoulder and said: "very good, very good, my child. when the holy easter comes, we will talk it over. . . . i will help you. . . . i will help you. . . ." his mother came in quietly, timidly, and prayed before the ikon. noticing that he was not sleeping, she said: "won't you have a drop of soup?" "no, thank you," he answered, "i am not hungry." "you seem to be unwell, now i look at you. i should think so; you may well be ill! the whole day on your legs, the whole day. . . . and, my goodness, it makes one's heart ache even to look at you! well, easter is not far off; you will rest then, please god. then we will have a talk, too, but now i'm not going to disturb you with my chatter. come along, katya; let his holiness sleep a little." and he remembered how once very long ago, when he was a boy, she had spoken exactly like that, in the same jestingly respectful tone, with a church dignitary. . . . only from her extraordinarily kind eyes and the timid, anxious glance she stole at him as she went out of the room could one have guessed that this was his mother. he shut his eyes and seemed to sleep, but twice heard the clock strike and father sisoy coughing the other side of the wall. and once more his mother came in and looked timidly at him for a minute. someone drove up to the steps, as he could hear, in a coach or in a chaise. suddenly a knock, the door slammed, the lay brother came into the bedroom. "your holiness," he called. "well?" "the horses are here; it's time for the evening service." "what o'clock is it?" "a quarter past seven." he dressed and drove to the cathedral. during all the "twelve gospels" he had to stand in the middle of the church without moving, and the first gospel, the longest and the most beautiful, he read himself. a mood of confidence and courage came over him. that first gospel, "now is the son of man glorified," he knew by heart; and as he read he raised his eyes from time to time, and saw on both sides a perfect sea of lights and heard the splutter of candles, but, as in past years, he could not see the people, and it seemed as though these were all the same people as had been round him in those days, in his childhood and his youth; that they would always be the same every year and till such time as god only knew. his father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole family, perhaps from the days when christianity had been accepted in russia, had belonged to the priesthood; and his love for the church services, for the priesthood, for the peal of the bells, was deep in him, ineradicable, innate. in church, particularly when he took part in the service, he felt vigorous, of good cheer, happy. so it was now. only when the eighth gospel had been read, he felt that his voice had grown weak, even his cough was inaudible. his head had begun to ache intensely, and he was troubled by a fear that he might fall down. and his legs were indeed quite numb, so that by degrees he ceased to feel them and could not understand how or on what he was standing, and why he did not fall. . . . it was a quarter to twelve when the service was over. when he reached home, the bishop undressed and went to bed at once without even saying his prayers. he could not speak and felt that he could not have stood up. when he had covered his head with the quilt he felt a sudden longing to be abroad, an insufferable longing! he felt that he would give his life not to see those pitiful cheap shutters, those low ceilings, not to smell that heavy monastery smell. if only there were one person to whom he could have talked, have opened his heart! for a long while he heard footsteps in the next room and could not tell whose they were. at last the door opened, and sisoy came in with a candle and a tea-cup in his hand. "you are in bed already, your holiness?" he asked. "here i have come to rub you with spirit and vinegar. a thorough rubbing does a great deal of good. lord jesus christ! . . . that's the way . . . that's the way. . . . i've just been in our monastery. . . . i don't like it. i'm going away from here to-morrow, your holiness; i don't want to stay longer. lord jesus christ. . . . that's the way. . . ." sisoy could never stay long in the same place, and he felt as though he had been a whole year in the pankratievsky monastery. above all, listening to him it was difficult to understand where his home was, whether he cared for anyone or anything, whether he believed in god. . . . he did not know himself why he was a monk, and, indeed, he did not think about it, and the time when he had become a monk had long passed out of his memory; it seemed as though he had been born a monk. "i'm going away to-morrow; god be with them all." "i should like to talk to you. . . . i can't find the time," said the bishop softly with an effort. "i don't know anything or anybody here. . . ." "i'll stay till sunday if you like; so be it, but i don't want to stay longer. i am sick of them!" "i ought not to be a bishop," said the bishop softly. "i ought to have been a village priest, a deacon . . . or simply a monk. . . . all this oppresses me . . . oppresses me." "what? lord jesus christ. . . . that's the way. come, sleep well, your holiness! . . . what's the good of talking? it's no use. good-night!" the bishop did not sleep all night. and at eight o'clock in the morning he began to have hemorrhage from the bowels. the lay brother was alarmed, and ran first to the archimandrite, then for the monastery doctor, ivan andreyitch, who lived in the town. the doctor, a stout old man with a long grey beard, made a prolonged examination of the bishop, and kept shaking his head and frowning, then said: "do you know, your holiness, you have got typhoid?" after an hour or so of hemorrhage the bishop looked much thinner, paler, and wasted; his face looked wrinkled, his eyes looked bigger, and he seemed older, shorter, and it seemed to him that he was thinner, weaker, more insignificant than any one, that everything that had been had retreated far, far away and would never go on again or be repeated. "how good," he thought, "how good!" his old mother came. seeing his wrinkled face and his big eyes, she was frightened, she fell on her knees by the bed and began kissing his face, his shoulders, his hands. and to her, too, it seemed that he was thinner, weaker, and more insignificant than anyone, and now she forgot that he was a bishop, and kissed him as though he were a child very near and very dear to her. "pavlusha, darling," she said; "my own, my darling son! . . . why are you like this? pavlusha, answer me!" katya, pale and severe, stood beside her, unable to understand what was the matter with her uncle, why there was such a look of suffering on her grandmother's face, why she was saying such sad and touching things. by now he could not utter a word, he could understand nothing, and he imagined he was a simple ordinary man, that he was walking quickly, cheerfully through the fields, tapping with his stick, while above him was the open sky bathed in sunshine, and that he was free now as a bird and could go where he liked! "pavlusha, my darling son, answer me," the old woman was saying. "what is it? my own!" "don't disturb his holiness," sisoy said angrily, walking about the room. "let him sleep . . . what's the use . . . it's no good. . . ." three doctors arrived, consulted together, and went away again. the day was long, incredibly long, then the night came on and passed slowly, slowly, and towards morning on saturday the lay brother went in to the old mother who was lying on the sofa in the parlour, and asked her to go into the bedroom: the bishop had just breathed his last. next day was easter sunday. there were forty-two churches and six monasteries in the town; the sonorous, joyful clang of the bells hung over the town from morning till night unceasingly, setting the spring air aquiver; the birds were singing, the sun was shining brightly. the big market square was noisy, swings were going, barrel organs were playing, accordions were squeaking, drunken voices were shouting. after midday people began driving up and down the principal street. in short, all was merriment, everything was satisfactory, just as it had been the year before, and as it will be in all likelihood next year. a month later a new suffragan bishop was appointed, and no one thought anything more of bishop pyotr, and afterwards he was completely forgotten. and only the dead man's old mother, who is living to-day with her son-in-law the deacon in a remote little district town, when she goes out at night to bring her cow in and meets other women at the pasture, begins talking of her children and her grandchildren, and says that she had a son a bishop, and this she says timidly, afraid that she may not be believed. . . . and, indeed, there are some who do not believe her. the letter the clerical superintendent of the district, his reverence father fyodor orlov, a handsome, well-nourished man of fifty, grave and important as he always was, with an habitual expression of dignity that never left his face, was walking to and fro in his little drawing-room, extremely exhausted, and thinking intensely about the same thing: "when would his visitor go?" the thought worried him and did not leave him for a minute. the visitor, father anastasy, the priest of one of the villages near the town, had come to him three hours before on some very unpleasant and dreary business of his own, had stayed on and on, was now sitting in the corner at a little round table with his elbow on a thick account book, and apparently had no thought of going, though it was getting on for nine o'clock in the evening. not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. it not infrequently happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly breeding fail to observe that their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is being concealed with an effort and disguised with a lie. but father anastasy perceived it clearly, and realized that his presence was burdensome and inappropriate, that his reverence, who had taken an early morning service in the night and a long mass at midday, was exhausted and longing for repose; every minute he was meaning to get up and go, but he did not get up, he sat on as though he were waiting for something. he was an old man of sixty-five, prematurely aged, with a bent and bony figure, with a sunken face and the dark skin of old age, with red eyelids and a long narrow back like a fish's; he was dressed in a smart cassock of a light lilac colour, but too big for him (presented to him by the widow of a young priest lately deceased), a full cloth coat with a broad leather belt, and clumsy high boots the size and hue of which showed clearly that father anastasy dispensed with goloshes. in spite of his position and his venerable age, there was something pitiful, crushed and humiliated in his lustreless red eyes, in the strands of grey hair with a shade of green in it on the nape of his neck, and in the big shoulder-blades on his lean back. . . . he sat without speaking or moving, and coughed with circumspection, as though afraid that the sound of his coughing might make his presence more noticeable. the old man had come to see his reverence on business. two months before he had been prohibited from officiating till further notice, and his case was being inquired into. his shortcomings were numerous. he was intemperate in his habits, fell out with the other clergy and the commune, kept the church records and accounts carelessly --these were the formal charges against him; but besides all that, there had been rumours for a long time past that he celebrated unlawful marriages for money and sold certificates of having fasted and taken the sacrament to officials and officers who came to him from the town. these rumours were maintained the more persistently that he was poor and had nine children to keep, who were as incompetent and unsuccessful as himself. the sons were spoilt and uneducated, and stayed at home doing nothing, while the daughters were ugly and did not get married. not having the moral force to be open, his reverence walked up and down the room and said nothing or spoke in hints. "so you are not going home to-night?" he asked, stopping near the dark window and poking with his little finger into the cage where a canary was asleep with its feathers puffed out. father anastasy started, coughed cautiously and said rapidly: "home? i don't care to, fyodor ilyitch. i cannot officiate, as you know, so what am i to do there? i came away on purpose that i might not have to look the people in the face. one is ashamed not to officiate, as you know. besides, i have business here, fyodor ilyitch. to-morrow after breaking the fast i want to talk things over thoroughly with the father charged with the inquiry." "ah! . . ." yawned his reverence, "and where are you staying?" "at zyavkin's." father anastasy suddenly remembered that within two hours his reverence had to take the easter-night service, and he felt so ashamed of his unwelcome burdensome presence that he made up his mind to go away at once and let the exhausted man rest. and the old man got up to go. but before he began saying good-bye he stood clearing his throat for a minute and looking searchingly at his reverence's back, still with the same expression of vague expectation in his whole figure; his face was working with shame, timidity, and a pitiful forced laugh such as one sees in people who do not respect themselves. waving his hand as it were resolutely, he said with a husky quavering laugh: "father fyodor, do me one more kindness: bid them give me at leave-taking . . . one little glass of vodka." "it's not the time to drink vodka now," said his reverence sternly. "one must have some regard for decency." father anastasy was still more overwhelmed by confusion; he laughed, and, forgetting his resolution to go away, he dropped back on his chair. his reverence looked at his helpless, embarrassed face and his bent figure and he felt sorry for the old man. "please god, we will have a drink to-morrow," he said, wishing to soften his stem refusal. "everything is good in due season." his reverence believed in people's reforming, but now when a feeling of pity had been kindled in him it seemed to him that this disgraced, worn-out old man, entangled in a network of sins and weaknesses, was hopelessly wrecked, that there was no power on earth that could straighten out his spine, give brightness to his eyes and restrain the unpleasant timid laugh which he laughed on purpose to smoothe over to some slight extent the repulsive impression he made on people. the old man seemed now to father fyodor not guilty and not vicious, but humiliated, insulted, unfortunate; his reverence thought of his wife, his nine children, the dirty beggarly shelter at zyavkin's; he thought for some reason of the people who are glad to see priests drunk and persons in authority detected in crimes; and thought that the very best thing father anastasy could do now would be to die as soon as possible and to depart from this world for ever. there were a sound of footsteps. "father fyodor, you are not resting?" a bass voice asked from the passage. "no, deacon; come in." orlov's colleague, the deacon liubimov, an elderly man with a big bald patch on the top of his head, though his hair was still black and he was still vigorous-looking, with thick black eyebrows like a georgian's, walked in. he bowed to father anastasy and sat down. "what good news have you?" asked his reverence. "what good news?" answered the deacon, and after a pause he went on with a smile: "when your children are little, your trouble is small; when your children are big, your trouble is great. such goings on, father fyodor, that i don't know what to think of it. it's a regular farce, that's what it is." he paused again for a little, smiled still more broadly and said: "nikolay matveyitch came back from harkov to-day. he has been telling me about my pyotr. he has been to see him twice, he tells me." "what has he been telling you, then?" "he has upset me, god bless him. he meant to please me but when i came to think it over, it seems there is not much to be pleased at. i ought to grieve rather than be pleased. . . 'your petrushka,' said he, 'lives in fine style. he is far above us now,' said he. 'well thank god for that,' said i. 'i dined with him,' said he, 'and saw his whole manner of life. he lives like a gentleman,' he said; 'you couldn't wish to live better.' i was naturally interested and i asked, 'and what did you have for dinner?' 'first,' he said, 'a fish course something like fish soup, then tongue and peas,' and then he said, 'roast turkey.' 'turkey in lent? that is something to please me,' said i. 'turkey in lent? eh?'" "nothing marvellous in that," said his reverence, screwing up his eyes ironically. and sticking both thumbs in his belt, he drew himself up and said in the tone in which he usually delivered discourses or gave his scripture lessons to the pupils in the district school: "people who do not keep the fasts are divided into two different categories: some do not keep them through laxity, others through infidelity. your pyotr does not keep them through infidelity. yes." the deacon looked timidly at father fyodor's stern face and said: "there is worse to follow. . . . we talked and discussed one thing and another, and it turned out that my infidel of a son is living with some madame, another man's wife. she takes the place of wife and hostess in his flat, pours out the tea, receives visitors and all the rest of it, as though she were his lawful wife. for over two years he has been keeping up this dance with this viper. it's a regular farce. they have been living together for three years and no children." "i suppose they have been living in chastity!" chuckled father anastasy, coughing huskily. "there are children, father deacon-- there are, but they don't keep them at home! they send them to the foundling! he-he-he! . . ." anastasy went on coughing till he choked. "don't interfere, father anastasy," said his reverence sternly. "nikolay matveyitch asked him, 'what madame is this helping the soup at your table?'" the deacon went on, gloomily scanning anastasy's bent figure. "'that is my wife,' said he. 'when was your wedding?' nikolay matveyitch asked him, and pyotr answered, 'we were married at kulikov's restaurant.'" his reverence's eyes flashed wrathfully and the colour came into his temples. apart from his sinfulness, pyotr was not a person he liked. father fyodor had, as they say, a grudge against him. he remembered him a boy at school--he remembered him distinctly, because even then the boy had seemed to him not normal. as a schoolboy, petrushka had been ashamed to serve at the altar, had been offended at being addressed without ceremony, had not crossed himself on entering the room, and what was still more noteworthy, was fond of talking a great deal and with heat--and, in father fyodor's opinion, much talking was unseemly in children and pernicious to them; moreover petrushka had taken up a contemptuous and critical attitude to fishing, a pursuit to which both his reverence and the deacon were greatly addicted. as a student pyotr had not gone to church at all, had slept till midday, had looked down on people, and had been given to raising delicate and insoluble questions with a peculiarly provoking zest. "what would you have?" his reverence asked, going up to the deacon and looking at him angrily. "what would you have? this was to be expected! i always knew and was convinced that nothing good would come of your pyotr! i told you so, and i tell you so now. what you have sown, that now you must reap! reap it!" "but what have i sown, father fyodor?" the deacon asked softly, looking up at his reverence. "why, who is to blame if not you? you're his father, he is your offspring! you ought to have admonished him, have instilled the fear of god into him. a child must be taught! you have brought him into the world, but you haven't trained him up in the right way. it's a sin! it's wrong! it's a shame!" his reverence forgot his exhaustion, paced to and fro and went on talking. drops of perspiration came out on the deacon's bald head and forehead. he raised his eyes to his reverence with a look of guilt, and said: "but didn't i train him, father fyodor? lord have mercy on us, haven't i been a father to my children? you know yourself i spared nothing for his good; i have prayed and done my best all my life to give him a thorough education. he went to the high school and i got him tutors, and he took his degree at the university. and as to my not being able to influence his mind, father fyodor, why, you can judge for yourself that i am not qualified to do so! sometimes when he used to come here as a student, i would begin admonishing him in my way, and he wouldn't heed me. i'd say to him, 'go to church,' and he would answer, 'what for?' i would begin explaining, and he would say, 'why? what for?' or he would slap me on the shoulder and say, 'everything in this world is relative, approximate and conditional. i don't know anything, and you don't know anything either, dad.'" father anastasy laughed huskily, cleared his throat and waved his fingers in the air as though preparing to say something. his reverence glanced at him and said sternly: "don't interfere, father anastasy." the old man laughed, beamed, and evidently listened with pleasure to the deacon as though he were glad there were other sinful persons in this world besides himself. the deacon spoke sincerely, with an aching heart, and tears actually came into his eyes. father fyodor felt sorry for him. "you are to blame, deacon, you are to blame," he said, but not so sternly and heatedly as before. "if you could beget him, you ought to know how to instruct him. you ought to have trained him in his childhood; it's no good trying to correct a student." a silence followed; the deacon clasped his hands and said with a sigh: "but you know i shall have to answer for him!" "to be sure you will!" after a brief silence his reverence yawned and sighed at the same moment and asked: "who is reading the 'acts'?" "yevstrat. yevstrat always reads them." the deacon got up and, looking imploringly at his reverence, asked: "father fyodor, what am i to do now?" "do as you please; you are his father, not i. you ought to know best." "i don't know anything, father fyodor! tell me what to do, for goodness' sake! would you believe it, i am sick at heart! i can't sleep now, nor keep quiet, and the holiday will be no holiday to me. tell me what to do, father fyodor!" "write him a letter." "what am i to write to him?" "write that he mustn't go on like that. write shortly, but sternly and circumstantially, without softening or smoothing away his guilt. it is your parental duty; if you write, you will have done your duty and will be at peace." "that's true. but what am i to write to him, to what effect? if i write to him, he will answer, 'why? what for? why is it a sin?'" father anastasy laughed hoarsely again, and brandished his fingers. "why? what for? why is it a sin?" he began shrilly. "i was once confessing a gentleman, and i told him that excessive confidence in the divine mercy is a sin; and he asked, 'why?' i tried to answer him, but----" anastasy slapped himself on the forehead. "i had nothing here. he-he-he-he! . . ." anastasy's words, his hoarse jangling laugh at what was not laughable, had an unpleasant effect on his reverence and on the deacon. the former was on the point of saying, "don't interfere" again, but he did not say it, he only frowned. "i can't write to him," sighed the deacon. "if you can't, who can?" "father fyodor!" said the deacon, putting his head on one side and pressing his hand to his heart. "i am an uneducated slow-witted man, while the lord has vouchsafed you judgment and wisdom. you know everything and understand everything. you can master anything, while i don't know how to put my words together sensibly. be generous. instruct me how to write the letter. teach me what to say and how to say it. . . ." "what is there to teach? there is nothing to teach. sit down and write." "oh, do me the favour, father fyodor! i beseech you! i know he will be frightened and will attend to your letter, because, you see, you are a cultivated man too. do be so good! i'll sit down, and you'll dictate to me. it will be a sin to write to-morrow, but now would be the very time; my mind would be set at rest." his reverence looked at the deacon's imploring face, thought of the disagreeable pyotr, and consented to dictate. he made the deacon sit down to his table and began. "well, write . . . 'christ is risen, dear son . . .' exclamation mark. 'rumours have reached me, your father,' then in parenthesis, 'from what source is no concern of yours . . .' close the parenthesis. . . . have you written it? 'that you are leading a life inconsistent with the laws both of god and of man. neither the luxurious comfort, nor the worldly splendour, nor the culture with which you seek outwardly to disguise it, can hide your heathen manner of life. in name you are a christian, but in your real nature a heathen as pitiful and wretched as all other heathens--more wretched, indeed, seeing that those heathens who know not christ are lost from ignorance, while you are lost in that, possessing a treasure, you neglect it. i will not enumerate here your vices, which you know well enough; i will say that i see the cause of your ruin in your infidelity. you imagine yourself to be wise, boast of your knowledge of science, but refuse to see that science without faith, far from elevating a man, actually degrades him to the level of a lower animal, inasmuch as. . .'" the whole letter was in this strain. when he had finished writing it the deacon read it aloud, beamed all over and jumped up. "it's a gift, it's really a gift!" he said, clasping his hands and looking enthusiastically at his reverence. "to think of the lord's bestowing a gift like that! eh? holy mother! i do believe i couldn't write a letter like that in a hundred years. lord save you!" father anastasy was enthusiastic too. "one couldn't write like that without a gift," he said, getting up and wagging his fingers--"that one couldn't! his rhetoric would trip any philosopher and shut him up. intellect. brilliant intellect! if you weren't married, father fyodor, you would have been a bishop long ago, you would really!" having vented his wrath in a letter, his reverence felt relieved; his fatigue and exhaustion came back to him. the deacon was an old friend, and his reverence did not hesitate to say to him: "well deacon, go, and god bless you. i'll have half an hour's nap on the sofa; i must rest." the deacon went away and took anastasy with him. as is always the case on easter eve, it was dark in the street, but the whole sky was sparkling with bright luminous stars. there was a scent of spring and holiday in the soft still air. "how long was he dictating?" the deacon said admiringly. "ten minutes, not more! it would have taken someone else a month to compose such a letter. eh! what a mind! such a mind that i don't know what to call it! it's a marvel! it's really a marvel!" "education!" sighed anastasy as he crossed the muddy street; holding up his cassock to his waist. "it's not for us to compare ourselves with him. we come of the sacristan class, while he has had a learned education. yes, he's a real man, there is no denying that." "and you listen how he'll read the gospel in latin at mass to-day! he knows latin and he knows greek. . . . ah petrushka, petrushka!" the deacon said, suddenly remembering. "now that will make him scratch his head! that will shut his mouth, that will bring it home to him! now he won't ask 'why.' it is a case of one wit to outwit another! haha-ha!" the deacon laughed gaily and loudly. since the letter had been written to pyotr he had become serene and more cheerful. the consciousness of having performed his duty as a father and his faith in the power of the letter had brought back his mirthfulness and good-humour. "pyotr means a stone," said he, as he went into his house. "my pyotr is not a stone, but a rag. a viper has fastened upon him and he pampers her, and hasn't the pluck to kick her out. tfoo! to think there should be women like that, god forgive me! eh? has she no shame? she has fastened upon the lad, sticking to him, and keeps him tied to her apron strings. . . . fie upon her!" "perhaps it's not she keeps hold of him, but he of her?" "she is a shameless one anyway! not that i am defending pyotr. . . . he'll catch it. he'll read the letter and scratch his head! he'll burn with shame!" "it's a splendid letter, only you know i wouldn't send it, father deacon. let him alone." "what?" said the deacon, disconcerted. "why. . . . don't send it, deacon! what's the sense of it? suppose you send it; he reads it, and . . . and what then? you'll only upset him. forgive him. let him alone!" the deacon looked in surprise at anastasy's dark face, at his unbuttoned cassock, which looked in the dusk like wings, and shrugged his shoulders. "how can i forgive him like that?" he asked. "why i shall have to answer for him to god!" "even so, forgive him all the same. really! and god will forgive you for your kindness to him." "but he is my son, isn't he? ought i not to teach him?" "teach him? of course--why not? you can teach him, but why call him a heathen? it will hurt his feelings, you know, deacon. . . ." the deacon was a widower, and lived in a little house with three windows. his elder sister, an old maid, looked after his house for him, though she had three years before lost the use of her legs and was confined to her bed; he was afraid of her, obeyed her, and did nothing without her advice. father anastasy went in with him. seeing his table already laid with easter cakes and red eggs, he began weeping for some reason, probably thinking of his own home, and to turn these tears into a jest, he at once laughed huskily. "yes, we shall soon be breaking the fast," he said. "yes . . . it wouldn't come amiss, deacon, to have a little glass now. can we? i'll drink it so that the old lady does not hear," he whispered, glancing sideways towards the door. without a word the deacon moved a decanter and wineglass towards him. he unfolded the letter and began reading it aloud. and now the letter pleased him just as much as when his reverence had dictated it to him. he beamed with pleasure and wagged his head, as though he had been tasting something very sweet. "a-ah, what a letter!" he said. "petrushka has never dreamt of such a letter. it's just what he wants, something to throw him into a fever. . ." "do you know, deacon, don't send it!" said anastasy, pouring himself out a second glass of vodka as though unconsciously. "forgive him, let him alone! i am telling you . . . what i really think. if his own father can't forgive him, who will forgive him? and so he'll live without forgiveness. think, deacon: there will be plenty to chastise him without you, but you should look out for some who will show mercy to your son! i'll . . . i'll . . . have just one more. the last, old man. . . . just sit down and write straight off to him, 'i forgive you pyotr!' he will under-sta-and! he will fe-el it! i understand it from myself, you see old man . . . deacon, i mean. when i lived like other people, i hadn't much to trouble about, but now since i lost the image and semblance, there is only one thing i care about, that good people should forgive me. and remember, too, it's not the righteous but sinners we must forgive. why should you forgive your old woman if she is not sinful? no, you must forgive a man when he is a sad sight to look at . . . yes!" anastasy leaned his head on his fist and sank into thought. "it's a terrible thing, deacon," he sighed, evidently struggling with the desire to take another glass--"a terrible thing! in sin my mother bore me, in sin i have lived, in sin i shall die. . . . god forgive me, a sinner! i have gone astray, deacon! there is no salvation for me! and it's not as though i had gone astray in my life, but in old age--at death's door . . . i . . ." the old man, with a hopeless gesture, drank off another glass, then got up and moved to another seat. the deacon, still keeping the letter in his hand, was walking up and down the room. he was thinking of his son. displeasure, distress and anxiety no longer troubled him; all that had gone into the letter. now he was simply picturing pyotr; he imagined his face, he thought of the past years when his son used to come to stay with him for the holidays. his thoughts were only of what was good, warm, touching, of which one might think for a whole lifetime without wearying. longing for his son, he read the letter through once more and looked questioningly at anastasy. "don't send it," said the latter, with a wave of his hand. "no, i must send it anyway; i must . . . bring him to his senses a little, all the same. it's just as well. . . ." the deacon took an envelope from the table, but before putting the letter into it he sat down to the table, smiled and added on his own account at the bottom of the letter: "they have sent us a new inspector. he's much friskier than the old one. he's a great one for dancing and talking, and there's nothing he can't do, so that all the govorovsky girls are crazy over him. our military chief, kostyrev, will soon get the sack too, they say. high time he did!" and very well pleased, without the faintest idea that with this postscript he had completely spoiled the stern letter, the deacon addressed the envelope and laid it in the most conspicuous place on the table. easter eve i was standing on the bank of the river goltva, waiting for the ferry-boat from the other side. at ordinary times the goltva is a humble stream of moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay stretched out before me. the waters of spring, running riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded both sides of the river for a long distance, submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above the surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary crags. the weather seemed to me magnificent. it was dark, yet i could see the trees, the water and the people. . . . the world was lighted by the stars, which were scattered thickly all over the sky. i don't remember ever seeing so many stars. literally one could not have put a finger in between them. there were some as big as a goose's egg, others tiny as hempseed. . . . they had come out for the festival procession, every one of them, little and big, washed, renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was softly twinkling its beams. the sky was reflected in the water; the stars were bathing in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies. the air was warm and still. . . . here and there, far away on the further bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were gleaming. . . . a couple of paces from me i saw the dark silhouette of a peasant in a high hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand. "how long the ferry-boat is in coming!" i said. "it is time it was here," the silhouette answered. "you are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?" "no i am not," yawned the peasant--"i am waiting for the illumination. i should have gone, but to tell you the truth, i haven't the five kopecks for the ferry." "i'll give you the five kopecks." "no; i humbly thank you. . . . with that five kopecks put up a candle for me over there in the monastery. . . . that will be more interesting, and i will stand here. what can it mean, no ferry-boat, as though it had sunk in the water!" the peasant went up to the water's edge, took the rope in his hands, and shouted; "ieronim! ieron--im!" as though in answer to his shout, the slow peal of a great bell floated across from the further bank. the note was deep and low, as from the thickest string of a double bass; it seemed as though the darkness itself had hoarsely uttered it. at once there was the sound of a cannon shot. it rolled away in the darkness and ended somewhere in the far distance behind me. the peasant took off his hat and crossed himself. '"christ is risen," he said. before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell had time to die away in the air a second sounded, after it at once a third, and the darkness was filled with an unbroken quivering clamour. near the red lights fresh lights flashed, and all began moving together and twinkling restlessly. "ieron--im!" we heard a hollow prolonged shout. "they are shouting from the other bank," said the peasant, "so there is no ferry there either. our ieronim has gone to sleep." the lights and the velvety chimes of the bell drew one towards them. . . . i was already beginning to lose patience and grow anxious, but behold at last, staring into the dark distance, i saw the outline of something very much like a gibbet. it was the long-expected ferry. it moved towards us with such deliberation that if it had not been that its lines grew gradually more definite, one might have supposed that it was standing still or moving to the other bank. "make haste! ieronim!" shouted my peasant. "the gentleman's tired of waiting!" the ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and stopped with a creak. a tall man in a monk's cassock and a conical cap stood on it, holding the rope. "why have you been so long?" i asked jumping upon the ferry. "forgive me, for christ's sake," ieronim answered gently. "is there no one else?" "no one. . . ." ieronim took hold of the rope in both hands, bent himself to the figure of a mark of interrogation, and gasped. the ferry-boat creaked and gave a lurch. the outline of the peasant in the high hat began slowly retreating from me--so the ferry was moving off. ieronim soon drew himself up and began working with one hand only. we were silent, gazing towards the bank to which we were floating. there the illumination for which the peasant was waiting had begun. at the water's edge barrels of tar were flaring like huge camp fires. their reflections, crimson as the rising moon, crept to meet us in long broad streaks. the burning barrels lighted up their own smoke and the long shadows of men flitting about the fire; but further to one side and behind them from where the velvety chime floated there was still the same unbroken black gloom. all at once, cleaving the darkness, a rocket zigzagged in a golden ribbon up the sky; it described an arc and, as though broken to pieces against the sky, was scattered crackling into sparks. there was a roar from the bank like a far-away hurrah. "how beautiful!" i said. "beautiful beyond words!" sighed ieronim. "such a night, sir! another time one would pay no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one rejoices in every vanity. where do you come from?" i told him where i came from. "to be sure . . . a joyful day to-day. . . ." ieronim went on in a weak sighing tenor like the voice of a convalescent. "the sky is rejoicing and the earth and what is under the earth. all the creatures are keeping holiday. only tell me kind sir, why, even in the time of great rejoicing, a man cannot forget his sorrows?" i fancied that this unexpected question was to draw me into one of those endless religious conversations which bored and idle monks are so fond of. i was not disposed to talk much, and so i only asked: "what sorrows have you, father?" "as a rule only the same as all men, kind sir, but to-day a special sorrow has happened in the monastery: at mass, during the reading of the bible, the monk and deacon nikolay died." "well, it's god's will!" i said, falling into the monastic tone. "we must all die. to my mind, you ought to rejoice indeed. . . . they say if anyone dies at easter he goes straight to the kingdom of heaven." "that's true." we sank into silence. the figure of the peasant in the high hat melted into the lines of the bank. the tar barrels were flaring up more and more. "the holy scripture points clearly to the vanity of sorrow and so does reflection," said ieronim, breaking the silence, "but why does the heart grieve and refuse to listen to reason? why does one want to weep bitterly?" ieronim shrugged his shoulders, turned to me and said quickly: "if i died, or anyone else, it would not be worth notice perhaps; but, you see, nikolay is dead! no one else but nikolay! indeed, it's hard to believe that he is no more! i stand here on my ferry-boat and every minute i keep fancying that he will lift up his voice from the bank. he always used to come to the bank and call to me that i might not be afraid on the ferry. he used to get up from his bed at night on purpose for that. he was a kind soul. my god! how kindly and gracious! many a mother is not so good to her child as nikolay was to me! lord, save his soul!" ieronim took hold of the rope, but turned to me again at once. "and such a lofty intelligence, your honour," he said in a vibrating voice. "such a sweet and harmonious tongue! just as they will sing immediately at early matins: 'oh lovely! oh sweet is thy voice!' besides all other human qualities, he had, too, an extraordinary gift!" "what gift?" i asked. the monk scrutinized me, and as though he had convinced himself that he could trust me with a secret, he laughed good-humouredly. "he had a gift for writing hymns of praise," he said. "it was a marvel, sir; you couldn't call it anything else! you would be amazed if i tell you about it. our father archimandrite comes from moscow, the father sub-prior studied at the kazan academy, we have wise monks and elders, but, would you believe it, no one could write them; while nikolay, a simple monk, a deacon, had not studied anywhere, and had not even any outer appearance of it, but he wrote them! a marvel! a real marvel!" ieronim clasped his hands and, completely forgetting the rope, went on eagerly: "the father sub-prior has great difficulty in composing sermons; when he wrote the history of the monastery he worried all the brotherhood and drove a dozen times to town, while nikolay wrote canticles! hymns of praise! that's a very different thing from a sermon or a history!" "is it difficult to write them?" i asked. "there's great difficulty!" ieronim wagged his head. "you can do nothing by wisdom and holiness if god has not given you the gift. the monks who don't understand argue that you only need to know the life of the saint for whom you are writing the hymn, and to make it harmonize with the other hymns of praise. but that's a mistake, sir. of course, anyone who writes canticles must know the life of the saint to perfection, to the least trivial detail. to be sure, one must make them harmonize with the other canticles and know where to begin and what to write about. to give you an instance, the first response begins everywhere with 'the chosen' or 'the elect.' . . . the first line must always begin with the 'angel.' in the canticle of praise to jesus the most sweet, if you are interested in the subject, it begins like this: 'of angels creator and lord of all powers!' in the canticle to the holy mother of god: 'of angels the foremost sent down from on high,' to nikolay, the wonder-worker-- 'an angel in semblance, though in substance a man,' and so on. everywhere you begin with the angel. of course, it would be impossible without making them harmonize, but the lives of the saints and conformity with the others is not what matters; what matters is the beauty and sweetness of it. everything must be harmonious, brief and complete. there must be in every line softness, graciousness and tenderness; not one word should be harsh or rough or unsuitable. it must be written so that the worshipper may rejoice at heart and weep, while his mind is stirred and he is thrown into a tremor. in the canticle to the holy mother are the words: 'rejoice, o thou too high for human thought to reach! rejoice, o thou too deep for angels' eyes to fathom!' in another place in the same canticle: 'rejoice, o tree that bearest the fair fruit of light that is the food of the faithful! rejoice, o tree of gracious spreading shade, under which there is shelter for multitudes!'" ieronim hid his face in his hands, as though frightened at something or overcome with shame, and shook his head. "tree that bearest the fair fruit of light . . . tree of gracious spreading shade. . . ." he muttered. "to think that a man should find words like those! such a power is a gift from god! for brevity he packs many thoughts into one phrase, and how smooth and complete it all is! 'light-radiating torch to all that be . . .' comes in the canticle to jesus the most sweet. 'light-radiating!' there is no such word in conversation or in books, but you see he invented it, he found it in his mind! apart from the smoothness and grandeur of language, sir, every line must be beautified in every way, there must be flowers and lightning and wind and sun and all the objects of the visible world. and every exclamation ought to be put so as to be smooth and easy for the ear. 'rejoice, thou flower of heavenly growth!' comes in the hymn to nikolay the wonder-worker. it's not simply 'heavenly flower,' but 'flower of heavenly growth.' it's smoother so and sweet to the ear. that was just as nikolay wrote it! exactly like that! i can't tell you how he used to write!" "well, in that case it is a pity he is dead," i said; "but let us get on, father, or we shall be late." ieronim started and ran to the rope; they were beginning to peal all the bells. probably the procession was already going on near the monastery, for all the dark space behind the tar barrels was now dotted with moving lights. "did nikolay print his hymns?" i asked ieronim. "how could he print them?" he sighed. "and indeed, it would be strange to print them. what would be the object? no one in the monastery takes any interest in them. they don't like them. they knew nikolay wrote them, but they let it pass unnoticed. no one esteems new writings nowadays, sir!" "were they prejudiced against him?" "yes, indeed. if nikolay had been an elder perhaps the brethren would have been interested, but he wasn't forty, you know. there were some who laughed and even thought his writing a sin." "what did he write them for?" "chiefly for his own comfort. of all the brotherhood, i was the only one who read his hymns. i used to go to him in secret, that no one else might know of it, and he was glad that i took an interest in them. he would embrace me, stroke my head, speak to me in caressing words as to a little child. he would shut his cell, make me sit down beside him, and begin to read. . . ." ieronim left the rope and came up to me. "we were dear friends in a way," he whispered, looking at me with shining eyes. "where he went i would go. if i were not there he would miss me. and he cared more for me than for anyone, and all because i used to weep over his hymns. it makes me sad to remember. now i feel just like an orphan or a widow. you know, in our monastery they are all good people, kind and pious, but . . . there is no one with softness and refinement, they are just like peasants. they all speak loudly, and tramp heavily when they walk; they are noisy, they clear their throats, but nikolay always talked softly, caressingly, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or praying he would slip by like a fly or a gnat. his face was tender, compassionate. . . ." ieronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the rope again. we were by now approaching the bank. we floated straight out of the darkness and stillness of the river into an enchanted realm, full of stifling smoke, crackling lights and uproar. by now one could distinctly see people moving near the tar barrels. the flickering of the lights gave a strange, almost fantastic, expression to their figures and red faces. from time to time one caught among the heads and faces a glimpse of a horse's head motionless as though cast in copper. "they'll begin singing the easter hymn directly, . . ." said ieronim, "and nikolay is gone; there is no one to appreciate it. . . . there was nothing written dearer to him than that hymn. he used to take in every word! you'll be there, sir, so notice what is sung; it takes your breath away!" "won't you be in church, then?" "i can't; . . . i have to work the ferry. . . ." "but won't they relieve you?" "i don't know. . . . i ought to have been relieved at eight; but, as you see, they don't come! . . . and i must own i should have liked to be in the church. . . ." "are you a monk?" "yes . . . that is, i am a lay-brother." the ferry ran into the bank and stopped. i thrust a five-kopeck piece into ieronim's hand for taking me across and jumped on land. immediately a cart with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove creaking onto the ferry. ieronim, with a faint glow from the lights on his figure, pressed on the rope, bent down to it, and started the ferry back. . . . i took a few steps through mud, but a little farther walked on a soft freshly trodden path. this path led to the dark monastery gates, that looked like a cavern through a cloud of smoke, through a disorderly crowd of people, unharnessed horses, carts and chaises. all this crowd was rattling, snorting, laughing, and the crimson light and wavering shadows from the smoke flickered over it all . . . . a perfect chaos! and in this hubbub the people yet found room to load a little cannon and to sell cakes. there was no less commotion on the other side of the wall in the monastery precincts, but there was more regard for decorum and order. here there was a smell of juniper and incense. they talked loudly, but there was no sound of laughter or snorting. near the tombstones and crosses people pressed close to one another with easter cakes and bundles in their arms. apparently many had come from a long distance for their cakes to be blessed and now were exhausted. young lay brothers, making a metallic sound with their boots, ran busily along the iron slabs that paved the way from the monastery gates to the church door. they were busy and shouting on the belfry, too. "what a restless night!" i thought. "how nice!" one was tempted to see the same unrest and sleeplessness in all nature, from the night darkness to the iron slabs, the crosses on the tombs and the trees under which the people were moving to and fro. but nowhere was the excitement and restlessness so marked as in the church. an unceasing struggle was going on in the entrance between the inflowing stream and the outflowing stream. some were going in, others going out and soon coming back again to stand still for a little and begin moving again. people were scurrying from place to place, lounging about as though they were looking for something. the stream flowed from the entrance all round the church, disturbing even the front rows, where persons of weight and dignity were standing. there could be no thought of concentrated prayer. there were no prayers at all, but a sort of continuous, childishly irresponsible joy, seeking a pretext to break out and vent itself in some movement, even in senseless jostling and shoving. the same unaccustomed movement is striking in the easter service itself. the altar gates are flung wide open, thick clouds of incense float in the air near the candelabra; wherever one looks there are lights, the gleam and splutter of candles. . . . there is no reading; restless and lighthearted singing goes on to the end without ceasing. after each hymn the clergy change their vestments and come out to burn the incense, which is repeated every ten minutes. i had no sooner taken a place, when a wave rushed from in front and forced me back. a tall thick-set deacon walked before me with a long red candle; the grey-headed archimandrite in his golden mitre hurried after him with the censer. when they had vanished from sight the crowd squeezed me back to my former position. but ten minutes had not passed before a new wave burst on me, and again the deacon appeared. this time he was followed by the father sub-prior, the man who, as ieronim had told me, was writing the history of the monastery. as i mingled with the crowd and caught the infection of the universal joyful excitement, i felt unbearably sore on ieronim's account. why did they not send someone to relieve him? why could not someone of less feeling and less susceptibility go on the ferry? 'lift up thine eyes, o sion, and look around,' they sang in the choir, 'for thy children have come to thee as to a beacon of divine light from north and south, and from east and from the sea. . . .' i looked at the faces; they all had a lively expression of triumph, but not one was listening to what was being sung and taking it in, and not one was 'holding his breath.' why was not ieronim released? i could fancy ieronim standing meekly somewhere by the wall, bending forward and hungrily drinking in the beauty of the holy phrase. all this that glided by the ears of the people standing by me he would have eagerly drunk in with his delicately sensitive soul, and would have been spell-bound to ecstasy, to holding his breath, and there would not have been a man happier than he in all the church. now he was plying to and fro over the dark river and grieving for his dead friend and brother. the wave surged back. a stout smiling monk, playing with his rosary and looking round behind him, squeezed sideways by me, making way for a lady in a hat and velvet cloak. a monastery servant hurried after the lady, holding a chair over our heads. i came out of the church. i wanted to have a look at the dead nikolay, the unknown canticle writer. i walked about the monastery wall, where there was a row of cells, peeped into several windows, and, seeing nothing, came back again. i do not regret now that i did not see nikolay; god knows, perhaps if i had seen him i should have lost the picture my imagination paints for me now. i imagine the lovable poetical figure solitary and not understood, who went out at nights to call to ieronim over the water, and filled his hymns with flowers, stars and sunbeams, as a pale timid man with soft mild melancholy features. his eyes must have shone, not only with intelligence, but with kindly tenderness and that hardly restrained childlike enthusiasm which i could hear in ieronim's voice when he quoted to me passages from the hymns. when we came out of church after mass it was no longer night. the morning was beginning. the stars had gone out and the sky was a morose greyish blue. the iron slabs, the tombstones and the buds on the trees were covered with dew there was a sharp freshness in the air. outside the precincts i did not find the same animated scene as i had beheld in the night. horses and men looked exhausted, drowsy, scarcely moved, while nothing was left of the tar barrels but heaps of black ash. when anyone is exhausted and sleepy he fancies that nature, too, is in the same condition. it seemed to me that the trees and the young grass were asleep. it seemed as though even the bells were not pealing so loudly and gaily as at night. the restlessness was over, and of the excitement nothing was left but a pleasant weariness, a longing for sleep and warmth. now i could see both banks of the river; a faint mist hovered over it in shifting masses. there was a harsh cold breath from the water. when i jumped on to the ferry, a chaise and some two dozen men and women were standing on it already. the rope, wet and as i fancied drowsy, stretched far away across the broad river and in places disappeared in the white mist. "christ is risen! is there no one else?" asked a soft voice. i recognized the voice of ieronim. there was no darkness now to hinder me from seeing the monk. he was a tall narrow-shouldered man of five-and-thirty, with large rounded features, with half-closed listless-looking eyes and an unkempt wedge-shaped beard. he had an extraordinarily sad and exhausted look. "they have not relieved you yet?" i asked in surprise. "me?" he answered, turning to me his chilled and dewy face with a smile. "there is no one to take my place now till morning. they'll all be going to the father archimandrite's to break the fast directly." with the help of a little peasant in a hat of reddish fur that looked like the little wooden tubs in which honey is sold, he threw his weight on the rope; they gasped simultaneously, and the ferry started. we floated across, disturbing on the way the lazily rising mist. everyone was silent. ieronim worked mechanically with one hand. he slowly passed his mild lustreless eyes over us; then his glance rested on the rosy face of a young merchant's wife with black eyebrows, who was standing on the ferry beside me silently shrinking from the mist that wrapped her about. he did not take his eyes off her face all the way. there was little that was masculine in that prolonged gaze. it seemed to me that ieronim was looking in the woman's face for the soft and tender features of his dead friend. a nightmare kunin, a young man of thirty, who was a permanent member of the rural board, on returning from petersburg to his district, borisovo, immediately sent a mounted messenger to sinkino, for the priest there, father yakov smirnov. five hours later father yakov appeared. "very glad to make your acquaintance," said kunin, meeting him in the entry. "i've been living and serving here for a year; it seems as though we ought to have been acquainted before. you are very welcome! but . . . how young you are!" kunin added in surprise. "what is your age?" "twenty-eight, . . ." said father yakov, faintly pressing kunin's outstretched hand, and for some reason turning crimson. kunin led his visitor into his study and began looking at him more attentively. "what an uncouth womanish face!" he thought. there certainly was a good deal that was womanish in father yakov's face: the turned-up nose, the bright red cheeks, and the large grey-blue eyes with scanty, scarcely perceptible eyebrows. his long reddish hair, smooth and dry, hung down in straight tails on to his shoulders. the hair on his upper lip was only just beginning to form into a real masculine moustache, while his little beard belonged to that class of good-for-nothing beards which among divinity students are for some reason called "ticklers." it was scanty and extremely transparent; it could not have been stroked or combed, it could only have been pinched. . . . all these scanty decorations were put on unevenly in tufts, as though father yakov, thinking to dress up as a priest and beginning to gum on the beard, had been interrupted halfway through. he had on a cassock, the colour of weak coffee with chicory in it, with big patches on both elbows. "a queer type," thought kunin, looking at his muddy skirts. "comes to the house for the first time and can't dress decently. "sit down, father," he began more carelessly than cordially, as he moved an easy-chair to the table. "sit down, i beg you." father yakov coughed into his fist, sank awkwardly on to the edge of the chair, and laid his open hands on his knees. with his short figure, his narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from the first moment a most unpleasant impression on kunin. the latter could never have imagined that there were such undignified and pitiful-looking priests in russia; and in father yakov's attitude, in the way he held his hands on his knees and sat on the very edge of his chair, he saw a lack of dignity and even a shade of servility. "i have invited you on business, father. . . ." kunin began, sinking back in his low chair. "it has fallen to my lot to perform the agreeable duty of helping you in one of your useful undertakings. . . . on coming back from petersburg, i found on my table a letter from the marshal of nobility. yegor dmitrevitch suggests that i should take under my supervision the church parish school which is being opened in sinkino. i shall be very glad to, father, with all my heart. . . . more than that, i accept the proposition with enthusiasm." kunin got up and walked about the study. "of course, both yegor dmitrevitch and probably you, too, are aware that i have not great funds at my disposal. my estate is mortgaged, and i live exclusively on my salary as the permanent member. so that you cannot reckon on very much assistance, but i will do all that is in my power. . . . and when are you thinking of opening the school father?" "when we have the money, . . ." answered father yakov. "you have some funds at your disposal already?" "scarcely any. . . . the peasants settled at their meeting that they would pay, every man of them, thirty kopecks a year; but that's only a promise, you know! and for the first beginning we should need at least two hundred roubles. . . ." "m'yes. . . . unhappily, i have not that sum now," said kunin with a sigh. "i spent all i had on my tour and got into debt, too. let us try and think of some plan together." kunin began planning aloud. he explained his views and watched father yakov's face, seeking signs of agreement or approval in it. but the face was apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but constrained shyness and uneasiness. looking at it, one might have supposed that kunin was talking of matters so abstruse that father yakov did not understand and only listened from good manners, and was at the same time afraid of being detected in his failure to understand. "the fellow is not one of the brightest, that's evident . . ." thought kunin. "he's rather shy and much too stupid." father yakov revived somewhat and even smiled only when the footman came into the study bringing in two glasses of tea on a tray and a cake-basket full of biscuits. he took his glass and began drinking at once. "shouldn't we write at once to the bishop?" kunin went on, meditating aloud. "to be precise, you know, it is not we, not the zemstvo, but the higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question of the church parish schools. they ought really to apportion the funds. i remember i read that a sum of money had been set aside for the purpose. do you know nothing about it?" father yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer this question at once. he lifted his grey-blue eyes to kunin, thought a moment, and as though recalling his question, he shook his head in the negative. an expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary prosaic appetite overspread his face from ear to ear. he drank and smacked his lips over every gulp. when he had drunk it to the very last drop, he put his glass on the table, then took his glass back again, looked at the bottom of it, then put it back again. the expression of pleasure faded from his face. . . . then kunin saw his visitor take a biscuit from the cake-basket, nibble a little bit off it, then turn it over in his hand and hurriedly stick it in his pocket. "well, that's not at all clerical!" thought kunin, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously. "what is it, priestly greed or childishness?" after giving his visitor another glass of tea and seeing him to the entry, kunin lay down on the sofa and abandoned himself to the unpleasant feeling induced in him by the visit of father yakov. "what a strange wild creature!" he thought. "dirty, untidy, coarse, stupid, and probably he drinks. . . . my god, and that's a priest, a spiritual father! that's a teacher of the people! i can fancy the irony there must be in the deacon's face when before every mass he booms out: 'thy blessing, reverend father!' a fine reverend father! a reverend father without a grain of dignity or breeding, hiding biscuits in his pocket like a schoolboy. . . . fie! good lord, where were the bishop's eyes when he ordained a man like that? what can he think of the people if he gives them a teacher like that? one wants people here who . . ." and kunin thought what russian priests ought to be like. "if i were a priest, for instance. . . . an educated priest fond of his work might do a great deal. . . . i should have had the school opened long ago. and the sermons? if the priest is sincere and is inspired by love for his work, what wonderful rousing sermons he might give!" kunin shut his eyes and began mentally composing a sermon. a little later he sat down to the table and rapidly began writing. "i'll give it to that red-haired fellow, let him read it in church, . . ." he thought. the following sunday kunin drove over to sinkino in the morning to settle the question of the school, and while he was there to make acquaintance with the church of which he was a parishioner. in spite of the awful state of the roads, it was a glorious morning. the sun was shining brightly and cleaving with its rays the layers of white snow still lingering here and there. the snow as it took leave of the earth glittered with such diamonds that it hurt the eyes to look, while the young winter corn was hastily thrusting up its green beside it. the rooks floated with dignity over the fields. a rook would fly, drop to earth, and give several hops before standing firmly on its feet. . . . the wooden church up to which kunin drove was old and grey; the columns of the porch had once been painted white, but the colour had now completely peeled off, and they looked like two ungainly shafts. the ikon over the door looked like a dark smudged blur. but its poverty touched and softened kunin. modestly dropping his eyes, he went into the church and stood by the door. the service had only just begun. an old sacristan, bent into a bow, was reading the "hours" in a hollow indistinct tenor. father yakov, who conducted the service without a deacon, was walking about the church, burning incense. had it not been for the softened mood in which kunin found himself on entering the poverty-stricken church, he certainly would have smiled at the sight of father yakov. the short priest was wearing a crumpled and extremely long robe of some shabby yellow material; the hem of the robe trailed on the ground. the church was not full. looking at the parishioners, kunin was struck at the first glance by one strange circumstance: he saw nothing but old people and children. . . . where were the men of working age? where was the youth and manhood? but after he had stood there a little and looked more attentively at the aged-looking faces, kunin saw that he had mistaken young people for old. he did not, however, attach any significance to this little optical illusion. the church was as cold and grey inside as outside. there was not one spot on the ikons nor on the dark brown walls which was not begrimed and defaced by time. there were many windows, but the general effect of colour was grey, and so it was twilight in the church. "anyone pure in soul can pray here very well," thought kunin. "just as in st. peter's in rome one is impressed by grandeur, here one is touched by the lowliness and simplicity." but his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon as father yakov went up to the altar and began mass. being still young and having come straight from the seminary bench to the priesthood, father yakov had not yet formed a set manner of celebrating the service. as he read he seemed to be vacillating between a high tenor and a thin bass; he bowed clumsily, walked quickly, and opened and shut the gates abruptly. . . . the old sacristan, evidently deaf and ailing, did not hear the prayers very distinctly, and this very often led to slight misunderstandings. before father yakov had time to finish what he had to say, the sacristan began chanting his response, or else long after father yakov had finished the old man would be straining his ears, listening in the direction of the altar and saying nothing till his skirt was pulled. the old man had a sickly hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp. . . . the complete lack of dignity and decorum was emphasized by a very small boy who seconded the sacristan and whose head was hardly visible over the railing of the choir. the boy sang in a shrill falsetto and seemed to be trying to avoid singing in tune. kunin stayed a little while, listened and went out for a smoke. he was disappointed, and looked at the grey church almost with dislike. "they complain of the decline of religious feeling among the people . . ." he sighed. "i should rather think so! they'd better foist a few more priests like this one on them!" kunin went back into the church three times, and each time he felt a great temptation to get out into the open air again. waiting till the end of the mass, he went to father yakov's. the priest's house did not differ outwardly from the peasants' huts, but the thatch lay more smoothly on the roof and there were little white curtains in the windows. father yakov led kunin into a light little room with a clay floor and walls covered with cheap paper; in spite of some painful efforts towards luxury in the way of photographs in frames and a clock with a pair of scissors hanging on the weight the furnishing of the room impressed him by its scantiness. looking at the furniture, one might have supposed that father yakov had gone from house to house and collected it in bits; in one place they had given him a round three-legged table, in another a stool, in a third a chair with a back bent violently backwards; in a fourth a chair with an upright back, but the seat smashed in; while in a fifth they had been liberal and given him a semblance of a sofa with a flat back and a lattice-work seat. this semblance had been painted dark red and smelt strongly of paint. kunin meant at first to sit down on one of the chairs, but on second thoughts he sat down on the stool. "this is the first time you have been to our church?" asked father yakov, hanging his hat on a huge misshapen nail. "yes it is. i tell you what, father, before we begin on business, will you give me some tea? my soul is parched." father yakov blinked, gasped, and went behind the partition wall. there was a sound of whispering. "with his wife, i suppose," thought kunin; "it would be interesting to see what the red-headed fellow's wife is like." a little later father yakov came back, red and perspiring and with an effort to smile, sat down on the edge of the sofa. "they will heat the samovar directly," he said, without looking at his visitor. "my goodness, they have not heated the samovar yet!" kunin thought with horror. "a nice time we shall have to wait." "i have brought you," he said, "the rough draft of the letter i have written to the bishop. i'll read it after tea; perhaps you may find something to add. . . ." "very well." a silence followed. father yakov threw furtive glances at the partition wall, smoothed his hair, and blew his nose. "it's wonderful weather, . . ." he said. "yes. i read an interesting thing yesterday. . . . the volsky zemstvo have decided to give their schools to the clergy, that's typical." kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay floor, began to give expression to his reflections. "that would be all right," he said, "if only the clergy were equal to their high calling and recognized their tasks. i am so unfortunate as to know priests whose standard of culture and whose moral qualities make them hardly fit to be army secretaries, much less priests. you will agree that a bad teacher does far less harm than a bad priest." kunin glanced at father yakov; he was sitting bent up, thinking intently about something and apparently not listening to his visitor. "yasha, come here!" a woman's voice called from behind the partition. father yakov started and went out. again a whispering began. kunin felt a pang of longing for tea. "no; it's no use my waiting for tea here," he thought, looking at his watch. "besides i fancy i am not altogether a welcome visitor. my host has not deigned to say one word to me; he simply sits and blinks." kunin took up his hat, waited for father yakov to return, and said good-bye to him. "i have simply wasted the morning," he thought wrathfully on the way home. "the blockhead! the dummy! he cares no more about the school than i about last year's snow. . . . no, i shall never get anything done with him! we are bound to fail! if the marshal knew what the priest here was like, he wouldn't be in such a hurry to talk about a school. we ought first to try and get a decent priest, and then think about the school." by now kunin almost hated father yakov. the man, his pitiful, grotesque figure in the long crumpled robe, his womanish face, his manner of officiating, his way of life and his formal restrained respectfulness, wounded the tiny relic of religious feeling which was stored away in a warm corner of kunin's heart together with his nurse's other fairy tales. the coldness and lack of attention with which father yakov had met kunin's warm and sincere interest in what was the priest's own work was hard for the former's vanity to endure. . . . on the evening of the same day kunin spent a long time walking about his rooms and thinking. then he sat down to the table resolutely and wrote a letter to the bishop. after asking for money and a blessing for the school, he set forth genuinely, like a son, his opinion of the priest at sinkino. "he is young," he wrote, "insufficiently educated, leads, i fancy, an intemperate life, and altogether fails to satisfy the ideals which the russian people have in the course of centuries formed of what a pastor should be." after writing this letter kunin heaved a deep sigh, and went to bed with the consciousness that he had done a good deed. on monday morning, while he was still in bed, he was informed that father yakov had arrived. he did not want to get up, and instructed the servant to say he was not at home. on tuesday he went away to a sitting of the board, and when he returned on saturday he was told by the servants that father yakov had called every day in his absence. "he liked my biscuits, it seems," he thought. towards evening on sunday father yakov arrived. this time not only his skirts, but even his hat, was bespattered with mud. just as on his first visit, he was hot and perspiring, and sat down on the edge of his chair as he had done then. kunin determined not to talk about the school--not to cast pearls. "i have brought you a list of books for the school, pavel mihailovitch, . . ." father yakov began. "thank you." but everything showed that father yakov had come for something else besides the list. has whole figure was expressive of extreme embarrassment, and at the same time there was a look of determination upon his face, as on the face of a man suddenly inspired by an idea. he struggled to say something important, absolutely necessary, and strove to overcome his timidity. "why is he dumb?" kunin thought wrathfully. "he's settled himself comfortably! i haven't time to be bothered with him." to smoothe over the awkwardness of his silence and to conceal the struggle going on within him, the priest began to smile constrainedly, and this slow smile, wrung out on his red perspiring face, and out of keeping with the fixed look in his grey-blue eyes, made kunin turn away. he felt moved to repulsion. "excuse me, father, i have to go out," he said. father yakov started like a man asleep who has been struck a blow, and, still smiling, began in his confusion wrapping round him the skirts of his cassock. in spite of his repulsion for the man, kunin felt suddenly sorry for him, and he wanted to soften his cruelty. "please come another time, father," he said, "and before we part i want to ask you a favour. i was somehow inspired to write two sermons the other day. . . . i will give them to you to look at. if they are suitable, use them." "very good," said father yakov, laying his open hand on kunin's sermons which were lying on the table. "i will take them." after standing a little, hesitating and still wrapping his cassock round him, he suddenly gave up the effort to smile and lifted his head resolutely. "pavel mihailovitch," he said, evidently trying to speak loudly and distinctly. "what can i do for you?" "i have heard that you . . . er . . . have dismissed your secretary, and . . . and are looking for a new one. . . ." "yes, i am. . . . why, have you someone to recommend?" "i. . . er . . . you see . . . i . . . could you not give the post to me?" "why, are you giving up the church?" said kunin in amazement. "no, no," father yakov brought out quickly, for some reason turning pale and trembling all over. "god forbid! if you feel doubtful, then never mind, never mind. you see, i could do the work between whiles, . . so as to increase my income. . . . never mind, don't disturb yourself!" "h'm! . . . your income. . . . but you know, i only pay my secretary twenty roubles a month." "good heavens! i would take ten," whispered father yakov, looking about him. "ten would be enough! you . . . you are astonished, and everyone is astonished. the greedy priest, the grasping priest, what does he do with his money? i feel myself i am greedy, . . . and i blame myself, i condemn myself. . . . i am ashamed to look people in the face. . . . i tell you on my conscience, pavel mihailovitch. . . . i call the god of truth to witness. . . ." father yakov took breath and went on: "on the way here i prepared a regular confession to make you, but . . . i've forgotten it all; i cannot find a word now. i get a hundred and fifty roubles a year from my parish, and everyone wonders what i do with the money. . . . but i'll explain it all truly. . . . i pay forty roubles a year to the clerical school for my brother pyotr. he has everything found there, except that i have to provide pens and paper." "oh, i believe you; i believe you! but what's the object of all this?" said kunin, with a wave of the hand, feeling terribly oppressed by this outburst of confidence on the part of his visitor, and not knowing how to get away from the tearful gleam in his eyes. "then i have not yet paid up all that i owe to the consistory for my place here. they charged me two hundred roubles for the living, and i was to pay ten roubles a month. . . . you can judge what is left! and, besides, i must allow father avraamy at least three roubles a month." "what father avraamy?" "father avraamy who was priest at sinkino before i came. he was deprived of the living on account of . . . his failing, but you know, he is still living at sinkino! he has nowhere to go. there is no one to keep him. though he is old, he must have a corner, and food and clothing--i can't let him go begging on the roads in his position! it would be on my conscience if anything happened! it would be my fault! he is. . . in debt all round; but, you see, i am to blame for not paying for him." father yakov started up from his seat and, looking frantically at the floor, strode up and down the room. "my god, my god!" he muttered, raising his hands and dropping them again. "lord, save us and have mercy upon us! why did you take such a calling on yourself if you have so little faith and no strength? there is no end to my despair! save me, queen of heaven!" "calm yourself, father," said kunin. "i am worn out with hunger, pavel mihailovitch," father yakov went on. "generously forgive me, but i am at the end of my strength . . . . i know if i were to beg and to bow down, everyone would help, but . . . i cannot! i am ashamed. how can i beg of the peasants? you are on the board here, so you know. . . . how can one beg of a beggar? and to beg of richer people, of landowners, i cannot! i have pride! i am ashamed!" father yakov waved his hand, and nervously scratched his head with both hands. "i am ashamed! my god, i am ashamed! i am proud and can't bear people to see my poverty! when you visited me, pavel mihailovitch, i had no tea in the house! there wasn't a pinch of it, and you know it was pride prevented me from telling you! i am ashamed of my clothes, of these patches here. . . . i am ashamed of my vestments, of being hungry. . . . and is it seemly for a priest to be proud?" father yakov stood still in the middle of the study, and, as though he did not notice kunin's presence, began reasoning with himself. "well, supposing i endure hunger and disgrace--but, my god, i have a wife! i took her from a good home! she is not used to hard work; she is soft; she is used to tea and white bread and sheets on her bed. . . . at home she used to play the piano. . . . she is young, not twenty yet. . . . she would like, to be sure, to be smart, to have fun, go out to see people. . . . and she is worse off with me than any cook; she is ashamed to show herself in the street. my god, my god! her only treat is when i bring an apple or some biscuit from a visit. . . ." father yakov scratched his head again with both hands. "and it makes us feel not love but pity for each other. . . . i cannot look at her without compassion! and the things that happen in this life, o lord! such things that people would not believe them if they saw them in the newspaper. . . . and when will there be an end to it all!" "hush, father!" kunin almost shouted, frightened at his tone. "why take such a gloomy view of life?" "generously forgive me, pavel mihailovitch . . ." muttered father yakov as though he were drunk, "forgive me, all this . . . doesn't matter, and don't take any notice of it. . . . only i do blame myself, and always shall blame myself . . . always." father yakov looked about him and began whispering: "one morning early i was going from sinkino to lutchkovo; i saw a woman standing on the river bank, doing something. . . . i went up close and could not believe my eyes. . . . it was horrible! the wife of the doctor, ivan sergeitch, was sitting there washing her linen. . . . a doctor's wife, brought up at a select boarding-school! she had got up you see, early and gone half a mile from the village that people should not see her. . . . she couldn't get over her pride! when she saw that i was near her and noticed her poverty, she turned red all over. . . . i was flustered--i was frightened, and ran up to help her, but she hid her linen from me; she was afraid i should see her ragged chemises. . . ." "all this is positively incredible," said kunin, sitting down and looking almost with horror at father yakov's pale face. "incredible it is! it's a thing that has never been! pavel mihailovitch, that a doctor's wife should be rinsing the linen in the river! such a thing does not happen in any country! as her pastor and spiritual father, i ought not to allow it, but what can i do? what? why, i am always trying to get treated by her husband for nothing myself! it is true that, as you say, it is all incredible! one can hardly believe one's eyes. during mass, you know, when i look out from the altar and see my congregation, avraamy starving, and my wife, and think of the doctor's wife--how blue her hands were from the cold water--would you believe it, i forget myself and stand senseless like a fool, until the sacristan calls to me. . . . it's awful!" father yakov began walking about again. "lord jesus!" he said, waving his hands, "holy saints! i can't officiate properly. . . . here you talk to me about the school, and i sit like a dummy and don't understand a word, and think of nothing but food. . . . even before the altar. . . . but . . . what am i doing?" father yakov pulled himself up suddenly. "you want to go out. forgive me, i meant nothing. . . . excuse . . ." kunin shook hands with father yakov without speaking, saw him into the hall, and going back into his study, stood at the window. he saw father yakov go out of the house, pull his wide-brimmed rusty-looking hat over his eyes, and slowly, bowing his head, as though ashamed of his outburst, walk along the road. "i don't see his horse," thought kunin. kunin did not dare to think that the priest had come on foot every day to see him; it was five or six miles to sinkino, and the mud on the road was impassable. further on he saw the coachman andrey and the boy paramon, jumping over the puddles and splashing father yakov with mud, run up to him for his blessing. father yakov took off his hat and slowly blessed andrey, then blessed the boy and stroked his head. kunin passed his hand over his eyes, and it seemed to him that his hand was moist. he walked away from the window and with dim eyes looked round the room in which he still seemed to hear the timid droning voice. he glanced at the table. luckily, father yakov, in his haste, had forgotten to take the sermons. kunin rushed up to them, tore them into pieces, and with loathing thrust them under the table. "and i did not know!" he moaned, sinking on to the sofa. "after being here over a year as member of the rural board, honorary justice of the peace, member of the school committee! blind puppet, egregious idiot! i must make haste and help them, i must make haste!" he turned from side to side uneasily, pressed his temples and racked his brains. "on the twentieth i shall get my salary, two hundred roubles. . . . on some good pretext i will give him some, and some to the doctor's wife. . . . i will ask them to perform a special service here, and will get up an illness for the doctor. . . . in that way i shan't wound their pride. and i'll help father avraamy too. . . ." he reckoned his money on his fingers, and was afraid to own to himself that those two hundred roubles would hardly be enough for him to pay his steward, his servants, the peasant who brought the meat. . . . he could not help remembering the recent past when he was senselessly squandering his father's fortune, when as a puppy of twenty he had given expensive fans to prostitutes, had paid ten roubles a day to kuzma, his cab-driver, and in his vanity had made presents to actresses. oh, how useful those wasted rouble, three-rouble, ten-rouble notes would have been now! "father avraamy lives on three roubles a month!" thought kunin. "for a rouble the priest's wife could get herself a chemise, and the doctor's wife could hire a washerwoman. but i'll help them, anyway! i must help them." here kunin suddenly recalled the private information he had sent to the bishop, and he writhed as from a sudden draught of cold air. this remembrance filled him with overwhelming shame before his inner self and before the unseen truth. so had begun and had ended a sincere effort to be of public service on the part of a well-intentioned but unreflecting and over-comfortable person. the murder i the evening service was being celebrated at progonnaya station. before the great ikon, painted in glaring colours on a background of gold, stood the crowd of railway servants with their wives and children, and also of the timbermen and sawyers who worked close to the railway line. all stood in silence, fascinated by the glare of the lights and the howling of the snow-storm which was aimlessly disporting itself outside, regardless of the fact that it was the eve of the annunciation. the old priest from vedenyapino conducted the service; the sacristan and matvey terehov were singing. matvey's face was beaming with delight; he sang stretching out his neck as though he wanted to soar upwards. he sang tenor and chanted the "praises" too in a tenor voice with honied sweetness and persuasiveness. when he sang "archangel voices" he waved his arms like a conductor, and trying to second the sacristan's hollow bass with his tenor, achieved something extremely complex, and from his face it could be seen that he was experiencing great pleasure. at last the service was over, and they all quietly dispersed, and it was dark and empty again, and there followed that hush which is only known in stations that stand solitary in the open country or in the forest when the wind howls and nothing else is heard and when all the emptiness around, all the dreariness of life slowly ebbing away is felt. matvey lived not far from the station at his cousin's tavern. but he did not want to go home. he sat down at the refreshment bar and began talking to the waiter in a low voice. "we had our own choir in the tile factory. and i must tell you that though we were only workmen, our singing was first-rate, splendid. we were often invited to the town, and when the deputy bishop, father ivan, took the service at trinity church, the bishop's singers sang in the right choir and we in the left. only they complained in the town that we kept the singing on too long: 'the factory choir drag it out,' they used to say. it is true we began st. andrey's prayers and the praises between six and seven, and it was past eleven when we finished, so that it was sometimes after midnight when we got home to the factory. it was good," sighed matvey. "very good it was, indeed, sergey nikanoritch! but here in my father's house it is anything but joyful. the nearest church is four miles away; with my weak health i can't get so far; there are no singers there. and there is no peace or quiet in our family; day in day out, there is an uproar, scolding, uncleanliness; we all eat out of one bowl like peasants; and there are beetles in the cabbage soup. . . . god has not given me health, else i would have gone away long ago, sergey nikanoritch." matvey terehov was a middle-aged man about forty-five, but he had a look of ill-health; his face was wrinkled and his lank, scanty beard was quite grey, and that made him seem many years older. he spoke in a weak voice, circumspectly, and held his chest when he coughed, while his eyes assumed the uneasy and anxious look one sees in very apprehensive people. he never said definitely what was wrong with him, but he was fond of describing at length how once at the factory he had lifted a heavy box and had ruptured himself, and how this had led to "the gripes," and had forced him to give up his work in the tile factory and come back to his native place; but he could not explain what he meant by "the gripes." "i must own i am not fond of my cousin," he went on, pouring himself out some tea. "he is my elder; it is a sin to censure him, and i fear the lord, but i cannot bear it in patience. he is a haughty, surly, abusive man; he is the torment of his relations and workmen, and constantly out of humour. last sunday i asked him in an amiable way, 'brother, let us go to pahomovo for the mass!' but he said 'i am not going; the priest there is a gambler;' and he would not come here to-day because, he said, the priest from vedenyapino smokes and drinks vodka. he doesn't like the clergy! he reads mass himself and the hours and the vespers, while his sister acts as sacristan; he says, 'let us pray unto the lord'! and she, in a thin little voice like a turkey-hen, 'lord, have mercy upon us! . . .' it's a sin, that's what it is. every day i say to him, 'think what you are doing, brother! repent, brother!' and he takes no notice." sergey nikanoritch, the waiter, poured out five glasses of tea and carried them on a tray to the waiting-room. he had scarcely gone in when there was a shout: "is that the way to serve it, pig's face? you don't know how to wait!" it was the voice of the station-master. there was a timid mutter, then again a harsh and angry shout: "get along!" the waiter came back greatly crestfallen. "there was a time when i gave satisfaction to counts and princes," he said in a low voice; "but now i don't know how to serve tea. . . . he called me names before the priest and the ladies!" the waiter, sergey nikanoritch, had once had money of his own, and had kept a buffet at a first-class station, which was a junction, in the principal town of a province. there he had worn a swallow-tail coat and a gold chain. but things had gone ill with him; he had squandered all his own money over expensive fittings and service; he had been robbed by his staff, and getting gradually into difficulties, had moved to another station less bustling. here his wife had left him, taking with her all the silver, and he moved to a third station of a still lower class, where no hot dishes were served. then to a fourth. frequently changing his situation and sinking lower and lower, he had at last come to progonnaya, and here he used to sell nothing but tea and cheap vodka, and for lunch hard-boiled eggs and dry sausages, which smelt of tar, and which he himself sarcastically said were only fit for the orchestra. he was bald all over the top of his head, and had prominent blue eyes and thick bushy whiskers, which he often combed out, looking into the little looking-glass. memories of the past haunted him continually; he could never get used to sausage "only fit for the orchestra," to the rudeness of the station-master, and to the peasants who used to haggle over the prices, and in his opinion it was as unseemly to haggle over prices in a refreshment room as in a chemist's shop. he was ashamed of his poverty and degradation, and that shame was now the leading interest of his life. "spring is late this year," said matvey, listening. "it's a good job; i don't like spring. in spring it is very muddy, sergey nikanoritch. in books they write: spring, the birds sing, the sun is setting, but what is there pleasant in that? a bird is a bird, and nothing more. i am fond of good company, of listening to folks, of talking of religion or singing something agreeable in chorus; but as for nightingales and flowers--bless them, i say!" he began again about the tile factory, about the choir, but sergey nikanoritch could not get over his mortification, and kept shrugging his shoulders and muttering. matvey said good-bye and went home. there was no frost, and the snow was already melting on the roofs, though it was still falling in big flakes; they were whirling rapidly round and round in the air and chasing one another in white clouds along the railway line. and the oak forest on both sides of the line, in the dim light of the moon which was hidden somewhere high up in the clouds, resounded with a prolonged sullen murmur. when a violent storm shakes the trees, how terrible they are! matvey walked along the causeway beside the line, covering his face and his hands, while the wind beat on his back. all at once a little nag, plastered all over with snow, came into sight; a sledge scraped along the bare stones of the causeway, and a peasant, white all over, too, with his head muffled up, cracked his whip. matvey looked round after him, but at once, as though it had been a vision, there was neither sledge nor peasant to be seen, and he hastened his steps, suddenly scared, though he did not know why. here was the crossing and the dark little house where the signalman lived. the barrier was raised, and by it perfect mountains had drifted and clouds of snow were whirling round like witches on broomsticks. at that point the line was crossed by an old highroad, which was still called "the track." on the right, not far from the crossing, by the roadside stood terehov's tavern, which had been a posting inn. here there was always a light twinkling at night. when matvey reached home there was a strong smell of incense in all the rooms and even in the entry. his cousin yakov ivanitch was still reading the evening service. in the prayer-room where this was going on, in the corner opposite the door, there stood a shrine of old-fashioned ancestral ikons in gilt settings, and both walls to right and to left were decorated with ikons of ancient and modern fashion, in shrines and without them. on the table, which was draped to the floor, stood an ikon of the annunciation, and close by a cyprus-wood cross and the censer; wax candles were burning. beside the table was a reading desk. as he passed by the prayer-room, matvey stopped and glanced in at the door. yakov ivanitch was reading at the desk at that moment, his sister aglaia, a tall lean old woman in a dark-blue dress and white kerchief, was praying with him. yakov ivanitch's daughter dashutka, an ugly freckled girl of eighteen, was there, too, barefoot as usual, and wearing the dress in which she had at nightfall taken water to the cattle. "glory to thee who hast shown us the light!" yakov ivanitch boomed out in a chant, bowing low. aglaia propped her chin on her hand and chanted in a thin, shrill, drawling voice. and upstairs, above the ceiling, there was the sound of vague voices which seemed menacing or ominous of evil. no one had lived on the storey above since a fire there a long time ago. the windows were boarded up, and empty bottles lay about on the floor between the beams. now the wind was banging and droning, and it seemed as though someone were running and stumbling over the beams. half of the lower storey was used as a tavern, while terehov's family lived in the other half, so that when drunken visitors were noisy in the tavern every word they said could be heard in the rooms. matvey lived in a room next to the kitchen, with a big stove, in which, in old days, when this had been a posting inn, bread had been baked every day. dashutka, who had no room of her own, lived in the same room behind the stove. a cricket chirped there always at night and mice ran in and out. matvey lighted a candle and began reading a book which he had borrowed from the station policeman. while he was sitting over it the service ended, and they all went to bed. dashutka lay down, too. she began snoring at once, but soon woke up and said, yawning: "you shouldn't burn a candle for nothing, uncle matvey." "it's my candle," answered matvey; "i bought it with my own money." dashutka turned over a little and fell asleep again. matvey sat up a good time longer--he was not sleepy--and when he had finished the last page he took a pencil out of a box and wrote on the book: "i, matvey terehov, have read this book, and think it the very best of all the books i have read, for which i express my gratitude to the non-commissioned officer of the police department of railways, kuzma nikolaev zhukov, as the possessor of this priceless book." he considered it an obligation of politeness to make such inscriptions in other people's books. ii on annunciation day, after the mail train had been sent off, matvey was sitting in the refreshment bar, talking and drinking tea with lemon in it. the waiter and zhukov the policeman were listening to him. "i was, i must tell you," matvey was saying, "inclined to religion from my earliest childhood. i was only twelve years old when i used to read the epistle in church, and my parents were greatly delighted, and every summer i used to go on a pilgrimage with my dear mother. sometimes other lads would be singing songs and catching crayfish, while i would be all the time with my mother. my elders commended me, and, indeed, i was pleased myself that i was of such good behaviour. and when my mother sent me with her blessing to the factory, i used between working hours to sing tenor there in our choir, and nothing gave me greater pleasure. i needn't say, i drank no vodka, i smoked no tobacco, and lived in chastity; but we all know such a mode of life is displeasing to the enemy of mankind, and he, the unclean spirit, once tried to ruin me and began to darken my mind, just as now with my cousin. first of all, i took a vow to fast every monday and not to eat meat any day, and as time went on all sorts of fancies came over me. for the first week of lent down to saturday the holy fathers have ordained a diet of dry food, but it is no sin for the weak or those who work hard even to drink tea, yet not a crumb passed into my mouth till the sunday, and afterwards all through lent i did not allow myself a drop of oil, and on wednesdays and fridays i did not touch a morsel at all. it was the same in the lesser fasts. sometimes in st. peter's fast our factory lads would have fish soup, while i would sit a little apart from them and suck a dry crust. different people have different powers, of course, but i can say of myself i did not find fast days hard, and, indeed, the greater the zeal the easier it seems. you are only hungry on the first days of the fast, and then you get used to it; it goes on getting easier, and by the end of a week you don't mind it at all, and there is a numb feeling in your legs as though you were not on earth, but in the clouds. and, besides that, i laid all sorts of penances on myself; i used to get up in the night and pray, bowing down to the ground, used to drag heavy stones from place to place, used to go out barefoot in the snow, and i even wore chains, too. only, as time went on, you know, i was confessing one day to the priest and suddenly this reflection occurred to me: why, this priest, i thought, is married, he eats meat and smokes tobacco--how can he confess me, and what power has he to absolve my sins if he is more sinful that i? i even scruple to eat lenten oil, while he eats sturgeon, i dare say. i went to another priest, and he, as ill luck would have it, was a fat fleshy man, in a silk cassock; he rustled like a lady, and he smelt of tobacco too. i went to fast and confess in the monastery, and my heart was not at ease even there; i kept fancying the monks were not living according to their rules. and after that i could not find a service to my mind: in one place they read the service too fast, in another they sang the wrong prayer, in a third the sacristan stammered. sometimes, the lord forgive me a sinner, i would stand in church and my heart would throb with anger. how could one pray, feeling like that? and i fancied that the people in the church did not cross themselves properly, did not listen properly; wherever i looked it seemed to me that they were all drunkards, that they broke the fast, smoked, lived loose lives and played cards. i was the only one who lived according to the commandments. the wily spirit did not slumber; it got worse as it went on. i gave up singing in the choir and i did not go to church at all; since my notion was that i was a righteous man and that the church did not suit me owing to its imperfections--that is, indeed, like a fallen angel, i was puffed up in my pride beyond all belief. after this i began attempting to make a church for myself. i hired from a deaf woman a tiny little room, a long way out of town near the cemetery, and made a prayer-room like my cousin's, only i had big church candlesticks, too, and a real censer. in this prayer-room of mine i kept the rules of holy mount athos--that is, every day my matins began at midnight without fail, and on the eve of the chief of the twelve great holy days my midnight service lasted ten hours and sometimes even twelve. monks are allowed by rule to sit during the singing of the psalter and the reading of the bible, but i wanted to be better than the monks, and so i used to stand all through. i used to read and sing slowly, with tears and sighing, lifting up my hands, and i used to go straight from prayer to work without sleeping; and, indeed, i was always praying at my work, too. well, it got all over the town 'matvey is a saint; matvey heals the sick and senseless.' i never had healed anyone, of course, but we all know wherever any heresy or false doctrine springs up there's no keeping the female sex away. they are just like flies on the honey. old maids and females of all sorts came trailing to me, bowing down to my feet, kissing my hands and crying out i was a saint and all the rest of it, and one even saw a halo round my head. it was too crowded in the prayer-room. i took a bigger room, and then we had a regular tower of babel. the devil got hold of me completely and screened the light from my eyes with his unclean hoofs. we all behaved as though we were frantic. i read, while the old maids and other females sang, and then after standing on their legs for twenty-four hours or longer without eating or drinking, suddenly a trembling would come over them as though they were in a fever; after that, one would begin screaming and then another--it was horrible! i, too, would shiver all over like a jew in a frying-pan, i don't know myself why, and our legs began to prance about. it's a strange thing, indeed: you don't want to, but you prance about and waggle your arms; and after that, screaming and shrieking, we all danced and ran after one another --ran till we dropped; and in that way, in wild frenzy, i fell into fornication." the policeman laughed, but, noticing that no one else was laughing, became serious and said: "that's molokanism. i have heard they are all like that in the caucasus." "but i was not killed by a thunderbolt," matvey went on, crossing himself before the ikon and moving his lips. "my dead mother must have been praying for me in the other world. when everyone in the town looked upon me as a saint, and even the ladies and gentlemen of good family used to come to me in secret for consolation, i happened to go into our landlord, osip varlamitch, to ask forgiveness --it was the day of forgiveness--and he fastened the door with the hook, and we were left alone face to face. and he began to reprove me, and i must tell you osip varlamitch was a man of brains, though without education, and everyone respected and feared him, for he was a man of stern, god-fearing life and worked hard. he had been the mayor of the town, and a warden of the church for twenty years maybe, and had done a great deal of good; he had covered all the new moscow road with gravel, had painted the church, and had decorated the columns to look like malachite. well, he fastened the door, and--'i have been wanting to get at you for a long time, you rascal, . . .' he said. 'you think you are a saint,' he said. 'no you are not a saint, but a backslider from god, a heretic and an evildoer! . . .' and he went on and on. . . . i can't tell you how he said it, so eloquently and cleverly, as though it were all written down, and so touchingly. he talked for two hours. his words penetrated my soul; my eyes were opened. i listened, listened and --burst into sobs! 'be an ordinary man,' he said, 'eat and drink, dress and pray like everyone else. all that is above the ordinary is of the devil. your chains,' he said, 'are of the devil; your fasting is of the devil; your prayer-room is of the devil. it is all pride,' he said. next day, on monday in holy week, it pleased god i should fall ill. i ruptured myself and was taken to the hospital. i was terribly worried, and wept bitterly and trembled. i thought there was a straight road before me from the hospital to hell, and i almost died. i was in misery on a bed of sickness for six months, and when i was discharged the first thing i did i confessed, and took the sacrament in the regular way and became a man again. osip varlamitch saw me off home and exhorted me: 'remember, matvey, that anything above the ordinary is of the devil.' and now i eat and drink like everyone else and pray like everyone else . . . . if it happens now that the priest smells of tobacco or vodka i don't venture to blame him, because the priest, too, of course, is an ordinary man. but as soon as i am told that in the town or in the village a saint has set up who does not eat for weeks, and makes rules of his own, i know whose work it is. so that is how i carried on in the past, gentlemen. now, like osip varlamitch, i am continually exhorting my cousins and reproaching them, but i am a voice crying in the wilderness. god has not vouchsafed me the gift." matvey's story evidently made no impression whatever. sergey nikanoritch said nothing, but began clearing the refreshments off the counter, while the policeman began talking of how rich matvey's cousin was. "he must have thirty thousand at least," he said. zhukov the policeman, a sturdy, well-fed, red-haired man with a full face (his cheeks quivered when he walked), usually sat lolling and crossing his legs when not in the presence of his superiors. as he talked he swayed to and fro and whistled carelessly, while his face had a self-satisfied replete air, as though he had just had dinner. he was making money, and he always talked of it with the air of a connoisseur. he undertook jobs as an agent, and when anyone wanted to sell an estate, a horse or a carriage, they applied to him. "yes, it will be thirty thousand, i dare say," sergey nikanoritch assented. "your grandfather had an immense fortune," he said, addressing matvey. "immense it was; all left to your father and your uncle. your father died as a young man and your uncle got hold of it all, and afterwards, of course, yakov ivanitch. while you were going pilgrimages with your mama and singing tenor in the factory, they didn't let the grass grow under their feet." "fifteen thousand comes to your share," said the policeman swaying from side to side. "the tavern belongs to you in common, so the capital is in common. yes. if i were in your place i should have taken it into court long ago. i would have taken it into court for one thing, and while the case was going on i'd have knocked his face to a jelly." yakov ivanitch was disliked because, when anyone believes differently from others, it upsets even people who are indifferent to religion. the policeman disliked him also because he, too, sold horses and carriages. "you don't care about going to law with your cousin because you have plenty of money of your own," said the waiter to matvey, looking at him with envy. "it is all very well for anyone who has means, but here i shall die in this position, i suppose. . . ." matvey began declaring that he hadn't any money at all, but sergey nikanoritch was not listening. memories of the past and of the insults which he endured every day came showering upon him. his bald head began to perspire; he flushed and blinked. "a cursed life!" he said with vexation, and he banged the sausage on the floor. iii the story ran that the tavern had been built in the time of alexander i, by a widow who had settled here with her son; her name was avdotya terehov. the dark roofed-in courtyard and the gates always kept locked excited, especially on moonlight nights, a feeling of depression and unaccountable uneasiness in people who drove by with posting-horses, as though sorcerers or robbers were living in it; and the driver always looked back after he passed, and whipped up his horses. travellers did not care to put up here, as the people of the house were always unfriendly and charged heavily. the yard was muddy even in summer; huge fat pigs used to lie there in the mud, and the horses in which the terehovs dealt wandered about untethered, and often it happened that they ran out of the yard and dashed along the road like mad creatures, terrifying the pilgrim women. at that time there was a great deal of traffic on the road; long trains of loaded waggons trailed by, and all sorts of adventures happened, such as, for instance, that thirty years ago some waggoners got up a quarrel with a passing merchant and killed him, and a slanting cross is standing to this day half a mile from the tavern; posting-chaises with bells and the heavy _dormeuses_ of country gentlemen drove by; and herds of horned cattle passed bellowing and stirring up clouds of dust. when the railway came there was at first at this place only a platform, which was called simply a halt; ten years afterwards the present station, progonnaya, was built. the traffic on the old posting-road almost ceased, and only local landowners and peasants drove along it now, but the working people walked there in crowds in spring and autumn. the posting-inn was transformed into a restaurant; the upper storey was destroyed by fire, the roof had grown yellow with rust, the roof over the yard had fallen by degrees, but huge fat pigs, pink and revolting, still wallowed in the mud in the yard. as before, the horses sometimes ran away and, lashing their tails dashed madly along the road. in the tavern they sold tea, hay oats and flour, as well as vodka and beer, to be drunk on the premises and also to be taken away; they sold spirituous liquors warily, for they had never taken out a licence. the terehovs had always been distinguished by their piety, so much so that they had even been given the nickname of the "godlies." but perhaps because they lived apart like bears, avoided people and thought out all their ideas for themselves, they were given to dreams and to doubts and to changes of faith and almost each generation had a peculiar faith of its own. the grandmother avdotya, who had built the inn, was an old believer; her son and both her grandsons (the fathers of matvey and yakov) went to the orthodox church, entertained the clergy, and worshipped before the new ikons as devoutly as they had done before the old. the son in old age refused to eat meat and imposed upon himself the rule of silence, considering all conversation as sin; it was the peculiarity of the grandsons that they interpreted the scripture not simply, but sought in it a hidden meaning, declaring that every sacred word must contain a mystery. avdotya's great-grandson matvey had struggled from early childhood with all sorts of dreams and fancies and had been almost ruined by it; the other great-grandson, yakov ivanitch, was orthodox, but after his wife's death he gave up going to church and prayed at home. following his example, his sister aglaia had turned, too; she did not go to church herself, and did not let dashutka go. of aglaia it was told that in her youth she used to attend the flagellant meetings in vedenyapino, and that she was still a flagellant in secret, and that was why she wore a white kerchief. yakov ivanitch was ten years older than matvey--he was a very handsome tall old man with a big grey beard almost to his waist, and bushy eyebrows which gave his face a stern, even ill-natured expression. he wore a long jerkin of good cloth or a black sheepskin coat, and altogether tried to be clean and neat in dress; he wore goloshes even in dry weather. he did not go to church, because, to his thinking, the services were not properly celebrated and because the priests drank wine at unlawful times and smoked tobacco. every day he read and sang the service at home with aglaia. at vedenyapino they left out the "praises" at early matins, and had no evening service even on great holidays, but he used to read through at home everything that was laid down for every day, without hurrying or leaving out a single line, and even in his spare time read aloud the lives of the saints. and in everyday life he adhered strictly to the rules of the church; thus, if wine were allowed on some day in lent "for the sake of the vigil," then he never failed to drink wine, even if he were not inclined. he read, sang, burned incense and fasted, not for the sake of receiving blessings of some sort from god, but for the sake of good order. man cannot live without religion, and religion ought to be expressed from year to year and from day to day in a certain order, so that every morning and every evening a man might turn to god with exactly those words and thoughts that were befitting that special day and hour. one must live, and, therefore, also pray as is pleasing to god, and so every day one must read and sing what is pleasing to god--that is, what is laid down in the rule of the church. thus the first chapter of st. john must only be read on easter day, and "it is most meet" must not be sung from easter to ascension, and so on. the consciousness of this order and its importance afforded yakov ivanitch great gratification during his religious exercises. when he was forced to break this order by some necessity--to drive to town or to the bank, for instance his conscience was uneasy and he felt miserable. when his cousin matvey had returned unexpectedly from the factory and settled in the tavern as though it were his home, he had from the very first day disturbed his settled order. he refused to pray with them, had meals and drank tea at wrong times, got up late, drank milk on wednesdays and fridays on the pretext of weak health; almost every day he went into the prayer-room while they were at prayers and cried: "think what you are doing, brother! repent, brother!" these words threw yakov into a fury, while aglaia could not refrain from beginning to scold; or at night matvey would steal into the prayer-room and say softly: "cousin, your prayer is not pleasing to god. for it is written, first be reconciled with thy brother and then offer thy gift. you lend money at usury, you deal in vodka--repent!" in matvey's words yakov saw nothing but the usual evasions of empty-headed and careless people who talk of loving your neighbour, of being reconciled with your brother, and so on, simply to avoid praying, fasting and reading holy books, and who talk contemptuously of profit and interest simply because they don't like working. of course, to be poor, save nothing, and put by nothing was a great deal easier than being rich. but yet he was troubled and could not pray as before. as soon as he went into the prayer-room and opened the book he began to be afraid his cousin would come in and hinder him; and, in fact, matvey did soon appear and cry in a trembling voice: "think what you are doing, brother! repent, brother!" aglaia stormed and yakov, too, flew into a passion and shouted: "go out of my house!" while matvey answered him: "the house belongs to both of us." yakov would begin singing and reading again, but he could not regain his calm, and unconsciously fell to dreaming over his book. though he regarded his cousin's words as nonsense, yet for some reason it had of late haunted his memory that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, that the year before last he had made a very good bargain over buying a stolen horse, that one day when his wife was alive a drunkard had died of vodka in his tavern. . . . he slept badly at nights now and woke easily, and he could hear that matvey, too, was awake, and continually sighing and pining for his tile factory. and while yakov turned over from one side to another at night he thought of the stolen horse and the drunken man, and what was said in the gospels about the camel. it looked as though his dreaminess were coming over him again. and as ill-luck would have it, although it was the end of march, every day it kept snowing, and the forest roared as though it were winter, and there was no believing that spring would ever come. the weather disposed one to depression, and to quarrelling and to hatred and in the night, when the wind droned over the ceiling, it seemed as though someone were living overhead in the empty storey; little by little the broodings settled like a burden on his mind, his head burned and he could not sleep. iv on the morning of the monday before good friday, matvey heard from his room dashutka say to aglaia: "uncle matvey said, the other day, that there is no need to fast." matvey remembered the whole conversation he had had the evening before with dashutka, and he felt hurt all at once. "girl, don't do wrong!" he said in a moaning voice, like a sick man. "you can't do without fasting; our lord himself fasted forty days. i only explained that fasting does a bad man no good." "you should just listen to the factory hands; they can teach you goodness," aglaia said sarcastically as she washed the floor (she usually washed the floors on working days and was always angry with everyone when she did it). "we know how they keep the fasts in the factory. you had better ask that uncle of yours--ask him about his 'darling,' how he used to guzzle milk on fast days with her, the viper. he teaches others; he forgets about his viper. but ask him who was it he left his money with--who was it?" matvey had carefully concealed from everyone, as though it were a foul sore, that during that period of his life when old women and unmarried girls had danced and run about with him at their prayers he had formed a connection with a working woman and had had a child by her. when he went home he had given this woman all he had saved at the factory, and had borrowed from his landlord for his journey, and now he had only a few roubles which he spent on tea and candles. the "darling" had informed him later on that the child was dead, and asked him in a letter what she should do with the money. this letter was brought from the station by the labourer. aglaia intercepted it and read it, and had reproached matvey with his "darling" every day since. "just fancy, nine hundred roubles," aglaia went on. "you gave nine hundred roubles to a viper, no relation, a factory jade, blast you!" she had flown into a passion by now and was shouting shrilly: "can't you speak? i could tear you to pieces, wretched creature! nine hundred roubles as though it were a farthing. you might have left it to dashutka--she is a relation, not a stranger--or else have it sent to byelev for marya's poor orphans. and your viper did not choke, may she be thrice accursed, the she-devil! may she never look upon the light of day!" yakov ivanitch called to her: it was time to begin the "hours." she washed, put on a white kerchief, and by now quiet and meek, went into the prayer-room to the brother she loved. when she spoke to matvey or served peasants in the tavern with tea she was a gaunt, keen-eyed, ill-humoured old woman; in the prayer-room her face was serene and softened, she looked younger altogether, she curtsied affectedly, and even pursed up her lips. yakov ivanitch began reading the service softly and dolefully, as he always did in lent. after he had read a little he stopped to listen to the stillness that reigned through the house, and then went on reading again, with a feeling of gratification; he folded his hands in supplication, rolled his eyes, shook his head, sighed. but all at once there was the sound of voices. the policeman and sergey nikanoritch had come to see matvey. yakov ivanitch was embarrassed at reading aloud and singing when there were strangers in the house, and now, hearing voices, he began reading in a whisper and slowly. he could hear in the prayer-room the waiter say: "the tatar at shtchepovo is selling his business for fifteen hundred. he'll take five hundred down and an i.o.u. for the rest. and so, matvey vassilitch, be so kind as to lend me that five hundred roubles. i will pay you two per cent a month." "what money have i got?" cried matvey, amazed. "i have no money!" "two per cent a month will be a godsend to you," the policeman explained. "while lying by, your money is simply eaten by the moth, and that's all that you get from it." afterwards the visitors went out and a silence followed. but yakov ivanitch had hardly begun reading and singing again when a voice was heard outside the door: "brother, let me have a horse to drive to vedenyapino." it was matvey. and yakov was troubled again. "which can you go with?" he asked after a moment's thought. "the man has gone with the sorrel to take the pig, and i am going with the little stallion to shuteykino as soon as i have finished." "brother, why is it you can dispose of the horses and not i?" matvey asked with irritation. "because i am not taking them for pleasure, but for work." "our property is in common, so the horses are in common, too, and you ought to understand that, brother." a silence followed. yakov did not go on praying, but waited for matvey to go away from the door. "brother," said matvey, "i am a sick man. i don't want possession --let them go; you have them, but give me a small share to keep me in my illness. give it me and i'll go away." yakov did not speak. he longed to be rid of matvey, but he could not give him money, since all the money was in the business; besides, there had never been a case of the family dividing in the whole history of the terehovs. division means ruin. yakov said nothing, but still waited for matvey to go away, and kept looking at his sister, afraid that she would interfere, and that there would be a storm of abuse again, as there had been in the morning. when at last matvey did go yakov went on reading, but now he had no pleasure in it. there was a heaviness in his head and a darkness before his eyes from continually bowing down to the ground, and he was weary of the sound of his soft dejected voice. when such a depression of spirit came over him at night, he put it down to not being able to sleep; by day it frightened him, and he began to feel as though devils were sitting on his head and shoulders. finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied and ill-humoured, he set off for shuteykino. in the previous autumn a gang of navvies had dug a boundary ditch near progonnaya, and had run up a bill at the tavern for eighteen roubles, and now he had to find their foreman in shuteykino and get the money from him. the road had been spoilt by the thaw and the snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full of holes, and in parts it had given way altogether. the snow had sunk away at the sides below the road, so that he had to drive, as it were, upon a narrow causeway, and it was very difficult to turn off it when he met anything. the sky had been overcast ever since the morning and a damp wind was blowing. . . . a long train of sledges met him; peasant women were carting bricks. yakov had to turn off the road. his horse sank into the snow up to its belly; the sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling out he bent over to the left, and sat so all the time the sledges moved slowly by him. through the wind he heard the creaking of the sledge poles and the breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women saying about him, "there's godly coming," while one, gazing with compassion at his horse, said quickly: "it looks as though the snow will be lying till yegory's day! they are worn out with it!" yakov sat uncomfortably huddled up, screwing up his eyes on account of the wind, while horses and red bricks kept passing before him. and perhaps because he was uncomfortable and his side ached, he felt all at once annoyed, and the business he was going about seemed to him unimportant, and he reflected that he might send the labourer next day to shuteykino. again, as in the previous sleepless night, he thought of the saying about the camel, and then memories of all sorts crept into his mind; of the peasant who had sold him the stolen horse, of the drunken man, of the peasant women who had brought their samovars to him to pawn. of course, every merchant tries to get as much as he can, but yakov felt depressed that he was in trade; he longed to get somewhere far away from this routine, and he felt dreary at the thought that he would have to read the evening service that day. the wind blew straight into his face and soughed in his collar; and it seemed as though it were whispering to him all these thoughts, bringing them from the broad white plain . . . . looking at that plain, familiar to him from childhood, yakov remembered that he had had just this same trouble and these same thoughts in his young days when dreams and imaginings had come upon him and his faith had wavered. he felt miserable at being alone in the open country; he turned back and drove slowly after the sledges, and the women laughed and said: "godly has turned back." at home nothing had been cooked and the samovar was not heated on account of the fast, and this made the day seem very long. yakov ivanitch had long ago taken the horse to the stable, dispatched the flour to the station, and twice taken up the psalms to read, and yet the evening was still far off. aglaia has already washed all the floors, and, having nothing to do, was tidying up her chest, the lid of which was pasted over on the inside with labels off bottles. matvey, hungry and melancholy, sat reading, or went up to the dutch stove and slowly scrutinized the tiles which reminded him of the factory. dashutka was asleep; then, waking up, she went to take water to the cattle. when she was getting water from the well the cord broke and the pail fell in. the labourer began looking for a boathook to get the pail out, and dashutka, barefooted, with legs as red as a goose's, followed him about in the muddy snow, repeating: "it's too far!" she meant to say that the well was too deep for the hook to reach the bottom, but the labourer did not understand her, and evidently she bothered him, so that he suddenly turned around and abused her in unseemly language. yakov ivanitch, coming out that moment into the yard, heard dashutka answer the labourer in a long rapid stream of choice abuse, which she could only have learned from drunken peasants in the tavern. "what are you saying, shameless girl!" he cried to her, and he was positively aghast. "what language!" and she looked at her father in perplexity, dully, not understanding why she should not use those words. he would have admonished her, but she struck him as so savage and benighted; and for the first time he realized that she had no religion. and all this life in the forest, in the snow, with drunken peasants, with coarse oaths, seemed to him as savage and benighted as this girl, and instead of giving her a lecture he only waved his hand and went back into the room. at that moment the policeman and sergey nikanoritch came in again to see matvey. yakov ivanitch thought that these people, too, had no religion, and that that did not trouble them in the least; and human life began to seem to him as strange, senseless and unenlightened as a dog's. bareheaded he walked about the yard, then he went out on to the road, clenching his fists. snow was falling in big flakes at the time. his beard was blown about in the wind. he kept shaking his head, as though there were something weighing upon his head and shoulders, as though devils were sitting on them; and it seemed to him that it was not himself walking about, but some wild beast, a huge terrible beast, and that if he were to cry out his voice would be a roar that would sound all over the forest and the plain, and would frighten everyone. . . . v when he went back into the house the policeman was no longer there, but the waiter was sitting with matvey, counting something on the reckoning beads. he was in the habit of coming often, almost every day, to the tavern; in old days he had come to see yakov ivanitch, now he came to see matvey. he was continually reckoning on the beads, while his face perspired and looked strained, or he would ask for money or, stroking his whiskers, would describe how he had once been in a first-class station and used to prepare champagne-punch for officers, and at grand dinners served the sturgeon-soup with his own hands. nothing in this world interested him but refreshment bars, and he could only talk about things to eat, about wines and the paraphernalia of the dinner-table. on one occasion, handing a cup of tea to a young woman who was nursing her baby and wishing to say something agreeable to her, he expressed himself in this way: "the mother's breast is the baby's refreshment bar." reckoning with the beads in matvey's room, he asked for money; said he could not go on living at progonnaya, and several times repeated in a tone of voice that sounded as though he were just going to cry: "where am i to go? where am i to go now? tell me that, please." then matvey went into the kitchen and began peeling some boiled potatoes which he had probably put away from the day before. it was quiet, and it seemed to yakov ivanitch that the waiter was gone. it was past the time for evening service; he called aglaia, and, thinking there was no one else in the house sang out aloud without embarrassment. he sang and read, but was inwardly pronouncing other words, "lord, forgive me! lord, save me!" and, one after another, without ceasing, he made low bows to the ground as though he wanted to exhaust himself, and he kept shaking his head, so that aglaia looked at him with wonder. he was afraid matvey would come in, and was certain that he would come in, and felt an anger against him which he could overcome neither by prayer nor by continually bowing down to the ground. matvey opened the door very softly and went into the prayer-room. "it's a sin, such a sin!" he said reproachfully, and heaved a sigh. "repent! think what you are doing, brother!" yakov ivanitch, clenching his fists and not looking at him for fear of striking him, went quickly out of the room. feeling himself a huge terrible wild beast, just as he had done before on the road, he crossed the passage into the grey, dirty room, reeking with smoke and fog, in which the peasants usually drank tea, and there he spent a long time walking from one corner to the other, treading heavily, so that the crockery jingled on the shelves and the tables shook. it was clear to him now that he was himself dissatisfied with his religion, and could not pray as he used to do. he must repent, he must think things over, reconsider, live and pray in some other way. but how pray? and perhaps all this was a temptation of the devil, and nothing of this was necessary? . . . how was it to be? what was he to do? who could guide him? what helplessness! he stopped and, clutching at his head, began to think, but matvey's being near him prevented him from reflecting calmly. and he went rapidly into the room. matvey was sitting in the kitchen before a bowl of potato, eating. close by, near the stove, aglaia and dashutka were sitting facing one another, spinning yarn. between the stove and the table at which matvey was sitting was stretched an ironing-board; on it stood a cold iron. "sister," matvey asked, "let me have a little oil!" "who eats oil on a day like this?" asked aglaia. "i am not a monk, sister, but a layman. and in my weak health i may take not only oil but milk." "yes, at the factory you may have anything." aglaia took a bottle of lenten oil from the shelf and banged it angrily down before matvey, with a malignant smile evidently pleased that he was such a sinner. "but i tell you, you can't eat oil!" shouted yakov. aglaia and dashutka started, but matvey poured the oil into the bowl and went on eating as though he had not heard. "i tell you, you can't eat oil!" yakov shouted still more loudly; he turned red all over, snatched up the bowl, lifted it higher than his head, and dashed it with all his force to the ground, so that it flew into fragments. "don't dare to speak!" he cried in a furious voice, though matvey had not said a word. "don't dare!" he repeated, and struck his fist on the table. matvey turned pale and got up. "brother!" he said, still munching--"brother, think what you are about!" "out of my house this minute!" shouted yakov; he loathed matvey's wrinkled face, and his voice, and the crumbs on his moustache, and the fact that he was munching. "out, i tell you!" "brother, calm yourself! the pride of hell has confounded you!" "hold your tongue!" (yakov stamped.) "go away, you devil!" "if you care to know," matvey went on in a loud voice, as he, too, began to get angry, "you are a backslider from god and a heretic. the accursed spirits have hidden the true light from you; your prayer is not acceptable to god. repent before it is too late! the deathbed of the sinner is terrible! repent, brother!" yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the table, while he turned whiter than ever, and frightened and bewildered, began muttering, "what is it? what's the matter?" and, struggling and making efforts to free himself from yakov's hands, he accidentally caught hold of his shirt near the neck and tore the collar; and it seemed to aglaia that he was trying to beat yakov. she uttered a shriek, snatched up the bottle of lenten oil and with all her force brought it down straight on the skull of the cousin she hated. matvey reeled, and in one instant his face became calm and indifferent. yakov, breathing heavily, excited, and feeling pleasure at the gurgle the bottle had made, like a living thing, when it had struck the head, kept him from falling and several times (he remembered this very distinctly) motioned aglaia towards the iron with his finger; and only when the blood began trickling through his hands and he heard dashutka's loud wail, and when the ironing-board fell with a crash, and matvey rolled heavily on it, yakov left off feeling anger and understood what had happened. "let him rot, the factory buck!" aglaia brought out with repulsion, still keeping the iron in her hand. the white bloodstained kerchief slipped on to her shoulders and her grey hair fell in disorder. "he's got what he deserved!" everything was terrible. dashutka sat on the floor near the stove with the yarn in her hands, sobbing, and continually bowing down, uttering at each bow a gasping sound. but nothing was so terrible to yakov as the potato in the blood, on which he was afraid of stepping, and there was something else terrible which weighed upon him like a bad dream and seemed the worst danger, though he could not take it in for the first minute. this was the waiter, sergey nikanoritch, who was standing in the doorway with the reckoning beads in his hands, very pale, looking with horror at what was happening in the kitchen. only when he turned and went quickly into the passage and from there outside, yakov grasped who it was and followed him. wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he reflected. the idea flashed through his mind that their labourer had gone away long before and had asked leave to stay the night at home in the village; the day before they had killed a pig, and there were huge bloodstains in the snow and on the sledge, and even one side of the top of the well was splattered with blood, so that it could not have seemed suspicious even if the whole of yakov's family had been stained with blood. to conceal the murder would be agonizing, but for the policeman, who would whistle and smile ironically, to come from the station, for the peasants to arrive and bind yakov's and aglaia's hands, and take them solemnly to the district courthouse and from there to the town, while everyone on the way would point at them and say mirthfully, "they are taking the godlies!"--this seemed to yakov more agonizing than anything, and he longed to lengthen out the time somehow, so as to endure this shame not now, but later, in the future. "i can lend you a thousand roubles, . . ." he said, overtaking sergey nikanoritch. "if you tell anyone, it will do no good. . . . there's no bringing the man back, anyway;" and with difficulty keeping up with the waiter, who did not look round, but tried to walk away faster than ever, he went on: "i can give you fifteen hundred. . . ." he stopped because he was out of breath, while sergey nikanoritch walked on as quickly as ever, probably afraid that he would be killed, too. only after passing the railway crossing and going half the way from the crossing to the station, he furtively looked round and walked more slowly. lights, red and green, were already gleaming in the station and along the line; the wind had fallen, but flakes of snow were still coming down and the road had turned white again. but just at the station sergey nikanoritch stopped, thought a minute, and turned resolutely back. it was growing dark. "oblige me with the fifteen hundred, yakov ivanitch," he said, trembling all over. "i agree." vi yakov ivanitch's money was in the bank of the town and was invested in second mortgages; he only kept a little at home, just what was wanted for necessary expenses. going into the kitchen he felt for the matchbox, and while the sulphur was burning with a blue light he had time to make out the figure of matvey, which was still lying on the floor near the table, but now it was covered with a white sheet, and nothing could be seen but his boots. a cricket was chirruping. aglaia and dashutka were not in the room, they were both sitting behind the counter in the tea-room, spinning yarn in silence. yakov ivanitch crossed to his own room with a little lamp in his hand, and pulled from under the bed a little box in which he kept his money. this time there were in it four hundred and twenty one-rouble notes and silver to the amount of thirty-five roubles; the notes had an unpleasant heavy smell. putting the money together in his cap, yakov ivanitch went out into the yard and then out of the gate. he walked, looking from side to side, but there was no sign of the waiter. "hi!" cried yakov. a dark figure stepped out from the barrier at the railway crossing and came irresolutely towards him. "why do you keep walking about?" said yakov with vexation, as he recognized the waiter. "here you are; there is a little less than five hundred. . . . i've no more in the house." "very well; . . . very grateful to you," muttered sergey nikanoritch, taking the money greedily and stuffing it into his pockets. he was trembling all over, and that was perceptible in spite of the darkness. "don't worry yourself, yakov ivanitch. . . . what should i chatter for: i came and went away, that's all i've had to do with it. as the saying is, i know nothing and i can tell nothing . . ." and at once he added with a sigh "cursed life!" for a minute they stood in silence, without looking at each other. "so it all came from a trifle, goodness knows how, . . ." said the waiter, trembling. "i was sitting counting to myself when all at once a noise. . . . i looked through the door, and just on account of lenten oil you. . . . where is he now?" "lying there in the kitchen." "you ought to take him somewhere. . . . why put it off?" yakov accompanied him to the station without a word, then went home again and harnessed the horse to take matvey to limarovo. he had decided to take him to the forest of limarovo, and to leave him there on the road, and then he would tell everyone that matvey had gone off to vedenyapino and had not come back, and then everyone would think that he had been killed by someone on the road. he knew there was no deceiving anyone by this, but to move, to do something, to be active, was not as agonizing as to sit still and wait. he called dashutka, and with her carried matvey out. aglaia stayed behind to clean up the kitchen. when yakov and dashutka turned back they were detained at the railway crossing by the barrier being let down. a long goods train was passing, dragged by two engines, breathing heavily, and flinging puffs of crimson fire out of their funnels. the foremost engine uttered a piercing whistle at the crossing in sight of the station. "it's whistling, . . ." said dashutka. the train had passed at last, and the signalman lifted the barrier without haste. "is that you, yakov ivanitch? i didn't know you, so you'll be rich." and then when they had reached home they had to go to bed. aglaia and dashutka made themselves a bed in the tea-room and lay down side by side, while yakov stretched himself on the counter. they neither said their prayers nor lighted the ikon lamp before lying down to sleep. all three lay awake till morning, but did not utter a single word, and it seemed to them that all night someone was walking about in the empty storey overhead. two days later a police inspector and the examining magistrate came from the town and made a search, first in matvey's room and then in the whole tavern. they questioned yakov first of all, and he testified that on the monday matvey had gone to vedenyapino to confess, and that he must have been killed by the sawyers who were working on the line. and when the examining magistrate had asked him how it had happened that matvey was found on the road, while his cap had turned up at home--surely he had not gone to vedenyapino without his cap?-- and why they had not found a single drop of blood beside him in the snow on the road, though his head was smashed in and his face and chest were black with blood, yakov was confused, lost his head and answered: "i cannot tell." and just what yakov had so feared happened: the policeman came, the district police officer smoked in the prayer-room and aglaia fell upon him with abuse and was rude to the police inspector; and afterwards when yakov and aglaia were led out to the yard, the peasants crowded at the gates and said, "they are taking the godlies!" and it seemed that they were all glad. at the inquiry the policeman stated positively that yakov and aglaia had killed matvey in order not to share with him, and that matvey had money of his own, and that if it was not found at the search evidently yakov and aglaia had got hold of it. and dashutka was questioned. she said that uncle matvey and aunt aglaia quarrelled and almost fought every day over money, and that uncle matvey was rich, so much so that he had given someone--"his darling"--nine hundred roubles. dashutka was left alone in the tavern. no one came now to drink tea or vodka, and she divided her time between cleaning up the rooms, drinking mead and eating rolls; but a few days later they questioned the signalman at the railway crossing, and he said that late on monday evening he had seen yakov and dashutka driving from limarovo. dashutka, too, was arrested, taken to the town and put in prison. it soon became known, from what aglaia said, that sergey nikanoritch had been present at the murder. a search was made in his room, and money was found in an unusual place, in his snowboots under the stove, and the money was all in small change, three hundred one-rouble notes. he swore he had made this money himself, and that he hadn't been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses testified that he was poor and had been in great want of money of late, and that he used to go every day to the tavern to borrow from matvey; and the policeman described how on the day of the murder he had himself gone twice to the tavern with the waiter to help him to borrow. it was recalled at this juncture that on monday evening sergey nikanoritch had not been there to meet the passenger train, but had gone off somewhere. and he, too, was arrested and taken to the town. the trial took place eleven months later. yakov ivanitch looked much older and much thinner, and spoke in a low voice like a sick man. he felt weak, pitiful, lower in stature that anyone else, and it seemed as though his soul, too, like his body, had grown older and wasted, from the pangs of his conscience and from the dreams and imaginings which never left him all the while he was in prison. when it came out that he did not go to church the president of the court asked him: "are you a dissenter?" "i can't tell," he answered. he had no religion at all now; he knew nothing and understood nothing; and his old belief was hateful to him now, and seemed to him darkness and folly. aglaia was not in the least subdued, and she still went on abusing the dead man, blaming him for all their misfortunes. sergey nikanoritch had grown a beard instead of whiskers. at the trial he was red and perspiring, and was evidently ashamed of his grey prison coat and of sitting on the same bench with humble peasants. he defended himself awkwardly, and, trying to prove that he had not been to the tavern for a whole year, got into an altercation with every witness, and the spectators laughed at him. dashutka had grown fat in prison. at the trial she did not understand the questions put to her, and only said that when they killed uncle matvey she was dreadfully frightened, but afterwards she did not mind. all four were found guilty of murder with mercenary motives. yakov ivanitch was sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years; aglaia for thirteen and a half; sergey nikanoritch to ten; dashutka to six. vii late one evening a foreign steamer stopped in the roads of dué in sahalin and asked for coal. the captain was asked to wait till morning, but he did not want to wait over an hour, saying that if the weather changed for the worse in the night there would be a risk of his having to go off without coal. in the gulf of tartary the weather is liable to violent changes in the course of half an hour, and then the shores of sahalin are dangerous. and already it had turned fresh, and there was a considerable sea running. a gang of convicts were sent to the mine from the voevodsky prison, the grimmest and most forbidding of all the prisons in sahalin. the coal had to be loaded upon barges, and then they had to be towed by a steam-cutter alongside the steamer which was anchored more than a quarter of a mile from the coast, and then the unloading and reloading had to begin--an exhausting task when the barge kept rocking against the steamer and the men could scarcely keep on their legs for sea-sickness. the convicts, only just roused from their sleep, still drowsy, went along the shore, stumbling in the darkness and clanking their fetters. on the left, scarcely visible, was a tall, steep, extremely gloomy-looking cliff, while on the right there was a thick impenetrable mist, in which the sea moaned with a prolonged monotonous sound, "ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . . ." and it was only when the overseer was lighting his pipe, casting as he did so a passing ray of light on the escort with a gun and on the coarse faces of two or three of the nearest convicts, or when he went with his lantern close to the water that the white crests of the foremost waves could be discerned. one of this gang was yakov ivanitch, nicknamed among the convicts the "brush," on account of his long beard. no one had addressed him by his name or his father's name for a long time now; they called him simply yashka. he was here in disgrace, as, three months after coming to siberia, feeling an intense irresistible longing for home, he had succumbed to temptation and run away; he had soon been caught, had been sentenced to penal servitude for life and given forty lashes. then he was punished by flogging twice again for losing his prison clothes, though on each occasion they were stolen from him. the longing for home had begun from the very time he had been brought to odessa, and the convict train had stopped in the night at progonnaya; and yakov, pressing to the window, had tried to see his own home, and could see nothing in the darkness. he had no one with whom to talk of home. his sister aglaia had been sent right across siberia, and he did not know where she was now. dashutka was in sahalin, but she had been sent to live with some ex-convict in a far away settlement; there was no news of her except that once a settler who had come to the voevodsky prison told yakov that dashutka had three children. sergey nikanoritch was serving as a footman at a government official's at dué, but he could not reckon on ever seeing him, as he was ashamed of being acquainted with convicts of the peasant class. the gang reached the mine, and the men took their places on the quay. it was said there would not be any loading, as the weather kept getting worse and the steamer was meaning to set off. they could see three lights. one of them was moving: that was the steam-cutter going to the steamer, and it seemed to be coming back to tell them whether the work was to be done or not. shivering with the autumn cold and the damp sea mist, wrapping himself in his short torn coat, yakov ivanitch looked intently without blinking in the direction in which lay his home. ever since he had lived in prison together with men banished here from all ends of the earth--with russians, ukrainians, tatars, georgians, chinese, gypsies, jews-- and ever since he had listened to their talk and watched their sufferings, he had begun to turn again to god, and it seemed to him at last that he had learned the true faith for which all his family, from his grandmother avdotya down, had so thirsted, which they had sought so long and which they had never found. he knew it all now and understood where god was, and how he was to be served, and the only thing he could not understand was why men's destinies were so diverse, why this simple faith which other men receive from god for nothing and together with their lives, had cost him such a price that his arms and legs trembled like a drunken man's from all the horrors and agonies which as far as he could see would go on without a break to the day of his death. he looked with strained eyes into the darkness, and it seemed to him that through the thousand miles of that mist he could see home, could see his native province, his district, progonnaya, could see the darkness, the savagery, the heartlessness, and the dull, sullen, animal indifference of the men he had left there. his eyes were dimmed with tears; but still he gazed into the distance where the pale lights of the steamer faintly gleamed, and his heart ached with yearning for home, and he longed to live, to go back home to tell them there of his new faith and to save from ruin if only one man, and to live without suffering if only for one day. the cutter arrived, and the overseer announced in a loud voice that there would be no loading. "back!" he commanded. "steady!" they could hear the hoisting of the anchor chain on the steamer. a strong piercing wind was blowing by now; somewhere on the steep cliff overhead the trees were creaking. most likely a storm was coming. uprooted _an incident of my travels_ i was on my way back from evening service. the clock in the belfry of the svyatogorsky monastery pealed out its soft melodious chimes by way of prelude and then struck twelve. the great courtyard of the monastery stretched out at the foot of the holy mountains on the banks of the donets, and, enclosed by the high hostel buildings as by a wall, seemed now in the night, when it was lighted up only by dim lanterns, lights in the windows, and the stars, a living hotch-potch full of movement, sound, and the most original confusion. from end to end, so far as the eye could see, it was all choked up with carts, old-fashioned coaches and chaises, vans, tilt-carts, about which stood crowds of horses, dark and white, and horned oxen, while people bustled about, and black long-skirted lay brothers threaded their way in and out in all directions. shadows and streaks of light cast from the windows moved over the carts and the heads of men and horses, and in the dense twilight this all assumed the most monstrous capricious shapes: here the tilted shafts stretched upwards to the sky, here eyes of fire appeared in the face of a horse, there a lay brother grew a pair of black wings. . . . there was the noise of talk, the snorting and munching of horses, the creaking of carts, the whimpering of children. fresh crowds kept walking in at the gate and belated carts drove up. the pines which were piled up on the overhanging mountain, one above another, and leaned towards the roof of the hostel, gazed into the courtyard as into a deep pit, and listened in wonder; in their dark thicket the cuckoos and nightingales never ceased calling. . . . looking at the confusion, listening to the uproar, one fancied that in this living hotch-potch no one understood anyone, that everyone was looking for something and would not find it, and that this multitude of carts, chaises and human beings could not ever succeed in getting off. more than ten thousand people flocked to the holy mountains for the festivals of st. john the divine and st. nikolay the wonder-worker. not only the hostel buildings, but even the bakehouse, the tailoring room, the carpenter's shop, the carriage house, were filled to overflowing. . . . those who had arrived towards night clustered like flies in autumn, by the walls, round the wells in the yard, or in the narrow passages of the hostel, waiting to be shown a resting-place for the night. the lay brothers, young and old, were in an incessant movement, with no rest or hope of being relieved. by day or late at night they produced the same impression of men hastening somewhere and agitated by something, yet, in spite of their extreme exhaustion, their faces remained full of courage and kindly welcome, their voices friendly, their movements rapid. . . . for everyone who came they had to find a place to sleep, and to provide food and drink; to those who were deaf, slow to understand, or profuse in questions, they had to give long and wearisome explanations, to tell them why there were no empty rooms, at what o'clock the service was to be where holy bread was sold, and so on. they had to run, to carry, to talk incessantly, but more than that, they had to be polite, too, to be tactful, to try to arrange that the greeks from mariupol, accustomed to live more comfortably than the little russians, should be put with other greeks, that some shopkeeper from bahmut or lisitchansk, dressed like a lady, should not be offended by being put with peasants. there were continual cries of: "father, kindly give us some kvass! kindly give us some hay!" or "father, may i drink water after confession?" and the lay brother would have to give out kvass or hay or to answer: "address yourself to the priest, my good woman, we have not the authority to give permission." another question would follow, "where is the priest then?" and the lay brother would have to explain where was the priest's cell. with all this bustling activity, he yet had to make time to go to service in the church, to serve in the part devoted to the gentry, and to give full answers to the mass of necessary and unnecessary questions which pilgrims of the educated class are fond of showering about them. watching them during the course of twenty-four hours, i found it hard to imagine when these black moving figures sat down and when they slept. when, coming back from the evening service, i went to the hostel in which a place had been assigned me, the monk in charge of the sleeping quarters was standing in the doorway, and beside him, on the steps, was a group of several men and women dressed like townsfolk. "sir," said the monk, stopping me, "will you be so good as to allow this young man to pass the night in your room? if you would do us the favour! there are so many people and no place left--it is really dreadful!" and he indicated a short figure in a light overcoat and a straw hat. i consented, and my chance companion followed me. unlocking the little padlock on my door, i was always, whether i wanted to or not, obliged to look at the picture that hung on the doorpost on a level with my face. this picture with the title, "a meditation on death," depicted a monk on his knees, gazing at a coffin and at a skeleton laying in it. behind the man's back stood another skeleton, somewhat more solid and carrying a scythe. "there are no bones like that," said my companion, pointing to the place in the skeleton where there ought to have been a pelvis. "speaking generally, you know, the spiritual fare provided for the people is not of the first quality," he added, and heaved through his nose a long and very melancholy sigh, meant to show me that i had to do with a man who really knew something about spiritual fare. while i was looking for the matches to light a candle he sighed once more and said: "when i was in harkov i went several times to the anatomy theatre and saw the bones there; i have even been in the mortuary. am i not in your way?" my room was small and poky, with neither table nor chairs in it, but quite filled up with a chest of drawers by the window, the stove and two little wooden sofas which stood against the walls, facing one another, leaving a narrow space to walk between them. thin rusty-looking little mattresses lay on the little sofas, as well as my belongings. there were two sofas, so this room was evidently intended for two, and i pointed out the fact to my companion. "they will soon be ringing for mass, though," he said, "and i shan't have to be in your way very long." still under the impression that he was in my way and feeling awkward, he moved with a guilty step to his little sofa, sighed guiltily and sat down. when the tallow candle with its dim, dilatory flame had left off flickering and burned up sufficiently to make us both visible, i could make out what he was like. he was a young man of two-and-twenty, with a round and pleasing face, dark childlike eyes, dressed like a townsman in grey cheap clothes, and as one could judge from his complexion and narrow shoulders, not used to manual labour. he was of a very indefinite type; one could take him neither for a student nor for a man in trade, still less for a workman. but looking at his attractive face and childlike friendly eyes, i was unwilling to believe he was one of those vagabond impostors with whom every conventual establishment where they give food and lodging is flooded, and who give themselves out as divinity students, expelled for standing up for justice, or for church singers who have lost their voice. . . . there was something characteristic, typical, very familiar in his face, but what exactly, i could not remember nor make out. for a long time he sat silent, pondering. probably because i had not shown appreciation of his remarks about bones and the mortuary, he thought that i was ill-humoured and displeased at his presence. pulling a sausage out of his pocket, he turned it about before his eyes and said irresolutely: "excuse my troubling you, . . . have you a knife?" i gave him a knife. "the sausage is disgusting," he said, frowning and cutting himself off a little bit. "in the shop here they sell you rubbish and fleece you horribly. . . . i would offer you a piece, but you would scarcely care to consume it. will you have some?" in his language, too, there was something typical that had a very great deal in common with what was characteristic in his face, but what it was exactly i still could not decide. to inspire confidence and to show that i was not ill-humoured, i took some of the proffered sausage. it certainly was horrible; one needed the teeth of a good house-dog to deal with it. as we worked our jaws we got into conversation; we began complaining to each other of the lengthiness of the service. "the rule here approaches that of mount athos," i said; "but at athos the night services last ten hours, and on great feast-days --fourteen! you should go there for prayers!" "yes," answered my companion, and he wagged his head, "i have been here for three weeks. and you know, every day services, every day services. on ordinary days at midnight they ring for matins, at five o'clock for early mass, at nine o'clock for late mass. sleep is utterly out of the question. in the daytime there are hymns of praise, special prayers, vespers. . . . and when i was preparing for the sacrament i was simply dropping from exhaustion." he sighed and went on: "and it's awkward not to go to church. . . . the monks give one a room, feed one, and, you know, one is ashamed not to go. one wouldn't mind standing it for a day or two, perhaps, but three weeks is too much--much too much! are you here for long?" "i am going to-morrow evening." "but i am staying another fortnight." "but i thought it was not the rule to stay for so long here?" i said. "yes, that's true: if anyone stays too long, sponging on the monks, he is asked to go. judge for yourself, if the proletariat were allowed to stay on here as long as they liked there would never be a room vacant, and they would eat up the whole monastery. that's true. but the monks make an exception for me, and i hope they won't turn me out for some time. you know i am a convert." "you mean?" "i am a jew baptized. . . . only lately i have embraced orthodoxy." now i understood what i had before been utterly unable to understand from his face: his thick lips, and his way of twitching up the right corner of his mouth and his right eyebrow, when he was talking, and that peculiar oily brilliance of his eyes which is only found in jews. i understood, too, his phraseology. . . . from further conversation i learned that his name was alexandr ivanitch, and had in the past been isaac, that he was a native of the mogilev province, and that he had come to the holy mountains from novotcherkassk, where he had adopted the orthodox faith. having finished his sausage, alexandr ivanitch got up, and, raising his right eyebrow, said his prayer before the ikon. the eyebrow remained up when he sat down again on the little sofa and began giving me a brief account of his long biography. "from early childhood i cherished a love for learning," he began in a tone which suggested he was not speaking of himself, but of some great man of the past. "my parents were poor hebrews; they exist by buying and selling in a small way; they live like beggars, you know, in filth. in fact, all the people there are poor and superstitious; they don't like education, because education, very naturally, turns a man away from religion. . . . they are fearful fanatics. . . . nothing would induce my parents to let me be educated, and they wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing but the talmud. . . . but you will agree, it is not everyone who can spend his whole life struggling for a crust of bread, wallowing in filth, and mumbling the talmud. at times officers and country gentlemen would put up at papa's inn, and they used to talk a great deal of things which in those days i had never dreamed of; and, of course, it was alluring and moved me to envy. i used to cry and entreat them to send me to school, but they taught me to read hebrew and nothing more. once i found a russian newspaper, and took it home with me to make a kite of it. i was beaten for it, though i couldn't read russian. of course, fanaticism is inevitable, for every people instinctively strives to preserve its nationality, but i did not know that then and was very indignant. . . ." having made such an intellectual observation, isaac, as he had been, raised his right eyebrow higher than ever in his satisfaction and looked at me, as it were, sideways, like a cock at a grain of corn, with an air as though he would say: "now at last you see for certain that i am an intellectual man, don't you?" after saying something more about fanaticism and his irresistible yearning for enlightenment, he went on: "what could i do? i ran away to smolensk. and there i had a cousin who relined saucepans and made tins. of course, i was glad to work under him, as i had nothing to live upon; i was barefoot and in rags. . . . i thought i could work by day and study at night and on saturdays. and so i did, but the police found out i had no passport and sent me back by stages to my father. . . ." alexandr ivanitch shrugged one shoulder and sighed. "what was one to do?" he went on, and the more vividly the past rose up before his mind, the more marked his jewish accent became. "my parents punished me and handed me over to my grandfather, a fanatical old jew, to be reformed. but i went off at night to shklov. and when my uncle tried to catch me in shklov, i went off to mogilev; there i stayed two days and then i went off to starodub with a comrade." later on he mentioned in his story gonel, kiev, byelaya, tserkov, uman, balt, bendery and at last reached odessa. "in odessa i wandered about for a whole week, out of work and hungry, till i was taken in by some jews who went about the town buying second-hand clothes. i knew how to read and write by then, and had done arithmetic up to fractions, and i wanted to go to study somewhere, but i had not the means. what was i to do? for six months i went about odessa buying old clothes, but the jews paid me no wages, the rascals. i resented it and left them. then i went by steamer to perekop." "what for?" "oh, nothing. a greek promised me a job there. in short, till i was sixteen i wandered about like that with no definite work and no roots till i got to poltava. there a student, a jew, found out that i wanted to study, and gave me a letter to the harkov students. of course, i went to harkov. the students consulted together and began to prepare me for the technical school. and, you know, i must say the students that i met there were such that i shall never forget them to the day of my death. to say nothing of their giving me food and lodging, they set me on the right path, they made me think, showed me the object of life. among them were intellectual remarkable people who by now are celebrated. for instance, you have heard of grumaher, haven't you?" "no, i haven't." "you haven't! he wrote very clever articles in the _harkov gazette_, and was preparing to be a professor. well, i read a great deal and attended the student's societies, where you hear nothing that is commonplace. i was working up for six months, but as one has to have been through the whole high-school course of mathematics to enter the technical school, grumaher advised me to try for the veterinary institute, where they admit high-school boys from the sixth form. of course, i began working for it. i did not want to be a veterinary surgeon but they told me that after finishing the course at the veterinary institute i should be admitted to the faculty of medicine without examination. i learnt all kühner; i could read cornelius nepos, _à livre ouvert_; and in greek i read through almost all curtius. but, you know, one thing and another, . . . the students leaving and the uncertainty of my position, and then i heard that my mamma had come and was looking for me all over harkov. then i went away. what was i to do? but luckily i learned that there was a school of mines here on the donets line. why should i not enter that? you know the school of mines qualifies one as a mining foreman--a splendid berth. i know of mines where the foremen get a salary of fifteen hundred a year. capital. . . . i entered it. . . ." with an expression of reverent awe on his face alexandr ivanitch enumerated some two dozen abstruse sciences in which instruction was given at the school of mines; he described the school itself, the construction of the shafts, and the condition of the miners. . . . then he told me a terrible story which sounded like an invention, though i could not help believing it, for his tone in telling it was too genuine and the expression of horror on his semitic face was too evidently sincere. "while i was doing the practical work, i had such an accident one day!" he said, raising both eyebrows. "i was at a mine here in the donets district. you have seen, i dare say, how people are let down into the mine. you remember when they start the horse and set the gates moving one bucket on the pulley goes down into the mine, while the other comes up; when the first begins to come up, then the second goes down--exactly like a well with two pails. well, one day i got into the bucket, began going down, and can you fancy, all at once i heard, trrr! the chain had broken and i flew to the devil together with the bucket and the broken bit of chain. . . . i fell from a height of twenty feet, flat on my chest and stomach, while the bucket, being heavier, reached the bottom before me, and i hit this shoulder here against its edge. i lay, you know, stunned. i thought i was killed, and all at once i saw a fresh calamity: the other bucket, which was going up, having lost the counter-balancing weight, was coming down with a crash straight upon me. . . . what was i to do? seeing the position, i squeezed closer to the wall, crouching and waiting for the bucket to come full crush next minute on my head. i thought of papa and mamma and mogilev and grumaher. . . . i prayed. . . . but happily . . . it frightens me even to think of it. . . ." alexandr ivanitch gave a constrained smile and rubbed his forehead with his hand. "but happily it fell beside me and only caught this side a little. . . . it tore off coat, shirt and skin, you know, from this side. . . . the force of it was terrific. i was unconscious after it. they got me out and sent me to the hospital. i was there four months, and the doctors there said i should go into consumption. i always have a cough now and a pain in my chest. and my psychic condition is terrible. . . . when i am alone in a room i feel overcome with terror. of course, with my health in that state, to be a mining foreman is out of the question. i had to give up the school of mines. . . ." "and what are you doing now?" i asked. "i have passed my examination as a village schoolmaster. now i belong to the orthodox church, and i have a right to be a teacher. in novotcherkassk, where i was baptized, they took a great interest in me and promised me a place in a church parish school. i am going there in a fortnight, and shall ask again." alexandr ivanitch took off his overcoat and remained in a shirt with an embroidered russian collar and a worsted belt. "it is time for bed," he said, folding his overcoat for a pillow, and yawning. "till lately, you know, i had no knowledge of god at all. i was an atheist. when i was lying in the hospital i thought of religion, and began reflecting on that subject. in my opinion, there is only one religion possible for a thinking man, and that is the christian religion. if you don't believe in christ, then there is nothing else to believe in, . . . is there? judaism has outlived its day, and is preserved only owing to the peculiarities of the jewish race. when civilization reaches the jews there will not be a trace of judaism left. all young jews are atheists now, observe. the new testament is the natural continuation of the old, isn't it?" i began trying to find out the reasons which had led him to take so grave and bold a step as the change of religion, but he kept repeating the same, "the new testament is the natural continuation of the old"--a formula obviously not his own, but acquired-- which did not explain the question in the least. in spite of my efforts and artifices, the reasons remained obscure. if one could believe that he had embraced orthodoxy from conviction, as he said he had done, what was the nature and foundation of this conviction it was impossible to grasp from his words. it was equally impossible to assume that he had changed his religion from interested motives: his cheap shabby clothes, his going on living at the expense of the convent, and the uncertainty of his future, did not look like interested motives. there was nothing for it but to accept the idea that my companion had been impelled to change his religion by the same restless spirit which had flung him like a chip of wood from town to town, and which he, using the generally accepted formula, called the craving for enlightenment. before going to bed i went into the corridor to get a drink of water. when i came back my companion was standing in the middle of the room, and he looked at me with a scared expression. his face looked a greyish white, and there were drops of perspiration on his forehead. "my nerves are in an awful state," he muttered with a sickly smile," awful! it's acute psychological disturbance. but that's of no consequence." and he began reasoning again that the new testament was a natural continuation of the old, that judaism has outlived its day. . . . picking out his phrases, he seemed to be trying to put together the forces of his conviction and to smother with them the uneasiness of his soul, and to prove to himself that in giving up the religion of his fathers he had done nothing dreadful or peculiar, but had acted as a thinking man free from prejudice, and that therefore he could boldly remain in a room all alone with his conscience. he was trying to convince himself, and with his eyes besought my assistance. meanwhile a big clumsy wick had burned up on our tallow candle. it was by now getting light. at the gloomy little window, which was turning blue, we could distinctly see both banks of the donets river and the oak copse beyond the river. it was time to sleep. "it will be very interesting here to-morrow," said my companion when i put out the candle and went to bed. "after early mass, the procession will go in boats from the monastery to the hermitage." raising his right eyebrow and putting his head on one side, he prayed before the ikons, and, without undressing, lay down on his little sofa. "yes," he said, turning over on the other side. "why yes?" i asked. "when i accepted orthodoxy in novotcherkassk my mother was looking for me in rostov. she felt that i meant to change my religion," he sighed, and went on: "it is six years since i was there in the province of mogilev. my sister must be married by now." after a short silence, seeing that i was still awake, he began talking quietly of how they soon, thank god, would give him a job, and that at last he would have a home of his own, a settled position, his daily bread secure. . . . and i was thinking that this man would never have a home of his own, nor a settled position, nor his daily bread secure. he dreamed aloud of a village school as of the promised land; like the majority of people, he had a prejudice against a wandering life, and regarded it as something exceptional, abnormal and accidental, like an illness, and was looking for salvation in ordinary workaday life. the tone of his voice betrayed that he was conscious of his abnormal position and regretted it. he seemed as it were apologizing and justifying himself. not more than a yard from me lay a homeless wanderer; in the rooms of the hostels and by the carts in the courtyard among the pilgrims some hundreds of such homeless wanderers were waiting for the morning, and further away, if one could picture to oneself the whole of russia, a vast multitude of such uprooted creatures was pacing at that moment along highroads and side-tracks, seeking something better, or were waiting for the dawn, asleep in wayside inns and little taverns, or on the grass under the open sky. . . . as i fell asleep i imagined how amazed and perhaps even overjoyed all these people would have been if reasoning and words could be found to prove to them that their life was as little in need of justification as any other. in my sleep i heard a bell ring outside as plaintively as though shedding bitter tears, and the lay brother calling out several times: "lord jesus christ, son of god, have mercy upon us! come to mass!" when i woke up my companion was not in the room. it was sunny and there was a murmur of the crowds through the window. going out, i learned that mass was over and that the procession had set off for the hermitage some time before. the people were wandering in crowds upon the river bank and, feeling at liberty, did not know what to do with themselves: they could not eat or drink, as the late mass was not yet over at the hermitage; the monastery shops where pilgrims are so fond of crowding and asking prices were still shut. in spite of their exhaustion, many of them from sheer boredom were trudging to the hermitage. the path from the monastery to the hermitage, towards which i directed my steps, twined like a snake along the high steep bank, going up and down and threading in and out among the oaks and pines. below, the donets gleamed, reflecting the sun; above, the rugged chalk cliff stood up white with bright green on the top from the young foliage of oaks and pines, which, hanging one above another, managed somehow to grow on the vertical cliff without falling. the pilgrims trailed along the path in single file, one behind another. the majority of them were little russians from the neighbouring districts, but there were many from a distance, too, who had come on foot from the provinces of kursk and orel; in the long string of varied colours there were greek settlers, too, from mariupol, strongly built, sedate and friendly people, utterly unlike their weakly and degenerate compatriots who fill our southern seaside towns. there were men from the donets, too, with red stripes on their breeches, and emigrants from the tavritchesky province. there were a good many pilgrims of a nondescript class, like my alexandr ivanitch; what sort of people they were and where they came from it was impossible to tell from their faces, from their clothes, or from their speech. the path ended at the little landing-stage, from which a narrow road went to the left to the hermitage, cutting its way through the mountain. at the landing-stage stood two heavy big boats of a forbidding aspect, like the new zealand pirogues which one may see in the works of jules verne. one boat with rugs on the seats was destined for the clergy and the singers, the other without rugs for the public. when the procession was returning i found myself among the elect who had succeeded in squeezing themselves into the second. there were so many of the elect that the boat scarcely moved, and one had to stand all the way without stirring and to be careful that one's hat was not crushed. the route was lovely. both banks--one high, steep and white, with overhanging pines and oaks, with the crowds hurrying back along the path, and the other shelving, with green meadows and an oak copse bathed in sunshine--looked as happy and rapturous as though the may morning owed its charm only to them. the reflection of the sun in the rapidly flowing donets quivered and raced away in all directions, and its long rays played on the chasubles, on the banners and on the drops splashed up by the oars. the singing of the easter hymns, the ringing of the bells, the splash of the oars in the water, the calls of the birds, all mingled in the air into something tender and harmonious. the boat with the priests and the banners led the way; at its helm the black figure of a lay brother stood motionless as a statue. when the procession was getting near the monastery, i noticed alexandr ivanitch among the elect. he was standing in front of them all, and, his mouth wide open with pleasure and his right eyebrow cocked up, was gazing at the procession. his face was beaming; probably at such moments, when there were so many people round him and it was so bright, he was satisfied with himself, his new religion, and his conscience. when a little later we were sitting in our room, drinking tea, he still beamed with satisfaction; his face showed that he was satisfied both with the tea and with me, that he fully appreciated my being an intellectual, but that he would know how to play his part with credit if any intellectual topic turned up. . . . "tell me, what psychology ought i to read?" he began an intellectual conversation, wrinkling up his nose. "why, what do you want it for?" "one cannot be a teacher without a knowledge of psychology. before teaching a boy i ought to understand his soul." i told him that psychology alone would not be enough to make one understand a boy's soul, and moreover psychology for a teacher who had not yet mastered the technical methods of instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic would be a luxury as superfluous as the higher mathematics. he readily agreed with me, and began describing how hard and responsible was the task of a teacher, how hard it was to eradicate in the boy the habitual tendency to evil and superstition, to make him think honestly and independently, to instil into him true religion, the ideas of personal dignity, of freedom, and so on. in answer to this i said something to him. he agreed again. he agreed very readily, in fact. obviously his brain had not a very firm grasp of all these "intellectual subjects." up to the time of my departure we strolled together about the monastery, whiling away the long hot day. he never left my side a minute; whether he had taken a fancy to me or was afraid of solitude, god only knows! i remember we sat together under a clump of yellow acacia in one of the little gardens that are scattered on the mountain side. "i am leaving here in a fortnight," he said; "it is high time." "are you going on foot?" "from here to slavyansk i shall walk, then by railway to nikitovka; from nikitovka the donets line branches off, and along that branch line i shall walk as far as hatsepetovka, and there a railway guard, i know, will help me on my way." i thought of the bare, deserted steppe between nikitovka and hatsepetovka, and pictured to myself alexandr ivanitch striding along it, with his doubts, his homesickness, and his fear of solitude . . . . he read boredom in my face, and sighed. "and my sister must be married by now," he said, thinking aloud, and at once, to shake off melancholy thoughts, pointed to the top of the rock and said: "from that mountain one can see izyum." as we were walking up the mountain he had a little misfortune. i suppose he stumbled, for he slit his cotton trousers and tore the sole of his shoe. "tss!" he said, frowning as he took off a shoe and exposed a bare foot without a stocking. "how unpleasant! . . . that's a complication, you know, which . . . yes!" turning the shoe over and over before his eyes, as though unable to believe that the sole was ruined for ever, he spent a long time frowning, sighing, and clicking with his tongue. i had in my trunk a pair of boots, old but fashionable, with pointed toes and laces. i had brought them with me in case of need, and only wore them in wet weather. when we got back to our room i made up a phrase as diplomatic as i could and offered him these boots. he accepted them and said with dignity: "i should thank you, but i know that you consider thanks a convention." he was pleased as a child with the pointed toes and the laces, and even changed his plans. "now i shall go to novotcherkassk in a week, and not in a fortnight," he said, thinking aloud. "in shoes like these i shall not be ashamed to show myself to my godfather. i was not going away from here just because i hadn't any decent clothes. . . ." when the coachman was carrying out my trunk, a lay brother with a good ironical face came in to sweep out the room. alexandr ivanitch seemed flustered and embarrassed and asked him timidly: "am i to stay here or go somewhere else?" he could not make up his mind to occupy a whole room to himself, and evidently by now was feeling ashamed of living at the expense of the monastery. he was very reluctant to part from me; to put off being lonely as long as possible, he asked leave to see me on my way. the road from the monastery, which had been excavated at the cost of no little labour in the chalk mountain, moved upwards, going almost like a spiral round the mountain, over roots and under sullen overhanging pines. . . . the donets was the first to vanish from our sight, after it the monastery yard with its thousands of people, and then the green roofs. . . . since i was mounting upwards everything seemed vanishing into a pit. the cross on the church, burnished by the rays of the setting sun, gleamed brightly in the abyss and vanished. nothing was left but the oaks, the pines, and the white road. but then our carriage came out on a level country, and that was all left below and behind us. alexandr ivanitch jumped out and, smiling mournfully, glanced at me for the last time with his childish eyes, and vanished from me for ever. . . . the impressions of the holy mountains had already become memories, and i saw something new: the level plain, the whitish-brown distance, the way side copse, and beyond it a windmill which stood with out moving, and seemed bored at not being allowed to wave its sails because it was a holiday. the steppe _the story of a journey_ i early one morning in july a shabby covered chaise, one of those antediluvian chaises without springs in which no one travels in russia nowadays, except merchant's clerks, dealers and the less well-to-do among priests, drove out of n., the principal town of the province of z., and rumbled noisily along the posting-track. it rattled and creaked at every movement; the pail, hanging on behind, chimed in gruffly, and from these sounds alone and from the wretched rags of leather hanging loose about its peeling body one could judge of its decrepit age and readiness to drop to pieces. two of the inhabitants of n. were sitting in the chaise; they were a merchant of n. called ivan ivanitch kuzmitchov, a man with a shaven face wearing glasses and a straw hat, more like a government clerk than a merchant, and father christopher sireysky, the priest of the church of st. nikolay at n., a little old man with long hair, in a grey canvas cassock, a wide-brimmed top-hat and a coloured embroidered girdle. the former was absorbed in thought, and kept tossing his head to shake off drowsiness; in his countenance an habitual business-like reserve was struggling with the genial expression of a man who has just said good-bye to his relatives and has had a good drink at parting. the latter gazed with moist eyes wonderingly at god's world, and his smile was so broad that it seemed to embrace even the brim of his hat; his face was red and looked frozen. both of them, father christopher as well as kuzmitchov, were going to sell wool. at parting with their families they had just eaten heartily of pastry puffs and cream, and although it was so early in the morning had had a glass or two. . . . both were in the best of humours. apart from the two persons described above and the coachman deniska, who lashed the pair of frisky bay horses, there was another figure in the chaise--a boy of nine with a sunburnt face, wet with tears. this was yegorushka, kuzmitchov's nephew. with the sanction of his uncle and the blessing of father christopher, he was now on his way to go to school. his mother, olga ivanovna, the widow of a collegiate secretary, and kuzmitchov's sister, who was fond of educated people and refined society, had entreated her brother to take yegorushka with him when he went to sell wool and to put him to school; and now the boy was sitting on the box beside the coachman deniska, holding on to his elbow to keep from falling off, and dancing up and down like a kettle on the hob, with no notion where he was going or what he was going for. the rapid motion through the air blew out his red shirt like a balloon on his back and made his new hat with a peacock's feather in it, like a coachman's, keep slipping on to the back of his head. he felt himself an intensely unfortunate person, and had an inclination to cry. when the chaise drove past the prison, yegorushka glanced at the sentinels pacing slowly by the high white walls, at the little barred windows, at the cross shining on the roof, and remembered how the week before, on the day of the holy mother of kazan, he had been with his mother to the prison church for the dedication feast, and how before that, at easter, he had gone to the prison with deniska and ludmila the cook, and had taken the prisoners easter bread, eggs, cakes and roast beef. the prisoners had thanked them and made the sign of the cross, and one of them had given yegorushka a pewter buckle of his own making. the boy gazed at the familiar places, while the hateful chaise flew by and left them all behind. after the prison he caught glimpses of black grimy foundries, followed by the snug green cemetery surrounded by a wall of cobblestones; white crosses and tombstones, nestling among green cherry-trees and looking in the distance like patches of white, peeped out gaily from behind the wall. yegorushka remembered that when the cherries were in blossom those white patches melted with the flowers into a sea of white; and that when the cherries were ripe the white tombstones and crosses were dotted with splashes of red like bloodstains. under the cherry trees in the cemetery yegorushka's father and granny, zinaida danilovna, lay sleeping day and night. when granny had died she had been put in a long narrow coffin and two pennies had been put upon her eyes, which would not keep shut. up to the time of her death she had been brisk, and used to bring soft rolls covered with poppy seeds from the market. now she did nothing but sleep and sleep. . . . beyond the cemetery came the smoking brickyards. from under the long roofs of reeds that looked as though pressed flat to the ground, a thick black smoke rose in great clouds and floated lazily upwards. the sky was murky above the brickyards and the cemetery, and great shadows from the clouds of smoke crept over the fields and across the roads. men and horses covered with red dust were moving about in the smoke near the roofs. the town ended with the brickyards and the open country began. yegorushka looked at the town for the last time, pressed his face against deniska's elbow, and wept bitterly. "come, not done howling yet, cry-baby!" cried kuzmitchov. "you are blubbering again, little milksop! if you don't want to go, stay behind; no one is taking you by force! "never mind, never mind, yegor boy, never mind," father christopher muttered rapidly--"never mind, my boy. . . . call upon god. . . . you are not going for your harm, but for your good. learning is light, as the saying is, and ignorance is darkness. . . . that is so, truly." "do you want to go back?" asked kuzmitchov. "yes, . . . yes, . . ." answered yegorushka, sobbing. "well, you'd better go back then. anyway, you are going for nothing; it's a day's journey for a spoonful of porridge." "never mind, never mind, my boy," father christopher went on. "call upon god. . . . lomonosov set off with the fishermen in the same way, and he became a man famous all over europe. learning in conjunction with faith brings forth fruit pleasing to god. what are the words of the prayer? for the glory of our maker, for the comfort of our parents, for the benefit of our church and our country. . . . yes, indeed!" "the benefit is not the same in all cases," said kuzmitchov, lighting a cheap cigar; "some will study twenty years and get no sense from it." "that does happen." "learning is a benefit to some, but others only muddle their brains. my sister is a woman who does not understand; she is set upon refinement, and wants to turn yegorka into a learned man, and she does not understand that with my business i could settle yegorka happily for the rest of his life. i tell you this, that if everyone were to go in for being learned and refined there would be no one to sow the corn and do the trading; they would all die of hunger." "and if all go in for trading and sowing corn there will be no one to acquire learning." and considering that each of them had said something weighty and convincing, kuzmitchov and father christopher both looked serious and cleared their throats simultaneously. deniska, who had been listening to their conversation without understanding a word of it, shook his head and, rising in his seat, lashed at both the bays. a silence followed. meanwhile a wide boundless plain encircled by a chain of low hills lay stretched before the travellers' eyes. huddling together and peeping out from behind one another, these hills melted together into rising ground, which stretched right to the very horizon and disappeared into the lilac distance; one drives on and on and cannot discern where it begins or where it ends. . . . the sun had already peeped out from beyond the town behind them, and quietly, without fuss, set to its accustomed task. at first in the distance before them a broad, bright, yellow streak of light crept over the ground where the earth met the sky, near the little barrows and the windmills, which in the distance looked like tiny men waving their arms. a minute later a similar streak gleamed a little nearer, crept to the right and embraced the hills. something warm touched yegorushka's spine; the streak of light, stealing up from behind, darted between the chaise and the horses, moved to meet the other streak, and soon the whole wide steppe flung off the twilight of early morning, and was smiling and sparkling with dew. the cut rye, the coarse steppe grass, the milkwort, the wild hemp, all withered from the sultry heat, turned brown and half dead, now washed by the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again. arctic petrels flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots called to one another in the grass. somewhere, far away to the left, lapwings uttered their plaintive notes. a covey of partridges, scared by the chaise, fluttered up and with their soft "trrrr!" flew off to the hills. in the grass crickets, locusts and grasshoppers kept up their churring, monotonous music. but a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the air grew stagnant, and the disillusioned steppe began to wear its jaded july aspect. the grass drooped, everything living was hushed. the sun-baked hills, brownish-green and lilac in the distance, with their quiet shadowy tones, the plain with the misty distance and, arched above them, the sky, which seems terribly deep and transparent in the steppes, where there are no woods or high hills, seemed now endless, petrified with dreariness. . . . how stifling and oppressive it was! the chaise raced along, while yegorushka saw always the same--the sky, the plain, the low hills . . . . the music in the grass was hushed, the petrels had flown away, the partridges were out of sight, rooks hovered idly over the withered grass; they were all alike and made the steppe even more monotonous. a hawk flew just above the ground, with an even sweep of its wings, suddenly halted in the air as though pondering on the dreariness of life, then fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow over the steppe, and there was no telling why it flew off and what it wanted. in the distance a windmill waved its sails. . . . now and then a glimpse of a white potsherd or a heap of stones broke the monotony; a grey stone stood out for an instant or a parched willow with a blue crow on its top branch; a marmot would run across the road and--again there flitted before the eyes only the high grass, the low hills, the rooks. . . . but at last, thank god, a waggon loaded with sheaves came to meet them; a peasant wench was lying on the very top. sleepy, exhausted by the heat, she lifted her head and looked at the travellers. deniska gaped, looking at her; the horses stretched out their noses towards the sheaves; the chaise, squeaking, kissed the waggon, and the pointed ears passed over father christopher's hat like a brush. "you are driving over folks, fatty!" cried deniska. "what a swollen lump of a face, as though a bumble-bee had stung it!" the girl smiled drowsily, and moving her lips lay down again; then a solitary poplar came into sight on the low hill. someone had planted it, and god only knows why it was there. it was hard to tear the eyes away from its graceful figure and green drapery. was that lovely creature happy? sultry heat in summer, in winter frost and snowstorms, terrible nights in autumn when nothing is to be seen but darkness and nothing is to be heard but the senseless angry howling wind, and, worst of all, alone, alone for the whole of life . . . . beyond the poplar stretches of wheat extended like a bright yellow carpet from the road to the top of the hills. on the hills the corn was already cut and laid up in sheaves, while at the bottom they were still cutting. . . . six mowers were standing in a row swinging their scythes, and the scythes gleamed gaily and uttered in unison together "vzhee, vzhee!" from the movements of the peasant women binding the sheaves, from the faces of the mowers, from the glitter of the scythes, it could be seen that the sultry heat was baking and stifling. a black dog with its tongue hanging out ran from the mowers to meet the chaise, probably with the intention of barking, but stopped halfway and stared indifferently at deniska, who shook his whip at him; it was too hot to bark! one peasant woman got up and, putting both hands to her aching back, followed yegorushka's red shirt with her eyes. whether it was that the colour pleased her or that he reminded her of her children, she stood a long time motionless staring after him. but now the wheat, too, had flashed by; again the parched plain, the sunburnt hills, the sultry sky stretched before them; again a hawk hovered over the earth. in the distance, as before, a windmill whirled its sails, and still it looked like a little man waving his arms. it was wearisome to watch, and it seemed as though one would never reach it, as though it were running away from the chaise. father christopher and kuzmitchov were silent. deniska lashed the horses and kept shouting to them, while yegorushka had left off crying, and gazed about him listlessly. the heat and the tedium of the steppes overpowered him. he felt as though he had been travelling and jolting up and down for a very long time, that the sun had been baking his back a long time. before they had gone eight miles he began to feel "it must be time to rest." the geniality gradually faded out of his uncle's face and nothing else was left but the air of business reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face, especially when it is adorned with spectacles and the nose and temples are covered with dust, this reserve gives a relentless, inquisitorial appearance. father christopher never left off gazing with wonder at god's world, and smiling. without speaking, he brooded over something pleasant and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on his face. it seemed as though some nice and pleasant thought were imprinted on his brain by the heat. "well, deniska, shall we overtake the waggons to-day?" asked kuzmitchov. deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed at his horses and then answered: "by nightfall, please god, we shall overtake them." there was a sound of dogs barking. half a dozen steppe sheep-dogs, suddenly leaping out as though from ambush, with ferocious howling barks, flew to meet the chaise. all of them, extraordinarily furious, surrounded the chaise, with their shaggy spider-like muzzles and their eyes red with anger, and jostling against one another in their anger, raised a hoarse howl. they were filled with passionate hatred of the horses, of the chaise, and of the human beings, and seemed ready to tear them into pieces. deniska, who was fond of teasing and beating, was delighted at the chance of it, and with a malignant expression bent over and lashed at the sheep-dogs with his whip. the brutes growled more than ever, the horses flew on; and yegorushka, who had difficulty in keeping his seat on the box, realized, looking at the dogs' eyes and teeth, that if he fell down they would instantly tear him to bits; but he felt no fear and looked at them as malignantly as deniska, and regretted that he had no whip in his hand. the chaise came upon a flock of sheep. "stop!" cried kuzmitchov. "pull up! woa!" deniska threw his whole body backwards and pulled up the horses. "come here!" kuzmitchov shouted to the shepherd. "call off the dogs, curse them!" the old shepherd, tattered and barefoot, wearing a fur cap, with a dirty sack round his loins and a long crook in his hand--a regular figure from the old testament--called off the dogs, and taking off his cap, went up to the chaise. another similar old testament figure was standing motionless at the other end of the flock, staring without interest at the travellers. "whose sheep are these?" asked kuzmitchov. "varlamov's," the old man answered in a loud voice. "varlamov's," repeated the shepherd standing at the other end of the flock. "did varlamov come this way yesterday or not?" "he did not; his clerk came. . . ." "drive on!" the chaise rolled on and the shepherds, with their angry dogs, were left behind. yegorushka gazed listlessly at the lilac distance in front, and it began to seem as though the windmill, waving its sails, were getting nearer. it became bigger and bigger, grew quite large, and now he could distinguish clearly its two sails. one sail was old and patched, the other had only lately been made of new wood and glistened in the sun. the chaise drove straight on, while the windmill, for some reason, began retreating to the left. they drove on and on, and the windmill kept moving away to the left, and still did not disappear. "a fine windmill boltva has put up for his son," observed deniska. "and how is it we don't see his farm?" "it is that way, beyond the creek." boltva's farm, too, soon came into sight, but yet the windmill did not retreat, did not drop behind; it still watched yegorushka with its shining sail and waved. what a sorcerer! ii towards midday the chaise turned off the road to the right; it went on a little way at walking pace and then stopped. yegorushka heard a soft, very caressing gurgle, and felt a different air breathe on his face with a cool velvety touch. through a little pipe of hemlock stuck there by some unknown benefactor, water was running in a thin trickle from a low hill, put together by nature of huge monstrous stones. it fell to the ground, and limpid, sparkling gaily in the sun, and softly murmuring as though fancying itself a great tempestuous torrent, flowed swiftly away to the left. not far from its source the little stream spread itself out into a pool; the burning sunbeams and the parched soil greedily drank it up and sucked away its strength; but a little further on it must have mingled with another rivulet, for a hundred paces away thick reeds showed green and luxuriant along its course, and three snipe flew up from them with a loud cry as the chaise drove by. the travellers got out to rest by the stream and feed the horses. kuzmitchov, father christopher and yegorushka sat down on a mat in the narrow strip of shade cast by the chaise and the unharnessed horses. the nice pleasant thought that the heat had imprinted in father christopher's brain craved expression after he had had a drink of water and eaten a hard-boiled egg. he bent a friendly look upon yegorushka, munched, and began: "i studied too, my boy; from the earliest age god instilled into me good sense and understanding, so that while i was just such a lad as you i was beyond others, a comfort to my parents and preceptors by my good sense. before i was fifteen i could speak and make verses in latin, just as in russian. i was the crosier-bearer to his holiness bishop christopher. after mass one day, as i remember it was the patron saint's day of his majesty tsar alexandr pavlovitch of blessed memory, he unrobed at the altar, looked kindly at me and asked, 'puer bone, quam appelaris?' and i answered, 'christopherus sum;' and he said, 'ergo connominati sumus'--that is, that we were namesakes. . . then he asked in latin, 'whose son are you?' to which i answered, also in latin, that i was the son of deacon sireysky of the village of lebedinskoe. seeing my readiness and the clearness of my answers, his holiness blessed me and said, 'write to your father that i will not forget him, and that i will keep you in view.' the holy priests and fathers who were standing round the altar, hearing our discussion in latin, were not a little surprised, and everyone expressed his pleasure in praise of me. before i had moustaches, my boy, i could read latin, greek, and french; i knew philosophy, mathematics, secular history, and all the sciences. the lord gave me a marvellous memory. sometimes, if i read a thing once or twice, i knew it by heart. my preceptors and patrons were amazed, and so they expected i should make a learned man, a luminary of the church. i did think of going to kiev to continue my studies, but my parents did not approve. 'you'll be studying all your life,' said my father; 'when shall we see you finished?' hearing such words, i gave up study and took a post. . . . of course, i did not become a learned man, but then i did not disobey my parents; i was a comfort to them in their old age and gave them a creditable funeral. obedience is more than fasting and prayer. "i suppose you have forgotten all your learning?" observed kuzmitchov. "i should think so! thank god, i have reached my eightieth year! something of philosophy and rhetoric i do remember, but languages and mathematics i have quite forgotten." father christopher screwed up his eyes, thought a minute and said in an undertone: "what is a substance? a creature is a self-existing object, not requiring anything else for its completion." he shook his head and laughed with feeling. "spiritual nourishment!" he said. "of a truth matter nourishes the flesh and spiritual nourishment the soul!" "learning is all very well," sighed kuzmitchov, "but if we don't overtake varlamov, learning won't do much for us." "a man isn't a needle--we shall find him. he must be going his rounds in these parts." among the sedge were flying the three snipe they had seen before, and in their plaintive cries there was a note of alarm and vexation at having been driven away from the stream. the horses were steadily munching and snorting. deniska walked about by them and, trying to appear indifferent to the cucumbers, pies, and eggs that the gentry were eating, he concentrated himself on the gadflies and horseflies that were fastening upon the horses' backs and bellies; he squashed his victims apathetically, emitting a peculiar, fiendishly triumphant, guttural sound, and when he missed them cleared his throat with an air of vexation and looked after every lucky one that escaped death. "deniska, where are you? come and eat," said kuzmitchov, heaving a deep sigh, a sign that he had had enough. deniska diffidently approached the mat and picked out five thick and yellow cucumbers (he did not venture to take the smaller and fresher ones), took two hard-boiled eggs that looked dark and were cracked, then irresolutely, as though afraid he might get a blow on his outstretched hand, touched a pie with his finger. "take them, take them," kuzmitchov urged him on. deniska took the pies resolutely, and, moving some distance away, sat down on the grass with his back to the chaise. at once there was such a sound of loud munching that even the horses turned round to look suspiciously at deniska. after his meal kuzmitchov took a sack containing something out of the chaise and said to yegorushka: "i am going to sleep, and you mind that no one takes the sack from under my head." father christopher took off his cassock, his girdle, and his full coat, and yegorushka, looking at him, was dumb with astonishment. he had never imagined that priests wore trousers, and father christopher had on real canvas trousers thrust into high boots, and a short striped jacket. looking at him, yegorushka thought that in this costume, so unsuitable to his dignified position, he looked with his long hair and beard very much like robinson crusoe. after taking off their outer garments kuzmitchov and father christopher lay down in the shade under the chaise, facing one another, and closed their eyes. deniska, who had finished munching, stretched himself out on his back and also closed his eyes. "you look out that no one takes away the horses!" he said to yegorushka, and at once fell asleep. stillness reigned. there was no sound except the munching and snorting of the horses and the snoring of the sleepers; somewhere far away a lapwing wailed, and from time to time there sounded the shrill cries of the three snipe who had flown up to see whether their uninvited visitors had gone away; the rivulet babbled, lisping softly, but all these sounds did not break the stillness, did not stir the stagnation, but, on the contrary, lulled all nature to slumber. yegorushka, gasping with the heat, which was particularly oppressive after a meal, ran to the sedge and from there surveyed the country. he saw exactly the same as he had in the morning: the plain, the low hills, the sky, the lilac distance; only the hills stood nearer; and he could not see the windmill, which had been left far behind. from behind the rocky hill from which the stream flowed rose another, smoother and broader; a little hamlet of five or six homesteads clung to it. no people, no trees, no shade were to be seen about the huts; it looked as though the hamlet had expired in the burning air and was dried up. to while away the time yegorushka caught a grasshopper in the grass, held it in his closed hand to his ear, and spent a long time listening to the creature playing on its instrument. when he was weary of its music he ran after a flock of yellow butterflies who were flying towards the sedge on the watercourse, and found himself again beside the chaise, without noticing how he came there. his uncle and father christopher were sound asleep; their sleep would be sure to last two or three hours till the horses had rested. . . . how was he to get through that long time, and where was he to get away from the heat? a hard problem. . . . mechanically yegorushka put his lips to the trickle that ran from the waterpipe; there was a chilliness in his mouth and there was the smell of hemlock. he drank at first eagerly, then went on with effort till the sharp cold had run from his mouth all over his body and the water was spilt on his shirt. then he went up to the chaise and began looking at the sleeping figures. his uncle's face wore, as before, an expression of business-like reserve. fanatically devoted to his work, kuzmitchov always, even in his sleep and at church when they were singing, "like the cherubim," thought about his business and could never forget it for a moment; and now he was probably dreaming about bales of wool, waggons, prices, varlamov. . . . father christopher, now, a soft, frivolous and absurd person, had never all his life been conscious of anything which could, like a boa-constrictor, coil about his soul and hold it tight. in all the numerous enterprises he had undertaken in his day what attracted him was not so much the business itself, but the bustle and the contact with other people involved in every undertaking. thus, in the present expedition, he was not so much interested in wool, in varlamov, and in prices, as in the long journey, the conversations on the way, the sleeping under a chaise, and the meals at odd times. . . . and now, judging from his face, he must have been dreaming of bishop christopher, of the latin discussion, of his wife, of puffs and cream and all sorts of things that kuzmitchov could not possibly dream of. while yegorushka was watching their sleeping faces he suddenly heard a soft singing; somewhere at a distance a woman was singing, and it was difficult to tell where and in what direction. the song was subdued, dreary and melancholy, like a dirge, and hardly audible, and seemed to come first from the right, then from the left, then from above, and then from underground, as though an unseen spirit were hovering over the steppe and singing. yegorushka looked about him, and could not make out where the strange song came from. then as he listened he began to fancy that the grass was singing; in its song, withered and half-dead, it was without words, but plaintively and passionately, urging that it was not to blame, that the sun was burning it for no fault of its own; it urged that it ardently longed to live, that it was young and might have been beautiful but for the heat and the drought; it was guiltless, but yet it prayed forgiveness and protested that it was in anguish, sad and sorry for itself. . . . yegorushka listened for a little, and it began to seem as though this dreary, mournful song made the air hotter, more suffocating and more stagnant. . . . to drown the singing he ran to the sedge, humming to himself and trying to make a noise with his feet. from there he looked about in all directions and found out who was singing. near the furthest hut in the hamlet stood a peasant woman in a short petticoat, with long thin legs like a heron. she was sowing something. a white dust floated languidly from her sieve down the hillock. now it was evident that she was singing. a couple of yards from her a little bare-headed boy in nothing but a smock was standing motionless. as though fascinated by the song, he stood stock-still, staring away into the distance, probably at yegorushka's crimson shirt. the song ceased. yegorushka sauntered back to the chaise, and to while away the time went again to the trickle of water. and again there was the sound of the dreary song. it was the same long-legged peasant woman in the hamlet over the hill. yegorushka's boredom came back again. he left the pipe and looked upwards. what he saw was so unexpected that he was a little frightened. just above his head on one of the big clumsy stones stood a chubby little boy, wearing nothing but a shirt, with a prominent stomach and thin legs, the same boy who had been standing before by the peasant woman. he was gazing with open mouth and unblinking eyes at yegorushka's crimson shirt and at the chaise, with a look of blank astonishment and even fear, as though he saw before him creatures of another world. the red colour of the shirt charmed and allured him. but the chaise and the men sleeping under it excited his curiosity; perhaps he had not noticed how the agreeable red colour and curiosity had attracted him down from the hamlet, and now probably he was surprised at his own boldness. for a long while yegorushka stared at him, and he at yegorushka. both were silent and conscious of some awkwardness. after a long silence yegorushka asked: "what's your name?" the stranger's cheeks puffed out more than ever; he pressed his back against the rock, opened his eyes wide, moved his lips, and answered in a husky bass: "tit!" the boys said not another word to each other; after a brief silence, still keeping his eyes fixed on yegorushka, the mysterious tit kicked up one leg, felt with his heel for a niche and clambered up the rock; from that point he ascended to the next rock, staggering backwards and looking intently at yegorushka, as though afraid he might hit him from behind, and so made his way upwards till he disappeared altogether behind the crest of the hill. after watching him out of sight, yegorushka put his arms round his knees and leaned his head on them. . . . the burning sun scorched the back of his head, his neck, and his spine. the melancholy song died away, then floated again on the stagnant stifling air. the rivulet gurgled monotonously, the horses munched, and time dragged on endlessly, as though it, too, were stagnant and had come to a standstill. it seemed as though a hundred years had passed since the morning. could it be that god's world, the chaise and the horses would come to a standstill in that air, and, like the hills, turn to stone and remain for ever in one spot? yegorushka raised his head, and with smarting eyes looked before him; the lilac distance, which till then had been motionless, began heaving, and with the sky floated away into the distance. . . . it drew after it the brown grass, the sedge, and with extraordinary swiftness yegorushka floated after the flying distance. some force noiselessly drew him onwards, and the heat and the wearisome song flew after in pursuit. yegorushka bent his head and shut his eyes. . . . deniska was the first to wake up. something must have bitten him, for he jumped up, quickly scratched his shoulder and said: "plague take you, cursed idolater!" then he went to the brook, had a drink and slowly washed. his splashing and puffing roused yegorushka from his lethargy. the boy looked at his wet face with drops of water and big freckles which made it look like marble, and asked: "shall we soon be going?" deniska looked at the height of the sun and answered: "i expect so." he dried himself with the tail of his shirt and, making a very serious face, hopped on one leg. "i say, which of us will get to the sedge first?" he said. yegorushka was exhausted by the heat and drowsiness, but he raced off after him all the same. deniska was in his twentieth year, was a coachman and going to be married, but he had not left off being a boy. he was very fond of flying kites, chasing pigeons, playing knuckle-bones, running races, and always took part in children's games and disputes. no sooner had his master turned his back or gone to sleep than deniska would begin doing something such as hopping on one leg or throwing stones. it was hard for any grown-up person, seeing the genuine enthusiasm with which he frolicked about in the society of children, to resist saying, "what a baby!" children, on the other hand, saw nothing strange in the invasion of their domain by the big coachman. "let him play," they thought, "as long as he doesn't fight!" in the same way little dogs see nothing strange in it when a simple-hearted big dog joins their company uninvited and begins playing with them. deniska outstripped yegorushka, and was evidently very much pleased at having done so. he winked at him, and to show that he could hop on one leg any distance, suggested to yegorushka that he should hop with him along the road and from there, without resting, back to the chaise. yegorushka declined this suggestion, for he was very much out of breath and exhausted. all at once deniska looked very grave, as he did not look even when kuzmitchov gave him a scolding or threatened him with a stick; listening intently, he dropped quietly on one knee and an expression of sternness and alarm came into his face, such as one sees in people who hear heretical talk. he fixed his eyes on one spot, raised his hand curved into a hollow, and suddenly fell on his stomach on the ground and slapped the hollow of his hand down upon the grass. "caught!" he wheezed triumphantly, and, getting up, lifted a big grasshopper to yegorushka's eyes. the two boys stroked the grasshopper's broad green back with their fingers and touched his antenna, supposing that this would please the creature. then deniska caught a fat fly that had been sucking blood and offered it to the grasshopper. the latter moved his huge jaws, that were like the visor of a helmet, with the utmost unconcern, as though he had been long acquainted with deniska, and bit off the fly's stomach. they let him go. with a flash of the pink lining of his wings, he flew down into the grass and at once began his churring notes again. they let the fly go, too. it preened its wings, and without its stomach flew off to the horses. a loud sigh was heard from under the chaise. it was kuzmitchov waking up. he quickly raised his head, looked uneasily into the distance, and from that look, which passed by yegorushka and deniska without sympathy or interest, it could be seen that his thought on awaking was of the wool and of varlamov. "father christopher, get up; it is time to start," he said anxiously. "wake up; we've slept too long as it is! deniska, put the horses in." father christopher woke up with the same smile with which he had fallen asleep; his face looked creased and wrinkled from sleep, and seemed only half the size. after washing and dressing, he proceeded without haste to take out of his pocket a little greasy psalter; and standing with his face towards the east, began in a whisper repeating the psalms of the day and crossing himself. "father christopher," said kuzmitchov reproachfully, "it's time to start; the horses are ready, and here are you, . . . upon my word." "in a minute, in a minute," muttered father christopher. "i must read the psalms. . . . i haven't read them to-day." "the psalms can wait." "ivan ivanitch, that is my rule every day. . . . i can't . . ." "god will overlook it." for a full quarter of an hour father christopher stood facing the east and moving his lips, while kuzmitchov looked at him almost with hatred and impatiently shrugged his shoulders. he was particularly irritated when, after every "hallelujah," father christopher drew a long breath, rapidly crossed himself and repeated three times, intentionally raising his voice so that the others might cross themselves, "hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! glory be to thee, o lord!" at last he smiled, looked upwards at the sky, and, putting the psalter in his pocket, said: "finis!" a minute later the chaise had started on the road. as though it were going backwards and not forwards, the travellers saw the same scene as they had before midday. the low hills were still plunged in the lilac distance, and no end could be seen to them. there were glimpses of high grass and heaps of stones; strips of stubble land passed by them and still the same rooks, the same hawk, moving its wings with slow dignity, moved over the steppe. the air was more sultry than ever; from the sultry heat and the stillness submissive nature was spellbound into silence . . . . no wind, no fresh cheering sound, no cloud. but at last, when the sun was beginning to sink into the west, the steppe, the hills and the air could bear the oppression no longer, and, driven out of all patience, exhausted, tried to fling off the yoke. a fleecy ashen-grey cloud unexpectedly appeared behind the hills. it exchanged glances with the steppe, as though to say, "here i am," and frowned. suddenly something burst in the stagnant air; there was a violent squall of wind which whirled round and round, roaring and whistling over the steppe. at once a murmur rose from the grass and last year's dry herbage, the dust curled in spiral eddies over the road, raced over the steppe, and carrying with it straws, dragon flies and feathers, rose up in a whirling black column towards the sky and darkened the sun. prickly uprooted plants ran stumbling and leaping in all directions over the steppe, and one of them got caught in the whirlwind, turned round and round like a bird, flew towards the sky, and turning into a little black speck, vanished from sight. after it flew another, and then a third, and yegorushka saw two of them meet in the blue height and clutch at one another as though they were wrestling. a bustard flew up by the very road. fluttering his wings and his tail, he looked, bathed in the sunshine, like an angler's glittering tin fish or a waterfly flashing so swiftly over the water that its wings cannot be told from its antenna, which seem to be growing before, behind and on all sides. . . . quivering in the air like an insect with a shimmer of bright colours, the bustard flew high up in a straight line, then, probably frightened by a cloud of dust, swerved to one side, and for a long time the gleam of his wings could be seen. . . . then a corncrake flew up from the grass, alarmed by the hurricane and not knowing what was the matter. it flew with the wind and not against it, like all the other birds, so that all its feathers were ruffled up and it was puffed out to the size of a hen and looked very angry and impressive. only the rooks who had grown old on the steppe and were accustomed to its vagaries hovered calmly over the grass, or taking no notice of anything, went on unconcernedly pecking with their stout beaks at the hard earth. there was a dull roll of thunder beyond the hills; there came a whiff of fresh air. deniska gave a cheerful whistle and lashed his horses. father christopher and kuzmitchov held their hats and looked intently towards the hills. . . . how pleasant a shower of rain would have been! one effort, one struggle more, and it seemed the steppe would have got the upper hand. but the unseen oppressive force gradually riveted its fetters on the wind and the air, laid the dust, and the stillness came back again as though nothing had happened, the cloud hid, the sun-baked hills frowned submissively, the air grew calm, and only somewhere the troubled lapwings wailed and lamented their destiny. . . . soon after that the evening came on. iii in the dusk of evening a big house of one storey, with a rusty iron roof and with dark windows, came into sight. this house was called a posting-inn, though it had nothing like a stableyard, and it stood in the middle of the steppe, with no kind of enclosure round it. a little to one side of it a wretched little cherry orchard shut in by a hurdle fence made a dark patch, and under the windows stood sleepy sunflowers drooping their heavy heads. from the orchard came the clatter of a little toy windmill, set there to frighten away hares by the rattle. nothing more could be seen near the house, and nothing could be heard but the steppe. the chaise had scarcely stopped at the porch with an awning over it, when from the house there came the sound of cheerful voices, one a man's, another a woman's; there was the creak of a swing-door, and in a flash a tall gaunt figure, swinging its arms and fluttering its coat, was standing by the chaise. this was the innkeeper, moisey moisevitch, a man no longer young, with a very pale face and a handsome beard as black as charcoal. he was wearing a threadbare black coat, which hung flapping on his narrow shoulders as though on a hatstand, and fluttered its skirts like wings every time moisey moisevitch flung up his hands in delight or horror. besides his coat the innkeeper was wearing full white trousers, not stuck into his boots, and a velvet waistcoat with brown flowers on it that looked like gigantic bugs. moisey moisevitch was at first dumb with excess of feeling on recognizing the travellers, then he clasped his hands and uttered a moan. his coat swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and his pale face twisted into a smile that suggested that to see the chaise was not merely a pleasure to him, but actually a joy so sweet as to be painful. "oh dear! oh dear!" he began in a thin sing-song voice, breathless, fussing about and preventing the travellers from getting out of the chaise by his antics. "what a happy day for me! oh, what am i to do now? ivan ivanitch! father christopher! what a pretty little gentleman sitting on the box, god strike me dead! oh, my goodness! why am i standing here instead of asking the visitors indoors? please walk in, i humbly beg you. . . . you are kindly welcome! give me all your things. . . . oh, my goodness me!" moisey moisevitch, who was rummaging in the chaise and assisting the travellers to alight, suddenly turned back and shouted in a voice as frantic and choking as though he were drowning and calling for help: "solomon! solomon!" "solomon! solomon!" a woman's voice repeated indoors. the swing-door creaked, and in the doorway appeared a rather short young jew with a big beak-like nose, with a bald patch surrounded by rough red curly hair; he was dressed in a short and very shabby reefer jacket, with rounded lappets and short sleeves, and in short serge trousers, so that he looked skimpy and short-tailed like an unfledged bird. this was solomon, the brother of moisey moisevitch. he went up to the chaise, smiling rather queerly, and did not speak or greet the travellers. "ivan ivanitch and father christopher have come," said moisey moisevitch in a tone as though he were afraid his brother would not believe him. "dear, dear! what a surprise! such honoured guests to have come us so suddenly! come, take their things, solomon. walk in, honoured guests." a little later kuzmitchov, father christopher, and yegorushka were sitting in a big gloomy empty room at an old oak table. the table was almost in solitude, for, except a wide sofa covered with torn american leather and three chairs, there was no other furniture in the room. and, indeed, not everybody would have given the chairs that name. they were a pitiful semblance of furniture, covered with american leather that had seen its best days, and with backs bent backwards at an unnaturally acute angle, so that they looked like children's sledges. it was hard to imagine what had been the unknown carpenter's object in bending the chairbacks so mercilessly, and one was tempted to imagine that it was not the carpenter's fault, but that some athletic visitor had bent the chairs like this as a feat, then had tried to bend them back again and had made them worse. the room looked gloomy, the walls were grey, the ceilings and the cornices were grimy; on the floor were chinks and yawning holes that were hard to account for (one might have fancied they were made by the heel of the same athlete), and it seemed as though the room would still have been dark if a dozen lamps had hung in it. there was nothing approaching an ornament on the walls or the windows. on one wall, however, there hung a list of regulations of some sort under a two-headed eagle in a grey wooden frame, and on another wall in the same sort of frame an engraving with the inscription, "the indifference of man." what it was to which men were indifferent it was impossible to make out, as the engraving was very dingy with age and was extensively flyblown. there was a smell of something decayed and sour in the room. as he led the visitors into the room, moisey moisevitch went on wriggling, gesticulating, shrugging and uttering joyful exclamations; he considered these antics necessary in order to seem polite and agreeable. "when did our waggons go by?" kuzmitchov asked. "one party went by early this morning, and the other, ivan ivanitch, put up here for dinner and went on towards evening." "ah! . . . has varlamov been by or not?" "no, ivan ivanitch. his clerk, grigory yegoritch, went by yesterday morning and said that he had to be to-day at the molokans' farm." "good! so we will go after the waggons directly and then on to the molokans'." "mercy on us, ivan ivanitch!" moisey moisevitch cried in horror, flinging up his hands. "where are you going for the night? you will have a nice little supper and stay the night, and to-morrow morning, please god, you can go on and overtake anyone you like." "there is no time for that. . . . excuse me, moisey moisevitch, another time; but now i must make haste. we'll stay a quarter of an hour and then go on; we can stay the night at the molokans'." "a quarter of an hour!" squealed moisey moisevitch. "have you no fear of god, ivan ivanitch? you will compel me to hide your caps and lock the door! you must have a cup of tea and a snack of something, anyway." "we have no time for tea," said kuzmitchov. moisey moisevitch bent his head on one side, crooked his knees, and put his open hands before him as though warding off a blow, while with a smile of agonized sweetness he began imploring: "ivan ivanitch! father christopher! do be so good as to take a cup of tea with me. surely i am not such a bad man that you can't even drink tea in my house? ivan ivanitch!" "well, we may just as well have a cup of tea," said father christopher, with a sympathetic smile; "that won't keep us long." "very well," kuzmitchov assented. moisey moisevitch, in a fluster uttered an exclamation of joy, and shrugging as though he had just stepped out of cold weather into warm, ran to the door and cried in the same frantic voice in which he had called solomon: "rosa! rosa! bring the samovar!" a minute later the door opened, and solomon came into the room carrying a large tray in his hands. setting the tray on the table, he looked away sarcastically with the same queer smile as before. now, by the light of the lamp, it was possible to see his smile distinctly; it was very complex, and expressed a variety of emotions, but the predominant element in it was undisguised contempt. he seemed to be thinking of something ludicrous and silly, to be feeling contempt and dislike, to be pleased at something and waiting for the favourable moment to turn something into ridicule and to burst into laughter. his long nose, his thick lips, and his sly prominent eyes seemed tense with the desire to laugh. looking at his face, kuzmitchov smiled ironically and asked: "solomon, why did you not come to our fair at n. this summer, and act some jewish scenes?" two years before, as yegorushka remembered very well, at one of the booths at the fair at n., solomon had performed some scenes of jewish life, and his acting had been a great success. the allusion to this made no impression whatever upon solomon. making no answer, he went out and returned a little later with the samovar. when he had done what he had to do at the table he moved a little aside, and, folding his arms over his chest and thrusting out one leg, fixed his sarcastic eyes on father christopher. there was something defiant, haughty, and contemptuous in his attitude, and at the same time it was comic and pitiful in the extreme, because the more impressive his attitude the more vividly it showed up his short trousers, his bobtail coat, his caricature of a nose, and his bird-like plucked-looking little figure. moisey moisevitch brought a footstool from the other room and sat down a little way from the table. "i wish you a good appetite! tea and sugar!" he began, trying to entertain his visitors. "i hope you will enjoy it. such rare guests, such rare ones; it is years since i last saw father christopher. and will no one tell me who is this nice little gentleman?" he asked, looking tenderly at yegorushka. "he is the son of my sister, olga ivanovna," answered kuzmitchov. "and where is he going?" "to school. we are taking him to a high school." in his politeness, moisey moisevitch put on a look of wonder and wagged his head expressively. "ah, that is a fine thing," he said, shaking his finger at the samovar. "that's a fine thing. you will come back from the high school such a gentleman that we shall all take off our hats to you. you will be wealthy and wise and so grand that your mamma will be delighted. oh, that's a fine thing!" he paused a little, stroked his knees, and began again in a jocose and deferential tone. "you must excuse me, father christopher, but i am thinking of writing to the bishop to tell him you are robbing the merchants of their living. i shall take a sheet of stamped paper and write that i suppose father christopher is short of pence, as he has taken up with trade and begun selling wool." "h'm, yes . . . it's a queer notion in my old age," said father christopher, and he laughed. "i have turned from priest to merchant, brother. i ought to be at home now saying my prayers, instead of galloping about the country like a pharaoh in his chariot. . . . vanity!" "but it will mean a lot of pence!" "oh, i dare say! more kicks than halfpence, and serve me right. the wool's not mine, but my son-in-law mikhail's!" "why doesn't he go himself?" "why, because . . . his mother's milk is scarcely dry upon his lips. he can buy wool all right, but when it comes to selling, he has no sense; he is young yet. he has wasted all his money; he wanted to grow rich and cut a dash, but he tried here and there, and no one would give him his price. and so the lad went on like that for a year, and then he came to me and said, 'daddy, you sell the wool for me; be kind and do it! i am no good at the business!' and that is true enough. as soon as there is anything wrong then it's 'daddy,' but till then they could get on without their dad. when he was buying he did not consult me, but now when he is in difficulties it's daddy's turn. and what does his dad know about it? if it were not for ivan ivanitch, his dad could do nothing. i have a lot of worry with them." "yes; one has a lot of worry with one's children, i can tell you that," sighed moisey moisevitch. "i have six of my own. one needs schooling, another needs doctoring, and a third needs nursing, and when they grow up they are more trouble still. it is not only nowadays, it was the same in holy scripture. when jacob had little children he wept, and when they grew up he wept still more bitterly." "h'm, yes . . ." father christopher assented pensively, looking at his glass. "i have no cause myself to rail against the lord. i have lived to the end of my days as any man might be thankful to live. . . . i have married my daughters to good men, my sons i have set up in life, and now i am free; i have done my work and can go where i like. i live in peace with my wife. i eat and drink and sleep and rejoice in my grandchildren, and say my prayers and want nothing more. i live on the fat of the land, and don't need to curry favour with anyone. i have never had any trouble from childhood, and now suppose the tsar were to ask me, 'what do you need? what would you like?' why, i don't need anything. i have everything i want and everything to be thankful for. in the whole town there is no happier man than i am. my only trouble is i have so many sins, but there --only god is without sin. that's right, isn't it?" "no doubt it is." "i have no teeth, of course; my poor old back aches; there is one thing and another, . . . asthma and that sort of thing. . . . i ache. . . . the flesh is weak, but then think of my age! i am in the eighties! one can't go on for ever; one mustn't outstay one's welcome." father christopher suddenly thought of something, spluttered into his glass and choked with laughter. moisey moisevitch laughed, too, from politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat. "so funny!" said father christopher, and he waved his hand. "my eldest son gavrila came to pay me a visit. he is in the medical line, and is a district doctor in the province of tchernigov. . . . 'very well . . .' i said to him, 'here i have asthma and one thing and another. . . . you are a doctor; cure your father!' he undressed me on the spot, tapped me, listened, and all sorts of tricks, . . . kneaded my stomach, and then he said, 'dad, you ought to be treated with compressed air.'" father christopher laughed convulsively, till the tears came into his eyes, and got up. "and i said to him, 'god bless your compressed air!'" he brought out through his laughter, waving both hands. "god bless your compressed air!" moisey moisevitch got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach, went off into shrill laughter like the yap of a lap-dog. "god bless the compressed air!" repeated father christopher, laughing. moisey moisevitch laughed two notes higher and so violently that he could hardly stand on his feet. "oh dear!" he moaned through his laughter. "let me get my breath . . . . you'll be the death of me." he laughed and talked, though at the same time he was casting timorous and suspicious looks at solomon. the latter was standing in the same attitude and still smiling. to judge from his eyes and his smile, his contempt and hatred were genuine, but that was so out of keeping with his plucked-looking figure that it seemed to yegorushka as though he were putting on his defiant attitude and biting sarcastic smile to play the fool for the entertainment of their honoured guests. after drinking six glasses of tea in silence, kuzmitchov cleared a space before him on the table, took his bag, the one which he kept under his head when he slept under the chaise, untied the string and shook it. rolls of paper notes were scattered out of the bag on the table. "while we have the time, father christopher, let us reckon up," said kuzmitchov. moisey moisevitch was embarrassed at the sight of the money. he got up, and, as a man of delicate feeling unwilling to pry into other people's secrets, he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his arms. solomon remained where he was. "how many are there in the rolls of roubles?" father christopher began. "the rouble notes are done up in fifties, . . . the three-rouble notes in nineties, the twenty-five and hundred roubles in thousands. you count out seven thousand eight hundred for varlamov, and i will count out for gusevitch. and mind you don't make a mistake. . ." yegorushka had never in his life seen so much money as was lying on the table before him. there must have been a great deal of money, for the roll of seven thousand eight hundred, which father christopher put aside for varlamov, seemed very small compared with the whole heap. at any other time such a mass of money would have impressed yegorushka, and would have moved him to reflect how many cracknels, buns and poppy-cakes could be bought for that money. now he looked at it listlessly, only conscious of the disgusting smell of kerosene and rotten apples that came from the heap of notes. he was exhausted by the jolting ride in the chaise, tired out and sleepy. his head was heavy, his eyes would hardly keep open and his thoughts were tangled like threads. if it had been possible he would have been relieved to lay his head on the table, so as not to see the lamp and the fingers moving over the heaps of notes, and to have let his tired sleepy thoughts go still more at random. when he tried to keep awake, the light of the lamp, the cups and the fingers grew double, the samovar heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed even more acrid and disgusting. "ah, money, money!" sighed father christopher, smiling. "you bring trouble! now i expect my mihailo is asleep and dreaming that i am going to bring him a heap of money like this." "your mihailo timofevitch is a man who doesn't understand business," said kuzmitchov in an undertone; "he undertakes what isn't his work, but you understand and can judge. you had better hand over your wool to me, as i have said already, and i would give you half a rouble above my own price--yes, i would, simply out of regard for you. . . ." "no, ivan ivanitch." father christopher sighed. "i thank you for your kindness. . . . of course, if it were for me to decide, i shouldn't think twice about it; but as it is, the wool is not mine, as you know. . . ." moisey moisevitch came in on tiptoe. trying from delicacy not to look at the heaps of money, he stole up to yegorushka and pulled at his shirt from behind. "come along, little gentleman," he said in an undertone, "come and see the little bear i can show you! such a queer, cross little bear. oo-oo!" the sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged himself after moisey moisevitch to see the bear. he went into a little room, where, before he saw anything, he felt he could not breathe from the smell of something sour and decaying, which was much stronger here than in the big room and probably spread from this room all over the house. one part of the room was occupied by a big bed, covered with a greasy quilt and another by a chest of drawers and heaps of rags of all kinds from a woman's stiff petticoat to children's little breeches and braces. a tallow candle stood on the chest of drawers. instead of the promised bear, yegorushka saw a big fat jewess with her hair hanging loose, in a red flannel skirt with black sprigs on it; she turned with difficulty in the narrow space between the bed and the chest of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning as though she had toothache. on seeing yegorushka, she made a doleful, woe-begone face, heaved a long drawn-out sigh, and before he had time to look round, put to his lips a slice of bread smeared with honey. "eat it, dearie, eat it!" she said. "you are here without your mamma, and no one to look after you. eat it up." yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies and poppy-cakes he had every day at home, he did not think very much of the honey, which was mixed with wax and bees' wings. he ate while moisey moisevitch and the jewess looked at him and sighed. "where are you going, dearie?" asked the jewess. "to school," answered yegorushka. "and how many brothers and sisters have you got?" "i am the only one; there are no others." "o-oh!" sighed the jewess, and turned her eyes upward. "poor mamma, poor mamma! how she will weep and miss you! we are going to send our nahum to school in a year. o-oh!" "ah, nahum, nahum!" sighed moisey moisevitch, and the skin of his pale face twitched nervously. "and he is so delicate." the greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it appeared a child's curly head on a very thin neck; two black eyes gleamed and stared with curiosity at yegorushka. still sighing, moisey moisevitch and the jewess went to the chest of drawers and began talking in yiddish. moisey moisevitch spoke in a low bass undertone, and altogether his talk in yiddish was like a continual "ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal, . . ." while his wife answered him in a shrill voice like a turkeycock's, and the whole effect of her talk was something like "too-too-too-too!" while they were consulting, another little curly head on a thin neck peeped out of the greasy quilt, then a third, then a fourth. . . . if yegorushka had had a fertile imagination he might have imagined that the hundred-headed hydra was hiding under the quilt. "ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!" said moisey moisevitch. "too-too-too-too!" answered the jewess. the consultation ended in the jewess's diving with a deep sigh into the chest of drawers, and, unwrapping some sort of green rag there, she took out a big rye cake made in the shape of a heart. "take it, dearie," she said, giving yegorushka the cake; "you have no mamma now--no one to give you nice things." yegorushka stuck the cake in his pocket and staggered to the door, as he could not go on breathing the foul, sour air in which the innkeeper and his wife lived. going back to the big room, he settled himself more comfortably on the sofa and gave up trying to check his straying thoughts. as soon as kuzmitchov had finished counting out the notes he put them back into the bag. he did not treat them very respectfully and stuffed them into the dirty sack without ceremony, as indifferently as though they had not been money but waste paper. father christopher was talking to solomon. "well, solomon the wise!" he said, yawning and making the sign of the cross over his mouth. "how is business?" "what sort of business are you talking about?" asked solomon, and he looked as fiendish, as though it were a hint of some crime on his part. "oh, things in general. what are you doing?" "what am i doing?" solomon repeated, and he shrugged his shoulders. "the same as everyone else. . . . you see, i am a menial, i am my brother's servant; my brother's the servant of the visitors; the visitors are varlamov's servants; and if i had ten millions, varlamov would be my servant." "why would he be your servant?" "why, because there isn't a gentleman or millionaire who isn't ready to lick the hand of a scabby jew for the sake of making a kopeck. now, i am a scabby jew and a beggar. everybody looks at me as though i were a dog, but if i had money varlamov would play the fool before me just as moisey does before you." father christopher and kuzmitchov looked at each other. neither of them understood solomon. kuzmitchov looked at him sternly and dryly, and asked: "how can you compare yourself with varlamov, you blockhead?" "i am not such a fool as to put myself on a level with varlamov," answered solomon, looking sarcastically at the speaker. "though varlamov is a russian, he is at heart a scabby jew; money and gain are all he lives for, but i threw my money in the stove! i don't want money, or land, or sheep, and there is no need for people to be afraid of me and to take off their hats when i pass. so i am wiser than your varlamov and more like a man!" a little later yegorushka, half asleep, heard solomon in a hoarse hollow voice choked with hatred, in hurried stuttering phrases, talking about the jews. at first he talked correctly in russian, then he fell into the tone of a jewish recitation, and began speaking as he had done at the fair with an exaggerated jewish accent. "stop! . . ." father christopher said to him. "if you don't like your religion you had better change it, but to laugh at it is a sin; it is only the lowest of the low who will make fun of his religion." "you don't understand," solomon cut him short rudely. "i am talking of one thing and you are talking of something else. . . ." "one can see you are a foolish fellow," sighed father christopher. "i admonish you to the best of my ability, and you are angry. i speak to you like an old man quietly, and you answer like a turkeycock: 'bla---bla---bla!' you really are a queer fellow. . . ." moisey moisevitch came in. he looked anxiously at solomon and at his visitors, and again the skin on his face quivered nervously. yegorushka shook his head and looked about him; he caught a passing glimpse of solomon's face at the very moment when it was turned three-quarters towards him and when the shadow of his long nose divided his left cheek in half; the contemptuous smile mingled with that shadow; the gleaming sarcastic eyes, the haughty expression, and the whole plucked-looking little figure, dancing and doubling itself before yegorushka's eyes, made him now not like a buffoon, but like something one sometimes dreams of, like an evil spirit. "what a ferocious fellow you've got here, moisey moisevitch! god bless him!" said father christopher with a smile. "you ought to find him a place or a wife or something. . . . there's no knowing what to make of him. . . ." kuzmitchov frowned angrily. moisey moisevitch looked uneasily and inquiringly at his brother and the visitors again. "solomon, go away!" he said shortly. "go away!" and he added something in yiddish. solomon gave an abrupt laugh and went out. "what was it?" moisey moisevitch asked father christopher anxiously. "he forgets himself," answered kuzmitchov. "he's rude and thinks too much of himself." "i knew it!" moisey moisevitch cried in horror, clasping his hands. "oh dear, oh dear!" he muttered in a low voice. "be so kind as to excuse it, and don't be angry. he is such a queer fellow, such a queer fellow! oh dear, oh dear! he is my own brother, but i have never had anything but trouble from him. you know he's. . ." moisey moisevitch crooked his finger by his forehead and went on: "he is not in his right mind; . . . he's hopeless. and i don't know what i am to do with him! he cares for nobody, he respects nobody, and is afraid of nobody. . . . you know he laughs at everybody, he says silly things, speaks familiarly to anyone. you wouldn't believe it, varlamov came here one day and solomon said such things to him that he gave us both a taste of his whip. . . . but why whip me? was it my fault? god has robbed him of his wits, so it is god's will, and how am i to blame?" ten minutes passed and moisey moisevitch was still muttering in an undertone and sighing: "he does not sleep at night, and is always thinking and thinking and thinking, and what he is thinking about god only knows. if you go to him at night he is angry and laughs. he doesn't like me either . . . . and there is nothing he wants! when our father died he left us each six thousand roubles. i bought myself an inn, married, and now i have children; and he burnt all his money in the stove. such a pity, such a pity! why burn it? if he didn't want it he could give it to me, but why burn it?" suddenly the swing-door creaked and the floor shook under footsteps. yegorushka felt a draught of cold air, and it seemed to him as though some big black bird had passed by him and had fluttered its wings close in his face. he opened his eyes. . . . his uncle was standing by the sofa with his sack in his hands ready for departure; father christopher, holding his broad-brimmed top-hat, was bowing to someone and smiling--not his usual soft kindly smile, but a respectful forced smile which did not suit his face at all--while moisey moisevitch looked as though his body had been broken into three parts, and he were balancing and doing his utmost not to drop to pieces. only solomon stood in the corner with his arms folded, as though nothing had happened, and smiled contemptuously as before. "your excellency must excuse us for not being tidy," moaned moisey moisevitch with the agonizingly sweet smile, taking no more notice of kuzmitchov or father christopher, but swaying his whole person so as to avoid dropping to pieces. "we are plain folks, your excellency." yegorushka rubbed his eyes. in the middle of the room there really was standing an excellency, in the form of a young plump and very beautiful woman in a black dress and a straw hat. before yegorushka had time to examine her features the image of the solitary graceful poplar he had seen that day on the hill for some reason came into his mind. "has varlamov been here to-day?" a woman's voice inquired. "no, your excellency," said moisey moisevitch. "if you see him to-morrow, ask him to come and see me for a minute." all at once, quite unexpectedly, yegorushka saw half an inch from his eyes velvety black eyebrows, big brown eyes, delicate feminine cheeks with dimples, from which smiles seemed radiating all over the face like sunbeams. there was a glorious scent. "what a pretty boy!" said the lady. "whose boy is it? kazimir mihalovitch, look what a charming fellow! good heavens, he is asleep!" and the lady kissed yegorushka warmly on both cheeks, and he smiled and, thinking he was asleep, shut his eyes. the swing-door squeaked, and there was the sound of hurried footsteps, coming in and going out. "yegorushka, yegorushka!" he heard two bass voices whisper. "get up; it is time to start." somebody, it seemed to be deniska, set him on his feet and led him by the arm. on the way he half-opened his eyes and once more saw the beautiful lady in the black dress who had kissed him. she was standing in the middle of the room and watched him go out, smiling at him and nodding her head in a friendly way. as he got near the door he saw a handsome, stoutly built, dark man in a bowler hat and in leather gaiters. this must have been the lady's escort. "woa!" he heard from the yard. at the front door yegorushka saw a splendid new carriage and a pair of black horses. on the box sat a groom in livery, with a long whip in his hands. no one but solomon came to see the travellers off. his face was tense with a desire to laugh; he looked as though he were waiting impatiently for the visitors to be gone, so that he might laugh at them without restraint. "the countess dranitsky," whispered father christopher, clambering into the chaise. "yes, countess dranitsky," repeated kuzmitchov, also in a whisper. the impression made by the arrival of the countess was probably very great, for even deniska spoke in a whisper, and only ventured to lash his bays and shout when the chaise had driven a quarter of a mile away and nothing could be seen of the inn but a dim light. iv who was this elusive, mysterious varlamov of whom people talked so much, whom solomon despised, and whom even the beautiful countess needed? sitting on the box beside deniska, yegorushka, half asleep, thought about this person. he had never seen him. but he had often heard of him and pictured him in his imagination. he knew that varlamov possessed several tens of thousands of acres of land, about a hundred thousand sheep, and a great deal of money. of his manner of life and occupation yegorushka knew nothing, except that he was always "going his rounds in these parts," and he was always being looked for. at home yegorushka had heard a great deal of the countess dranitsky, too. she, too, had some tens of thousands of acres, a great many sheep, a stud farm and a great deal of money, but she did not "go rounds," but lived at home in a splendid house and grounds, about which ivan ivanitch, who had been more than once at the countess's on business, and other acquaintances told many marvellous tales; thus, for instance, they said that in the countess's drawing-room, where the portraits of all the kings of poland hung on the walls, there was a big table-clock in the form of a rock, on the rock a gold horse with diamond eyes, rearing, and on the horse the figure of a rider also of gold, who brandished his sword to right and to left whenever the clock struck. they said, too, that twice a year the countess used to give a ball, to which the gentry and officials of the whole province were invited, and to which even varlamov used to come; all the visitors drank tea from silver samovars, ate all sorts of extraordinary things (they had strawberries and raspberries, for instance, in winter at christmas), and danced to a band which played day and night. . . . "and how beautiful she is," thought yegorushka, remembering her face and smile. kuzmitchov, too, was probably thinking about the countess. for when the chaise had driven a mile and a half he said: "but doesn't that kazimir mihalovitch plunder her right and left! the year before last when, do you remember, i bought some wool from her, he made over three thousand from my purchase alone." "that is just what you would expect from a pole," said father christopher. "and little does it trouble her. young and foolish, as they say, her head is full of nonsense." yegorushka, for some reason, longed to think of nothing but varlamov and the countess, particularly the latter. his drowsy brain utterly refused ordinary thoughts, was in a cloud and retained only fantastic fairy-tale images, which have the advantage of springing into the brain of themselves without any effort on the part of the thinker, and completely vanishing of themselves at a mere shake of the head; and, indeed, nothing that was around him disposed to ordinary thoughts. on the right there were the dark hills which seemed to be screening something unseen and terrible; on the left the whole sky about the horizon was covered with a crimson glow, and it was hard to tell whether there was a fire somewhere, or whether it was the moon about to rise. as by day the distance could be seen, but its tender lilac tint had gone, quenched by the evening darkness, in which the whole steppe was hidden like moisey moisevitch's children under the quilt. corncrakes and quails do not call in the july nights, the nightingale does not sing in the woodland marsh, and there is no scent of flowers, but still the steppe is lovely and full of life. as soon as the sun goes down and the darkness enfolds the earth, the day's weariness is forgotten, everything is forgiven, and the steppe breathes a light sigh from its broad bosom. as though because the grass cannot see in the dark that it has grown old, a gay youthful twitter rises up from it, such as is not heard by day; chirruping, twittering, whistling, scratching, the basses, tenors and sopranos of the steppe all mingle in an incessant, monotonous roar of sound in which it is sweet to brood on memories and sorrows. the monotonous twitter soothes to sleep like a lullaby; you drive and feel you are falling asleep, but suddenly there comes the abrupt agitated cry of a wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a voice crying out in wonder "a-ah, a-ah!" and slumber closes one's eyelids again. or you drive by a little creek where there are bushes and hear the bird, called by the steppe dwellers "the sleeper," call "asleep, asleep, asleep!" while another laughs or breaks into trills of hysterical weeping--that is the owl. for whom do they call and who hears them on that plain, god only knows, but there is deep sadness and lamentation in their cry. . . . there is a scent of hay and dry grass and belated flowers, but the scent is heavy, sweetly mawkish and soft. everything can be seen through the mist, but it is hard to make out the colours and the outlines of objects. everything looks different from what it is. you drive on and suddenly see standing before you right in the roadway a dark figure like a monk; it stands motionless, waiting, holding something in its hands. . . . can it be a robber? the figure comes closer, grows bigger; now it is on a level with the chaise, and you see it is not a man, but a solitary bush or a great stone. such motionless expectant figures stand on the low hills, hide behind the old barrows, peep out from the high grass, and they all look like human beings and arouse suspicion. and when the moon rises the night becomes pale and dim. the mist seems to have passed away. the air is transparent, fresh and warm; one can see well in all directions and even distinguish the separate stalks of grass by the wayside. stones and bits of pots can be seen at a long distance. the suspicious figures like monks look blacker against the light background of the night, and seem more sinister. more and more often in the midst of the monotonous chirruping there comes the sound of the "a-ah, a-ah!" of astonishment troubling the motionless air, and the cry of a sleepless or delirious bird. broad shadows move across the plain like clouds across the sky, and in the inconceivable distance, if you look long and intently at it, misty monstrous shapes rise up and huddle one against another. . . . it is rather uncanny. one glances at the pale green, star-spangled sky on which there is no cloudlet, no spot, and understands why the warm air is motionless, why nature is on her guard, afraid to stir: she is afraid and reluctant to lose one instant of life. of the unfathomable depth and infinity of the sky one can only form a conception at sea and on the steppe by night when the moon is shining. it is terribly lonely and caressing; it looks down languid and alluring, and its caressing sweetness makes one giddy. you drive on for one hour, for a second. . . . you meet upon the way a silent old barrow or a stone figure put up god knows when and by whom; a nightbird floats noiselessly over the earth, and little by little those legends of the steppes, the tales of men you have met, the stories of some old nurse from the steppe, and all the things you have managed to see and treasure in your soul, come back to your mind. and then in the churring of insects, in the sinister figures, in the ancient barrows, in the blue sky, in the moonlight, in the flight of the nightbird, in everything you see and hear, triumphant beauty, youth, the fulness of power, and the passionate thirst for life begin to be apparent; the soul responds to the call of her lovely austere fatherland, and longs to fly over the steppes with the nightbird. and in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance of happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, as though the steppe knew she was solitary, knew that her wealth and her inspiration were wasted for the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by anyone; and through the joyful clamour one hears her mournful, hopeless call for singers, singers! "woa! good-evening, panteley! is everything all right?" "first-rate, ivan ivanitch! "haven't you seen varlamov, lads?" "no, we haven't." yegorushka woke up and opened his eyes. the chaise had stopped. on the right the train of waggons stretched for a long way ahead on the road, and men were moving to and fro near them. all the waggons being loaded up with great bales of wool looked very high and fat, while the horses looked short-legged and little. "well, then, we shall go on to the molokans'!" kuzmitchov said aloud. "the jew told us that varlamov was putting up for the night at the molokans'. so good-bye, lads! good luck to you!" "good-bye, ivan ivanitch," several voices replied. "i say, lads," kuzmitchov cried briskly, "you take my little lad along with you! why should he go jolting off with us for nothing? you put him on the bales, panteley, and let him come on slowly, and we shall overtake you. get down, yegor! go on; it's all right. . . ." yegorushka got down from the box-seat. several hands caught him, lifted him high into the air, and he found himself on something big, soft, and rather wet with dew. it seemed to him now as though the sky were quite close and the earth far away. "hey, take his little coat!" deniska shouted from somewhere far below. his coat and bundle flung up from far below fell close to yegorushka. anxious not to think of anything, he quickly put his bundle under his head and covered himself with his coat, and stretching his legs out and shrinking a little from the dew, he laughed with content. "sleep, sleep, sleep, . . ." he thought. "don't be unkind to him, you devils!" he heard deniska's voice below. "good-bye, lads; good luck to you," shouted kuzmitchov. "i rely upon you!" "don't you be uneasy, ivan ivanitch!" deniska shouted to the horses, the chaise creaked and started, not along the road, but somewhere off to the side. for two minutes there was silence, as though the waggons were asleep and there was no sound except the clanking of the pails tied on at the back of the chaise as it slowly died away in the distance. then someone at the head of the waggons shouted: "kiruha! sta-art!" the foremost of the waggons creaked, then the second, then the third. . . . yegorushka felt the waggon he was on sway and creak also. the waggons were moving. yegorushka took a tighter hold of the cord with which the bales were tied on, laughed again with content, shifted the cake in his pocket, and fell asleep just as he did in his bed at home. . . . when he woke up the sun had risen, it was screened by an ancient barrow, and, trying to shed its light upon the earth, it scattered its beams in all directions and flooded the horizon with gold. it seemed to yegorushka that it was not in its proper place, as the day before it had risen behind his back, and now it was much more to his left. . . . and the whole landscape was different. there were no hills now, but on all sides, wherever one looked, there stretched the brown cheerless plain; here and there upon it small barrows rose up and rooks flew as they had done the day before. the belfries and huts of some village showed white in the distance ahead; as it was sunday the little russians were at home baking and cooking--that could be seen by the smoke which rose from every chimney and hung, a dark blue transparent veil, over the village. in between the huts and beyond the church there were blue glimpses of a river, and beyond the river a misty distance. but nothing was so different from yesterday as the road. something extraordinarily broad, spread out and titanic, stretched over the steppe by way of a road. it was a grey streak well trodden down and covered with dust, like all roads. its width puzzled yegorushka and brought thoughts of fairy tales to his mind. who travelled along that road? who needed so much space? it was strange and unintelligible. it might have been supposed that giants with immense strides, such as ilya muromets and solovy the brigand, were still surviving in russia, and that their gigantic steeds were still alive. yegorushka, looking at the road, imagined some half a dozen high chariots racing along side by side, like some he used to see in pictures in his scripture history; these chariots were each drawn by six wild furious horses, and their great wheels raised a cloud of dust to the sky, while the horses were driven by men such as one may see in one's dreams or in imagination brooding over fairy tales. and if those figures had existed, how perfectly in keeping with the steppe and the road they would have been! telegraph-poles with two wires on them stretched along the right side of the road to its furthermost limit. growing smaller and smaller they disappeared near the village behind the huts and green trees, and then again came into sight in the lilac distance in the form of very small thin sticks that looked like pencils stuck into the ground. hawks, falcons, and crows sat on the wires and looked indifferently at the moving waggons. yegorushka was lying in the last of the waggons, and so could see the whole string. there were about twenty waggons, and there was a driver to every three waggons. by the last waggon, the one in which yegorushka was, there walked an old man with a grey beard, as short and lean as father christopher, but with a sunburnt, stern and brooding face. it is very possible that the old man was not stern and not brooding, but his red eyelids and his sharp long nose gave his face a stern frigid expression such as is common with people in the habit of continually thinking of serious things in solitude. like father christopher he was wearing a wide-brimmed top-hat, not like a gentleman's, but made of brown felt, and in shape more like a cone with the top cut off than a real top-hat. probably from a habit acquired in cold winters, when he must more than once have been nearly frozen as he trudged beside the waggons, he kept slapping his thighs and stamping with his feet as he walked. noticing that yegorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, shrugging his shoulders as though from the cold: "ah, you are awake, youngster! so you are the son of ivan ivanitch?" "no; his nephew. . . ." "nephew of ivan ivanitch? here i have taken off my boots and am hopping along barefoot. my feet are bad; they are swollen, and it's easier without my boots . . . easier, youngster . . . without boots, i mean. . . . so you are his nephew? he is a good man; no harm in him. . . . god give him health. . . . no harm in him . . . i mean ivan ivanitch. . . . he has gone to the molokans'. . . . o lord, have mercy upon us!" the old man talked, too, as though it were very cold, pausing and not opening his mouth properly; and he mispronounced the labial consonants, stuttering over them as though his lips were frozen. as he talked to yegorushka he did not once smile, and he seemed stern. two waggons ahead of them there walked a man wearing a long reddish-brown coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and carrying a whip in his hand. this was not an old man, only about forty. when he looked round yegorushka saw a long red face with a scanty goat-beard and a spongy looking swelling under his right eye. apart from this very ugly swelling, there was another peculiar thing about him which caught the eye at once: in his left hand he carried a whip, while he waved the right as though he were conducting an unseen choir; from time to time he put the whip under his arm, and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something to himself. the next driver was a long rectilinear figure with extremely sloping shoulders and a back as flat as a board. he held himself as stiffly erect as though he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure. his hands did not swing as he walked, but hung down as if they were straight sticks, and he strode along in a wooden way, after the manner of toy soldiers, almost without bending his knees, and trying to take as long steps as possible. while the old man or the owner of the spongy swelling were taking two steps he succeeded in taking only one, and so it seemed as though he were walking more slowly than any of them, and would drop behind. his face was tied up in a rag, and on his head something stuck up that looked like a monk's peaked cap; he was dressed in a short little russian coat, with full dark blue trousers and bark shoes. yegorushka did not even distinguish those that were farther on. he lay on his stomach, picked a little hole in the bale, and, having nothing better to do, began twisting the wool into a thread. the old man trudging along below him turned out not to be so stern as one might have supposed from his face. having begun a conversation, he did not let it drop. "where are you going?" he asked, stamping with his feet. "to school," answered yegorushka. "to school? aha! . . . well, may the queen of heaven help you. yes. one brain is good, but two are better. to one man god gives one brain, to another two brains, and to another three. . . . to another three, that is true. . . . one brain you are born with, one you get from learning, and a third with a good life. so you see, my lad, it is a good thing if a man has three brains. living is easier for him, and, what's more, dying is, too. dying is, too. . . . and we shall all die for sure." the old man scratched his forehead, glanced upwards at yegorushka with his red eyes, and went on: "maxim nikolaitch, the gentleman from slavyanoserbsk, brought a little lad to school, too, last year. i don't know how he is getting on there in studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little lad. . . . god give them help, they are nice gentlemen. yes, he, too, brought his boy to school. . . . in slavyanoserbsk there is no establishment, i suppose, for study. no. . . . but it is a nice town. . . . there's an ordinary school for simple folks, but for the higher studies there is nothing. no, that's true. what's your name? . . ." "yegorushka." "yegory, then. . . . the holy martyr yegory, the bearer of victory, whose day is the twenty-third of april. and my christian name is panteley, . . . panteley zaharov holodov. . . . we are holodovs . . . . i am a native of--maybe you've heard of it--tim in the province of kursk. my brothers are artisans and work at trades in the town, but i am a peasant. . . . i have remained a peasant. seven years ago i went there--home, i mean. i went to the village and to the town. . . . to tim, i mean. then, thank god, they were all alive and well; . . . but now i don't know. . . . maybe some of them are dead. . . . and it's time they did die, for some of them are older than i am. death is all right; it is good so long, of course, as one does not die without repentance. there is no worse evil than an impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy to the devil. and if you want to die penitent, so that you may not be forbidden to enter the mansions of the lord, pray to the holy martyr varvara. she is the intercessor. she is, that's the truth. . . . for god has given her such a place in the heavens that everyone has the right to pray to her for penitence." panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether yegorushka heard him or not. he talked listlessly, mumbling to himself, without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in telling him a great deal in a short time. all he said was made up of fragments that had very little connection with one another, and quite uninteresting for yegorushka. possibly he talked only in order to reckon over his thoughts aloud after the night spent in silence, in order to see if they were all there. after talking of repentance, he spoke about a certain maxim nikolaitch from slavyanoserbsk. "yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that's true . . ." one of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran to one side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. he was a stalwart, broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair and a look of great health and vigour. judging from the movements of his shoulders and the whip, and the eagerness expressed in his attitude, he was beating something alive. another waggoner, a short stubby little man with a bushy black beard, wearing a waistcoat and a shirt outside his trousers, ran up to him. the latter broke into a deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and said: "i say, lads, dymov has killed a snake!" there are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their voice and laughter. the man with the black beard belonged to that class of fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be felt in his voice and laugh. the flaxen-headed dymov had finished, and lifting from the ground with his whip something like a cord, flung it with a laugh into the cart. "that's not a viper; it's a grass snake!" shouted someone. the man with the wooden gait and the bandage round his face strode up quickly to the dead snake, glanced at it and flung up his stick-like arms. "you jail-bird!" he cried in a hollow wailing voice. "what have you killed a grass snake for? what had he done to you, you damned brute? look, he has killed a grass snake; how would you like to be treated so?" "grass snakes ought not to be killed, that's true," panteley muttered placidly, "they ought not. . . they are not vipers; though it looks like a snake, it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . it's friendly to man, the grass snake is." dymov and the man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for they laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to their waggons. when the hindmost waggon was level with the spot where the dead snake lay, the man with his face tied up standing over it turned to panteley and asked in a tearful voice: "grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass snake for?" his eyes, as yegorushka saw now, were small and dingy looking; his face was grey, sickly and looked somehow dingy too while his chin was red and seemed very much swollen. "grandfather, what did he kill it for?" he repeated, striding along beside panteley. "a stupid fellow. his hands itch to kill, and that is why he does it," answered the old man; "but he oughtn't to kill a grass snake, that's true. . . . dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills everything he comes across, and kiruha did not interfere. he ought to have taken its part, but instead of that, he goes off into 'ha-ha-ha!' and 'ho-ho-ho!' . . . but don't be angry, vassya. . . . why be angry? they've killed it--well, never mind them. dymov is a ruffian and kiruha acted from foolishness--never mind. . . . they are foolish people without understanding--but there, don't mind them. emelyan here never touches what he shouldn't; he never does; . . . that is true, . . . because he is a man of education, while they are stupid. . . . emelyan, he doesn't touch things." the waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the spongy swelling on his face, who was conducting an unseen choir, stopped. hearing his name, and waiting till panteley and vassya came up to him, he walked beside them. "what are you talking about?" he asked in a husky muffled voice. "why, vassya here is angry," said panteley. "so i have been saying things to him to stop his being angry. . . . oh, how my swollen feet hurt! oh, oh! they are more inflamed than ever for sunday, god's holy day!" "it's from walking," observed vassya. "no, lad, no. it's not from walking. when i walk it seems easier; when i lie down and get warm, . . . it's deadly. walking is easier for me." emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked between panteley and vassya and waved his arms, as though they were going to sing. after waving them a little while he dropped them, and croaked out hopelessly: "i have no voice. it's a real misfortune. all last night and this morning i have been haunted by the trio 'lord, have mercy' that we sang at the wedding at marionovsky's. it's in my head and in my throat. it seems as though i could sing it, but i can't; i have no voice." he paused for a minute, thinking, then went on: "for fifteen years i was in the choir. in all the lugansky works there was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. but, confound it, i bathed two years ago in the donets, and i can't get a single note true ever since. i took cold in my throat. and without a voice i am like a workman without hands." "that's true," panteley agreed. "i think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more." at that moment vassya chanced to catch sight of yegorushka. his eyes grew moist and smaller than ever. "there's a little gentleman driving with us," and he covered his nose with his sleeve as though he were bashful. "what a grand driver! stay with us and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool." the incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and a waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for he burst into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea. emelyan glanced upwards at yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily. he was absorbed in his own thoughts, and had it not been for vassya, would not have noticed yegorushka's presence. before five minutes had passed he was waving his arms again, then describing to his companions the beauties of the wedding anthem, "lord, have mercy," which he had remembered in the night. he put the whip under his arm and waved both hands. a mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane. letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded kiruha lay on his stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his shoulders, and part of his chest into the black hole, so that yegorushka could see nothing but his short legs, which scarcely touched the ground. seeing the reflection of his head far down at the bottom of the well, he was delighted and went off into his deep bass stupid laugh, and the echo from the well answered him. when he got up his neck and face were as red as beetroot. the first to run up and drink was dymov. he drank laughing, often turning from the pail to tell kiruha something funny, then he turned round, and uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five very bad words. yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words, but he knew very well they were bad words. he knew the repulsion his friends and relations silently felt for such words. he himself, without knowing why, shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that only drunk and disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering such words aloud. he remembered the murder of the grass snake, listened to dymov's laughter, and felt something like hatred for the man. and as ill-luck would have it, dymov at that moment caught sight of yegorushka, who had climbed down from the waggon and gone up to the well. he laughed aloud and shouted: "i say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the night!" kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. someone else laughed too, while yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that dymov was a very wicked man. with his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and no hat on, dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every movement he made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete, knowing his value. he shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo, talked and laughed louder than any of the rest, and looked as though he were going to lift up something very heavy with one hand and astonish the whole world by doing so. his mischievous mocking eyes glided over the road, the waggons, and the sky without resting on anything, and seemed looking for someone to kill, just as a pastime, and something to laugh at. evidently he was afraid of no one, would stick at nothing, and most likely was not in the least interested in yegorushka's opinion of him. . . . yegorushka meanwhile hated his flaxen head, his clear face, and his strength with his whole heart, listened with fear and loathing to his laughter, and kept thinking what word of abuse he could pay him out with. panteley, too, went up to the pail. he took out of his pocket a little green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it from the pail and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the little glass in the rag, and then put it back into his pocket. "grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?" yegorushka asked him, surprised. "one man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp," the old man answered evasively. "every man to his own taste. . . . you drink out of the pail--well, drink, and may it do you good. . . ." "you darling, you beauty!" vassya said suddenly, in a caressing, plaintive voice. "you darling!" his eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling, and his face wore the same expression as when he had looked at yegorushka. "who is it you are talking to?" asked kiruha. "a darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog." everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but no one could see it, only vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes, and he was enchanted by it. his sight was extraordinarily keen, as yegorushka learnt afterwards. he was so long-sighted that the brown steppe was for him always full of life and interest. he had only to look into the distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some other animal keeping at a distance from men. there was nothing strange in seeing a hare running away or a flying bustard--everyone crossing the steppes could see them; but it was not vouchsafed to everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts when they were not running nor hiding, nor looking about them in alarm. yet vassya saw foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws, bustards preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. thanks to this keenness of sight, vassya had, besides the world seen by everyone, another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and probably a very beautiful one, for when he saw something and was in raptures over it it was impossible not to envy him. when the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for service. v the train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of a village. the sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the air was stagnant and depressing. there were a few willows on the bank, but the shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the water, where it was wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it was stifling and wearisome. the water, blue from the reflection of the sky in it, was alluring. styopka, a waggoner whom yegorushka noticed now for the first time, a little russian lad of eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt, and full trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, undressed quickly, ran along the steep bank and plunged into the water. he dived three times, then swam on his back and shut his eyes in his delight. his face was smiling and wrinkled up as though he were being tickled, hurt and amused. on a hot day when there is nowhere to escape from the sultry, stifling heat, the splash of water and the loud breathing of a man bathing sounds like good music to the ear. dymov and kiruha, looking at styopka, undressed quickly and one after the other, laughing loudly in eager anticipation of their enjoyment, dropped into the water, and the quiet, modest little river resounded with snorting and splashing and shouting. kiruha coughed, laughed and shouted as though they were trying to drown him, while dymov chased him and tried to catch him by the leg. "ha-ha-ha!" he shouted. "catch him! hold him!" kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same as it had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on it as though someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit him on the head with the butt-end of an axe. yegorushka undressed, too, but did not let himself down by the bank, but took a run and a flying leap from the height of about ten feet. describing an arc in the air, he fell into the water, sank deep, but did not reach the bottom; some force, cold and pleasant to the touch, seemed to hold him up and bring him back to the surface. he popped out and, snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his eyes; but the sun was reflected in the water quite close to his face. at first blinding spots of light, then rainbow colours and dark patches, flitted before his eyes. he made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in the water and saw something cloudy-green like a sky on a moonlight night. again the same force would not let him touch the bottom and stay in the coolness, but lifted him to the surface. he popped out and heaved a sigh so deep that he had a feeling of space and freshness, not only in his chest, but in his stomach. then, to get from the water everything he possibly could get, he allowed himself every luxury; he lay on his back and basked, splashed, frolicked, swam on his face, on his side, on his back and standing up--just as he pleased till he was exhausted. the other bank was thickly overgrown with reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the flowers of the reeds hung drooping to the water in lovely tassels. in one place the reeds were shaking and nodding, with their flowers rustling-- styopka and kiruha were hunting crayfish. "a crayfish, look, lads! a crayfish!" kiruha cried triumphantly and actually showed a crayfish. yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and began fumbling among their roots. burrowing in the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something sharp and unpleasant--perhaps it really was a crayfish. but at that minute someone seized him by the leg and pulled him to the surface. spluttering and coughing, yegorushka opened his eyes and saw before him the wet grinning face of the dare-devil dymov. the impudent fellow was breathing hard, and from a look in his eyes he seemed inclined for further mischief. he held yegorushka tight by the leg, and was lifting his hand to take hold of his neck. but yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and terror, as though disgusted at being touched and afraid that the bully would drown him, and said: "fool! i'll punch you in the face." feeling that this was not sufficient to express his hatred, he thought a minute and added: "you blackguard! you son of a bitch!" but dymov, as though nothing were the matter, took no further notice of yegorushka, but swam off to kiruha, shouting: "ha-ha-ha! let us catch fish! mates, let us catch fish." "to be sure," kiruha agreed; "there must be a lot of fish here." "styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants for a net! "they won't give it to me." "they will, you ask them. tell them that they should give it to us for christ's sake, because we are just the same as pilgrims." "that's true." styopka clambered out of the water, dressed quickly, and without a cap on he ran, his full trousers flapping, to the village. the water lost all its charm for yegorushka after his encounter with dymov. he got out and began dressing. panteley and vassya were sitting on the steep bank, with their legs hanging down, looking at the bathers. emelyan was standing naked, up to his knees in the water, holding on to the grass with one hand to prevent himself from falling while the other stroked his body. with his bony shoulder-blades, with the swelling under his eye, bending down and evidently afraid of the water, he made a ludicrous figure. his face was grave and severe. he looked angrily at the water, as though he were just going to upbraid it for having given him cold in the donets and robbed him of his voice. "and why don't you bathe?" yegorushka asked vassya. "oh, i don't care for it, . . ." answered vassya. "how is it your chin is swollen?" "it's bad. . . . i used to work at the match factory, little sir. . . . the doctor used to say that it would make my jaw rot. the air is not healthy there. there were three chaps beside me who had their jaws swollen, and with one of them it rotted away altogether." styopka soon came back with the net. dymov and kiruha were already turning blue and getting hoarse by being so long in the water, but they set about fishing eagerly. first they went to a deep place beside the reeds; there dymov was up to his neck, while the water went over squat kiruha's head. the latter spluttered and blew bubbles, while dymov stumbling on the prickly roots, fell over and got caught in the net; both flopped about in the water, and made a noise, and nothing but mischief came of their fishing. "it's deep," croaked kiruha. "you won't catch anything." "don't tug, you devil!" shouted dymov trying to put the net in the proper position. "hold it up." "you won't catch anything here," panteley shouted from the bank. "you are only frightening the fish, you stupids! go more to the left! it's shallower there!" once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all drew a breath, and dymov struck the place where it had vanished with his fist, and his face expressed vexation. "ugh!" cried panteley, and he stamped his foot. "you've let the perch slip! it's gone!" moving more to the left, dymov and kiruha picked out a shallower place, and then fishing began in earnest. they had wandered off some hundred paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently trying to go as deep as they could and as near the reeds, moving their legs a little at a time, drawing out the nets, beating the water with their fists to drive them towards the nets. from the reeds they got to the further bank; they drew the net out, then, with a disappointed air, lifting their knees high as they walked, went back into the reeds. they were talking about something, but what it was no one could hear. the sun was scorching their backs, the flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned from purple to crimson. styopka was walking after them with a pail in his hands; he had tucked his shirt right up under his armpits, and was holding it up by the hem with his teeth. after every successful catch he lifted up some fish, and letting it shine in the sun, shouted: "look at this perch! we've five like that!" every time dymov, kiruha and styopka pulled out the net they could be seen fumbling about in the mud in it, putting some things into the pail and throwing other things away; sometimes they passed something that was in the net from hand to hand, examined it inquisitively, then threw that, too, away. "what is it?" they shouted to them from the bank. styopka made some answer, but it was hard to make out his words. then he climbed out of the water and, holding the pail in both hands, forgetting to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons. "it's full!" he shouted, breathing hard. "give us another!" yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. a young pike poked its ugly nose out of the water, and there were swarms of crayfish and little fish round about it. yegorushka put his hand down to the bottom and stirred up the water; the pike vanished under the crayfish and a perch and a tench swam to the surface instead of it. vassya, too, looked into the pail. his eyes grew moist and his face looked as caressing as before when he saw the fox. he took something out of the pail, put it to his mouth and began chewing it. "mates," said styopka in amazement, "vassya is eating a live gudgeon! phoo!" "it's not a gudgeon, but a minnow," vassya answered calmly, still munching. he took a fish's tail out of his mouth, looked at it caressingly, and put it back again. while he was chewing and crunching with his teeth it seemed to yegorushka that he saw before him something not human. vassya's swollen chin, his lustreless eyes, his extraordinary sharp sight, the fish's tail in his mouth, and the caressing friendliness with which he crunched the gudgeon made him like an animal. yegorushka felt dreary beside him. and the fishing was over, too. he walked about beside the waggons, thought a little, and, feeling bored, strolled off to the village. not long afterwards he was standing in the church, and with his forehead leaning on somebody's back, listened to the singing of the choir. the service was drawing to a close. yegorushka did not understand church singing and did not care for it. he listened a little, yawned, and began looking at the backs and heads before him. in one head, red and wet from his recent bathe, he recognized emelyan. the back of his head had been cropped in a straight line higher than is usual; the hair in front had been cut unbecomingly high, and emelyan's ears stood out like two dock leaves, and seemed to feel themselves out of place. looking at the back of his head and his ears, yegorushka, for some reason, thought that emelyan was probably very unhappy. he remembered the way he conducted with his hands, his husky voice, his timid air when he was bathing, and felt intense pity for him. he longed to say something friendly to him. "i am here, too," he said, putting out his hand. people who sing tenor or bass in the choir, especially those who have at any time in their lives conducted, are accustomed to look with a stern and unfriendly air at boys. they do not give up this habit, even when they leave off being in a choir. turning to yegorushka, emelyan looked at him from under his brows and said: "don't play in church!" then yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the ikon-stand. here he saw interesting people. on the right side, in front of everyone, a lady and a gentleman were standing on a carpet. there were chairs behind them. the gentleman was wearing newly ironed shantung trousers; he stood as motionless as a soldier saluting, and held high his bluish shaven chin. there was a very great air of dignity in his stand-up collar, in his blue chin, in his small bald patch and his cane. his neck was so strained from excess of dignity, and his chin was drawn up so tensely, that it looked as though his head were ready to fly off and soar upwards any minute. the lady, who was stout and elderly and wore a white silk shawl, held her head on one side and looked as though she had done someone a favour, and wanted to say: "oh, don't trouble yourself to thank me; i don't like it . . . ." a thick wall of little russian heads stood all round the carpet. yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began kissing the local ikons. before each image he slowly bowed down to the ground, without getting up, looked round at the congregation, then got up and kissed the ikon. the contact of his forehead with the cold floor afforded him great satisfaction. when the beadle came from the altar with a pair of long snuffers to put out the candles, yegorushka jumped up quickly from the floor and ran up to him. "have they given out the holy bread?" he asked. "there is none; there is none," the beadle muttered gruffly. "it is no use your. . ." the service was over; yegorushka walked out of the church in a leisurely way, and began strolling about the market-place. he had seen a good many villages, market-places, and peasants in his time, and everything that met his eyes was entirely without interest for him. at a loss for something to do, he went into a shop over the door of which hung a wide strip of red cotton. the shop consisted of two roomy, badly lighted parts; in one half they sold drapery and groceries, in the other there were tubs of tar, and there were horse-collars hanging from the ceiling; from both came the savoury smell of leather and tar. the floor of the shop had been watered; the man who watered it must have been a very whimsical and original person, for it was sprinkled in patterns and mysterious symbols. the shopkeeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad face and round beard, apparently a great russian, was standing, leaning his person over the counter. he was nibbling a piece of sugar as he drank his tea, and heaved a deep sigh at every sip. his face expressed complete indifference, but each sigh seemed to be saying: "just wait a minute; i will give it you." "give me a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds," yegorushka said, addressing him. the shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter, and poured a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds into yegorushka's pocket, using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. yegorushka did not want to go away. he spent a long time in examining the box of cakes, thought a little and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered with the mildew of age: "how much are these cakes?" "two for a farthing." yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given him the day before by the jewess, and asked him: "and how much do you charge for cakes like this?" the shopman took the cake in his hands, looked at it from all sides, and raised one eyebrow. "like that?" he asked. then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a minute, and answered: "two for three farthings. . . ." a silence followed. "whose boy are you?" the shopman asked, pouring himself out some tea from a red copper teapot. "the nephew of ivan ivanitch." "there are all sorts of ivan ivanitchs," the shopkeeper sighed. he looked over yegorushka's head towards the door, paused a minute and asked: "would you like some tea?" "please. . . ." yegorushka assented not very readily, though he felt an intense longing for his usual morning tea. the shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave him with it a bit of sugar that looked as though it had been nibbled. yegorushka sat down on the folding chair and began drinking it. he wanted to ask the price of a pound of sugar almonds, and had just broached the subject when a customer walked in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his glass of tea, attended to his business. he led the customer into the other half, where there was a smell of tar, and was there a long time discussing something with him. the customer, a man apparently very obstinate and pig-headed, was continually shaking his head to signify his disapproval, and retreating towards the door. the shopkeeper tried to persuade him of something and began pouring some oats into a big sack for him. "do you call those oats?" the customer said gloomily. "those are not oats, but chaff. it's a mockery to give that to the hens; enough to make the hens laugh. . . . no, i will go to bondarenko." when yegorushka went back to the river a small camp fire was smoking on the bank. the waggoners were cooking their dinner. styopka was standing in the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big notched spoon. a little on one side kiruha and vassya, with eyes reddened from the smoke, were sitting cleaning the fish. before them lay the net covered with slime and water weeds, and on it lay gleaming fish and crawling crayfish. emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting beside panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky voice: "to thee we sing. . . ." dymov was moving about by the horses. when they had finished cleaning them, kiruha and vassya put the fish and the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and from the pail poured them all into the boiling water. "shall i put in some fat?" asked styopka, skimming off the froth. "no need. the fish will make its own gravy," answered kiruha. before taking the cauldron off the fire styopka scattered into the water three big handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt; finally he tried it, smacked his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a self-satisfied grunt, which meant that the grain was done. all except panteley sat down near the cauldron and set to work with their spoons. "you there! give the little lad a spoon!" panteley observed sternly. "i dare say he is hungry too!" "ours is peasant fare," sighed kiruha. "peasant fare is welcome, too, when one is hungry." they gave yegorushka a spoon. he began eating, not sitting, but standing close to the cauldron and looking down into it as in a hole. the grain smelt of fish and fish-scales were mixed up with the millet. the crayfish could not be hooked out with a spoon, and the men simply picked them out of the cauldron with their hands; vassya did so particularly freely, and wetted his sleeves as well as his hands in the mess. but yet the stew seemed to yegorushka very nice, and reminded him of the crayfish soup which his mother used to make at home on fast-days. panteley was sitting apart munching bread. "grandfather, why aren't you eating?" emelyan asked him. "i don't eat crayfish. . . . nasty things," the old man said, and turned away with disgust. while they were eating they all talked. from this conversation yegorushka gathered that all his new acquaintances, in spite of the differences of their ages and their characters, had one point in common which made them all alike: they were all people with a splendid past and a very poor present. of their past they all-- every one of them--spoke with enthusiasm; their attitude to the present was almost one of contempt. the russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living. yegorushka did not yet know that, and before the stew had been all eaten he firmly believed that the men sitting round the cauldron were the injured victims of fate. panteley told them that in the past, before there were railways, he used to go with trains of waggons to moscow and to nizhni, and used to earn so much that he did not know what to do with his money; and what merchants there used to be in those days! what fish! how cheap everything was! now the roads were shorter, the merchants were stingier, the peasants were poorer, the bread was dearer, everything had shrunk and was on a smaller scale. emelyan told them that in old days he had been in the choir in the lugansky works, and that he had a remarkable voice and read music splendidly, while now he had become a peasant and lived on the charity of his brother, who sent him out with his horses and took half his earnings. vassya had once worked in a match factory; kiruha had been a coachman in a good family, and had been reckoned the smartest driver of a three-in-hand in the whole district. dymov, the son of a well-to-do peasant, lived at ease, enjoyed himself and had known no trouble till he was twenty, when his stern harsh father, anxious to train him to work, and afraid he would be spoiled at home, had sent him to a carrier's to work as a hired labourer. styopka was the only one who said nothing, but from his beardless face it was evident that his life had been a much better one in the past. thinking of his father, dymov frowned and left off eating. sullenly from under his brows he looked round at his companions and his eye rested upon yegorushka. "you heathen, take off your cap," he said rudely. "you can't eat with your cap on, and you a gentleman too!" yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a word, but the stew lost all savour for him, and he did not hear panteley and vassya intervening on his behalf. a feeling of anger with the insulting fellow was rankling oppressively in his breast, and he made up his mind that he would do him some injury, whatever it cost him. after dinner everyone sauntered to the waggons and lay down in the shade. "are we going to start soon, grandfather?" yegorushka asked panteley. "in god's good time we shall set off. there's no starting yet; it is too hot. . . . o lord, thy will be done. holy mother. . . lie down, little lad." soon there was a sound of snoring from under the waggons. yegorushka meant to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and lay down by the old man. vi the waggons remained by the river the whole day, and set off again when the sun was setting. yegorushka was lying on the bales again; the waggon creaked softly and swayed from side to side. panteley walked below, stamping his feet, slapping himself on his thighs and muttering. the air was full of the churring music of the steppes, as it had been the day before. yegorushka lay on his back, and, putting his hands under his head, gazed upwards at the sky. he watched the glow of sunset kindle, then fade away; guardian angels covering the horizon with their gold wings disposed themselves to slumber. the day had passed peacefully; the quiet peaceful night had come, and they could stay tranquilly at home in heaven. . . . yegorushka saw the sky by degrees grow dark and the mist fall over the earth--saw the stars light up, one after the other. . . . when you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep sky thoughts and feelings for some reason merge in a sense of loneliness. one begins to feel hopelessly solitary, and everything one used to look upon as near and akin becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars that have looked down from the sky thousands of years already, the mists and the incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief life of man, oppress the soul with their silence when one is left face to face with them and tries to grasp their significance. one is reminded of the solitude awaiting each one of us in the grave, and the reality of life seems awful . . . full of despair. . . . yegorushka thought of his grandmother, who was sleeping now under the cherry-trees in the cemetery. he remembered how she lay in her coffin with pennies on her eyes, how afterwards she was shut in and let down into the grave; he even recalled the hollow sound of the clods of earth on the coffin lid. . . . he pictured his granny in the dark and narrow coffin, helpless and deserted by everyone. his imagination pictured his granny suddenly awakening, not understanding where she was, knocking upon the lid and calling for help, and in the end swooning with horror and dying again. he imagined his mother dead, father christopher, countess dranitsky, solomon. but however much he tried to imagine himself in the dark tomb, far from home, outcast, helpless and dead, he could not succeed; for himself personally he could not admit the possibility of death, and felt that he would never die. . . . panteley, for whom death could not be far away, walked below and went on reckoning up his thoughts. "all right. . . . nice gentlefolk, . . ." he muttered. "took his little lad to school--but how he is doing now i haven't heard say --in slavyanoserbsk. i say there is no establishment for teaching them to be very clever. . . . no, that's true--a nice little lad, no harm in him. . . . he'll grow up and be a help to his father . . . . you, yegory, are little now, but you'll grow big and will keep your father and mother. . . . so it is ordained of god, 'honour your father and your mother.' . . . i had children myself, but they were burnt. . . . my wife was burnt and my children, . . . that's true. . . . the hut caught fire on the night of epiphany. . . . i was not at home, i was driving in oryol. in oryol. . . . marya dashed out into the street, but remembering that the children were asleep in the hut, ran back and was burnt with her children. . . . next day they found nothing but bones." about midnight yegorushka and the waggoners were again sitting round a small camp fire. while the dry twigs and stems were burning up, kiruha and vassya went off somewhere to get water from a creek; they vanished into the darkness, but could be heard all the time talking and clinking their pails; so the creek was not far away. the light from the fire lay a great flickering patch on the earth; though the moon was bright, yet everything seemed impenetrably black beyond that red patch. the light was in the waggoners' eyes, and they saw only part of the great road; almost unseen in the darkness the waggons with the bales and the horses looked like a mountain of undefined shape. twenty paces from the camp fire at the edge of the road stood a wooden cross that had fallen aslant. before the camp fire had been lighted, when he could still see things at a distance, yegorushka had noticed that there was a similar old slanting cross on the other side of the great road. coming back with the water, kiruha and vassya filled the cauldron and fixed it over the fire. styopka, with the notched spoon in his hand, took his place in the smoke by the cauldron, gazing dreamily into the water for the scum to rise. panteley and emelyan were sitting side by side in silence, brooding over something. dymov was lying on his stomach, with his head propped on his fists, looking into the fire. . . . styopka's shadow was dancing over him, so that his handsome face was at one minute covered with darkness, at the next lighted up. . . . kiruha and vassya were wandering about at a little distance gathering dry grass and bark for the fire. yegorushka, with his hands in his pockets, was standing by panteley, watching how the fire devoured the grass. all were resting, musing on something, and they glanced cursorily at the cross over which patches of red light were dancing. there is something melancholy, pensive, and extremely poetical about a solitary tomb; one feels its silence, and the silence gives one the sense of the presence of the soul of the unknown man who lies under the cross. is that soul at peace on the steppe? does it grieve in the moonlight? near the tomb the steppe seems melancholy, dreary and mournful; the grass seems more sorrowful, and one fancies the grasshoppers chirrup less freely, and there is no passer-by who would not remember that lonely soul and keep looking back at the tomb, till it was left far behind and hidden in the mists. . . . "grandfather, what is that cross for?" asked yegorushka. panteley looked at the cross and then at dymov and asked: "nikola, isn't this the place where the mowers killed the merchants?" dymov not very readily raised himself on his elbow, looked at the road and said: "yes, it is. . . ." a silence followed. kiruha broke up some dry stalks, crushed them up together and thrust them under the cauldron. the fire flared up brightly; styopka was enveloped in black smoke, and the shadow cast by the cross danced along the road in the dusk beside the waggons. "yes, they were killed," dymov said reluctantly. "two merchants, father and son, were travelling, selling holy images. they put up in the inn not far from here that is now kept by ignat fomin. the old man had a drop too much, and began boasting that he had a lot of money with him. we all know merchants are a boastful set, god preserve us. . . . they can't resist showing off before the likes of us. and at the time some mowers were staying the night at the inn. so they overheard what the merchants said and took note of it." "o lord! . . . holy mother!" sighed panteley. "next day, as soon as it was light," dymov went on, "the merchants were preparing to set off and the mowers tried to join them. 'let us go together, your worships. it will be more cheerful and there will be less danger, for this is an out-of-the-way place. . . .' the merchants had to travel at a walking pace to avoid breaking the images, and that just suited the mowers. . . ." dymov rose into a kneeling position and stretched. "yes," he went on, yawning. "everything went all right till they reached this spot, and then the mowers let fly at them with their scythes. the son, he was a fine young fellow, snatched the scythe from one of them, and he used it, too. . . . well, of course, they got the best of it because there were eight of them. they hacked at the merchants so that there was not a sound place left on their bodies; when they had finished they dragged both of them off the road, the father to one side and the son to the other. opposite that cross there is another cross on this side. . . . whether it is still standing, i don't know. . . . i can't see from here. . . ." "it is," said kiruha. "they say they did not find much money afterwards." "no," panteley confirmed; "they only found a hundred roubles." "and three of them died afterwards, for the merchant had cut them badly with the scythe, too. they died from loss of blood. one had his hand cut off, so that they say he ran three miles without his hand, and they found him on a mound close to kurikovo. he was squatting on his heels, with his head on his knees, as though he were lost in thought, but when they looked at him there was no life in him and he was dead. . . ." "they found him by the track of blood," said panteley. everyone looked at the cross, and again there was a hush. from somewhere, most likely from the creek, floated the mournful cry of the bird: "sleep! sleep! sleep!" "there are a great many wicked people in the world," said emelyan. "a great many," assented panteley, and he moved up closer to the fire as though he were frightened. "a great many," he went on in a low voice. "i've seen lots and lots of them. . . . wicked people! . . . i have seen a great many holy and just, too. . . . queen of heaven, save us and have mercy on us. i remember once thirty years ago, or maybe more, i was driving a merchant from morshansk. the merchant was a jolly handsome fellow, with money, too . . . the merchant was . . . a nice man, no harm in him. . . . so we put up for the night at an inn. and in russia the inns are not what they are in these parts. there the yards are roofed in and look like the ground floor, or let us say like barns in good farms. only a barn would be a bit higher. so we put up there and were all right. my merchant was in a room, while i was with the horses, and everything was as it should be. so, lads, i said my prayers before going to sleep and began walking about the yard. and it was a dark night, i couldn't see anything; it was no good trying. so i walked about a bit up to the waggons, or nearly, when i saw a light gleaming. what could it mean? i thought the people of the inn had gone to bed long ago, and besides the merchant and me there were no other guests in the inn. . . . where could the light have come from? i felt suspicious. . . . i went closer . . . towards the light. . . . the lord have mercy upon me! and save me, queen of heaven! i looked and there was a little window with a grating, . . . close to the ground, in the house. . . i lay down on the ground and looked in; as soon as i looked in a cold chill ran all down me. . . ." kiruha, trying not to make a noise, thrust a handful of twigs into the fire. after waiting for it to leave off crackling and hissing, the old man went on: "i looked in and there was a big cellar, black and dark. . . . there was a lighted lantern on a tub. in the middle of the cellar were about a dozen men in red shirts with their sleeves turned up, sharpening long knives. . . . ugh! so we had fallen into a nest of robbers. . . . what's to be done? i ran to the merchant, waked him up quietly, and said: 'don't be frightened, merchant,' said i, 'but we are in a bad way. we have fallen into a nest of robbers,' i said. he turned pale and asked: 'what are we to do now, panteley? i have a lot of money that belongs to orphans. as for my life,' he said, 'that's in god's hands. i am not afraid to die, but it's dreadful to lose the orphans' money,' said he. . . . what were we to do? the gates were locked; there was no getting out. if there had been a fence one could have climbed over it, but with the yard shut up! . . . 'come, don't be frightened, merchant,' said i; 'but pray to god. maybe the lord will not let the orphans suffer. stay still.' said i, 'and make no sign, and meanwhile, maybe, i shall think of something. . . .' right! . . . i prayed to god and the lord put the thought into my mind. . . . i clambered up on my chaise and softly, . . . softly so that no one should hear, began pulling out the straw in the thatch, made a hole and crept out, crept out. . . . then i jumped off the roof and ran along the road as fast as i could. i ran and ran till i was nearly dead. . . . i ran maybe four miles without taking breath, if not more. thank god i saw a village. i ran up to a hut and began tapping at a window. 'good christian people,' i said, and told them all about it, 'do not let a christian soul perish. . . .' i waked them all up. . . . the peasants gathered together and went with me, . . one with a cord, one with an oakstick, others with pitchforks. . . . we broke in the gates of the inn-yard and went straight to the cellar. . . . and the robbers had just finished sharpening their knives and were going to kill the merchant. the peasants took them, every one of them, bound them and carried them to the police. the merchant gave them three hundred roubles in his joy, and gave me five gold pieces and put my name down. they said that they found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps and heaps of them. . . . bones! . . . so they robbed people and then buried them, so that there should be no traces. . . . well, afterwards they were punished at morshansk." panteley had finished his story, and he looked round at his listeners. they were gazing at him in silence. the water was boiling by now and styopka was skimming off the froth. "is the fat ready?" kiruha asked him in a whisper. "wait a little. . . . directly." styopka, his eyes fixed on panteley as though he were afraid that the latter might begin some story before he was back, ran to the waggons; soon he came back with a little wooden bowl and began pounding some lard in it. "i went another journey with a merchant, too, . . ." panteley went on again, speaking as before in a low voice and with fixed unblinking eyes. "his name, as i remember now, was pyotr grigoritch. he was a nice man, . . . the merchant was. we stopped in the same way at an inn. . . . he indoors and me with the horses. . . . the people of the house, the innkeeper and his wife, seemed friendly good sort of people; the labourers, too, seemed all right; but yet, lads, i couldn't sleep. i had a queer feeling in my heart, . . . a queer feeling, that was just it. the gates were open and there were plenty of people about, and yet i felt afraid and not myself. everyone had been asleep long ago. it was the middle of the night; it would soon be time to get up, and i was lying alone in my chaise and could not close my eyes, as though i were some owl. and then, lads, i heard this sound, 'toop! toop! toop!' someone was creeping up to the chaise. i poke my head out, and there was a peasant woman in nothing but her shift and with her feet bare. . . . 'what do you want, good woman?' i asked. and she was all of a tremble; her face was terror-stricken. . . 'get up, good man,' said she; 'the people are plotting evil. . . . they mean to kill your merchant. with my own ears i heard the master whispering with his wife. . . .' so it was not for nothing, the foreboding of my heart! 'and who are you?' i asked. 'i am their cook,' she said. . . . right! . . . so i got out of the chaise and went to the merchant. i waked him up and said: 'things aren't quite right, pyotr grigoritch. . . . make haste and rouse yourself from sleep, your worship, and dress now while there is still time,' i said; 'and to save our skins, let us get away from trouble.' he had no sooner begun dressing when the door opened and, mercy on us! i saw, holy mother! the innkeeper and his wife come into the room with three labourers. . . . so they had persuaded the labourers to join them. 'the merchant has a lot of money, and we'll go shares,' they told them. every one of the five had a long knife in their hand each a knife. the innkeeper locked the door and said: 'say your prayers, travellers, . . . and if you begin screaming,' they said, 'we won't let you say your prayers before you die. . . .' as though we could scream! i had such a lump in my throat i could not cry out. . . . the merchant wept and said: 'good christian people! you have resolved to kill me because my money tempts you. well, so be it; i shall not be the first nor shall i be the last. many of us merchants have been murdered at inns. but why, good christian brothers,' says he, 'murder my driver? why should he have to suffer for my money?' and he said that so pitifully! and the innkeeper answered him: 'if we leave him alive,' said he, 'he will be the first to bear witness against us. one may just as well kill two as one. you can but answer once for seven misdeeds. . . say your prayers, that's all you can do, and it is no good talking!' the merchant and i knelt down side by side and wept and said our prayers. he thought of his children. i was young in those days; i wanted to live. . . . we looked at the images and prayed, and so pitifully that it brings a tear even now. . . . and the innkeeper's wife looks at us and says: 'good people,' said she, 'don't bear a grudge against us in the other world and pray to god for our punishment, for it is want that drives us to it.' we prayed and wept and prayed and wept, and god heard us. he had pity on us, i suppose. . . . at the very minute when the innkeeper had taken the merchant by the beard to rip open his throat with his knife suddenly someone seemed to tap at the window from the yard! we all started, and the innkeeper's hands dropped. . . . someone was tapping at the window and shouting: 'pyotr grigoritch,' he shouted, 'are you here? get ready and let's go!' the people saw that someone had come for the merchant; they were terrified and took to their heels. . . . and we made haste into the yard, harnessed the horses, and were out of sight in a minute. . ." "who was it knocked at the window?" asked dymov. "at the window? it must have been a holy saint or angel, for there was no one else. . . . when we drove out of the yard there wasn't a soul in the street. . . . it was the lord's doing." panteley told other stories, and in all of them "long knives" figured and all alike sounded made up. had he heard these stories from someone else, or had he made them up himself in the remote past, and afterwards, as his memory grew weaker, mixed up his experiences with his imaginations and become unable to distinguish one from the other? anything is possible, but it is strange that on this occasion and for the rest of the journey, whenever he happened to tell a story, he gave unmistakable preference to fiction, and never told of what he really had experienced. at the time yegorushka took it all for the genuine thing, and believed every word; later on it seemed to him strange that a man who in his day had travelled all over russia and seen and known so much, whose wife and children had been burnt to death, so failed to appreciate the wealth of his life that whenever he was sitting by the camp fire he was either silent or talked of what had never been. over their porridge they were all silent, thinking of what they had just heard. life is terrible and marvellous, and so, however terrible a story you tell in russia, however you embroider it with nests of robbers, long knives and such marvels, it always finds an echo of reality in the soul of the listener, and only a man who has been a good deal affected by education looks askance distrustfully, and even he will be silent. the cross by the roadside, the dark bales of wool, the wide expanse of the plain, and the lot of the men gathered together by the camp fire--all this was of itself so marvellous and terrible that the fantastic colours of legend and fairy-tale were pale and blended with life. all the others ate out of the cauldron, but panteley sat apart and ate his porridge out of a wooden bowl. his spoon was not like those the others had, but was made of cypress wood, with a little cross on it. yegorushka, looking at him, thought of the little ikon glass and asked styopka softly: "why does grandfather sit apart?" "he is an old believer," styopka and vassya answered in a whisper. and as they said it they looked as though they were speaking of some secret vice or weakness. all sat silent, thinking. after the terrible stories there was no inclination to speak of ordinary things. all at once in the midst of the silence vassya drew himself up and, fixing his lustreless eyes on one point, pricked up his ears. "what is it?" dymov asked him. "someone is coming," answered vassya. "where do you see him?" "yo-on-der! there's something white. . ." there was nothing to be seen but darkness in the direction in which vassya was looking; everyone listened, but they could hear no sound of steps. "is he coming by the highroad?" asked dymov. "no, over the open country. . . . he is coming this way." a minute passed in silence. "and maybe it's the merchant who was buried here walking over the steppe," said dymov. all looked askance at the cross, exchanged glances and suddenly broke into a laugh. they felt ashamed of their terror. "why should he walk?" asked panteley. "it's only those walk at night whom the earth will not take to herself. and the merchants were all right. . . . the merchants have received the crown of martyrs." but all at once they heard the sound of steps; someone was coming in haste. "he's carrying something," said vassya. they could hear the grass rustling and the dry twigs crackling under the feet of the approaching wayfarer. but from the glare of the camp fire nothing could be seen. at last the steps sounded close by, and someone coughed. the flickering light seemed to part; a veil dropped from the waggoners' eyes, and they saw a man facing them. whether it was due to the flickering light or because everyone wanted to make out the man's face first of all, it happened, strangely enough, that at the first glance at him they all saw, first of all, not his face nor his clothes, but his smile. it was an extraordinarily good-natured, broad, soft smile, like that of a baby on waking, one of those infectious smiles to which it is difficult not to respond by smiling too. the stranger, when they did get a good look at him, turned out to be a man of thirty, ugly and in no way remarkable. he was a tall little russian, with a long nose, long arms and long legs; everything about him seemed long except his neck, which was so short that it made him seem stooping. he was wearing a clean white shirt with an embroidered collar, white trousers, and new high boots, and in comparison with the waggoners he looked quite a dandy. in his arms he was carrying something big, white, and at the first glance strange-looking, and the stock of a gun also peeped out from behind his shoulder. coming from the darkness into the circle of light, he stopped short as though petrified, and for half a minute looked at the waggoners as though he would have said: "just look what a smile i have!" then he took a step towards the fire, smiled still more radiantly and said: "bread and salt, friends!" "you are very welcome!" panteley answered for them all. the stranger put down by the fire what he was carrying in his arms --it was a dead bustard--and greeted them once more. they all went up to the bustard and began examining it. "a fine big bird; what did you kill it with?" asked dymov. "grape-shot. you can't get him with small shot, he won't let you get near enough. buy it, friends! i will let you have it for twenty kopecks." "what use would it be to us? it's good roast, but i bet it would be tough boiled; you could not get your teeth into it. . . ." "oh, what a pity! i would take it to the gentry at the farm; they would give me half a rouble for it. but it's a long way to go-- twelve miles!" the stranger sat down, took off his gun and laid it beside him. he seemed sleepy and languid; he sat smiling, and, screwing up his eyes at the firelight, apparently thinking of something very agreeable. they gave him a spoon; he began eating. "who are you?" dymov asked him. the stranger did not hear the question; he made no answer, and did not even glance at dymov. most likely this smiling man did not taste the flavour of the porridge either, for he seemed to eat it mechanically, lifting the spoon to his lips sometimes very full and sometimes quite empty. he was not drunk, but he seemed to have something nonsensical in his head. "i ask you who you are?" repeated dymov. "i?" said the unknown, starting. "konstantin zvonik from rovno. it's three miles from here." and anxious to show straight off that he was not quite an ordinary peasant, but something better, konstantin hastened to add: "we keep bees and fatten pigs." "do you live with your father or in a house of your own?" "no; now i am living in a house of my own. i have parted. this month, just after st. peter's day, i got married. i am a married man now! . . . it's eighteen days since the wedding." "that's a good thing," said panteley. "marriage is a good thing . . . . god's blessing is on it." "his young wife sits at home while he rambles about the steppe," laughed kiruha. "queer chap!" as though he had been pinched on the tenderest spot, konstantin started, laughed and flushed crimson. "but, lord, she is not at home!" he said quickly, taking the spoon out of his mouth and looking round at everyone with an expression of delight and wonder. "she is not; she has gone to her mother's for three days! yes, indeed, she has gone away, and i feel as though i were not married. . . ." konstantin waved his hand and turned his head; he wanted to go on thinking, but the joy which beamed in his face prevented him. as though he were not comfortable, he changed his attitude, laughed, and again waved his hand. he was ashamed to share his happy thoughts with strangers, but at the same time he had an irresistible longing to communicate his joy. "she has gone to demidovo to see her mother," he said, blushing and moving his gun. "she'll be back to-morrow. . . . she said she would be back to dinner." "and do you miss her?" said dymov. "oh, lord, yes; i should think so. we have only been married such a little while, and she has gone away. . . . eh! oh, but she is a tricky one, god strike me dead! she is such a fine, splendid girl, such a one for laughing and singing, full of life and fire! when she is there your brain is in a whirl, and now she is away i wander about the steppe like a fool, as though i had lost something. i have been walking since dinner." konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire and laughed. "you love her, then, . . ." said panteley. "she is so fine and splendid," konstantin repeated, not hearing him; "such a housewife, clever and sensible. you wouldn't find another like her among simple folk in the whole province. she has gone away. . . . but she is missing me, i kno-ow! i know the little magpie. she said she would be back to-morrow by dinner-time. . . . and just think how queer!" konstantin almost shouted, speaking a note higher and shifting his position. "now she loves me and is sad without me, and yet she would not marry me." "but eat," said kiruha. "she would not marry me," konstantin went on, not heeding him. "i have been struggling with her for three years! i saw her at the kalatchik fair; i fell madly in love with her, was ready to hang myself. . . . i live at rovno, she at demidovo, more than twenty miles apart, and there was nothing i could do. i sent match-makers to her, and all she said was: 'i won't!' ah, the magpie! i sent her one thing and another, earrings and cakes, and twenty pounds of honey--but still she said: 'i won't!' and there it was. if you come to think of it, i was not a match for her! she was young and lovely, full of fire, while i am old: i shall soon be thirty, and a regular beauty, too; a fine beard like a goat's, a clear complexion all covered with pimples--how could i be compared with her! the only thing to be said is that we are well off, but then the vahramenkys are well off, too. they've six oxen, and they keep a couple of labourers. i was in love, friends, as though i were plague-stricken. i couldn't sleep or eat; my brain was full of thoughts, and in such a maze, lord preserve us! i longed to see her, and she was in demidovo. what do you think? god be my witness, i am not lying, three times a week i walked over there on foot just to have a look at her. i gave up my work! i was so frantic that i even wanted to get taken on as a labourer in demidovo, so as to be near her. i was in misery! my mother called in a witch a dozen times; my father tried thrashing me. for three years i was in this torment, and then i made up my mind. 'damn my soul!' i said. 'i will go to the town and be a cabman. . . . it seems it is fated not to be.' at easter i went to demidovo to have a last look at her. . . ." konstantin threw back his head and went off into a mirthful tinkling laugh, as though he had just taken someone in very cleverly. "i saw her by the river with the lads," he went on. "i was overcome with anger. . . . i called her aside and maybe for a full hour i said all manner of things to her. she fell in love with me! for three years she did not like me! she fell in love with me for what i said to her. . . ." "what did you say to her?" asked dymov. "what did i say? i don't remember. . . how could one remember? my words flowed at the time like water from a tap, without stopping to take breath. ta-ta-ta! and now i can't utter a word. . . . well, so she married me. . . . she's gone now to her mother's, the magpie, and while she is away here i wander over the steppe. i can't stay at home. it's more than i can do!" konstantin awkwardly released his feet, on which he was sitting, stretched himself on the earth, and propped his head in his fists, then got up and sat down again. everyone by now thoroughly understood that he was in love and happy, poignantly happy; his smile, his eyes, and every movement, expressed fervent happiness. he could not find a place for himself, and did not know what attitude to take to keep himself from being overwhelmed by the multitude of his delightful thoughts. having poured out his soul before these strangers, he settled down quietly at last, and, looking at the fire, sank into thought. at the sight of this happy man everyone felt depressed and longed to be happy, too. everyone was dreamy. dymov got up, walked about softly by the fire, and from his walk, from the movement of his shoulder-blades, it could be seen that he was weighed down by depression and yearning. he stood still for a moment, looked at konstantin and sat down. the camp fire had died down by now; there was no flicker, and the patch of red had grown small and dim. . . . and as the fire went out the moonlight grew clearer and clearer. now they could see the full width of the road, the bales of wool, the shafts of the waggons, the munching horses; on the further side of the road there was the dim outline of the second cross. . . . dymov leaned his cheek on his hand and softly hummed some plaintive song. konstantin smiled drowsily and chimed in with a thin voice. they sang for half a minute, then sank into silence. emelyan started, jerked his elbows and wriggled his fingers. "lads," he said in an imploring voice, "let's sing something sacred!" tears came into his eyes. "lads," he repeated, pressing his hands on his heart, "let's sing something sacred!" "i don't know anything," said konstantin. everyone refused, then emelyan sang alone. he waved both arms, nodded his head, opened his mouth, but nothing came from his throat but a discordant gasp. he sang with his arms, with his head, with his eyes, even with the swelling on his face; he sang passionately with anguish, and the more he strained his chest to extract at least one note from it, the more discordant were his gasps. yegorushka, like the rest, was overcome with depression. he went to his waggon, clambered up on the bales and lay down. he looked at the sky, and thought of happy konstantin and his wife. why did people get married? what were women in the world for? yegorushka put the vague questions to himself, and thought that a man would certainly be happy if he had an affectionate, merry and beautiful woman continually living at his side. for some reason he remembered the countess dranitsky, and thought it would probably be very pleasant to live with a woman like that; he would perhaps have married her with pleasure if that idea had not been so shameful. he recalled her eyebrows, the pupils of her eyes, her carriage, the clock with the horseman. . . . the soft warm night moved softly down upon him and whispered something in his ear, and it seemed to him that it was that lovely woman bending over him, looking at him with a smile and meaning to kiss him. . . . nothing was left of the fire but two little red eyes, which kept on growing smaller and smaller. konstantin and the waggoners were sitting by it, dark motionless figures, and it seemed as though there were many more of them than before. the twin crosses were equally visible, and far, far away, somewhere by the highroad there gleamed a red light--other people cooking their porridge, most likely. "our mother russia is the he-ad of all the world!" kiruha sang out suddenly in a harsh voice, choked and subsided. the steppe echo caught up his voice, carried it on, and it seemed as though stupidity itself were rolling on heavy wheels over the steppe. "it's time to go," said panteley. "get up, lads." while they were putting the horses in, konstantin walked by the waggons and talked rapturously of his wife. "good-bye, mates!" he cried when the waggons started. "thank you for your hospitality. i shall go on again towards that light. it's more than i can stand." and he quickly vanished in the mist, and for a long time they could hear him striding in the direction of the light to tell those other strangers of his happiness. when yegorushka woke up next day it was early morning; the sun had not yet risen. the waggons were at a standstill. a man in a white cap and a suit of cheap grey material, mounted on a little cossack stallion, was talking to dymov and kiruha beside the foremost waggon. a mile and a half ahead there were long low white barns and little houses with tiled roofs; there were neither yards nor trees to be seen beside the little houses. "what village is that, grandfather?" asked yegorushka. "that's the armenian settlement, youngster," answered panteley. "the armenians live there. they are a good sort of people, . . . the arnienians are." the man in grey had finished talking to dymov and kiruha; he pulled up his little stallion and looked across towards the settlement. "what a business, only think!" sighed panteley, looking towards the settlement, too, and shuddering at the morning freshness. "he has sent a man to the settlement for some papers, and he doesn't come . . . . he should have sent styopka." "who is that, grandfather?" asked yegorushka. "varlamov." my goodness! yegorushka jumped up quickly, getting upon his knees, and looked at the white cap. it was hard to recognize the mysterious elusive varlamov, who was sought by everyone, who was always "on his rounds," and who had far more money than countess dranitsky, in the short, grey little man in big boots, who was sitting on an ugly little nag and talking to peasants at an hour when all decent people were asleep. "he is all right, a good man," said panteley, looking towards the settlement. "god give him health--a splendid gentleman, semyon alexandritch. . . . it's people like that the earth rests upon. that's true. . . . the cocks are not crowing yet, and he is already up and about. . . . another man would be asleep, or gallivanting with visitors at home, but he is on the steppe all day, . . . on his rounds. . . . he does not let things slip. . . . no-o! he's a fine fellow. . ." varlamov was talking about something, while he kept his eyes fixed. the little stallion shifted from one leg to another impatiently. "semyon alexandritch!" cried panteley, taking off his hat. "allow us to send styopka! emelyan, call out that styopka should be sent." but now at last a man on horseback could be seen coming from the settlement. bending very much to one side and brandishing his whip above his head like a gallant young caucasian, and wanting to astonish everyone by his horsemanship, he flew towards the waggons with the swiftness of a bird. "that must be one of his circuit men," said panteley. "he must have a hundred such horsemen or maybe more." reaching the first waggon, he pulled up his horse, and taking off his hat, handed varlamov a little book. varlamov took several papers out of the book, read them and cried: "and where is ivantchuk's letter?" the horseman took the book back, looked at the papers and shrugged his shoulders. he began saying something, probably justifying himself and asking to be allowed to ride back to the settlement again. the little stallion suddenly stirred as though varlamov had grown heavier. varlamov stirred too. "go along!" he cried angrily, and he waved his whip at the man. then he turned his horse round and, looking through the papers in the book, moved at a walking pace alongside the waggons. when he reached the hindmost, yegorushka strained his eyes to get a better look at him. varlamov was an elderly man. his face, a simple russian sunburnt face with a small grey beard, was red, wet with dew and covered with little blue veins; it had the same expression of businesslike coldness as ivan ivanitch's face, the same look of fanatical zeal for business. but yet what a difference could be felt between him and kuzmitchov! uncle ivan ivanitch always had on his face, together with his business-like reserve, a look of anxiety and apprehension that he would not find varlamov, that he would be late, that he would miss a good price; nothing of that sort, so characteristic of small and dependent persons, could be seen in the face or figure of varlamov. this man made the price himself, was not looking for anyone, and did not depend on anyone; however ordinary his exterior, yet in everything, even in the manner of holding his whip, there was a sense of power and habitual authority over the steppe. as he rode by yegorushka he did not glance at him. only the little stallion deigned to notice yegorushka; he looked at him with his large foolish eyes, and even he showed no interest. panteley bowed to varlamov; the latter noticed it, and without taking his eyes off the sheets of paper, said lisping: "how are you, old man?" varlamov's conversation with the horseman and the way he had brandished his whip had evidently made an overwhelming impression on the whole party. everyone looked grave. the man on horseback, cast down at the anger of the great man, remained stationary, with his hat off, and the rein loose by the foremost waggon; he was silent, and seemed unable to grasp that the day had begun so badly for him. "he is a harsh old man, . ." muttered panteley. "it's a pity he is so harsh! but he is all right, a good man. . . . he doesn't abuse men for nothing. . . . it's no matter. . . ." after examining the papers, varlamov thrust the book into his pocket; the little stallion, as though he knew what was in his mind, without waiting for orders, started and dashed along the highroad. vii on the following night the waggoners had halted and were cooking their porridge. on this occasion there was a sense of overwhelming oppression over everyone. it was sultry; they all drank a great deal, but could not quench their thirst. the moon was intensely crimson and sullen, as though it were sick. the stars, too, were sullen, the mist was thicker, the distance more clouded. nature seemed as though languid and weighed down by some foreboding. there was not the same liveliness and talk round the camp fire as there had been the day before. all were dreary and spoke listlessly and without interest. panteley did nothing but sigh and complain of his feet, and continually alluded to impenitent deathbeds. dymov was lying on his stomach, chewing a straw in silence; there was an expression of disgust on his face as though the straw smelt unpleasant, a spiteful and exhausted look. . . . vassya complained that his jaw ached, and prophesied bad weather; emelyan was not waving his arms, but sitting still and looking gloomily at the fire. yegorushka, too, was weary. this slow travelling exhausted him, and the sultriness of the day had given him a headache. while they were cooking the porridge, dymov, to relieve his boredom, began quarrelling with his companions. "here he lolls, the lumpy face, and is the first to put his spoon in," he said, looking spitefully at emelyan. "greedy! always contrives to sit next the cauldron. he's been a church-singer, so he thinks he is a gentleman! there are a lot of singers like you begging along the highroad!" "what are you pestering me for?" asked emelyan, looking at him angrily. "to teach you not to be the first to dip into the cauldron. don't think too much of yourself!" "you are a fool, and that is all about it!" wheezed out emelyan. knowing by experience how such conversations usually ended, panteley and vassya intervened and tried to persuade dymov not to quarrel about nothing. "a church-singer!" the bully would not desist, but laughed contemptuously. "anyone can sing like that--sit in the church porch and sing 'give me alms, for christ's sake!' ugh! you are a nice fellow!" emelyan did not speak. his silence had an irritating effect on dymov. he looked with still greater hatred at the ex-singer and said: "i don't care to have anything to do with you, or i would show you what to think of yourself." "but why are you pushing me, you mazeppa?" emelyan cried, flaring up. "am i interfering with you?" "what did you call me?" asked dymov, drawing himself up, and his eyes were suffused with blood. "eh! i am a mazeppa? yes? take that, then; go and look for it." dymov snatched the spoon out of emelyan's hand and flung it far away. kiruha, vassya, and styopka ran to look for it, while emelyan fixed an imploring and questioning look on panteley. his face suddenly became small and wrinkled; it began twitching, and the ex-singer began to cry like a child. yegorushka, who had long hated dymov, felt as though the air all at once were unbearably stifling, as though the fire were scorching his face; he longed to run quickly to the waggons in the darkness, but the bully's angry bored eyes drew the boy to him. with a passionate desire to say something extremely offensive, he took a step towards dymov and brought out, gasping for breath: "you are the worst of the lot; i can't bear you!" after this he ought to have run to the waggons, but he could not stir from the spot and went on: "in the next world you will burn in hell! i'll complain to ivan ivanitch. don't you dare insult emelyan!" "say this too, please," laughed dyrnov: "'every little sucking-pig wants to lay down the law.' shall i pull your ear?" yegorushka felt that he could not breathe; and something which had never happened to him before--he suddenly began shaking all over, stamping his feet and crying shrilly: "beat him, beat him!" tears gushed from his eyes; he felt ashamed, and ran staggering back to the waggon. the effect produced by his outburst he did not see. lying on the bales and twitching his arms and legs, he whispered: "mother, mother!" and these men and the shadows round the camp fire, and the dark bales and the far-away lightning, which was flashing every minute in the distance--all struck him now as terrible and unfriendly. he was overcome with terror and asked himself in despair why and how he had come into this unknown land in the company of terrible peasants? where was his uncle now, where was father christopher, where was deniska? why were they so long in coming? hadn't they forgotten him? at the thought that he was forgotten and cast out to the mercy of fate, he felt such a cold chill of dread that he had several times an impulse to jump off the bales of wool, and run back full speed along the road; but the thought of the huge dark crosses, which would certainly meet him on the way, and the lightning flashing in the distance, stopped him. . . . and only when he whispered, "mother, mother!" he felt as it were a little better. the waggoners must have been full of dread, too. after yegorushka had run away from the camp fire they sat at first for a long time in silence, then they began speaking in hollow undertones about something, saying that it was coming and that they must make haste and get away from it. . . . they quickly finished supper, put out the fire and began harnessing the horses in silence. from their fluster and the broken phrases they uttered it was apparent they foresaw some trouble. before they set off on their way, dymov went up to panteley and asked softly: "what's his name?" "yegory," answered panteley. dymov put one foot on the wheel, caught hold of the cord which was tied round the bales and pulled himself up. yegorushka saw his face and curly head. the face was pale and looked grave and exhausted, but there was no expression of spite in it. "yera!" he said softly, "here, hit me!" yegorushka looked at him in surprise. at that instant there was a flash of lightning. "it's all right, hit me," repeated dymov. and without waiting for yegorushka to hit him or to speak to him, he jumped down and said: "how dreary i am!" then, swaying from one leg to the other and moving his shoulder-blades, he sauntered lazily alongside the string of waggons and repeated in a voice half weeping, half angry: "how dreary i am! o lord! don't you take offence, emelyan," he said as he passed emelyan. "ours is a wretched cruel life!" there was a flash of lightning on the right, and, like a reflection in the looking-glass, at once a second flash in the distance. "yegory, take this," cried panteley, throwing up something big and dark. "what is it?" asked yegorushka. "a mat. there will be rain, so cover yourself up." yegorushka sat up and looked about him. the distance had grown perceptibly blacker, and now oftener than every minute winked with a pale light. the blackness was being bent towards the right as though by its own weight. "will there be a storm, grandfather?" asked yegorushka. "ah, my poor feet, how they ache!" panteley said in a high-pitched voice, stamping his feet and not hearing the boy. on the left someone seemed to strike a match in the sky; a pale phosphorescent streak gleamed and went out. there was a sound as though someone very far away were walking over an iron roof, probably barefoot, for the iron gave a hollow rumble. "it's set in!" cried kiruha. between the distance and the horizon on the right there was a flash of lightning so vivid that it lighted up part of the steppe and the spot where the clear sky met the blackness. a terrible cloud was swooping down, without haste, a compact mass; big black shreds hung from its edge; similar shreds pressing one upon another were piling up on the right and left horizon. the tattered, ragged look of the storm-cloud gave it a drunken disorderly air. there was a distinct, not smothered, growl of thunder. yegorushka crossed himself and began quickly putting on his great-coat. "i am dreary!" dymov's shout floated from the foremost waggon, and it could be told from his voice that he was beginning to be ill-humoured again. "i am so dreary!" all at once there was a squall of wind, so violent that it almost snatched away yegorushka's bundle and mat; the mat fluttered in all directions and flapped on the bale and on yegorushka's face. the wind dashed whistling over the steppe, whirled round in disorder and raised such an uproar from the grass that neither the thunder nor the creaking of the wheels could be heard; it blew from the black storm-cloud, carrying with it clouds of dust and the scent of rain and wet earth. the moonlight grew mistier, as it were dirtier; the stars were even more overcast; and clouds of dust could be seen hurrying along the edge of the road, followed by their shadows. by now, most likely, the whirlwind eddying round and lifting from the earth dust, dry grass and feathers, was mounting to the very sky; uprooted plants must have been flying by that very black storm-cloud, and how frightened they must have been! but through the dust that clogged the eyes nothing could be seen but the flash of lightning. yegorushka, thinking it would pour with rain in a minute, knelt up and covered himself with the mat. "panteley-ey!" someone shouted in the front. "a. . . a. . . va!" "i can't!" panteley answered in a loud high voice. "a . . . a . . . va! arya . . . a!" there was an angry clap of thunder, which rolled across the sky from right to left, then back again, and died away near the foremost waggon. "holy, holy, holy, lord of sabaoth," whispered yegorushka, crossing himself. "fill heaven and earth with thy glory." the blackness in the sky yawned wide and breathed white fire. at once there was another clap of thunder. it had scarcely ceased when there was a flash of lightning so broad that yegorushka suddenly saw through a slit in the mat the whole highroad to the very horizon, all the waggoners and even kiruha's waistcoat. the black shreds had by now moved upwards from the left, and one of them, a coarse, clumsy monster like a claw with fingers, stretched to the moon. yegorushka made up his mind to shut his eyes tight, to pay no attention to it, and to wait till it was all over. the rain was for some reason long in coming. yegorushka peeped out from the mat in the hope that perhaps the storm-cloud was passing over. it was fearfully dark. yegorushka could see neither panteley, nor the bale of wool, nor himself; he looked sideways towards the place where the moon had lately been, but there was the same black darkness there as over the waggons. and in the darkness the flashes of lightning seemed more violent and blinding, so that they hurt his eyes. "panteley!" called yegorushka. no answer followed. but now a gust of wind for the last time flung up the mat and hurried away. a quiet regular sound was heard. a big cold drop fell on yegorushka's knee, another trickled over his hand. he noticed that his knees were not covered, and tried to rearrange the mat, but at that moment something began pattering on the road, then on the shafts and the bales. it was the rain. as though they understood one another, the rain and the mat began prattling of something rapidly, gaily and most annoyingly like two magpies. yegorushka knelt up or rather squatted on his boots. while the rain was pattering on the mat, he leaned forward to screen his knees, which were suddenly wet. he succeeded in covering his knees, but in less than a minute was aware of a penetrating, unpleasant dampness behind on his back and the calves of his legs. he returned to his former position, exposing his knees to the rain, and wondered what to do to rearrange the mat which he could not see in the darkness. but his arms were already wet, the water was trickling up his sleeves and down his collar, and his shoulder-blades felt chilly. and he made up his mind to do nothing but sit motionless and wait till it was all over. "holy, holy, holy!" he whispered. suddenly, exactly over his head, the sky cracked with a fearful deafening din; he huddled up and held his breath, waiting for the fragments to fall upon his head and back. he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a blinding intense light flare out and flash five times on his fingers, his wet sleeves, and on the trickles of water running from the mat upon the bales and down to the ground. there was a fresh peal of thunder as violent and awful; the sky was not growling and rumbling now, but uttering short crashing sounds like the crackling of dry wood. "trrah! tah! tah! tah!" the thunder rang out distinctly, rolled over the sky, seemed to stumble, and somewhere by the foremost waggons or far behind to fall with an abrupt angry "trrra!" the flashes of lightning had at first been only terrible, but with such thunder they seemed sinister and menacing. their magic light pierced through closed eyelids and sent a chill all over the body. what could he do not to see them? yegorushka made up his mind to turn over on his face. cautiously, as though afraid of being watched, he got on all fours, and his hands slipping on the wet bale, he turned back again. "trrah! tah! tah!" floated over his head, rolled under the waggons and exploded "kraa!" again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a new danger: three huge giants with long pikes were following the waggon! a flash of lightning gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up their figures very distinctly. they were men of huge proportions, with covered faces, bowed heads, and heavy footsteps. they seemed gloomy and dispirited and lost in thought. perhaps they were not following the waggons with any harmful intent, and yet there was something awful in their proximity. yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trembling all over cried: "panteley! grandfather!" "trrah! tah! tah!" the sky answered him. he opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were there. there were flashes of lightning in two places, which lighted up the road to the far distance, the whole string of waggons and all the waggoners. streams of water were flowing along the road and bubbles were dancing. panteley was walking beside the waggon; his tall hat and his shoulder were covered with a small mat; his figure expressed neither terror nor uneasiness, as though he were deafened by the thunder and blinded by the lightning. "grandfather, the giants!" yegorushka shouted to him in tears. but the old man did not hear. further away walked emelyan. he was covered from head to foot with a big mat and was triangular in shape. vassya, without anything over him, was walking with the same wooden step as usual, lifting his feet high and not bending his knees. in the flash of lightning it seemed as though the waggons were not moving and the men were motionless, that vassya's lifted foot was rigid in the same position. . . . yegorushka called the old man once more. getting no answer, he sat motionless, and no longer waited for it all to end. he was convinced that the thunder would kill him in another minute, that he would accidentally open his eyes and see the terrible giants, and he left off crossing himself, calling the old man and thinking of his mother, and was simply numb with cold and the conviction that the storm would never end. but at last there was the sound of voices. "yegory, are you asleep?" panteley cried below. "get down! is he deaf, the silly little thing? . . ." "something like a storm!" said an unfamiliar bass voice, and the stranger cleared his throat as though he had just tossed off a good glass of vodka. yegorushka opened his eyes. close to the waggon stood panteley, emelyan, looking like a triangle, and the giants. the latter were by now much shorter, and when yegorushka looked more closely at them they turned out to be ordinary peasants, carrying on their shoulders not pikes but pitchforks. in the space between panteley and the triangular figure, gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut. so the waggons were halting in the village. yegorushka flung off the mat, took his bundle and made haste to get off the waggon. now when close to him there were people talking and a lighted window he no longer felt afraid, though the thunder was crashing as before and the whole sky was streaked with lightning. "it was a good storm, all right, . . ." panteley was muttering. "thank god, . . . my feet are a little softened by the rain. it was all right. . . . have you got down, yegory? well, go into the hut; it is all right. . . ." "holy, holy, holy!" wheezed emelyan, "it must have struck something . . . . are you of these parts?" he asked the giants. "no, from glinovo. we belong to glinovo. we are working at the platers'." "threshing?" "all sorts. just now we are getting in the wheat. the lightning, the lightning! it is long since we have had such a storm. . . ." yegorushka went into the hut. he was met by a lean hunchbacked old woman with a sharp chin. she stood holding a tallow candle in her hands, screwing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs. "what a storm god has sent us!" she said. "and our lads are out for the night on the steppe; they'll have a bad time, poor dears! take off your things, little sir, take off your things." shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, yegorushka pulled off his drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled his legs, and stood a long time without moving. the slightest movement caused an unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness. his sleeves and the back of his shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck to his legs, his head was dripping. "what's the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little lad?" said the old woman. "come, sit down." holding his legs wide apart, yegorushka went up to the table and sat down on a bench near somebody's head. the head moved, puffed a stream of air through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided. a mound covered with a sheepskin stretched from the head along the bench; it was a peasant woman asleep. the old woman went out sighing, and came back with a big water melon and a little sweet melon. "have something to eat, my dear! i have nothing else to offer you, . . ." she said, yawning. she rummaged in the table and took out a long sharp knife, very much like the one with which the brigands killed the merchants in the inn. "have some, my dear!" yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a fever, ate a slice of sweet melon with black bread and then a slice of water melon, and that made him feel colder still. "our lads are out on the steppe for the night, . . ." sighed the old woman while he was eating. "the terror of the lord! i'd light the candle under the ikon, but i don't know where stepanida has put it. have some more, little sir, have some more. . . ." the old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right hand behind her, scratched her left shoulder. "it must be two o'clock now," she said; "it will soon be time to get up. our lads are out on the steppe for the night; they are all wet through for sure. . . ." "granny," said yegorushka. "i am sleepy." "lie down, my dear, lie down," the old woman sighed, yawning. "lord jesus christ! i was asleep, when i heard a noise as though someone were knocking. i woke up and looked, and it was the storm god had sent us. . . . i'd have lighted the candle, but i couldn't find it." talking to herself, she pulled some rags, probably her own bed, off the bench, took two sheepskins off a nail by the stove, and began laying them out for a bed for yegorushka. "the storm doesn't grow less," she muttered. "if only nothing's struck in an unlucky hour. our lads are out on the steppe for the night. lie down and sleep, my dear. . . . christ be with you, my child. . . . i won't take away the melon; maybe you'll have a bit when you get up." the sighs and yawns of the old woman, the even breathing of the sleeping woman, the half-darkness of the hut, and the sound of the rain outside, made one sleepy. yegorushka was shy of undressing before the old woman. he only took off his boots, lay down and covered himself with the sheepskin. "is the little lad lying down?" he heard panteley whisper a little later. "yes," answered the old woman in a whisper. "the terror of the lord! it thunders and thunders, and there is no end to it." "it will soon be over," wheezed panteley, sitting down; "it's getting quieter. . . . the lads have gone into the huts, and two have stayed with the horses. the lads have. . . . they can't; . . . the horses would be taken away. . . . i'll sit here a bit and then go and take my turn. . . . we can't leave them; they would be taken. . . ." panteley and the old woman sat side by side at yegorushka's feet, talking in hissing whispers and interspersing their speech with sighs and yawns. and yegorushka could not get warm. the warm heavy sheepskin lay on him, but he was trembling all over; his arms and legs were twitching, and his whole inside was shivering. . . . he undressed under the sheepskin, but that was no good. his shivering grew more and more acute. panteley went out to take his turn with the horses, and afterwards came back again, and still yegorushka was shivering all over and could not get to sleep. something weighed upon his head and chest and oppressed him, and he did not know what it was, whether it was the old people whispering, or the heavy smell of the sheepskin. the melon he had eaten had left an unpleasant metallic taste in his mouth. moreover he was being bitten by fleas. "grandfather, i am cold," he said, and did not know his own voice. "go to sleep, my child, go to sleep," sighed the old woman. tit came up to the bedside on his thin little legs and waved his arms, then grew up to the ceiling and turned into a windmill. . . . father christopher, not as he was in the chaise, but in his full vestments with the sprinkler in his hand, walked round the mill, sprinkling it with holy water, and it left off waving. yegorushka, knowing this was delirium, opened his eyes. "grandfather," he called, "give me some water." no one answered. yegorushka felt it insufferably stifling and uncomfortable lying down. he got up, dressed, and went out of the hut. morning was beginning. the sky was overcast, but it was no longer raining. shivering and wrapping himself in his wet overcoat, yegorushka walked about the muddy yard and listened to the silence; he caught sight of a little shed with a half-open door made of reeds. he looked into this shed, went into it, and sat down in a dark corner on a heap of dry dung. there was a tangle of thoughts in his heavy head; his mouth was dry and unpleasant from the metallic taste. he looked at his hat, straightened the peacock's feather on it, and thought how he had gone with his mother to buy the hat. he put his hand into his pocket and took out a lump of brownish sticky paste. how had that paste come into his pocket? he thought a minute, smelt it; it smelt of honey. aha! it was the jewish cake! how sopped it was, poor thing! yegorushka examined his coat. it was a little grey overcoat with big bone buttons, cut in the shape of a frock-coat. at home, being a new and expensive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but with his mother's dresses in her bedroom; he was only allowed to wear it on holidays. looking at it, yegorushka felt sorry for it. he thought that he and the great-coat were both abandoned to the mercy of destiny; he thought that he would never get back home, and began sobbing so violently that he almost fell off the heap of dung. a big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers about its face, sopping from the rain, came into the shed and stared with curiosity at yegorushka. it seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not. deciding that there was no need to bark, it went cautiously up to yegorushka, ate the sticky plaster and went out again. "there are varlamov's men!" someone shouted in the street. after having his cry out, yegorushka went out of the shed and, walking round a big puddle, made his way towards the street. the waggons were standing exactly opposite the gateway. the drenched waggoners, with their muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or sitting on the shafts, as listless and drowsy as flies in autumn. yegorushka looked at them and thought: "how dreary and comfortless to be a peasant!" he went up to panteley and sat down beside him on the shaft. "grandfather, i'm cold," he said, shivering and thrusting his hands up his sleeves. "never mind, we shall soon be there," yawned panteley. "never mind, you will get warm." it must have been early when the waggons set off, for it was not hot. yegorushka lay on the bales of wool and shivered with cold, though the sun soon came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and the earth. as soon as he closed his eyes he saw tit and the windmill again. feeling a sickness and heaviness all over, he did his utmost to drive away these images, but as soon as they vanished the dare-devil dymov, with red eyes and lifted fists, rushed at yegorushka with a roar, or there was the sound of his complaint: "i am so dreary!" varlamov rode by on his little cossack stallion; happy konstantin passed, with a smile and the bustard in his arms. and how tedious these people were, how sickening and unbearable! once--it was towards evening--he raised his head to ask for water. the waggons were standing on a big bridge across a broad river. there was black smoke below over the river, and through it could be seen a steamer with a barge in tow. ahead of them, beyond the river, was a huge mountain dotted with houses and churches; at the foot of the mountain an engine was being shunted along beside some goods trucks. yegorushka had never before seen steamers, nor engines, nor broad rivers. glancing at them now, he was not alarmed or surprised; there was not even a look of anything like curiosity in his face. he merely felt sick, and made haste to turn over to the edge of the bale. he was sick. panteley, seeing this, cleared his throat and shook his head. "our little lad's taken ill," he said. "he must have got a chill to the stomach. the little lad must. . . away from home; it's a bad lookout!" viii the waggons stopped at a big inn for merchants, not far from the quay. as yegorushka climbed down from the waggon he heard a very familiar voice. someone was helping him to get down, and saying: "we arrived yesterday evening. . . . we have been expecting you all day. we meant to overtake you yesterday, but it was out of our way; we came by the other road. i say, how you have crumpled your coat! you'll catch it from your uncle!" yegorushka looked into the speaker's mottled face and remembered that this was deniska. "your uncle and father christopher are in the inn now, drinking tea; come along!" and he led yegorushka to a big two-storied building, dark and gloomy like the almshouse at n. after going across the entry, up a dark staircase and through a narrow corridor, yegorushka and deniska reached a little room in which ivan ivanitch and father christopher were sitting at the tea-table. seeing the boy, both the old men showed surprise and pleasure. "aha! yegor ni-ko-la-aitch!" chanted father christopher. "mr. lomonosov!" "ah, our gentleman that is to be," said kuzmitchov, "pleased to see you!" yegorushka took off his great-coat, kissed his uncle's hand and father christopher's, and sat down to the table. "well, how did you like the journey, puer bone?" father christopher pelted him with questions as he poured him out some tea, with his radiant smile. "sick of it, i've no doubt? god save us all from having to travel by waggon or with oxen. you go on and on, god forgive us; you look ahead and the steppe is always lying stretched out the same as it was--you can't see the end of it! it's not travelling but regular torture. why don't you drink your tea? drink it up; and in your absence, while you have been trailing along with the waggons, we have settled all our business capitally. thank god we have sold our wool to tcherepahin, and no one could wish to have done better. . . . we have made a good bargain." at the first sight of his own people yegorushka felt an overwhelming desire to complain. he did not listen to father christopher, but thought how to begin and what exactly to complain of. but father christopher's voice, which seemed to him harsh and unpleasant, prevented him from concentrating his attention and confused his thoughts. he had not sat at the table five minutes before he got up, went to the sofa and lay down. "well, well," said father christopher in surprise. "what about your tea?" still thinking what to complain of, yegorushka leaned his head against the wall and broke into sobs. "well, well!" repeated father christopher, getting up and going to the sofa. "yegory, what is the matter with you? why are you crying?" "i'm . . . i'm ill," yegorushka brought out. "ill?" said father christopher in amazement. "that's not the right thing, my boy. . . . one mustn't be ill on a journey. aie, aie, what are you thinking about, boy . . . eh?" he put his hand to yegorushka's head, touched his cheek and said: "yes, your head's feverish. . . . you must have caught cold or else have eaten something. . . . pray to god." "should we give him quinine? . . ." said ivan ivanitch, troubled. "no; he ought to have something hot. . . . yegory, have a little drop of soup? eh?" "i . . . don't want any," said yegorushka. "are you feeling chilly?" "i was chilly before, but now . . . now i am hot. and i ache all over. . . ." ivan ivanitch went up to the sofa, touched yegorushka on the head, cleared his throat with a perplexed air, and went back to the table. "i tell you what, you undress and go to bed," said father christopher. "what you want is sleep now." he helped yegorushka to undress, gave him a pillow and covered him with a quilt, and over that ivan ivanitch's great-coat. then he walked away on tiptoe and sat down to the table. yegorushka shut his eyes, and at once it seemed to him that he was not in the hotel room, but on the highroad beside the camp fire. emelyan waved his hands, and dymov with red eyes lay on his stomach and looked mockingly at yegorushka. "beat him, beat him!" shouted yegorushka. "he is delirious," said father christopher in an undertone. "it's a nuisance!" sighed ivan ivanitch. "he must be rubbed with oil and vinegar. please god, he will be better to-morrow." to be rid of bad dreams, yegorushka opened his eyes and began looking towards the fire. father christopher and ivan ivanitch had now finished their tea and were talking in a whisper. the first was smiling with delight, and evidently could not forget that he had made a good bargain over his wool; what delighted him was not so much the actual profit he had made as the thought that on getting home he would gather round him his big family, wink slyly and go off into a chuckle; at first he would deceive them all, and say that he had sold the wool at a price below its value, then he would give his son-in-law, mihail, a fat pocket-book and say: "well, take it! that's the way to do business!" kuzmitchov did not seem pleased; his face expressed, as before, a business-like reserve and anxiety. "if i could have known that tcherepahin would give such a price," he said in a low voice, "i wouldn't have sold makarov those five tons at home. it is vexatious! but who could have told that the price had gone up here?" a man in a white shirt cleared away the samovar and lighted the little lamp before the ikon in the corner. father christopher whispered something in his ear; the man looked, made a serious face like a conspirator, as though to say, "i understand," went out, and returned a little while afterwards and put something under the sofa. ivan ivanitch made himself a bed on the floor, yawned several times, said his prayers lazily, and lay down. "i think of going to the cathedral to-morrow," said father christopher. "i know the sacristan there. i ought to go and see the bishop after mass, but they say he is ill." he yawned and put out the lamp. now there was no light in the room but the little lamp before the ikon. "they say he can't receive visitors," father christopher went on, undressing. "so i shall go away without seeing him." he took off his full coat, and yegorushka saw robinson crusoe reappear. robinson stirred something in a saucer, went up to yegorushka and whispered: "lomonosov, are you asleep? sit up; i'm going to rub you with oil and vinegar. it's a good thing, only you must say a prayer." yegorushka roused himself quickly and sat up. father christopher pulled down the boy's shirt, and shrinking and breathing jerkily, as though he were being tickled himself, began rubbing yegorushka's chest. "in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost," he whispered, "lie with your back upwards--that's it. . . . you'll be all right to-morrow, but don't do it again. . . . you are as hot as fire. i suppose you were on the road in the storm." "yes." "you might well fall ill! in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost, . . . you might well fall ill!" after rubbing yegorushka, father christopher put on his shirt again, covered him, made the sign of the cross over him, and walked away. then yegorushka saw him saying his prayers. probably the old man knew a great many prayers by heart, for he stood a long time before the ikon murmuring. after saying his prayers he made the sign of the cross over the window, the door, yegorushka, and ivan ivanitch, lay down on the little sofa without a pillow, and covered himself with his full coat. a clock in the corridor struck ten. yegorushka thought how long a time it would be before morning; feeling miserable, he pressed his forehead against the back of the sofa and left off trying to get rid of the oppressive misty dreams. but morning came much sooner than he expected. it seemed to him that he had not been lying long with his head pressed to the back of the sofa, but when he opened his eyes slanting rays of sunlight were already shining on the floor through the two windows of the little hotel room. father christopher and ivan ivanitch were not in the room. the room had been tidied; it was bright, snug, and smelt of father christopher, who always smelt of cypress and dried cornflowers (at home he used to make the holy-water sprinklers and decorations for the ikonstands out of cornflowers, and so he was saturated with the smell of them). yegorushka looked at the pillow, at the slanting sunbeams, at his boots, which had been cleaned and were standing side by side near the sofa, and laughed. it seemed strange to him that he was not on the bales of wool, that everything was dry around him, and that there was no thunder and lightning on the ceiling. he jumped off the sofa and began dressing. he felt splendid; nothing was left of his yesterday's illness but a slight weakness in his legs and neck. so the vinegar and oil had done good. he remembered the steamer, the railway engine, and the broad river, which he had dimly seen the day before, and now he made haste to dress, to run to the quay and have a look at them. when he had washed and was putting on his red shirt, the latch of the door clicked, and father christopher appeared in the doorway, wearing his top-hat and a brown silk cassock over his canvas coat and carrying his staff in his hand. smiling and radiant (old men are always radiant when they come back from church), he put a roll of holy bread and a parcel of some sort on the table, prayed before the ikon, and said: "god has sent us blessings--well, how are you?" "quite well now," answered yegorushka, kissing his hand. "thank god. . . . i have come from mass. i've been to see a sacristan i know. he invited me to breakfast with him, but i didn't go. i don't like visiting people too early, god bless them!" he took off his cassock, stroked himself on the chest, and without haste undid the parcel. yegorushka saw a little tin of caviare, a piece of dry sturgeon, and a french loaf. "see; i passed a fish-shop and brought this," said father christopher. "there is no need to indulge in luxuries on an ordinary weekday; but i thought, i've an invalid at home, so it is excusable. and the caviare is good, real sturgeon. . . ." the man in the white shirt brought in the samovar and a tray with tea-things. "eat some," said father christopher, spreading the caviare on a slice of bread and handing it to yegorushka. "eat now and enjoy yourself, but the time will soon come for you to be studying. mind you study with attention and application, so that good may come of it. what you have to learn by heart, learn by heart, but when you have to tell the inner sense in your own words, without regard to the outer form, then say it in your own words. and try to master all subjects. one man knows mathematics excellently, but has never heard of pyotr mogila; another knows about pyotr mogila, but cannot explain about the moon. but you study so as to understand everything. study latin, french, german, . . . geography, of course, history, theology, philosophy, mathematics, . . . and when you have mastered everything, not with haste but with prayer and with zeal, then go into the service. when you know everything it will be easy for you in any line of life. . . . you study and strive for the divine blessing, and god will show you what to be. whether a doctor, a judge or an engineer. . . ." father christopher spread a little caviare on a piece of bread, put it in his mouth and said: "the apostle paul says: 'do not apply yourself to strange and diverse studies.' of course, if it is black magic, unlawful arts, or calling up spirits from the other world, like saul, or studying subjects that can be of no use to yourself or others, better not learn them. you must undertake only what god has blessed. take example . . . the holy apostles spoke in all languages, so you study languages. basil the great studied mathematics and philosophy--so you study them; st. nestor wrote history--so you study and write history. take example from the saints." father christopher sipped the tea from his saucer, wiped his moustaches, and shook his head. "good!" he said. "i was educated in the old-fashioned way; i have forgotten a great deal by now, but still i live differently from other people. indeed, there is no comparison. for instance, in company at a dinner, or at an assembly, one says something in latin, or makes some allusion from history or philosophy, and it pleases people, and it pleases me myself. . . . or when the circuit court comes and one has to take the oath, all the other priests are shy, but i am quite at home with the judges, the prosecutors, and the lawyers. i talk intellectually, drink a cup of tea with them, laugh, ask them what i don't know, . . . and they like it. so that's how it is, my boy. learning is light and ignorance is darkness. study! it's hard, of course; nowadays study is expensive. . . . your mother is a widow; she lives on her pension, but there, of course . . ." father christopher glanced apprehensively towards the door, and went on in a whisper: "ivan ivanitch will assist. he won't desert you. he has no children of his own, and he will help you. don't be uneasy." he looked grave, and whispered still more softly: "only mind, yegory, don't forget your mother and ivan ivanitch, god preserve you from it. the commandment bids you honour your mother, and ivan ivanitch is your benefactor and takes the place of a father to you. if you become learned, god forbid you should be impatient and scornful with people because they are not so clever as you, then woe, woe to you!" father christopher raised his hand and repeated in a thin voice: "woe to you! woe to you!" father christopher's tongue was loosened, and he was, as they say, warming to his subject; he would not have finished till dinnertime but the door opened and ivan ivanitch walked in. he said good-morning hurriedly, sat down to the table, and began rapidly swallowing his tea. "well, i have settled all our business," he said. "we might have gone home to-day, but we have still to think about yegor. we must arrange for him. my sister told me that nastasya petrovna, a friend of hers, lives somewhere here, so perhaps she will take him in as a boarder." he rummaged in his pocket-book, found a crumpled note and read: "'little lower street: nastasya petrovna toskunov, living in a house of her own.' we must go at once and try to find her. it's a nuisance!" soon after breakfast ivan ivanitch and yegorushka left the inn. "it's a nuisance," muttered his uncle. "you are sticking to me like a burr. you and your mother want education and gentlemanly breeding and i have nothing but worry with you both. . . ." when they crossed the yard, the waggons and the drivers were not there. they had all gone off to the quay early in the morning. in a far-off dark corner of the yard stood the chaise. "good-bye, chaise!" thought yegorushka. at first they had to go a long way uphill by a broad street, then they had to cross a big marketplace; here ivan ivanitch asked a policeman for little lower street. "i say," said the policeman, with a grin, "it's a long way off, out that way towards the town grazing ground." they met several cabs but ivan ivanitch only permitted himself such a weakness as taking a cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays. yegorushka and he walked for a long while through paved streets, then along streets where there were only wooden planks at the sides and no pavements, and in the end got to streets where there were neither planks nor pavements. when their legs and their tongues had brought them to little lower street they were both red in the face, and taking off their hats, wiped away the perspiration. "tell me, please," said ivan ivanitch, addressing an old man sitting on a little bench by a gate, "where is nastasya petrovna toskunov's house?" "there is no one called toskunov here," said the old man, after pondering a moment. "perhaps it's timoshenko you want." "no, toskunov. . . ." "excuse me, there's no one called toskunov. . . ." ivan ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther. "you needn't look," the old man called after them. "i tell you there isn't, and there isn't." "listen, auntie," said ivan ivanitch, addressing an old woman who was sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds, "where is nastasya petrovna toskunov's house?" the old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed. "why, nastasya petrovna live in her own house now!" she cried. "lord! it is eight years since she married her daughter and gave up the house to her son-in-law! it's her son-in-law lives there now." and her eyes expressed: "how is it you didn't know a simple thing like that, you fools?" "and where does she live now?" ivan ivanitch asked. "oh, lord!" cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise. "she moved ever so long ago! it's eight years since she gave up her house to her son-in-law! upon my word!" she probably expected ivan ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to exclaim: "you don't say so," but ivan ivanitch asked very calmly: "where does she live now?" the old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare arm to point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice: "go straight on, straight on, straight on. you will pass a little red house, then you will see a little alley on your left. turn down that little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . ." ivan ivanitch and yegorushka reached the little red house, turned to the left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on the right. on both sides of this very old grey gate there was a grey fence with big gaps in it. the first part of the fence was tilting forwards and threatened to fall, while on the left of the gate it sloped backwards towards the yard. the gate itself stood upright and seemed to be still undecided which would suit it best --to fall forwards or backwards. ivan ivanitch opened the little gate at the side, and he and yegorushka saw a big yard overgrown with weeds and burdocks. a hundred paces from the gate stood a little house with a red roof and green shutters. a stout woman with her sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in the middle of the yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting in a voice as shrill as that of the woman selling fruit: "chick! . . . chick! . . . chick!" behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. seeing the strangers, he ran to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs have a tenor bark). "whom do you want?" asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade her eyes from the sun. "good-morning!" ivan ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog with his stick. "tell me, please, does nastasya petrovna toskunov live here?" "yes! but what do you want with her?" "perhaps you are nastasya petrovna?" "well, yes, i am!" "very pleased to see you. . . . you see, your old friend olga ivanovna knyasev sends her love to you. this is her little son. and i, perhaps you remember, am her brother ivan ivanitch. . . . you are one of us from n. . . . you were born among us and married there. . . ." a silence followed. the stout woman stared blankly at ivan ivanitch, as though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed all over, and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of her apron and tears spurted from her eyes. "olga ivanovna!" she screamed, breathless with excitement. "my own darling! ah, holy saints, why am i standing here like a fool? my pretty little angel. . . ." she embraced yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke down completely. "heavens!" she said, wringing her hands, "olga's little boy! how delightful! he is his mother all over! the image of his mother! but why are you standing in the yard? come indoors." crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried towards the house. her visitors trudged after her. "the room has not been done yet," she said, ushering the visitors into a stuffy little drawing-room adorned with many ikons and pots of flowers. "oh, mother of god! vassilisa, go and open the shutters anyway! my little angel! my little beauty! i did not know that olitchka had a boy like that!" when she had calmed down and got over her first surprise ivan ivanitch asked to speak to her alone. yegorushka went into another room; there was a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage with a starling in it, and there were as many ikons and flowers as in the drawing-room. near the machine stood a little girl with a sunburnt face and chubby cheeks like tit's, and a clean cotton dress. she stared at yegorushka without blinking, and apparently felt very awkward. yegorushka looked at her and after a pause asked: "what's your name?" the little girl moved her lips, looked as if she were going to cry, and answered softly: "atka. . . ." this meant katka. "he will live with you," ivan ivanitch was whispering in the drawing-room, "if you will be so kind, and we will pay ten roubles a month for his keep. he is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . ." "i really don't know what to say, ivan ivanitch!" nastasya petrovna sighed tearfully. "ten roubles a month is very good, but it is a dreadful thing to take another person's child! he may fall ill or something. . . ." when yegorushka was summoned back to the drawing-room ivan ivanitch was standing with his hat in his hands, saying good-bye. "well, let him stay with you now, then," he said. "good-bye! you stay, yegor!" he said, addressing his nephew. "don't be troublesome; mind you obey nastasya petrovna. . . . good-bye; i am coming again to-morrow." and he went away. nastasya once more embraced yegorushka, called him a little angel, and with a tear-stained face began preparing for dinner. three minutes later yegorushka was sitting beside her, answering her endless questions and eating hot savoury cabbage soup. in the evening he sat again at the same table and, resting his head on his hand, listened to nastasya petrovna. alternately laughing and crying, she talked of his mother's young days, her own marriage, her children. . . . a cricket chirruped in the stove, and there was a faint humming from the burner of the lamp. nastasya petrovna talked in a low voice, and was continually dropping her thimble in her excitement; and katka her granddaughter, crawled under the table after it and each time sat a long while under the table, probably examining yegorushka's feet; and yegorushka listened, half dozing and looking at the old woman's face, her wart with hairs on it, and the stains of tears, and he felt sad, very sad. he was put to sleep on a chest and told that if he were hungry in the night he must go out into the little passage and take some chicken, put there under a plate in the window. next morning ivan ivanitch and father christopher came to say good-bye. nastasya petrovna was delighted to see them, and was about to set the samovar; but ivan ivanitch, who was in a great hurry, waved his hands and said: "we have no time for tea! we are just setting off." before parting they all sat down and were silent for a minute. nastasya petrovna heaved a deep sigh and looked towards the ikon with tear-stained eyes. "well," began ivan ivanitch, getting up, "so you will stay. . . ." all at once the look of business-like reserve vanished from his face; he flushed a little and said with a mournful smile: "mind you work hard. . . . don't forget your mother, and obey nastasya petrovna. . . . if you are diligent at school, yegor, i'll stand by you." he took his purse out of his pocket, turned his back to yegorushka, fumbled for a long time among the smaller coins, and, finding a ten-kopeck piece, gave it to yegorushka. father christopher, without haste, blessed yegorushka. "in the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost. . . . study," he said. "work hard, my lad. if i die, remember me in your prayers. here is a ten-kopeck piece from me, too. . . ." yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; something whispered in his heart that he would never see the old man again. "i have applied at the high school already," said ivan ivanitch in a voice as though there were a corpse in the room. "you will take him for the entrance examination on the seventh of august. . . . well, good-bye; god bless you, good-bye, yegor!" "you might at least have had a cup of tea," wailed nastasya petrovna. through the tears that filled his eyes yegorushka could not see his uncle and father christopher go out. he rushed to the window, but they were not in the yard, and the red dog, who had just been barking, was running back from the gate with the air of having done his duty. when yegorushka ran out of the gate ivan ivanitch and father christopher, the former waving his stick with the crook, the latter his staff, were just turning the corner. yegorushka felt that with these people all that he had known till then had vanished from him for ever. he sank helplessly on to the little bench, and with bitter tears greeted the new unknown life that was beginning for him now. . . . what would that life be like? the tales of chekhov volume love and other stories by anton tchekhov translated by constance garnett contents love lights a story without an end mari d'elle a living chattel the doctor too early! the cossack aborigines an inquiry martyrs the lion and the sun a daughter of albion choristers nerves a work of art a joke a country cottage a blunder fat and thin the death of a government clerk a pink stocking at a summer villa love "three o'clock in the morning. the soft april night is looking in at my windows and caressingly winking at me with its stars. i can't sleep, i am so happy! "my whole being from head to heels is bursting with a strange, incomprehensible feeling. i can't analyse it just now--i haven't the time, i'm too lazy, and there--hang analysis! why, is a man likely to interpret his sensations when he is flying head foremost from a belfry, or has just learned that he has won two hundred thousand? is he in a state to do it?" this was more or less how i began my love-letter to sasha, a girl of nineteen with whom i had fallen in love. i began it five times, and as often tore up the sheets, scratched out whole pages, and copied it all over again. i spent as long over the letter as if it had been a novel i had to write to order. and it was not because i tried to make it longer, more elaborate, and more fervent, but because i wanted endlessly to prolong the process of this writing, when one sits in the stillness of one's study and communes with one's own day-dreams while the spring night looks in at one's window. between the lines i saw a beloved image, and it seemed to me that there were, sitting at the same table writing with me, spirits as naïvely happy, as foolish, and as blissfully smiling as i. i wrote continually, looking at my hand, which still ached deliciously where hers had lately pressed it, and if i turned my eyes away i had a vision of the green trellis of the little gate. through that trellis sasha gazed at me after i had said goodbye to her. when i was saying good-bye to sasha i was thinking of nothing and was simply admiring her figure as every decent man admires a pretty woman; when i saw through the trellis two big eyes, i suddenly, as though by inspiration, knew that i was in love, that it was all settled between us, and fully decided already, that i had nothing left to do but to carry out certain formalities. it is a great delight also to seal up a love-letter, and, slowly putting on one's hat and coat, to go softly out of the house and to carry the treasure to the post. there are no stars in the sky now: in their place there is a long whitish streak in the east, broken here and there by clouds above the roofs of the dingy houses; from that streak the whole sky is flooded with pale light. the town is asleep, but already the water-carts have come out, and somewhere in a far-away factory a whistle sounds to wake up the workpeople. beside the postbox, slightly moist with dew, you are sure to see the clumsy figure of a house porter, wearing a bell-shaped sheepskin and carrying a stick. he is in a condition akin to catalepsy: he is not asleep or awake, but something between. if the boxes knew how often people resort to them for the decision of their fate, they would not have such a humble air. i, anyway, almost kissed my postbox, and as i gazed at it i reflected that the post is the greatest of blessings. i beg anyone who has ever been in love to remember how one usually hurries home after dropping the letter in the box, rapidly gets into bed and pulls up the quilt in the full conviction that as soon as one wakes up in the morning one will be overwhelmed with memories of the previous day and look with rapture at the window, where the daylight will be eagerly making its way through the folds of the curtain. well, to facts. . . . next morning at midday, sasha's maid brought me the following answer: "i am delited be sure to come to us to day please i shall expect you. your s." not a single comma. this lack of punctuation, and the misspelling of the word "delighted," the whole letter, and even the long, narrow envelope in which it was put filled my heart with tenderness. in the sprawling but diffident handwriting i recognised sasha's walk, her way of raising her eyebrows when she laughed, the movement of her lips. . . . but the contents of the letter did not satisfy me. in the first place, poetical letters are not answered in that way, and in the second, why should i go to sasha's house to wait till it should occur to her stout mamma, her brothers, and poor relations to leave us alone together? it would never enter their heads, and nothing is more hateful than to have to restrain one's raptures simply because of the intrusion of some animate trumpery in the shape of a half-deaf old woman or little girl pestering one with questions. i sent an answer by the maid asking sasha to select some park or boulevard for a rendezvous. my suggestion was readily accepted. i had struck the right chord, as the saying is. between four and five o'clock in the afternoon i made my way to the furthest and most overgrown part of the park. there was not a soul in the park, and the tryst might have taken place somewhere nearer in one of the avenues or arbours, but women don't like doing it by halves in romantic affairs; in for a penny, in for a pound--if you are in for a tryst, let it be in the furthest and most impenetrable thicket, where one runs the risk of stumbling upon some rough or drunken man. when i went up to sasha she was standing with her back to me, and in that back i could read a devilish lot of mystery. it seemed as though that back and the nape of her neck, and the black spots on her dress were saying: hush! . . . the girl was wearing a simple cotton dress over which she had thrown a light cape. to add to the air of mysterious secrecy, her face was covered with a white veil. not to spoil the effect, i had to approach on tiptoe and speak in a half whisper. from what i remember now, i was not so much the essential point of the rendezvous as a detail of it. sasha was not so much absorbed in the interview itself as in its romantic mysteriousness, my kisses, the silence of the gloomy trees, my vows. . . . there was not a minute in which she forgot herself, was overcome, or let the mysterious expression drop from her face, and really if there had been any ivan sidoritch or sidor ivanitch in my place she would have felt just as happy. how is one to make out in such circumstances whether one is loved or not? whether the love is "the real thing" or not? from the park i took sasha home with me. the presence of the beloved woman in one's bachelor quarters affects one like wine and music. usually one begins to speak of the future, and the confidence and self-reliance with which one does so is beyond bounds. you make plans and projects, talk fervently of the rank of general though you have not yet reached the rank of a lieutenant, and altogether you fire off such high-flown nonsense that your listener must have a great deal of love and ignorance of life to assent to it. fortunately for men, women in love are always blinded by their feelings and never know anything of life. far from not assenting, they actually turn pale with holy awe, are full of reverence and hang greedily on the maniac's words. sasha listened to me with attention, but i soon detected an absent-minded expression on her face, she did not understand me. the future of which i talked interested her only in its external aspect and i was wasting time in displaying my plans and projects before her. she was keenly interested in knowing which would be her room, what paper she would have in the room, why i had an upright piano instead of a grand piano, and so on. she examined carefully all the little things on my table, looked at the photographs, sniffed at the bottles, peeled the old stamps off the envelopes, saying she wanted them for something. "please collect old stamps for me!" she said, making a grave face. "please do." then she found a nut in the window, noisily cracked it and ate it. "why don't you stick little labels on the backs of your books?" she asked, taking a look at the bookcase. "what for?" "oh, so that each book should have its number. and where am i to put my books? i've got books too, you know." "what books have you got?" i asked. sasha raised her eyebrows, thought a moment and said: "all sorts." and if it had entered my head to ask her what thoughts, what convictions, what aims she had, she would no doubt have raised her eyebrows, thought a minute, and have said in the same way: "all sorts." later i saw sasha home and left her house regularly, officially engaged, and was so reckoned till our wedding. if the reader will allow me to judge merely from my personal experience, i maintain that to be engaged is very dreary, far more so than to be a husband or nothing at all. an engaged man is neither one thing nor the other, he has left one side of the river and not reached the other, he is not married and yet he can't be said to be a bachelor, but is in something not unlike the condition of the porter whom i have mentioned above. every day as soon as i had a free moment i hastened to my fiancée. as i went i usually bore within me a multitude of hopes, desires, intentions, suggestions, phrases. i always fancied that as soon as the maid opened the door i should, from feeling oppressed and stifled, plunge at once up to my neck into a sea of refreshing happiness. but it always turned out otherwise in fact. every time i went to see my fiancée i found all her family and other members of the household busy over the silly trousseau. (and by the way, they were hard at work sewing for two months and then they had less than a hundred roubles' worth of things). there was a smell of irons, candle grease and fumes. bugles scrunched under one's feet. the two most important rooms were piled up with billows of linen, calico, and muslin and from among the billows peeped out sasha's little head with a thread between her teeth. all the sewing party welcomed me with cries of delight but at once led me off into the dining-room where i could not hinder them nor see what only husbands are permitted to behold. in spite of my feelings, i had to sit in the dining-room and converse with pimenovna, one of the poor relations. sasha, looking worried and excited, kept running by me with a thimble, a skein of wool or some other boring object. "wait, wait, i shan't be a minute," she would say when i raised imploring eyes to her. "only fancy that wretch stepanida has spoilt the bodice of the barège dress!" and after waiting in vain for this grace, i lost my temper, went out of the house and walked about the streets in the company of the new cane i had bought. or i would want to go for a walk or a drive with my fiancée, would go round and find her already standing in the hall with her mother, dressed to go out and playing with her parasol. "oh, we are going to the arcade," she would say. "we have got to buy some more cashmere and change the hat." my outing is knocked on the head. i join the ladies and go with them to the arcade. it is revoltingly dull to listen to women shopping, haggling and trying to outdo the sharp shopman. i felt ashamed when sasha, after turning over masses of material and knocking down the prices to a minimum, walked out of the shop without buying anything, or else told the shopman to cut her some half rouble's worth. when they came out of the shop, sasha and her mamma with scared and worried faces would discuss at length having made a mistake, having bought the wrong thing, the flowers in the chintz being too dark, and so on. yes, it is a bore to be engaged! i'm glad it's over. now i am married. it is evening. i am sitting in my study reading. behind me on the sofa sasha is sitting munching something noisily. i want a glass of beer. "sasha, look for the corkscrew. . . ." i say. "it's lying about somewhere." sasha leaps up, rummages in a disorderly way among two or three heaps of papers, drops the matches, and without finding the corkscrew, sits down in silence. . . . five minutes pass--ten. . . i begin to be fretted both by thirst and vexation. "sasha, do look for the corkscrew," i say. sasha leaps up again and rummages among the papers near me. her munching and rustling of the papers affects me like the sound of sharpening knives against each other. . . . i get up and begin looking for the corkscrew myself. at last it is found and the beer is uncorked. sasha remains by the table and begins telling me something at great length. "you'd better read something, sasha," i say. she takes up a book, sits down facing me and begins moving her lips . . . . i look at her little forehead, moving lips, and sink into thought. "she is getting on for twenty. . . ." i reflect. "if one takes a boy of the educated class and of that age and compares them, what a difference! the boy would have knowledge and convictions and some intelligence." but i forgive that difference just as the low forehead and moving lips are forgiven. i remember in my old lovelace days i have cast off women for a stain on their stockings, or for one foolish word, or for not cleaning their teeth, and now i forgive everything: the munching, the muddling about after the corkscrew, the slovenliness, the long talking about nothing that matters; i forgive it all almost unconsciously, with no effort of will, as though sasha's mistakes were my mistakes, and many things which would have made me wince in old days move me to tenderness and even rapture. the explanation of this forgiveness of everything lies in my love for sasha, but what is the explanation of the love itself, i really don't know. lights the dog was barking excitedly outside. and ananyev the engineer, his assistant called von schtenberg, and i went out of the hut to see at whom it was barking. i was the visitor, and might have remained indoors, but i must confess my head was a little dizzy from the wine i had drunk, and i was glad to get a breath of fresh air. "there is nobody here," said ananyev when we went out. "why are you telling stories, azorka? you fool!" there was not a soul in sight. "the fool," azorka, a black house-dog, probably conscious of his guilt in barking for nothing and anxious to propitiate us, approached us, diffidently wagging his tail. the engineer bent down and touched him between his ears. "why are you barking for nothing, creature?" he said in the tone in which good-natured people talk to children and dogs. "have you had a bad dream or what? here, doctor, let me commend to your attention," he said, turning to me, "a wonderfully nervous subject! would you believe it, he can't endure solitude--he is always having terrible dreams and suffering from nightmares; and when you shout at him he has something like an attack of hysterics." "yes, a dog of refined feelings," the student chimed in. azorka must have understood that the conversation was concerning him. he turned his head upwards and grinned plaintively, as though to say, "yes, at times i suffer unbearably, but please excuse it!" it was an august night, there were stars, but it was dark. owing to the fact that i had never in my life been in such exceptional surroundings, as i had chanced to come into now, the starry night seemed to me gloomy, inhospitable, and darker than it was in reality. i was on a railway line which was still in process of construction. the high, half-finished embankment, the mounds of sand, clay, and rubble, the holes, the wheel-barrows standing here and there, the flat tops of the mud huts in which the workmen lived--all this muddle, coloured to one tint by the darkness, gave the earth a strange, wild aspect that suggested the times of chaos. there was so little order in all that lay before me that it was somehow strange in the midst of the hideously excavated, grotesque-looking earth to see the silhouettes of human beings and the slender telegraph posts. both spoiled the ensemble of the picture, and seemed to belong to a different world. it was still, and the only sound came from the telegraph wire droning its wearisome refrain somewhere very high above our heads. we climbed up on the embankment and from its height looked down upon the earth. a hundred yards away where the pits, holes, and mounds melted into the darkness of the night, a dim light was twinkling. beyond it gleamed another light, beyond that a third, then a hundred paces away two red eyes glowed side by side--probably the windows of some hut--and a long series of such lights, growing continually closer and dimmer, stretched along the line to the very horizon, then turned in a semicircle to the left and disappeared in the darkness of the distance. the lights were motionless. there seemed to be something in common between them and the stillness of the night and the disconsolate song of the telegraph wire. it seemed as though some weighty secret were buried under the embankment and only the lights, the night, and the wires knew of it. "how glorious, o lord!" sighed ananyev; "such space and beauty that one can't tear oneself away! and what an embankment! it's not an embankment, my dear fellow, but a regular mont blanc. it's costing millions. . . ." going into ecstasies over the lights and the embankment that was costing millions, intoxicated by the wine and his sentimental mood, the engineer slapped von schtenberg on the shoulder and went on in a jocose tone: "well, mihail mihailitch, lost in reveries? no doubt it is pleasant to look at the work of one's own hands, eh? last year this very spot was bare steppe, not a sight of human life, and now look: life . . . civilisation. . . and how splendid it all is, upon my soul! you and i are building a railway, and after we are gone, in another century or two, good men will build a factory, a school, a hospital, and things will begin to move! eh!" the student stood motionless with his hands thrust in his pockets, and did not take his eyes off the lights. he was not listening to the engineer, but was thinking, and was apparently in the mood in which one does not want to speak or to listen. after a prolonged silence he turned to me and said quietly: "do you know what those endless lights are like? they make me think of something long dead, that lived thousands of years ago, something like the camps of the amalekites or the philistines. it is as though some people of the old testament had pitched their camp and were waiting for morning to fight with saul or david. all that is wanting to complete the illusion is the blare of trumpets and sentries calling to one another in some ethiopian language." and, as though of design, the wind fluttered over the line and brought a sound like the clank of weapons. a silence followed. i don't know what the engineer and the student were thinking of, but it seemed to me already that i actually saw before me something long dead and even heard the sentry talking in an unknown tongue. my imagination hastened to picture the tents, the strange people, their clothes, their armour. "yes," muttered the student pensively, "once philistines and amalekites were living in this world, making wars, playing their part, and now no trace of them remains. so it will be with us. now we are making a railway, are standing here philosophising, but two thousand years will pass--and of this embankment and of all those men, asleep after their hard work, not one grain of dust will remain. in reality, it's awful!" "you must drop those thoughts . . ." said the engineer gravely and admonishingly. "why?" "because. . . . thoughts like that are for the end of life, not for the beginning of it. you are too young for them." "why so?" repeated the student. "all these thoughts of the transitoriness, the insignificance and the aimlessness of life, of the inevitability of death, of the shadows of the grave, and so on, all such lofty thoughts, i tell you, my dear fellow, are good and natural in old age when they come as the product of years of inner travail, and are won by suffering and really are intellectual riches; for a youthful brain on the threshold of real life they are simply a calamity! a calamity!" ananyev repeated with a wave of his hand. "to my mind it is better at your age to have no head on your shoulders at all than to think on these lines. i am speaking seriously, baron. and i have been meaning to speak to you about it for a long time, for i noticed from the very first day of our acquaintance your partiality for these damnable ideas!" "good gracious, why are they damnable?" the student asked with a smile, and from his voice and his face i could see that he asked the question from simple politeness, and that the discussion raised by the engineer did not interest him in the least. i could hardly keep my eyes open. i was dreaming that immediately after our walk we should wish each other good-night and go to bed, but my dream was not quickly realised. when we had returned to the hut the engineer put away the empty bottles and took out of a large wicker hamper two full ones, and uncorking them, sat down to his work-table with the evident intention of going on drinking, talking, and working. sipping a little from his glass, he made pencil notes on some plans and went on pointing out to the student that the latter's way of thinking was not what it should be. the student sat beside him checking accounts and saying nothing. he, like me, had no inclination to speak or to listen. that i might not interfere with their work, i sat away from the table on the engineer's crooked-legged travelling bedstead, feeling bored and expecting every moment that they would suggest i should go to bed. it was going on for one o'clock. having nothing to do, i watched my new acquaintances. i had never seen ananyev or the student before. i had only made their acquaintance on the night i have described. late in the evening i was returning on horseback from a fair to the house of a landowner with whom i was staying, had got on the wrong road in the dark and lost my way. going round and round by the railway line and seeing how dark the night was becoming, i thought of the "barefoot railway roughs," who lie in wait for travellers on foot and on horseback, was frightened, and knocked at the first hut i came to. there i was cordially received by ananyev and the student. as is usually the case with strangers casually brought together, we quickly became acquainted, grew friendly and at first over the tea and afterward over the wine, began to feel as though we had known each other for years. at the end of an hour or so, i knew who they were and how fate had brought them from town to the far-away steppe; and they knew who i was, what my occupation and my way of thinking. nikolay anastasyevitch ananyev, the engineer, was a broad-shouldered, thick-set man, and, judging from his appearance, he had, like othello, begun the "descent into the vale of years," and was growing rather too stout. he was just at that stage which old match-making women mean when they speak of "a man in the prime of his age," that is, he was neither young nor old, was fond of good fare, good liquor, and praising the past, panted a little as he walked, snored loudly when he was asleep, and in his manner with those surrounding him displayed that calm imperturbable good humour which is always acquired by decent people by the time they have reached the grade of a staff officer and begun to grow stout. his hair and beard were far from being grey, but already, with a condescension of which he was unconscious, he addressed young men as "my dear boy" and felt himself entitled to lecture them good-humouredly about their way of thinking. his movements and his voice were calm, smooth, and self-confident, as they are in a man who is thoroughly well aware that he has got his feet firmly planted on the right road, that he has definite work, a secure living, a settled outlook. . . . his sunburnt, thicknosed face and muscular neck seemed to say: "i am well fed, healthy, satisfied with myself, and the time will come when you young people too, will be well-fed, healthy, and satisfied with yourselves. . . ." he was dressed in a cotton shirt with the collar awry and in full linen trousers thrust into his high boots. from certain trifles, as for instance, from his coloured worsted girdle, his embroidered collar, and the patch on his elbow, i was able to guess that he was married and in all probability tenderly loved by his wife. baron von schtenberg, a student of the institute of transport, was a young man of about three or four and twenty. only his fair hair and scanty beard, and, perhaps, a certain coarseness and frigidity in his features showed traces of his descent from barons of the baltic provinces; everything else--his name, mihail mihailovitch, his religion, his ideas, his manners, and the expression of his face were purely russian. wearing, like ananyev, a cotton shirt and high boots, with his round shoulders, his hair left uncut, and his sunburnt face, he did not look like a student or a baron, but like an ordinary russian workman. his words and gestures were few, he drank reluctantly without relish, checked the accounts mechanically, and seemed all the while to be thinking of something else. his movements and voice were calm, and smooth too, but his calmness was of a different kind from the engineer's. his sunburnt, slightly ironical, dreamy face, his eyes which looked up from under his brows, and his whole figure were expressive of spiritual stagnatio--mental sloth. he looked as though it did not matter to him in the least whether the light were burning before him or not, whether the wine were nice or nasty, and whether the accounts he was checking were correct or not. . . . and on his intelligent, calm face i read: "i don't see so far any good in definite work, a secure living, and a settled outlook. it's all nonsense. i was in petersburg, now i am sitting here in this hut, in the autumn i shall go back to petersburg, then in the spring here again. . . . what sense there is in all that i don't know, and no one knows. . . . and so it's no use talking about it. . . ." he listened to the engineer without interest, with the condescending indifference with which cadets in the senior classes listen to an effusive and good-natured old attendant. it seemed as though there were nothing new to him in what the engineer said, and that if he had not himself been too lazy to talk, he would have said something newer and cleverer. meanwhile ananyev would not desist. he had by now laid aside his good-humoured, jocose tone and spoke seriously, even with a fervour which was quite out of keeping with his expression of calmness. apparently he had no distaste for abstract subjects, was fond of them, indeed, but had neither skill nor practice in the handling of them. and this lack of practice was so pronounced in his talk that i did not always grasp his meaning at once. "i hate those ideas with all my heart!" he said, "i was infected by them myself in my youth, i have not quite got rid of them even now, and i tell you--perhaps because i am stupid and such thoughts were not the right food for my mind--they did me nothing but harm. that's easy to understand! thoughts of the aimlessness of life, of the insignificance and transitoriness of the visible world, solomon's 'vanity of vanities' have been, and are to this day, the highest and final stage in the realm of thought. the thinker reaches that stage and--comes to a halt! there is nowhere further to go. the activity of the normal brain is completed with this, and that is natural and in the order of things. our misfortune is that we begin thinking at that end. what normal people end with we begin with. from the first start, as soon as the brain begins working independently, we mount to the very topmost, final step and refuse to know anything about the steps below." "what harm is there in that?" said the student. "but you must understand that it's abnormal," shouted ananyev, looking at him almost wrathfully. "if we find means of mounting to the topmost step without the help of the lower ones, then the whole long ladder, that is the whole of life, with its colours, sounds, and thoughts, loses all meaning for us. that at your age such reflections are harmful and absurd, you can see from every step of your rational independent life. let us suppose you sit down this minute to read darwin or shakespeare, you have scarcely read a page before the poison shows itself; and your long life, and shakespeare, and darwin, seem to you nonsense, absurdity, because you know you will die, that shakespeare and darwin have died too, that their thoughts have not saved them, nor the earth, nor you, and that if life is deprived of meaning in that way, all science, poetry, and exalted thoughts seem only useless diversions, the idle playthings of grown up people; and you leave off reading at the second page. now, let us suppose that people come to you as an intelligent man and ask your opinion about war, for instance: whether it is desirable, whether it is morally justifiable or not. in answer to that terrible question you merely shrug your shoulders and confine yourself to some commonplace, because for you, with your way of thinking, it makes absolutely no difference whether hundreds of thousands of people die a violent death, or a natural one: the results are the same--ashes and oblivion. you and i are building a railway line. what's the use, one may ask, of our worrying our heads, inventing, rising above the hackneyed thing, feeling for the workmen, stealing or not stealing, when we know that this railway line will turn to dust within two thousand years, and so on, and so on. . . . you must admit that with such a disastrous way of looking at things there can be no progress, no science, no art, nor even thought itself. we fancy that we are cleverer than the crowd, and than shakespeare. in reality our thinking leads to nothing because we have no inclination to go down to the lower steps and there is nowhere higher to go, so our brain stands at the freezing point--neither up nor down; i was in bondage to these ideas for six years, and by all that is holy, i never read a sensible book all that time, did not gain a ha'porth of wisdom, and did not raise my moral standard an inch. was not that disastrous? moreover, besides being corrupted ourselves, we bring poison into the lives of those surrounding us. it would be all right if, with our pessimism, we renounced life, went to live in a cave, or made haste to die, but, as it is, in obedience to the universal law, we live, feel, love women, bring up children, construct railways!" "our thoughts make no one hot or cold," the student said reluctantly. "ah! there you are again!--do stop it! you have not yet had a good sniff at life. but when you have lived as long as i have you will know a thing or two! our theory of life is not so innocent as you suppose. in practical life, in contact with human beings, it leads to nothing but horrors and follies. it has been my lot to pass through experiences which i would not wish a wicked tatar to endure." "for instance?" i asked. "for instance?" repeated the engineer. he thought a minute, smiled and said: "for instance, take this example. more correctly, it is not an example, but a regular drama, with a plot and a dénouement. an excellent lesson! ah, what a lesson!" he poured out wine for himself and us, emptied his glass, stroked his broad chest with his open hands, and went on, addressing himself more to me than to the student. "it was in the year --, soon after the war, and when i had just left the university. i was going to the caucasus, and on the way stopped for five days in the seaside town of n. i must tell you that i was born and grew up in that town, and so there is nothing odd in my thinking n. extraordinarily snug, cosy, and beautiful, though for a man from petersburg or moscow, life in it would be as dreary and comfortless as in any tchuhloma or kashira. with melancholy i passed by the high school where i had been a pupil; with melancholy i walked about the very familiar park, i made a melancholy attempt to get a nearer look at people i had not seen for a long time--all with the same melancholy. "among other things, i drove out one evening to the so-called quarantine. it was a small mangy copse in which, at some forgotten time of plague, there really had been a quarantine station, and which was now the resort of summer visitors. it was a drive of three miles from the town along a good soft road. as one drove along one saw on the left the blue sea, on the right the unending gloomy steppe; there was plenty of air to breathe, and wide views for the eyes to rest on. the copse itself lay on the seashore. dismissing my cabman, i went in at the familiar gates and first turned along an avenue leading to a little stone summer-house which i had been fond of in my childhood. in my opinion that round, heavy summer-house on its clumsy columns, which combined the romantic charm of an old tomb with the ungainliness of a sobakevitch,* was the most poetical nook in the whole town. it stood at the edge above the cliff, and from it there was a splendid view of the sea. *a character in gogol's _dead souls.--translator's note._ "i sat down on the seat, and, bending over the parapet, looked down. a path ran from the summer-house along the steep, almost overhanging cliff, between the lumps of clay and tussocks of burdock. where it ended, far below on the sandy shore, low waves were languidly foaming and softly purring. the sea was as majestic, as infinite, and as forbidding as seven years before when i left the high school and went from my native town to the capital; in the distance there was a dark streak of smoke--a steamer was passing--and except for this hardly visible and motionless streak and the sea-swallows that flitted over the water, there was nothing to give life to the monotonous view of sea and sky. to right and left of the summer-house stretched uneven clay cliffs. "you know that when a man in a melancholy mood is left _tête-à-tête_ with the sea, or any landscape which seems to him grandiose, there is always, for some reason, mixed with melancholy, a conviction that he will live and die in obscurity, and he reflectively snatches up a pencil and hastens to write his name on the first thing that comes handy. and that, i suppose, is why all convenient solitary nooks like my summer-house are always scrawled over in pencil or carved with penknives. i remember as though it were to-day; looking at the parapet i read: 'ivan korolkov, may , .' beside korolkov some local dreamer had scribbled freely, adding: "'he stood on the desolate ocean's strand, while his soul was filled with imaginings grand.' and his handwriting was dreamy, limp like wet silk. an individual called kross, probably an insignificant, little man, felt his unimportance so deeply that he gave full licence to his penknife and carved his name in deep letters an inch high. i took a pencil out of my pocket mechanically, and i too scribbled on one of the columns. all that is irrelevant, however. . . you must forgive me--i don't know how to tell a story briefly. "i was sad and a little bored. boredom, the stillness, and the purring of the sea gradually brought me to the line of thought we have been discussing. at that period, towards the end of the 'seventies, it had begun to be fashionable with the public, and later, at the beginning of the 'eighties, it gradually passed from the general public into literature, science, and politics. i was no more than twenty-six at the time, but i knew perfectly well that life was aimless and had no meaning, that everything was a deception and an illusion, that in its essential nature and results a life of penal servitude in sahalin was not in any way different from a life spent in nice, that the difference between the brain of a kant and the brain of a fly was of no real significance, that no one in this world is righteous or guilty, that everything was stuff and nonsense and damn it all! i lived as though i were doing a favour to some unseen power which compelled me to live, and to which i seemed to say: 'look, i don't care a straw for life, but i am living!' i thought on one definite line, but in all sorts of keys, and in that respect i was like the subtle gourmand who could prepare a hundred appetising dishes from nothing but potatoes. there is no doubt that i was one-sided and even to some extent narrow, but i fancied at the time that my intellectual horizon had neither beginning nor end, and that my thought was as boundless as the sea. well, as far as i can judge by myself, the philosophy of which we are speaking has something alluring, narcotic in its nature, like tobacco or morphia. it becomes a habit, a craving. you take advantage of every minute of solitude to gloat over thoughts of the aimlessness of life and the darkness of the grave. while i was sitting in the summer-house, greek children with long noses were decorously walking about the avenues. i took advantage of the occasion and, looking at them, began reflecting in this style: "'why are these children born, and what are they living for? is there any sort of meaning in their existence? they grow up, without themselves knowing what for; they will live in this god-forsaken, comfortless hole for no sort of reason, and then they will die. . . .' "and i actually felt vexed with those children because they were walking about decorously and talking with dignity, as though they did not hold their little colourless lives so cheap and knew what they were living for. . . . i remember that far away at the end of an avenue three feminine figures came into sight. three young ladies, one in a pink dress, two in white, were walking arm-in-arm, talking and laughing. looking after them, i thought: "'it wouldn't be bad to have an affair with some woman for a couple of days in this dull place.' "i recalled by the way that it was three weeks since i had visited my petersburg lady, and thought that a passing love affair would come in very appropriately for me just now. the young lady in white in the middle was rather younger and better looking than her companions, and judging by her manners and her laugh, she was a high-school girl in an upper form. i looked, not without impure thoughts, at her bust, and at the same time reflected about her: 'she will be trained in music and manners, she will be married to some greek--god help us!--will lead a grey, stupid, comfortless life, will bring into the world a crowd of children without knowing why, and then will die. an absurd life!' "i must say that as a rule i was a great hand at combining my lofty ideas with the lowest prose. "thoughts of the darkness of the grave did not prevent me from giving busts and legs their full due. our dear baron's exalted ideas do not prevent him from going on saturdays to vukolovka on amatory expeditions. to tell the honest truth, as far as i remember, my attitude to women was most insulting. now, when i think of that high-school girl, i blush for my thoughts then, but at the time my conscience was perfectly untroubled. i, the son of honourable parents, a christian, who had received a superior education, not naturally wicked or stupid, felt not the slightest uneasiness when i paid women _blutgeld_, as the germans call it, or when i followed high-school girls with insulting looks. . . . the trouble is that youth makes its demands, and our philosophy has nothing in principle against those demands, whether they are good or whether they are loathsome. one who knows that life is aimless and death inevitable is not interested in the struggle against nature or the conception of sin: whether you struggle or whether you don't, you will die and rot just the same. . . . secondly, my friends, our philosophy instils even into very young people what is called reasonableness. the predominance of reason over the heart is simply overwhelming amongst us. direct feeling, inspiration--everything is choked by petty analysis. where there is reasonableness there is coldness, and cold people--it's no use to disguise it--know nothing of chastity. that virtue is only known to those who are warm, affectionate, and capable of love. thirdly, our philosophy denies the significance of each individual personality. it's easy to see that if i deny the personality of some natalya stepanovna, it's absolutely nothing to me whether she is insulted or not. to-day one insults her dignity as a human being and pays her _blutgeld_, and next day thinks no more of her. "so i sat in the summer-house and watched the young ladies. another woman's figure appeared in the avenue, with fair hair, her head uncovered and a white knitted shawl on her shoulders. she walked along the avenue, then came into the summer-house, and taking hold of the parapet, looked indifferently below and into the distance over the sea. as she came in she paid no attention to me, as though she did not notice me. i scrutinised her from foot to head (not from head to foot, as one scrutinises men) and found that she was young, not more than five-and-twenty, nice-looking, with a good figure, in all probability married and belonging to the class of respectable women. she was dressed as though she were at home, but fashionably and with taste, as ladies are, as a rule, in n. "'this one would do nicely,' i thought, looking at her handsome figure and her arms; 'she is all right. . . . she is probably the wife of some doctor or schoolmaster. . . .' "but to make up to her--that is, to make her the heroine of one of those impromptu affairs to which tourists are so prone--was not easy and, indeed, hardly possible. i felt that as i gazed at her face. the way she looked, and the expression of her face, suggested that the sea, the smoke in the distance, and the sky had bored her long, long ago, and wearied her sight. she seemed to be tired, bored, and thinking about something dreary, and her face had not even that fussy, affectedly indifferent expression which one sees in the face of almost every woman when she is conscious of the presence of an unknown man in her vicinity. "the fair-haired lady took a bored and passing glance at me, sat down on a seat and sank into reverie, and from her face i saw that she had no thoughts for me, and that i, with my petersburg appearance, did not arouse in her even simple curiosity. but yet i made up my mind to speak to her, and asked: 'madam, allow me to ask you at what time do the waggonettes go from here to the town?' "'at ten or eleven, i believe. . . .'" "i thanked her. she glanced at me once or twice, and suddenly there was a gleam of curiosity, then of something like wonder on her passionless face. . . . i made haste to assume an indifferent expression and to fall into a suitable attitude; she was catching on! she suddenly jumped up from the seat, as though something had bitten her, and examining me hurriedly, with a gentle smile, asked timidly: "'oh, aren't you ananyev?' "'yes, i am ananyev,' i answered. "'and don't you recognise me? no?' "i was a little confused. i looked intently at her, and--would you believe it?--i recognised her not from her face nor her figure, but from her gentle, weary smile. it was natalya stepanovna, or, as she was called, kisotchka, the very girl i had been head over ears in love with seven or eight years before, when i was wearing the uniform of a high-school boy. the doings of far, vanished days, the days of long ago. . . . i remember this kisotchka, a thin little high-school girl of fifteen or sixteen, when she was something just for a schoolboy's taste, created by nature especially for platonic love. what a charming little girl she was! pale, fragile, light--she looked as though a breath would send her flying like a feather to the skies--a gentle, perplexed face, little hands, soft long hair to her belt, a waist as thin as a wasp's--altogether something ethereal, transparent like moonlight--in fact, from the point of view of a high-school boy a peerless beauty. . . . wasn't i in love with her! i did not sleep at night. i wrote verses. . . . sometimes in the evenings she would sit on a seat in the park while we schoolboys crowded round her, gazing reverently; in response to our compliments, our sighing, and attitudinising, she would shrink nervously from the evening damp, screw up her eyes, and smile gently, and at such times she was awfully like a pretty little kitten. as we gazed at her every one of us had a desire to caress her and stroke her like a cat, hence her nickname of kisotchka. "in the course of the seven or eight years since we had met, kisotchka had greatly changed. she had grown more robust and stouter, and had quite lost the resemblance to a soft, fluffy kitten. it was not that her features looked old or faded, but they had somehow lost their brilliance and looked sterner, her hair seemed shorter, she looked taller, and her shoulders were quite twice as broad, and what was most striking, there was already in her face the expression of motherliness and resignation commonly seen in respectable women of her age, and this, of course, i had never seen in her before. . . . in short, of the school-girlish and the platonic her face had kept the gentle smile and nothing more. . . . "we got into conversation. learning that i was already an engineer, kisotchka was immensely delighted. "'how good that is!' she said, looking joyfully into my face. 'ah, how good! and how splendid you all are! of all who left with you, not one has been a failure--they have all turned out well. one an engineer, another a doctor, a third a teacher, another, they say, is a celebrated singer in petersburg. . . . you are all splendid, all of you. . . . ah, how good that is!' "kisotchka's eyes shone with genuine goodwill and gladness. she was admiring me like an elder sister or a former governess. 'while i looked at her sweet face and thought, it wouldn't be bad to get hold of her to-day!' "'do you remember, natalya stepanovna,' i asked her, 'how i once brought you in the park a bouquet with a note in it? you read my note, and such a look of bewilderment came into your face. . . .' "'no, i don't remember that,' she said, laughing. 'but i remember how you wanted to challenge florens to a duel over me. . . .' "'well, would you believe it, i don't remember that. . . .' "'well, that's all over and done with . . .' sighed kisotchka. 'at one time i was your idol, and now it is my turn to look up to all of you. . . .' "from further conversation i learned that two years after leaving the high school, kisotchka had been married to a resident in the town who was half greek, half russian, had a post either in the bank or in the insurance society, and also carried on a trade in corn. he had a strange surname, something in the style of populaki or skarandopulo. . . . goodness only knows--i have forgotten. . . . as a matter of fact, kisotchka spoke little and with reluctance about herself. the conversation was only about me. she asked me about the college of engineering, about my comrades, about petersburg, about my plans, and everything i said moved her to eager delight and exclamations of, 'oh, how good that is!' "we went down to the sea and walked over the sands; then when the night air began to blow chill and damp from the sea we climbed up again. all the while our talk was of me and of the past. we walked about until the reflection of the sunset had died away from the windows of the summer villas. "'come in and have some tea,' kisotchka suggested. 'the samovar must have been on the table long ago. . . . i am alone at home,' she said, as her villa came into sight through the green of the acacias. 'my husband is always in the town and only comes home at night, and not always then, and i must own that i am so dull that it's simply deadly.' "i followed her in, admiring her back and shoulders. i was glad that she was married. married women are better material for temporary love affairs than girls. i was also pleased that her husband was not at home. at the same time i felt that the affair would not come off. . . . "we went into the house. the rooms were smallish and had low ceilings, and the furniture was typical of the summer villa (russians like having at their summer villas uncomfortable heavy, dingy furniture which they are sorry to throw away and have nowhere to put), but from certain details i could observe that kisotchka and her husband were not badly off, and must be spending five or six thousand roubles a year. i remember that in the middle of the room which kisotchka called the dining-room there was a round table, supported for some reason on six legs, and on it a samovar and cups. at the edge of the table lay an open book, a pencil, and an exercise book. i glanced at the book and recognised it as 'malinin and burenin's arithmetical examples.' it was open, as i now remember, at the 'rules of compound interest.' "'to whom are you giving lessons?' i asked kisotchka. "'nobody,' she answered. 'i am just doing some. . . . i have nothing to do, and am so bored that i think of the old days and do sums.' "'have you any children?' "'i had a baby boy, but he only lived a week.' "we began drinking tea. admiring me, kisotchka said again how good it was that i was an engineer, and how glad she was of my success. and the more she talked and the more genuinely she smiled, the stronger was my conviction that i should go away without having gained my object. i was a connoisseur in love affairs in those days, and could accurately gauge my chances of success. you can boldly reckon on success if you are tracking down a fool or a woman as much on the look out for new experiences and sensations as yourself, or an adventuress to whom you are a stranger. if you come across a sensible and serious woman, whose face has an expression of weary submission and goodwill, who is genuinely delighted at your presence, and, above all, respects you, you may as well turn back. to succeed in that case needs longer than one day. "and by evening light kisotchka seemed even more charming than by day. she attracted me more and more, and apparently she liked me too, and the surroundings were most appropriate: the husband not at home, no servants visible, stillness around. . . . though i had little confidence in success, i made up my mind to begin the attack anyway. first of all it was necessary to get into a familiar tone and to change kisotchka's lyrically earnest mood into a more frivolous one. "'let us change the conversation, natalya stepanovna,' i began. 'let us talk of something amusing. first of all, allow me, for the sake of old times, to call you kisotchka.' "she allowed me. "'tell me, please, kisotchka,' i went on, 'what is the matter with all the fair sex here. what has happened to them? in old days they were all so moral and virtuous, and now, upon my word, if one asks about anyone, one is told such things that one is quite shocked at human nature. . . . one young lady has eloped with an officer; another has run away and carried off a high-school boy with her; another--a married woman--has run away from her husband with an actor; a fourth has left her husband and gone off with an officer, and so on and so on. it's a regular epidemic! if it goes on like this there won't be a girl or a young woman left in your town!' "i spoke in a vulgar, playful tone. if kisotchka had laughed in response i should have gone on in this style: 'you had better look out, kisotchka, or some officer or actor will be carrying you off!' she would have dropped her eyes and said: 'as though anyone would care to carry me off; there are plenty younger and better looking . . . .' and i should have said: 'nonsense, kisotchka--i for one should be delighted!' and so on in that style, and it would all have gone swimmingly. but kisotchka did not laugh in response; on the contrary, she looked grave and sighed. "'all you have been told is true,' she said. 'my cousin sonya ran away from her husband with an actor. of course, it is wrong. . . . everyone ought to bear the lot that fate has laid on him, but i do not condemn them or blame them. . . . circumstances are sometimes too strong for anyone!' "'that is so, kisotchka, but what circumstances can produce a regular epidemic?' "'it's very simple and easy to understand,' replied kisotchka, raising her eyebrows. 'there is absolutely nothing for us educated girls and women to do with ourselves. not everyone is able to go to the university, to become a teacher, to live for ideas, in fact, as men do. they have to be married. . . . and whom would you have them marry? you boys leave the high-school and go away to the university, never to return to your native town again, and you marry in petersburg or moscow, while the girls remain. . . . to whom are they to be married? why, in the absence of decent cultured men, goodness knows what sort of men they marry--stockbrokers and such people of all kinds, who can do nothing but drink and get into rows at the club. . . . a girl married like that, at random. . . . and what is her life like afterwards? you can understand: a well-educated, cultured woman is living with a stupid, boorish man; if she meets a cultivated man, an officer, an actor, or a doctor--well, she gets to love him, her life becomes unbearable to her, and she runs away from her husband. and one can't condemn her!' "'if that is so, kisotchka, why get married?' i asked. "'yes, of course,' said kisotchka with a sigh, 'but you know every girl fancies that any husband is better than nothing. . . . altogether life is horrid here, nikolay anastasyevitch, very horrid! life is stifling for a girl and stifling when one is married. . . . here they laugh at sonya for having run away from her husband, but if they could see into her soul they would not laugh. . . .'" azorka began barking outside again. he growled angrily at some one, then howled miserably and dashed with all his force against the wall of the hut. . . . ananyev's face was puckered with pity; he broke off his story and went out. for two minutes he could be heard outside comforting his dog. "good dog! poor dog!" "our nikolay anastasyevitch is fond of talking," said von schtenberg, laughing. "he is a good fellow," he added after a brief silence. returning to the hut, the engineer filled up our glasses and, smiling and stroking his chest, went on: "and so my attack was unsuccessful. there was nothing for it, i put off my unclean thoughts to a more favourable occasion, resigned myself to my failure and, as the saying is, waved my hand. what is more, under the influence of kisotchka's voice, the evening air, and the stillness, i gradually myself fell into a quiet sentimental mood. i remember i sat in an easy chair by the wide-open window and glanced at the trees and darkened sky. the outlines of the acacias and the lime trees were just the same as they had been eight years before; just as then, in the days of my childhood, somewhere far away there was the tinkling of a wretched piano, and the public had just the same habit of sauntering to and fro along the avenues, but the people were not the same. along the avenues there walked now not my comrades and i and the object of my adoration, but schoolboys and young ladies who were strangers. and i felt melancholy. when to my inquiries about acquaintances i five times received from kisotchka the answer, 'he is dead,' my melancholy changed into the feeling one has at the funeral service of a good man. and sitting there at the window, looking at the promenading public and listening to the tinkling piano, i saw with my own eyes for the first time in my life with what eagerness one generation hastens to replace another, and what a momentous significance even some seven or eight years may have in a man's life! "kisotchka put a bottle of red wine on the table. i drank it off, grew sentimental, and began telling a long story about something or other. kisotchka listened as before, admiring me and my cleverness. and time passed. the sky was by now so dark that the outlines of the acacias and lime trees melted into one, the public was no longer walking up and down the avenues, the piano was silent and the only sound was the even murmur of the sea. "young people are all alike. be friendly to a young man, make much of him, regale him with wine, let him understand that he is attractive and he will sit on and on, forget that it is time to go, and talk and talk and talk. . . . his hosts cannot keep their eyes open, it's past their bedtime, and he still stays and talks. that was what i did. once i chanced to look at the clock; it was half-past ten. i began saying good-bye. "'have another glass before your walk,' said kisotchka. "i took another glass, again i began talking at length, forgot it was time to go, and sat down. then there came the sound of men's voices, footsteps and the clank of spurs. "'i think my husband has come in . . . .' said kisotchka listening. "the door creaked, two voices came now from the passage and i saw two men pass the door that led into the dining-room: one a stout, solid, dark man with a hooked nose, wearing a straw hat, and the other a young officer in a white tunic. as they passed the door they both glanced casually and indifferently at kisotchka and me, and i fancied both of them were drunk. "'she told you a lie then, and you believed her!' we heard a loud voice with a marked nasal twang say a minute later. 'to begin with, it wasn't at the big club but at the little one.' "'you are angry, jupiter, so you are wrong . . . .' said another voice, obviously the officer's, laughing and coughing. 'i say, can i stay the night? tell me honestly, shall i be in your way?' "'what a question! not only you can, but you must. what will you have, beer or wine?' "they were sitting two rooms away from us, talking loudly, and apparently feeling no interest in kisotchka or her visitor. a perceptible change came over kisotchka on her husband's arrival. at first she flushed red, then her face wore a timid, guilty expression; she seemed to be troubled by some anxiety, and i began to fancy that she was ashamed to show me her husband and wanted me to go. "i began taking leave. kisotchka saw me to the front door. i remember well her gentle mournful smile and kind patient eyes as she pressed my hand and said: "'most likely we shall never see each other again. well, god give you every blessing. thank you!' "not one sigh, not one fine phrase. as she said good-bye she was holding the candle in her hand; patches of light danced over her face and neck, as though chasing her mournful smile. i pictured to myself the old kisotchka whom one used to want to stroke like a cat, i looked intently at the present kisotchka, and for some reason recalled her words: 'everyone ought to bear the lot that fate has laid on him.' and i had a pang at my heart. i instinctively guessed how it was, and my conscience whispered to me that i, in my happiness and indifference, was face to face with a good, warm-hearted, loving creature, who was broken by suffering. "i said good-bye and went to the gate. by now it was quite dark. in the south the evenings draw in early in july and it gets dark rapidly. towards ten o'clock it is so dark that you can't see an inch before your nose. i lighted a couple of dozen matches before, almost groping, i found my way to the gate. "'cab!' i shouted, going out of the gate; not a sound, not a sigh in answer. . . . 'cab,' i repeated, 'hey, cab!' "but there was no cab of any description. the silence of the grave. i could hear nothing but the murmur of the drowsy sea and the beating of my heart from the wine. lifting my eyes to the sky i found not a single star. it was dark and sullen. evidently the sky was covered with clouds. for some reason i shrugged my shoulders, smiling foolishly, and once more, not quite so resolutely, shouted for a cab. "the echo answered me. a walk of three miles across open country and in the pitch dark was not an agreeable prospect. before making up my mind to walk, i spent a long time deliberating and shouting for a cab; then, shrugging my shoulders, i walked lazily back to the copse, with no definite object in my mind. it was dreadfully dark in the copse. here and there between the trees the windows of the summer villas glowed a dull red. a raven, disturbed by my steps and the matches with which i lighted my way to the summer-house, flew from tree to tree and rustled among the leaves. i felt vexed and ashamed, and the raven seemed to understand this, and croaked 'krrra!' i was vexed that i had to walk, and ashamed that i had stayed on at kisotchka's, chatting like a boy. "i made my way to the summer-house, felt for the seat and sat down. far below me, behind a veil of thick darkness, the sea kept up a low angry growl. i remember that, as though i were blind, i could see neither sky nor sea, nor even the summer-house in which i was sitting. and it seemed to me as though the whole world consisted only of the thoughts that were straying through my head, dizzy from the wine, and of an unseen power murmuring monotonously somewhere below. and afterwards, as i sank into a doze, it began to seem that it was not the sea murmuring, but my thoughts, and that the whole world consisted of nothing but me. and concentrating the whole world in myself in this way, i thought no more of cabs, of the town, and of kisotchka, and abandoned myself to the sensation i was so fond of: that is, the sensation of fearful isolation when you feel that in the whole universe, dark and formless, you alone exist. it is a proud, demoniac sensation, only possible to russians whose thoughts and sensations are as large, boundless, and gloomy as their plains, their forests, and their snow. if i had been an artist i should certainly have depicted the expression of a russian's face when he sits motionless and, with his legs under him and his head clasped in his hands, abandons himself to this sensation. . . . and together with this sensation come thoughts of the aimlessness of life, of death, and of the darkness of the grave. . . . the thoughts are not worth a brass farthing, but the expression of face must be fine. . . . "while i was sitting and dozing, unable to bring myself to get up--i was warm and comfortable--all at once, against the even monotonous murmur of the sea, as though upon a canvas, sounds began to grow distinct which drew my attention from myself. . . . someone was coming hurriedly along the avenue. reaching the summer-house this someone stopped, gave a sob like a little girl, and said in the voice of a weeping child: 'my god, when will it all end! merciful heavens!' "judging from the voice and the weeping i took it to be a little girl of ten or twelve. she walked irresolutely into the summer-house, sat down, and began half-praying, half-complaining aloud. . . . "'merciful god!' she said, crying, 'it's unbearable. it's beyond all endurance! i suffer in silence, but i want to live too. . . . oh, my god! my god!' "and so on in the same style. "i wanted to look at the child and speak to her. so as not to frighten her i first gave a loud sigh and coughed, then cautiously struck a match. . . . there was a flash of bright light in the darkness, which lighted up the weeping figure. it was kisotchka!" "marvels upon marvels!" said von schtenberg with a sigh. "black night, the murmur of the sea; she in grief, he with a sensation of world--solitude. . . . it's too much of a good thing. . . . you only want circassians with daggers to complete it." "i am not telling you a tale, but fact." "well, even if it is a fact . . . it all proves nothing, and there is nothing new in it. . . ." "wait a little before you find fault! let me finish," said ananyev, waving his hand with vexation; "don't interfere, please! i am not telling you, but the doctor. . . . well," he went on, addressing me and glancing askance at the student who bent over his books and seemed very well satisfied at having gibed at the engineer--"well, kisotchka was not surprised or frightened at seeing me. it seemed as though she had known beforehand that she would find me in the summer-house. she was breathing in gasps and trembling all over as though in a fever, while her tear-stained face, so far as i could distinguish it as i struck match after match, was not the intelligent, submissive weary face i had seen before, but something different, which i cannot understand to this day. it did not express pain, nor anxiety, nor misery--nothing of what was expressed by her words and her tears. . . . i must own that, probably because i did not understand it, it looked to me senseless and as though she were drunk. "'i can't bear it,' muttered kisotchka in the voice of a crying child. 'it's too much for me, nikolay anastasyitch. forgive me, nikolav anastasyitch. i can't go on living like this. . . . i am going to the town to my mother's. . . . take me there. . . . take me there, for god's sake!' "in the presence of tears i can neither speak nor be silent. i was flustered and muttered some nonsense trying to comfort her. "'no, no; i will go to my mother's,' said kisotchka resolutely, getting up and clutching my arm convulsively (her hands and her sleeves were wet with tears). 'forgive me, nikolay anastasyitch, i am going. . . . i can bear no more. . . .' "'kisotchka, but there isn't a single cab,' i said. 'how can you go?' "'no matter, i'll walk. . . . it's not far. i can't bear it. . . .' "i was embarrassed, but not touched. kisotchka's tears, her trembling, and the blank expression of her face suggested to me a trivial, french or little russian melodrama, in which every ounce of cheap shallow feeling is washed down with pints of tears. "i didn t understand her, and knew i did not understand her; i ought to have been silent, but for some reason, most likely for fear my silence might be taken for stupidity, i thought fit to try to persuade her not to go to her mother's, but to stay at home. when people cry, they don't like their tears to be seen. and i lighted match after match and went on striking till the box was empty. what i wanted with this ungenerous illumination, i can't conceive to this day. cold-hearted people are apt to be awkward, and even stupid. "in the end kisotchka took my arm and we set off. going out of the gate, we turned to the right and sauntered slowly along the soft dusty road. it was dark. as my eyes grew gradually accustomed to the darkness, i began to distinguish the silhouettes of the old gaunt oaks and lime trees which bordered the road. the jagged, precipitous cliffs, intersected here and there by deep, narrow ravines and creeks, soon showed indistinctly, a black streak on the right. low bushes nestled by the hollows, looking like sitting figures. it was uncanny. i looked sideways suspiciously at the cliffs, and the murmur of the sea and the stillness of the country alarmed my imagination. kisotchka did not speak. she was still trembling, and before she had gone half a mile she was exhausted with walking and was out of breath. i too was silent. "three-quarters of a mile from the quarantine station there was a deserted building of four storeys, with a very high chimney in which there had once been a steam flour mill. it stood solitary on the cliff, and by day it could be seen for a long distance, both by sea and by land. because it was deserted and no one lived in it, and because there was an echo in it which distinctly repeated the steps and voices of passers-by, it seemed mysterious. picture me in the dark night arm-in-arm with a woman who was running away from her husband near this tall long monster which repeated the sound of every step i took and stared at me fixedly with its hundred black windows. a normal young man would have been moved to romantic feelings in such surroundings, but i looked at the dark windows and thought: 'all this is very impressive, but time will come when of that building and of kisotchka and her troubles and of me with my thoughts, not one grain of dust will remain. . . . all is nonsense and vanity. . . .' "when we reached the flour mill kisotchka suddenly stopped, took her arm out of mine, and said, no longer in a childish voice, but in her own: "'nikolay anastasvitch, i know all this seems strange to you. but i am terribly unhappy! and you cannot even imagine how unhappy! it's impossible to imagine it! i don't tell you about it because one can't talk about it. . . . such a life, such a life! . . .' "kisotchka did not finish. she clenched her teeth and moaned as though she were doing her utmost not to scream with pain. "'such a life!' she repeated with horror, with the cadence and the southern, rather ukrainian accent which particularly in women gives to emotional speech the effect of singing. 'it is a life! ah, my god, my god! what does it mean? oh, my god, my god!' "as though trying to solve the riddle of her fate, she shrugged her shoulders in perplexity, shook her head, and clasped her hands. she spoke as though she were singing, moved gracefully, and reminded me of a celebrated little russian actress. "'great god, it is as though i were in a pit,' she went on. 'if one could live for one minute in happiness as other people live! oh, my god, my god! i have come to such disgrace that before a stranger i am running away from my husband by night, like some disreputable creature! can i expect anything good after that?' "as i admired her movements and her voice, i began to feel annoyed that she was not on good terms with her husband. 'it would be nice to have got on into relations with her!' flitted through my mind; and this pitiless thought stayed in my brain, haunted me all the way and grew more and more alluring. "about a mile from the flour mill we had to turn to the left by the cemetery. at the turning by the corner of the cemetery there stood a stone windmill, and by it a little hut in which the miller lived. we passed the mill and the hut, turned to the left and reached the gates of the cemetery. there kisotchka stopped and said: "'i am going back, nikolay anastasyitch! you go home, and god bless you, but i am going back. i am not frightened.' "'well, what next!' i said, disconcerted. 'if you are going, you had better go!' "'i have been too hasty. . . . it was all about nothing that mattered. you and your talk took me back to the past and put all sort of ideas into my head. . . . i was sad and wanted to cry, and my husband said rude things to me before that officer, and i could not bear it. . . . and what's the good of my going to the town to my mother's? will that make me any happier? i must go back. . . . but never mind . . . let us go on,' said kisotchka, and she laughed. 'it makes no difference!' "i remembered that over the gate of the cemetery there was an inscription: 'the hour will come wherein all they that lie in the grave will hear the voice of the son of god.' i knew very well that sooner or later i and kisotchka and her husband and the officer in the white tunic would lie under the dark trees in the churchyard; i knew that an unhappy and insulted fellow-creature was walking beside me. all this i recognised distinctly, but at the same time i was troubled by an oppressive and unpleasant dread that kisotchka would turn back, and that i should not manage to say to her what had to be said. never at any other time in my life have thoughts of a higher order been so closely interwoven with the basest animal prose as on that night. . . . it was horrible! "not far from the cemetery we found a cab. when we reached the high street, where kisotchka's mother lived, we dismissed the cab and walked along the pavement. kisotchka was silent all the while, while i looked at her, and i raged at myself, 'why don't you begin? now's the time!' about twenty paces from the hotel where i was staying, kisotchka stopped by the lamp-post and burst into tears. "'nikolay anastasyitch!' she said, crying and laughing and looking at me with wet shining eyes, 'i shall never forget your sympathy . . . . how good you are! all of you are so splendid--all of you! honest, great-hearted, kind, clever. . . . ah, how good that is!' "she saw in me a highly educated man, advanced in every sense of the word, and on her tear-stained laughing face, together with the emotion and enthusiasm aroused by my personality, there was clearly written regret that she so rarely saw such people, and that god had not vouchsafed her the bliss of being the wife of one of them. she muttered, 'ah, how splendid it is!' the childish gladness on her face, the tears, the gentle smile, the soft hair, which had escaped from under the kerchief, and the kerchief itself thrown carelessly over her head, in the light of the street lamp reminded me of the old kisotchka whom one had wanted to stroke like a kitten. "i could not restrain myself, and began stroking her hair, her shoulders, and her hands. "'kisotchka, what do you want?' i muttered. 'i'll go to the ends of the earth with you if you like! i will take you out of this hole and give you happiness. i love you. . . . let us go, my sweet? yes? will you?' "kisotchka's face was flooded with bewilderment. she stepped back from the street lamp and, completely overwhelmed, gazed at me with wide-open eyes. i gripped her by the arm, began showering kisses on her face, her neck, her shoulders, and went on making vows and promises. in love affairs vows and promises are almost a physiological necessity. there's no getting on without them. sometimes you know you are lying and that promises are not necessary, but still you vow and protest. kisotchka, utterly overwhelmed, kept staggering back and gazing at me with round eyes. "'please don't! please don't!' she muttered, holding me off with her hands. "i clasped her tightly in my arms. all at once she broke into hysterical tears. and her face had the same senseless blank expression that i had seen in the summer-house when i lighted the matches. without asking her consent, preventing her from speaking, i dragged her forcibly towards my hotel. she seemed almost swooning and did not walk, but i took her under the arms and almost carried her. . . . i remember, as we were going up the stairs, some man with a red band in his cap looked wonderingly at me and bowed to kisotchka. . . ." ananyev flushed crimson and paused. he walked up and down near the table in silence, scratched the back of his head with an air of vexation, and several times shrugged his shoulders and twitched his shoulder-blades, while a shiver ran down his huge back. the memory was painful and made him ashamed, and he was struggling with himself. "it's horrible!" he said, draining a glass of wine and shaking his head. "i am told that in every introductory lecture on women's diseases the medical students are admonished to remember that each one of them has a mother, a sister, a fiancée, before undressing and examining a female patient. . . . that advice would be very good not only for medical students but for everyone who in one way or another has to deal with a woman's life. now that i have a wife and a little daughter, oh, how well i understand that advice! how i understand it, my god! you may as well hear the rest, though. . . . as soon as she had become my mistress, kisotchka's view of the position was very different from mine. first of all she felt for me a deep and passionate love. what was for me an ordinary amatory episode was for her an absolute revolution in her life. i remember, it seemed to me that she had gone out of her mind. happy for the first time in her life, looking five years younger, with an inspired enthusiastic face, not knowing what to do with herself for happiness, she laughed and cried and never ceased dreaming aloud how next day we would set off for the caucasus, then in the autumn to petersburg; how we would live afterwards. "'don't worry yourself about my husband,' she said to reassure me. 'he is bound to give me a divorce. everyone in the town knows that he is living with the elder kostovitch. we will get a divorce and be married.' "when women love they become acclimatised and at home with people very quickly, like cats. kisotchka had only spent an hour and a half in my room when she already felt as though she were at home and was ready to treat my property as though it were her own. she packed my things in my portmanteau, scolded me for not hanging my new expensive overcoat on a peg instead of flinging it on a chair, and so on. "i looked at her, listened, and felt weariness and vexation. i was conscious of a slight twinge of horror at the thought that a respectable, honest, and unhappy woman had so easily, after some three or four hours, succumbed to the first man she met. as a respectable man, you see, i didn't like it. then, too, i was unpleasantly impressed by the fact that women of kisotchka's sort, not deep or serious, are too much in love with life, and exalt what is in reality such a trifle as love for a man to the level of bliss, misery, a complete revolution in life. . . . moreover, now that i was satisfied, i was vexed with myself for having been so stupid as to get entangled with a woman whom i should have to deceive. and in spite of my disorderly life i must observe that i could not bear telling lies. "i remember that kisotchka sat down at my feet, laid her head on my knees, and, looking at me with shining, loving eyes, asked: "'kolya, do you love me? very, very much?' "and she laughed with happiness. . . . this struck me as sentimental, affected, and not clever; and meanwhile i was already inclined to look for 'depth of thought' before everything. "'kisotchka, you had better go home,' i said, or else your people will be sure to miss you and will be looking for you all over the town; and it would be awkward for you to go to your mother in the morning.' "kisotchka agreed. at parting we arranged to meet at midday next morning in the park, and the day after to set off together to pyatigorsk. i went into the street to see her home, and i remember that i caressed her with genuine tenderness on the way. there was a minute when i felt unbearably sorry for her, for trusting me so implicitly, and i made up my mind that i would really take her to pyatigorsk, but remembering that i had only six hundred roubles in my portmanteau, and that it would be far more difficult to break it off with her in the autumn than now, i made haste to suppress my compassion. "we reached the house where kisotchka's mother lived. i pulled at the bell. when footsteps were heard at the other side of the door kisotchka suddenly looked grave, glanced upwards to the sky, made the sign of the cross over me several times and, clutching my hand, pressed it to her lips. "'till to-morrow,' she said, and disappeared into the house. "i crossed to the opposite pavement and from there looked at the house. at first the windows were in darkness, then in one of the windows there was the glimmer of the faint bluish flame of a newly lighted candle; the flame grew, gave more light, and i saw shadows moving about the rooms together with it. "'they did not expect her,' i thought. "returning to my hotel room i undressed, drank off a glass of red wine, ate some fresh caviare which i had bought that day in the bazaar, went to bed in a leisurely way, and slept the sound, untroubled sleep of a tourist. "in the morning i woke up with a headache and in a bad humour. something worried me. "'what's the matter?' i asked myself, trying to explain my uneasiness. 'what's upsetting me?' "and i put down my uneasiness to the dread that kisotchka might turn up any minute and prevent my going away, and that i should have to tell lies and act a part before her. i hurriedly dressed, packed my things, and left the hotel, giving instructions to the porter to take my luggage to the station for the seven o'clock train in the evening. i spent the whole day with a doctor friend and left the town that evening. as you see, my philosophy did not prevent me from taking to my heels in a mean and treacherous flight. . . . "all the while that i was at my friend's, and afterwards driving to the station, i was tormented by anxiety. i fancied that i was afraid of meeting with kisotchka and a scene. in the station i purposely remained in the toilet room till the second bell rang, and while i was making my way to my compartment, i was oppressed by a feeling as though i were covered all over with stolen things. with what impatience and terror i waited for the third bell! "at last the third bell that brought my deliverance rang at last, the train moved; we passed the prison, the barracks, came out into the open country, and yet, to my surprise, the feeling of uneasiness still persisted, and still i felt like a thief passionately longing to escape. it was queer. to distract my mind and calm myself i looked out of the window. the train ran along the coast. the sea was smooth, and the turquoise sky, almost half covered with the tender, golden crimson light of sunset, was gaily and serenely mirrored in it. here and there fishing boats and rafts made black patches on its surface. the town, as clean and beautiful as a toy, stood on the high cliff, and was already shrouded in the mist of evening. the golden domes of its churches, the windows and the greenery reflected the setting sun, glowing and melting like shimmering gold. . . . the scent of the fields mingled with the soft damp air from the sea. "the train flew rapidly along. i heard the laughter of passengers and guards. everyone was good-humoured and light-hearted, yet my unaccountable uneasiness grew greater and greater. . . . i looked at the white mist that covered the town and i imagined how a woman with a senseless blank face was hurrying up and down in that mist by the churches and the houses, looking for me and moaning, 'oh, my god! oh, my god!' in the voice of a little girl or the cadences of a little russian actress. i recalled her grave face and big anxious eyes as she made the sign of the cross over me, as though i belonged to her, and mechanically i looked at the hand which she had kissed the day before. "'surely i am not in love?' i asked myself, scratching my hand. "only as night came on when the passengers were asleep and i was left _tête-à-tête_ with my conscience, i began to understand what i had not been able to grasp before. in the twilight of the railway carriage the image of kisotchka rose before me, haunted me and i recognised clearly that i had committed a crime as bad as murder. my conscience tormented me. to stifle this unbearable feeling, i assured myself that everything was nonsense and vanity, that kisotchka and i would die and decay, that her grief was nothing in comparison with death, and so on and so on . . . and that if you come to that, there is no such thing as freewill, and that therefore i was not to blame. but all these arguments only irritated me and were extraordinarily quickly crowded out by other thoughts. there was a miserable feeling in the hand that kisotchka had kissed. . . . i kept lying down and getting up again, drank vodka at the stations, forced myself to eat bread and butter, fell to assuring myself again that life had no meaning, but nothing was of any use. a strange and if you like absurd ferment was going on in my brain. the most incongruous ideas crowded one after another in disorder, getting more and more tangled, thwarting each other, and i, the thinker, 'with my brow bent on the earth,' could make out nothing and could not find my bearings in this mass of essential and non-essential ideas. it appeared that i, the thinker, had not mastered the technique of thinking, and that i was no more capable of managing my own brain than mending a watch. for the first time in my life i was really thinking eagerly and intensely, and that seemed to me so monstrous that i said to myself: 'i am going off my head.' a man whose brain does not work at all times, but only at painful moments, is often haunted by the thought of madness. "i spent a day and a night in this misery, then a second night, and learning from experience how little my philosophy was to me, i came to my senses and realised at last what sort of a creature i was. i saw that my ideas were not worth a brass farthing, and that before meeting kisotchka i had not begun to think and had not even a conception of what thinking in earnest meant; now through suffering i realised that i had neither convictions nor a definite moral standard, nor heart, nor reason; my whole intellectual and moral wealth consisted of specialist knowledge, fragments, useless memories, other people's ideas--and nothing else; and my mental processes were as lacking in complexity, as useless and as rudimentary as a yakut's. . . . if i had disliked lying, had not stolen, had not murdered, and, in fact, made obviously gross mistakes, that was not owing to my convictions--i had none, but because i was in bondage, hand and foot, to my nurse's fairy tales and to copy-book morals, which had entered into my flesh and blood and without my noticing it guided me in life, though i looked on them as absurd. . . . "i realised that i was not a thinker, not a philosopher, but simply a dilettante. god had given me a strong healthy russian brain with promise of talent. and, only fancy, here was that brain at twenty-six, undisciplined, completely free from principles, not weighed down by any stores of knowledge, but only lightly sprinkled with information of a sort in the engineering line; it was young and had a physiological craving for exercise, it was on the look-out for it, when all at once quite casually the fine juicy idea of the aimlessness of life and the darkness beyond the tomb descends upon it. it greedily sucks it in, puts its whole outlook at its disposal and begins playing with it, like a cat with a mouse. there is neither learning nor system in the brain, but that does not matter. it deals with the great ideas with its own innate powers, like a self-educated man, and before a month has passed the owner of the brain can turn a potato into a hundred dainty dishes, and fancies himself a philosopher . . . . "our generation has carried this dilettantism, this playing with serious ideas into science, into literature, into politics, and into everything which it is not too lazy to go into, and with its dilettantism has introduced, too, its coldness, its boredom, and its one-sidedness and, as it seems to me, it has already succeeded in developing in the masses a new hitherto non-existent attitude to serious ideas. "i realised and appreciated my abnormality and utter ignorance, thanks to a misfortune. my normal thinking, so it seems to me now, dates from the day when i began again from the a, b, c, when my conscience sent me flying back to n., when with no philosophical subleties i repented, besought kisotchka's forgiveness like a naughty boy and wept with her. . . ." ananyev briefly described his last interview with kisotchka. "h'm. . . ." the student filtered through his teeth when the engineer had finished. "that's the sort of thing that happens." his face still expressed mental inertia, and apparently ananyev's story had not touched him in the least. only when the engineer after a moment's pause, began expounding his view again and repeating what he had said at first, the student frowned irritably, got up from the table and walked away to his bed. he made his bed and began undressing. "you look as though you have really convinced some one this time," he said irritably. "me convince anybody!" said the engineer. "my dear soul, do you suppose i claim to do that? god bless you! to convince you is impossible. you can reach conviction only by way of personal experience and suffering!" "and then--it's queer logic!" grumbled the student as he put on his nightshirt. "the ideas which you so dislike, which are so ruinous for the young are, according to you, the normal thing for the old; it's as though it were a question of grey hairs. . . . where do the old get this privilege? what is it based upon? if these ideas are poison, they are equally poisonous for all?" "oh, no, my dear soul, don't say so!" said the engineer with a sly wink. "don't say so. in the first place, old men are not dilettanti. their pessimism comes to them not casually from outside, but from the depths of their own brains, and only after they have exhaustively studied the hegels and kants of all sorts, have suffered, have made no end of mistakes, in fact--when they have climbed the whole ladder from bottom to top. their pessimism has both personal experience and sound philosophic training behind it. secondly, the pessimism of old thinkers does not take the form of idle talk, as it does with you and me, but of _weltschmertz_, of suffering; it rests in them on a christian foundation because it is derived from love for humanity and from thoughts about humanity, and is entirely free from the egoism which is noticeable in dilettanti. you despise life because its meaning and its object are hidden just from you, and you are only afraid of your own death, while the real thinker is unhappy because the truth is hidden from all and he is afraid for all men. for instance, there is living not far from here the crown forester, ivan alexandritch. he is a nice old man. at one time he was a teacher somewhere, and used to write something; the devil only knows what he was, but anyway he is a remarkably clever fellow and in philosophy he is a . he has read a great deal and he is continually reading now. well, we came across him lately in the gruzovsky district. . . . they were laying the sleepers and rails just at the time. it's not a difficult job, but ivan alexandritch, not being a specialist, looked at it as though it were a conjuring trick. it takes an experienced workman less than a minute to lay a sleeper and fix a rail on it. the workmen were in good form and really were working smartly and rapidly; one rascal in particular brought his hammer down with exceptional smartness on the head of the nail and drove it in at one blow, though the handle of the hammer was two yards or more in length and each nail was a foot long. ivan alexandritch watched the workmen a long time, was moved, and said to me with tears in his eyes: "'what a pity that these splendid men will die!' such pessimism i understand." "all that proves nothing and explains nothing," said the student, covering himself up with a sheet; "all that is simply pounding liquid in a mortar. no one knows anything and nothing can be proved by words." he peeped out from under the sheet, lifted up his head and, frowning irritably, said quickly: "one must be very naïve to believe in human words and logic and to ascribe any determining value to them. you can prove and disprove anything you like with words, and people will soon perfect the technique of language to such a point that they will prove with mathematical certainty that twice two is seven. i am fond of reading and listening, but as to believing, no thank you; i can't, and i don't want to. i believe only in god, but as for you, if you talk to me till the second coming and seduce another five hundred kisothchkas, i shall believe in you only when i go out of my mind . . . . goodnight." the student hid his head under the sheet and turned his face towards the wall, meaning by this action to let us know that he did not want to speak or listen. the argument ended at that. before going to bed the engineer and i went out of the hut, and i saw the lights once more. "we have tired you out with our chatter," said ananyev, yawning and looking at the sky. "well, my good sir! the only pleasure we have in this dull hole is drinking and philosophising. . . . what an embankment, lord have mercy on us!" he said admiringly, as we approached the embankment; "it is more like mount ararat than an embankment." he paused for a little, then said: "those lights remind the baron of the amalekites, but it seems to me that they are like the thoughts of man. . . . you know the thoughts of each individual man are scattered like that in disorder, stretch in a straight line towards some goal in the midst of the darkness and, without shedding light on anything, without lighting up the night, they vanish somewhere far beyond old age. but enough philosophising! it's time to go bye-bye." when we were back in the hut the engineer began begging me to take his bed. "oh please!" he said imploringly, pressing both hands on his heart. "i entreat you, and don't worry about me! i can sleep anywhere, and, besides, i am not going to bed just yet. please do--it's a favour!" i agreed, undressed, and went to bed, while he sat down to the table and set to work on the plans. "we fellows have no time for sleep," he said in a low voice when i had got into bed and shut my eyes. "when a man has a wife and two children he can't think of sleep. one must think now of food and clothes and saving for the future. and i have two of them, a little son and a daughter. . . . the boy, little rascal, has a jolly little face. he's not six yet, and already he shows remarkable abilities, i assure you. . . . i have their photographs here, somewhere. . . . ah, my children, my children!" he rummaged among his papers, found their photographs, and began looking at them. i fell asleep. i was awakened by the barking of azorka and loud voices. von schtenberg with bare feet and ruffled hair was standing in the doorway dressed in his underclothes, talking loudly with some one . . . . it was getting light. a gloomy dark blue dawn was peeping in at the door, at the windows, and through the crevices in the hut walls, and casting a faint light on my bed, on the table with the papers, and on ananyev. stretched on the floor on a cloak, with a leather pillow under his head, the engineer lay asleep with his fleshy, hairy chest uppermost; he was snoring so loudly that i pitied the student from the bottom of my heart for having to sleep in the same room with him every night. "why on earth are we to take them?" shouted von schtenberg. "it has nothing to do with us! go to tchalisov! from whom do the cauldrons come?" "from nikitin . . ." a bass voice answered gruffly. "well, then, take them to tchalisov. . . . that's not in our department. what the devil are you standing there for? drive on!" "your honour, we have been to tchalisov already," said the bass voice still more gruffly. "yesterday we were the whole day looking for him down the line, and were told at his hut that he had gone to the dymkovsky section. please take them, your honour! how much longer are we to go carting them about? we go carting them on and on along the line, and see no end to it." "what is it?" ananyev asked huskily, waking up and lifting his head quickly. "they have brought some cauldrons from nikitin's," said the student, "and he is begging us to take them. and what business is it of ours to take them?" "do be so kind, your honour, and set things right! the horses have been two days without food and the master, for sure, will be angry. are we to take them back, or what? the railway ordered the cauldrons, so it ought to take them. . . ." "can't you understand, you blockhead, that it has nothing to do with us? go on to tchalisov!" "what is it? who's there?" ananyev asked huskily again. "damnation take them all," he said, getting up and going to the door. "what is it?" i dressed, and two minutes later went out of the hut. ananyev and the student, both in their underclothes and barefooted, were angrily and impatiently explaining to a peasant who was standing before them bare-headed, with his whip in his hand, apparently not understanding them. both faces looked preoccupied with workaday cares. "what use are your cauldrons to me," shouted ananyev. "am i to put them on my head, or what? if you can't find tchalisov, find his assistant, and leave us in peace!" seeing me, the student probably recalled the conversation of the previous night. the workaday expression vanished from his sleepy face and a look of mental inertia came into it. he waved the peasant off and walked away absorbed in thought. it was a cloudy morning. on the line where the lights had been gleaming the night before, the workmen, just roused from sleep, were swarming. there was a sound of voices and the squeaking of wheelbarrows. the working day was beginning. one poor little nag harnessed with cord was already plodding towards the embankment, tugging with its neck, and dragging along a cartful of sand. i began saying good-bye. . . . a great deal had been said in the night, but i carried away with me no answer to any question, and in the morning, of the whole conversation there remained in my memory, as in a filter, only the lights and the image of kisotchka. as i got on the horse, i looked at the student and ananyev for the last time, at the hysterical dog with the lustreless, tipsy-looking eyes, at the workmen flitting to and fro in the morning fog, at the embankment, at the little nag straining with its neck, and thought: "there is no making out anything in this world." and when i lashed my horse and galloped along the line, and when a little later i saw nothing before me but the endless gloomy plain and the cold overcast sky, i recalled the questions which were discussed in the night. i pondered while the sun-scorched plain, the immense sky, the oak forest, dark on the horizon and the hazy distance, seemed saying to me: "yes, there's no understanding anything in this world!" the sun began to rise. . . . a story without an end soon after two o'clock one night, long ago, the cook, pale and agitated, rushed unexpectedly into my study and informed me that madame mimotih, the old woman who owned the house next door, was sitting in her kitchen. "she begs you to go in to her, sir . . ." said the cook, panting. "something bad has happened about her lodger. . . . he has shot himself or hanged himself. . . ." "what can i do?" said i. "let her go for the doctor or for the police!" "how is she to look for a doctor! she can hardly breathe, and she has huddled under the stove, she is so frightened. . . . you had better go round, sir." i put on my coat and hat and went to madame mimotih's house. the gate towards which i directed my steps was open. after pausing beside it, uncertain what to do, i went into the yard without feeling for the porter's bell. in the dark and dilapidated porch the door was not locked. i opened it and walked into the entry. here there was not a glimmer of light, it was pitch dark, and, moreover, there was a marked smell of incense. groping my way out of the entry i knocked my elbow against something made of iron, and in the darkness stumbled against a board of some sort which almost fell to the floor. at last the door covered with torn baize was found, and i went into a little hall. i am not at the moment writing a fairy tale, and am far from intending to alarm the reader, but the picture i saw from the passage was fantastic and could only have been drawn by death. straight before me was a door leading to a little drawing-room. three five-kopeck wax candles, standing in a row, threw a scanty light on the faded slate-coloured wallpaper. a coffin was standing on two tables in the middle of the little room. the two candles served only to light up a swarthy yellow face with a half-open mouth and sharp nose. billows of muslin were mingled in disorder from the face to the tips of the two shoes, and from among the billows peeped out two pale motionless hands, holding a wax cross. the dark gloomy corners of the little drawing-room, the ikons behind the coffin, the coffin itself, everything except the softly glimmering lights, were still as death, as the tomb itself. "how strange!" i thought, dumbfoundered by the unexpected panorama of death. "why this haste? the lodger has hardly had time to hang himself, or shoot himself, and here is the coffin already!" i looked round. on the left there was a door with a glass panel; on the right a lame hat-stand with a shabby fur coat on it. . . . "water. . . ." i heard a moan. the moan came from the left, beyond the door with the glass panel. i opened the door and walked into a little dark room with a solitary window, through which there came a faint light from a street lamp outside. "is anyone here?" i asked. and without waiting for an answer i struck a match. this is what i saw while it was burning. a man was sitting on the blood-stained floor at my very feet. if my step had been a longer one i should have trodden on him. with his legs thrust forward and his hands pressed on the floor, he was making an effort to raise his handsome face, which was deathly pale against his pitch-black beard. in the big eyes which he lifted upon me, i read unutterable terror, pain, and entreaty. a cold sweat trickled in big drops down his face. that sweat, the expression of his face, the trembling of the hands he leaned upon, his hard breathing and his clenched teeth, showed that he was suffering beyond endurance. near his right hand in a pool of blood lay a revolver. "don't go away," i heard a faint voice when the match had gone out. "there's a candle on the table." i lighted the candle and stood still in the middle of the room not knowing what to do next. i stood and looked at the man on the floor, and it seemed to me that i had seen him before. "the pain is insufferable," he whispered, "and i haven't the strength to shoot myself again. incomprehensible lack of will." i flung off my overcoat and attended to the sick man. lifting him from the floor like a baby, i laid him on the american-leather covered sofa and carefully undressed him. he was shivering and cold when i took off his clothes; the wound which i saw was not in keeping either with his shivering nor the expression on his face. it was a trifling one. the bullet had passed between the fifth and sixth ribs on the left side, only piercing the skin and the flesh. i found the bullet itself in the folds of the coat-lining near the back pocket. stopping the bleeding as best i could and making a temporary bandage of a pillow-case, a towel, and two handkerchiefs, i gave the wounded man some water and covered him with a fur coat that was hanging in the passage. we neither of us said a word while the bandaging was being done. i did my work while he lay motionless looking at me with his eyes screwed up as though he were ashamed of his unsuccessful shot and the trouble he was giving me. "now i must trouble you to lie still," i said, when i had finished the bandaging, "while i run to the chemist and get something." "no need!" he muttered, clutching me by the sleeve and opening his eyes wide. i read terror in his eyes. he was afraid of my going away. "no need! stay another five minutes . . . ten. if it doesn't disgust you, do stay, i entreat you." as he begged me he was trembling and his teeth were chattering. i obeyed, and sat down on the edge of the sofa. ten minutes passed in silence. i sat silent, looking about the room into which fate had brought me so unexpectedly. what poverty! this man who was the possessor of a handsome, effeminate face and a luxuriant well-tended beard, had surroundings which a humble working man would not have envied. a sofa with its american-leather torn and peeling, a humble greasy-looking chair, a table covered with a little of paper, and a wretched oleograph on the wall, that was all i saw. damp, gloomy, and grey. "what a wind!" said the sick man, without opening his eyes, "how it whistles!" "yes," i said. "i say, i fancy i know you. didn't you take part in some private theatricals in general luhatchev's villa last year?" "what of it?" he asked, quickly opening his eyes. a cloud seemed to pass over his face. "i certainly saw you there. isn't your name vassilyev?" "if it is, what of it? it makes it no better that you should know me." "no, but i just asked you." vassilyev closed his eyes and, as though offended, turned his face to the back of the sofa. "i don't understand your curiosity," he muttered. "you'll be asking me next what it was drove me to commit suicide!" before a minute had passed, he turned round towards me again, opened his eyes and said in a tearful voice: "excuse me for taking such a tone, but you'll admit i'm right! to ask a convict how he got into prison, or a suicide why he shot himself is not generous . . . and indelicate. to think of gratifying idle curiosity at the expense of another man's nerves!" "there is no need to excite yourself. . . . it never occurred to me to question you about your motives." "you would have asked. . . . it's what people always do. though it would be no use to ask. if i told you, you would not believe or understand. . . . i must own i don't understand it myself. . . . there are phrases used in the police reports and newspapers such as: 'unrequited love,' and 'hopeless poverty,' but the reasons are not known. . . . they are not known to me, nor to you, nor to your newspaper offices, where they have the impudence to write 'the diary of a suicide.' god alone understands the state of a man's soul when he takes his own life; but men know nothing about it." "that is all very nice," i said, "but you oughtn't to talk. . . ." but my suicide could not be stopped, he leaned his head on his fist, and went on in the tone of some great professor: "man will never understand the psychological subtleties of suicide! how can one speak of reasons? to-day the reason makes one snatch up a revolver, while to-morrow the same reason seems not worth a rotten egg. it all depends most likely on the particular condition of the individual at the given moment. . . . take me for instance. half an hour ago, i had a passionate desire for death, now when the candle is lighted, and you are sitting by me, i don't even think of the hour of death. explain that change if you can! am i better off, or has my wife risen from the dead? is it the influence of the light on me, or the presence of an outsider?" "the light certainly has an influence . . ." i muttered for the sake of saying something. "the influence of light on the organism . . . ." "the influence of light. . . . we admit it! but you know men do shoot themselves by candle-light! and it would be ignominious indeed for the heroes of your novels if such a trifling thing as a candle were to change the course of the drama so abruptly. all this nonsense can be explained perhaps, but not by us. it's useless to ask questions or give explanations of what one does not understand. . . ." "forgive me," i said, "but . . . judging by the expression of your face, it seems to me that at this moment you . . . are posing." "yes," vassilyev said, startled. "it's very possible! i am naturally vain and fatuous. well, explain it, if you believe in your power of reading faces! half an hour ago i shot myself, and just now i am posing. . . . explain that if you can." these last words vassilyev pronounced in a faint, failing voice. he was exhausted, and sank into silence. a pause followed. i began scrutinising his face. it was as pale as a dead man's. it seemed as though life were almost extinct in him, and only the signs of the suffering that the "vain and fatuous" man was feeling betrayed that it was still alive. it was painful to look at that face, but what must it have been for vassilyev himself who yet had the strength to argue and, if i were not mistaken, to pose? "you here--are you here?" he asked suddenly, raising himself on his elbow. "my god, just listen!" i began listening. the rain was pattering angrily on the dark window, never ceasing for a minute. the wind howled plaintively and lugubriously. "'and i shall be whiter than snow, and my ears will hear gladness and rejoicing.'" madame mimotih, who had returned, was reading in the drawing-room in a languid, weary voice, neither raising nor dropping the monotonous dreary key. "it is cheerful, isn't it?" whispered vassilyev, turning his frightened eyes towards me. "my god, the things a man has to see and hear! if only one could set this chaos to music! as hamlet says, 'it would-- "confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed, the very faculties of eyes and ears." how well i should have understood that music then! how i should have felt it! what time is it?" "five minutes to three." "morning is still far off. and in the morning there's the funeral. a lovely prospect! one follows the coffin through the mud and rain. one walks along, seeing nothing but the cloudy sky and the wretched scenery. the muddy mutes, taverns, woodstacks. . . . one's trousers drenched to the knees. the never-ending streets. the time dragging out like eternity, the coarse people. and on the heart a stone, a stone!" after a brief pause he suddenly asked: "is it long since you saw general luhatchev?" "i haven't seen him since last summer." "he likes to be cock of the walk, but he is a nice little old chap. and are you still writing?" "yes, a little." "ah. . . . do you remember how i pranced about like a needle, like an enthusiastic ass at those private theatricals when i was courting zina? it was stupid, but it was good, it was fun. . . . the very memory of it brings back a whiff of spring. . . . and now! what a cruel change of scene! there is a subject for you! only don't you go in for writing 'the diary of a suicide.' that's vulgar and conventional. you make something humorous of it." "again you are . . . posing," i said. "there's nothing humorous in your position." "nothing laughable? you say nothing laughable?" vassilyev sat up, and tears glistened in his eyes. an expression of bitter distress came into his pale face. his chin quivered. "you laugh at the deceit of cheating clerks and faithless wives," he said, "but no clerk, no faithless wife has cheated as my fate has cheated me! i have been deceived as no bank depositor, no duped husband has ever been deceived! only realise what an absurd fool i have been made! last year before your eyes i did not know what to do with myself for happiness. and now before your eyes. . . ." vassilyev's head sank on the pillow and he laughed. "nothing more absurd and stupid than such a change could possibly be imagined. chapter one: spring, love, honeymoon . . . honey, in fact; chapter two: looking for a job, the pawnshop, pallor, the chemist's shop, and . . . to-morrow's splashing through the mud to the graveyard." he laughed again. i felt acutely uncomfortable and made up my mind to go. "i tell you what," i said, "you lie down, and i will go to the chemist's." he made no answer. i put on my great-coat and went out of his room. as i crossed the passage i glanced at the coffin and madame mimotih reading over it. i strained my eyes in vain, i could not recognise in the swarthy, yellow face zina, the lively, pretty _ingénue_ of luhatchev's company. "_sic transit_," i thought. with that i went out, not forgetting to take the revolver, and made my way to the chemist's. but i ought not to have gone away. when i came back from the chemist's, vassilyev lay on the sofa fainting. the bandages had been roughly torn off, and blood was flowing from the reopened wound. it was daylight before i succeeded in restoring him to consciousness. he was raving in delirium, shivering, and looking with unseeing eyes about the room till morning had come, and we heard the booming voice of the priest as he read the service over the dead. when vassilyev's rooms were crowded with old women and mutes, when the coffin had been moved and carried out of the yard, i advised him to remain at home. but he would not obey me, in spite of the pain and the grey, rainy morning. he walked bareheaded and in silence behind the coffin all the way to the cemetery, hardly able to move one leg after the other, and from time to time clutching convulsively at his wounded side. his face expressed complete apathy. only once when i roused him from his lethargy by some insignificant question he shifted his eyes over the pavement and the grey fence, and for a moment there was a gleam of gloomy anger in them. "'weelright,'" he read on a signboard. "ignorant, illiterate people, devil take them!" i led him home from the cemetery. ---- only one year has passed since that night, and vassilyev has hardly had time to wear out the boots in which he tramped through the mud behind his wife's coffin. at the present time as i finish this story, he is sitting in my drawing-room and, playing on the piano, is showing the ladies how provincial misses sing sentimental songs. the ladies are laughing, and he is laughing too. he is enjoying himself. i call him into my study. evidently not pleased at my taking him from agreeable company, he comes to me and stands before me in the attitude of a man who has no time to spare. i give him this story, and ask him to read it. always condescending about my authorship, he stifles a sigh, the sigh of a lazy reader, sits down in an armchair and begins upon it. "hang it all, what horrors," he mutters with a smile. but the further he gets into the reading, the graver his face becomes. at last, under the stress of painful memories, he turns terribly pale, he gets up and goes on reading as he stands. when he has finished he begins pacing from corner to corner. "how does it end?" i ask him. "how does it end? h'm. . . ." he looks at the room, at me, at himself. . . . he sees his new fashionable suit, hears the ladies laughing and . . . sinking on a chair, begins laughing as he laughed on that night. "wasn't i right when i told you it was all absurd? my god! i have had burdens to bear that would have broken an elephant's back; the devil knows what i have suffered--no one could have suffered more, i think, and where are the traces? it's astonishing. one would have thought the imprint made on a man by his agonies would have been everlasting, never to be effaced or eradicated. and yet that imprint wears out as easily as a pair of cheap boots. there is nothing left, not a scrap. it's as though i hadn't been suffering then, but had been dancing a mazurka. everything in the world is transitory, and that transitoriness is absurd! a wide field for humorists! tack on a humorous end, my friend!" "pyotr nikolaevitch, are you coming soon?" the impatient ladies call my hero. "this minute," answers the "vain and fatuous" man, setting his tie straight. "it's absurd and pitiful, my friend, pitiful and absurd, but what's to be done? _homo sum_. . . . and i praise mother nature all the same for her transmutation of substances. if we retained an agonising memory of toothache and of all the terrors which every one of us has had to experience, if all that were everlasting, we poor mortals would have a bad time of it in this life." i look at his smiling face and i remember the despair and the horror with which his eyes were filled a year ago when he looked at the dark window. i see him, entering into his habitual rôle of intellectual chatterer, prepare to show off his idle theories, such as the transmutation of substances before me, and at the same time i recall him sitting on the floor in a pool of blood with his sick imploring eyes. "how will it end?" i ask myself aloud. vassilyev, whistling and straightening his tie, walks off into the drawing-room, and i look after him, and feel vexed. for some reason i regret his past sufferings, i regret all that i felt myself on that man's account on that terrible night. it is as though i had lost something. . . . mari d'elle it was a free night. natalya andreyevna bronin (her married name was nikitin), the opera singer, is lying in her bedroom, her whole being abandoned to repose. she lies, deliciously drowsy, thinking of her little daughter who lives somewhere far away with her grandmother or aunt. . . . the child is more precious to her than the public, bouquets, notices in the papers, adorers . . . and she would be glad to think about her till morning. she is happy, at peace, and all she longs for is not to be prevented from lying undisturbed, dozing and dreaming of her little girl. all at once the singer starts, and opens her eyes wide: there is a harsh abrupt ring in the entry. before ten seconds have passed the bell tinkles a second time and a third time. the door is opened noisily and some one walks into the entry stamping his feet like a horse, snorting and puffing with the cold. "damn it all, nowhere to hang one's coat!" the singer hears a husky bass voice. "celebrated singer, look at that! makes five thousand a year, and can't get a decent hat-stand!" "my husband!" thinks the singer, frowning. "and i believe he has brought one of his friends to stay the night too. . . . hateful!" no more peace. when the loud noise of some one blowing his nose and putting off his goloshes dies away, the singer hears cautious footsteps in her bedroom. . . . it is her husband, _mari d'elle_, denis petrovitch nikitin. he brings a whiff of cold air and a smell of brandy. for a long while he walks about the bedroom, breathing heavily, and, stumbling against the chairs in the dark, seems to be looking for something. . . . "what do you want?" his wife moans, when she is sick of his fussing about. "you have woken me." "i am looking for the matches, my love. you . . . you are not asleep then? i have brought you a message. . . . greetings from that . . . what's-his-name? . . . red-headed fellow who is always sending you bouquets. . . . zagvozdkin. . . . i have just been to see him." "what did you go to him for?" "oh, nothing particular. . . . we sat and talked and had a drink. say what you like, nathalie, i dislike that individual--i dislike him awfully! he is a rare blockhead. he is a wealthy man, a capitalist; he has six hundred thousand, and you would never guess it. money is no more use to him than a radish to a dog. he does not eat it himself nor give it to others. money ought to circulate, but he keeps tight hold of it, is afraid to part with it. . . . what's the good of capital lying idle? capital lying idle is no better than grass." _mari d'elle_ gropes his way to the edge of the bed and, puffing, sits down at his wife's feet. "capital lying idle is pernicious," he goes on. "why has business gone downhill in russia? because there is so much capital lying idle among us; they are afraid to invest it. it's very different in england. . . . there are no such queer fish as zagvozdkin in england, my girl. . . . there every farthing is in circulation . . . . yes. . . . they don't keep it locked up in chests there . . . ." "well, that's all right. i am sleepy." "directly. . . . whatever was it i was talking about? yes. . . . in these hard times hanging is too good for zagvozdkin. . . . he is a fool and a scoundrel. . . . no better than a fool. if i asked him for a loan without security--why, a child could see that he runs no risk whatever. he doesn't understand, the ass! for ten thousand he would have got a hundred. in a year he would have another hundred thousand. i asked, i talked . . . but he wouldn't give it me, the blockhead." "i hope you did not ask him for a loan in my name." "h'm. . . . a queer question. . . ." _mari d'elle_ is offended. "anyway he would sooner give me ten thousand than you. you are a woman, and i am a man anyway, a business-like person. and what a scheme i propose to him! not a bubble, not some chimera, but a sound thing, substantial! if one could hit on a man who would understand, one might get twenty thousand for the idea alone! even you would understand if i were to tell you about it. only you . . . don't chatter about it . . . not a word . . . but i fancy i have talked to you about it already. have i talked to you about sausage-skins?" "m'm . . . by and by." "i believe i have. . . . do you see the point of it? now the provision shops and the sausage-makers get their sausage-skins locally, and pay a high price for them. well, but if one were to bring sausage-skins from the caucasus where they are worth nothing, and where they are thrown away, then . . . where do you suppose the sausage-makers would buy their skins, here in the slaughterhouses or from me? from me, of course! why, i shall sell them ten times as cheap! now let us look at it like this: every year in petersburg and moscow and in other centres these same skins would be bought to the . . . to the sum of five hundred thousand, let us suppose. that's the minimum. well, and if. . . ." "you can tell me to-morrow . . . later on. . . ." "yes, that's true. you are sleepy, _pardon_, i am just going . . . say what you like, but with capital you can do good business everywhere, wherever you go. . . . with capital even out of cigarette ends one may make a million. . . . take your theatrical business now. why, for example, did lentovsky come to grief? it's very simple. he did not go the right way to work from the very first. he had no capital and he went headlong to the dogs. . . . he ought first to have secured his capital, and then to have gone slowly and cautiously . . . . nowadays, one can easily make money by a theatre, whether it is a private one or a people's one. . . . if one produces the right plays, charges a low price for admission, and hits the public fancy, one may put a hundred thousand in one's pocket the first year. . . . you don't understand, but i am talking sense. . . . you see you are fond of hoarding capital; you are no better than that fool zagvozdkin, you heap it up and don't know what for. . . . you won't listen, you don't want to. . . . if you were to put it into circulation, you wouldn't have to be rushing all over the place . . . . you see for a private theatre, five thousand would be enough for a beginning. . . . not like lentovsky, of course, but on a modest scale in a small way. i have got a manager already, i have looked at a suitable building. . . . it's only the money i haven't got. . . . if only you understood things you would have parted with your five per cents . . . your preference shares. . . ." "no, _merci_. . . . you have fleeced me enough already. . . . let me alone, i have been punished already. . . ." "if you are going to argue like a woman, then of course . . ." sighs nikitin, getting up. "of course. . . ." "let me alone. . . . come, go away and don't keep me awake. . . . i am sick of listening to your nonsense." "h'm. . . . to be sure . . . of course! fleeced. . . plundered. . . . what we give we remember, but we don't remember what we take." "i have never taken anything from you." "is that so? but when we weren't a celebrated singer, at whose expense did we live then? and who, allow me to ask, lifted you out of beggary and secured your happiness? don't you remember that?" "come, go to bed. go along and sleep it off." "do you mean to say you think i am drunk? . . . if i am so low in the eyes of such a grand lady. . . i can go away altogether." "do. a good thing too." "i will, too. i have humbled myself enough. and i will go." "oh, my god! oh, do go, then! i shall be delighted!" "very well, we shall see." nikitin mutters something to himself, and, stumbling over the chairs, goes out of the bedroom. then sounds reach her from the entry of whispering, the shuffling of goloshes and a door being shut. _mari d'elle_ has taken offence in earnest and gone out. "thank god, he has gone!" thinks the singer. "now i can sleep." and as she falls asleep she thinks of her _mari d'elle_, what sort of a man he is, and how this affliction has come upon her. at one time he used to live at tchernigov, and had a situation there as a book-keeper. as an ordinary obscure individual and not the _mari d'elle_, he had been quite endurable: he used to go to his work and take his salary, and all his whims and projects went no further than a new guitar, fashionable trousers, and an amber cigarette-holder. since he had become "the husband of a celebrity" he was completely transformed. the singer remembered that when first she told him she was going on the stage he had made a fuss, been indignant, complained to her parents, turned her out of the house. she had been obliged to go on the stage without his permission. afterwards, when he learned from the papers and from various people that she was earning big sums, he had 'forgiven her,' abandoned book-keeping, and become her hanger-on. the singer was overcome with amazement when she looked at her hanger-on: when and where had he managed to pick up new tastes, polish, and airs and graces? where had he learned the taste of oysters and of different burgundies? who had taught him to dress and do his hair in the fashion and call her 'nathalie' instead of natasha?" "it's strange," thinks the singer. "in old days he used to get his salary and put it away, but now a hundred roubles a day is not enough for him. in old days he was afraid to talk before schoolboys for fear of saying something silly, and now he is overfamiliar even with princes . . . wretched, contemptible little creature!" but then the singer starts again; again there is the clang of the bell in the entry. the housemaid, scolding and angrily flopping with her slippers, goes to open the door. again some one comes in and stamps like a horse. "he has come back!" thinks the singer. "when shall i be left in peace? it's revolting!" she is overcome by fury. "wait a bit. . . . i'll teach you to get up these farces! you shall go away. i'll make you go away!" the singer leaps up and runs barefoot into the little drawing-room where her _mari_ usually sleeps. she comes at the moment when he is undressing, and carefully folding his clothes on a chair. "you went away!" she says, looking at him with bright eyes full of hatred. "what did you come back for?" nikitin remains silent, and merely sniffs. "you went away! kindly take yourself off this very minute! this very minute! do you hear?" _mari d'elle_ coughs and, without looking at his wife, takes off his braces. "if you don't go away, you insolent creature, i shall go," the singer goes on, stamping her bare foot, and looking at him with flashing eyes. "i shall go! do you hear, insolent . . . worthless wretch, flunkey, out you go!" "you might have some shame before outsiders," mutters her husband . . . . the singer looks round and only then sees an unfamiliar countenance that looks like an actor's. . . . the countenance, seeing the singer's uncovered shoulders and bare feet, shows signs of embarrassment, and looks ready to sink through the floor. "let me introduce . . ." mutters nikitin, "bezbozhnikov, a provincial manager." the singer utters a shriek, and runs off into her bedroom. "there, you see . . ." says _mari d'elle_, as he stretches himself on the sofa, "it was all honey just now . . . my love, my dear, my darling, kisses and embraces . . . but as soon as money is touched upon, then. . . . as you see . . . money is the great thing. . . . good night!" a minute later there is a snore. a living chattel groholsky embraced liza, kept kissing one after another all her little fingers with their bitten pink nails, and laid her on the couch covered with cheap velvet. liza crossed one foot over the other, clasped her hands behind her head, and lay down. groholsky sat down in a chair beside her and bent over. he was entirely absorbed in contemplation of her. how pretty she seemed to him, lighted up by the rays of the setting sun! there was a complete view from the window of the setting sun, golden, lightly flecked with purple. the whole drawing-room, including liza, was bathed by it with brilliant light that did not hurt the eyes, and for a little while covered with gold. groholsky was lost in admiration. liza was so incredibly beautiful. it is true her little kittenish face with its brown eyes, and turn up nose was fresh, and even piquant, his scanty hair was black as soot and curly, her little figure was graceful, well proportioned and mobile as the body of an electric eel, but on the whole. . . . however my taste has nothing to do with it. groholsky who was spoilt by women, and who had been in love and out of love hundreds of times in his life, saw her as a beauty. he loved her, and blind love finds ideal beauty everywhere. "i say," he said, looking straight into her eyes, "i have come to talk to you, my precious. love cannot bear anything vague or indefinite. . . . indefinite relations, you know, i told you yesterday, liza . . . we will try to-day to settle the question we raised yesterday. come, let us decide together. . . ." "what are we to do?" liza gave a yawn and scowling, drew her right arm from under her head. "what are we to do?" she repeated hardly audibly after groholsky. "well, yes, what are we to do? come, decide, wise little head . . . i love you, and a man in love is not fond of sharing. he is more than an egoist. it is too much for me to go shares with your husband. i mentally tear him to pieces, when i remember that he loves you too. in the second place you love me. . . . perfect freedom is an essential condition for love. . . . and are you free? are you not tortured by the thought that that man towers for ever over your soul? a man whom you do not love, whom very likely and quite naturally, you hate. . . . that's the second thing. . . . and thirdly. . . . what is the third thing? oh yes. . . . we are deceiving him and that . . . is dishonourable. truth before everything, liza. let us have done with lying!" "well, then, what are we to do?" "you can guess. . . . i think it necessary, obligatory, to inform him of our relations and to leave him, to begin to live in freedom. both must be done as quickly as possible. . . . this very evening, for instance. . . . it's time to make an end of it. surely you must be sick of loving like a thief?" "tell! tell vanya?" "why, yes!" "that's impossible! i told you yesterday, michel, that it is impossible." "why?" "he will be upset. he'll make a row, do all sorts of unpleasant things. . . . don't you know what he is like? god forbid! there's no need to tell him. what an idea!" groholsky passed his hand over his brow, and heaved a sigh. "yes," he said, "he will be more than upset. i am robbing him of his happiness. does he love you?" "he does love me. very much." "there's another complication! one does not know where to begin. to conceal it from him is base, telling him would kill him. . . . goodness knows what's one to do. well, how is it to be?" groholsky pondered. his pale face wore a frown. "let us go on always as we are now," said liza. "let him find out for himself, if he wants to." "but you know that . . . is sinful, and besides the fact is you are mine, and no one has the right to think that you do not belong to me but to someone else! you are mine! i will not give way to anyone! . . . i am sorry for him--god knows how sorry i am for him, liza! it hurts me to see him! but . . . it can't be helped after all. you don't love him, do you? what's the good of your going on being miserable with him? we must have it out! we will have it out with him, and you will come to me. you are my wife, and not his. let him do what he likes. he'll get over his troubles somehow. . . . he is not the first, and he won't be the last. . . . will you run away? eh? make haste and tell me! will you run away?" liza got up and looked inquiringly at groholsky. "run away?" "yes. . . . to my estate. . . . then to the crimea. . . . we will tell him by letter. . . . we can go at night. there is a train at half past one. well? is that all right?" liza scratched the bridge of her nose, and hesitated. "very well," she said, and burst into tears. patches of red came out of her cheeks, her eyes swelled, and tears flowed down her kittenish face. . . . "what is it?" cried groholsky in a flutter. "liza! what's the matter? come! what are you crying for? what a girl! come, what is it? darling! little woman!" liza held out her hands to groholsky, and hung on his neck. there was a sound of sobbing. "i am sorry for him . . ." muttered liza. "oh, i am so sorry for him!" "sorry for whom?" "va--vanya. . . ." "and do you suppose i'm not? but what's to be done? we are causing him suffering. . . . he will be unhappy, will curse us . . . but is it our fault that we love one another?" as he uttered the last word, groholsky darted away from liza as though he had been stung and sat down in an easy chair. liza sprang away from his neck and rapidly--in one instant--dropped on the lounge. they both turned fearfully red, dropped their eyes, and coughed. a tall, broad-shouldered man of thirty, in the uniform of a government clerk, had walked into the drawing-room. he had walked in unnoticed. only the bang of a chair which he knocked in the doorway had warned the lovers of his presence, and made them look round. it was the husband. they had looked round too late. he had seen groholsky's arm round liza's waist, and had seen liza hanging on groholsky's white and aristocratic neck. "he saw us!" liza and groholsky thought at the same moment, while they did not know what to do with their heavy hands and embarrassed eyes. . . . the petrified husband, rosy-faced, turned white. an agonising, strange, soul-revolting silence lasted for three minutes. oh, those three minutes! groholsky remembers them to this day. the first to move and break the silence was the husband. he stepped up to groholsky and, screwing his face into a senseless grimace like a smile, gave him his hand. groholsky shook the soft perspiring hand and shuddered all over as though he had crushed a cold frog in his fist. "good evening," he muttered. "how are you?" the husband brought out in a faint husky, almost inaudible voice, and he sat down opposite groholsky, straightening his collar at the back of his neck. again, an agonising silence followed . . . but that silence was no longer so stupid. . . . the first step, most difficult and colourless, was over. all that was left now was for one of the two to depart in search of matches or on some such trifling errand. both longed intensely to get away. they sat still, not looking at one another, and pulled at their beards while they ransacked their troubled brains for some means of escape from their horribly awkward position. both were perspiring. both were unbearably miserable and both were devoured by hatred. they longed to begin the tussle but how were they to begin and which was to begin first? if only she would have gone out! "i saw you yesterday at the assembly hall," muttered bugrov (that was the husband's name). "yes, i was there . . . the ball . . . did you dance?" "m'm . . . yes . . . with that . . . with the younger lyukovtsky . . . . she dances heavily. . . . she dances impossibly. she is a great chatterbox." (pause.) "she is never tired of talking." "yes. . . . it was slow. i saw you too. . ." groholsky accidentally glanced at bugrov. . . . he caught the shifting eyes of the deceived husband and could not bear it. he got up quickly, quickly seized bugrov's hand, shook it, picked up his hat, and walked towards the door, conscious of his own back. he felt as though thousands of eyes were looking at his back. it is a feeling known to the actor who has been hissed and is making his exit from the stage, and to the young dandy who has received a blow on the back of the head and is being led away in charge of a policeman. as soon as the sound of groholsky's steps had died away and the door in the hall creaked, bugrov leapt up, and after making two or three rounds of the drawing-room, strolled up to his wife. the kittenish face puckered up and began blinking its eyes as though expecting a slap. her husband went up to her, and with a pale, distorted face, with arms, head, and shoulders shaking, stepped on her dress and knocked her knees with his. "if, you wretched creature," he began in a hollow, wailing voice, "you let him come here once again, i'll. . . . don't let him dare to set his foot. . . . i'll kill you. do you understand? a-a-ah . . . worthless creature, you shudder! fil-thy woman!" bugrov seized her by the elbow, shook her, and flung her like an indiarubber ball towards the window. . . . "wretched, vulgar woman! you have no shame!" she flew towards the window, hardly touching the floor with her feet, and caught at the curtains with her hands. "hold your tongue," shouted her husband, going up to her with flashing eyes and stamping his foot. she did hold her tongue, she looked at the ceiling, and whimpered while her face wore the expression of a little girl in disgrace expecting to be punished. "so that's what you are like! eh? carrying on with a fop! good! and your promise before the altar? what are you? a nice wife and mother. hold your tongue!" and he struck her on her pretty supple shoulder. "hold your tongue, you wretched creature. i'll give you worse than that! if that scoundrel dares to show himself here ever again, if i see you--listen!--with that blackguard ever again, don't ask for mercy! i'll kill you, if i go to siberia for it! and him too. i shouldn't think twice about it! you can go, i don't want to see you!" bugrov wiped his eyes and his brow with his sleeve and strode about the drawing-room, liza sobbing more and more loudly, twitching her shoulders and her little turned up nose, became absorbed in examining the lace on the curtain. "you are crazy," her husband shouted. "your silly head is full of nonsense! nothing but whims! i won't allow it, elizaveta, my girl! you had better be careful with me! i don't like it! if you want to behave like a pig, then . . . then out you go, there is no place in my house for you! out you pack if. . . . you are a wife, so you must forget these dandies, put them out of your silly head! it's all foolishness! don't let it happen again! you try defending yourself! love your husband! you have been given to your husband, so you must love him. yes, indeed! is one not enough? go away till . . . . torturers!" bugrov paused; then shouted: "go away i tell you, go to the nursery! why are you blubbering, it is your own fault, and you blubber! what a woman! last year you were after petka totchkov, now you are after this devil. lord forgive us! . . . tfoo, it's time you understood what you are! a wife! a mother! last year there were unpleasantnesses, and now there will be unpleasantnesses. . . . tfoo!" bugrov heaved a loud sigh, and the air was filled with the smell of sherry. he had come back from dining and was slightly drunk . . . . "don't you know your duty? no! . . . you must be taught, you've not been taught so far! your mamma was a gad-about, and you . . . you can blubber. yes! blubber away. . . ." bugrov went up to his wife and drew the curtain out of her hands. "don't stand by the window, people will see you blubbering. . . . don't let it happen again. you'll go from embracing to worse trouble. you'll come to grief. do you suppose i like to be made a fool of? and you will make a fool of me if you carry on with them, the low brutes. . . . come, that's enough. . . . don't you. . . . another time. . . . of course i . . liza . . . stay. . . ." bugrov heaved a sigh and enveloped liza in the fumes of sherry. "you are young and silly, you don't understand anything. . . . i am never at home. . . . and they take advantage of it. you must be sensible, prudent. they will deceive you. and then i won't endure it. . . . then i may do anything. . . . of course! then you can just lie down, and die. i . . . i am capable of doing anything if you deceive me, my good girl. i might beat you to death. . . . and . . . i shall turn you out of the house, and then you can go to your rascals." and bugrov (_horribile dictu_) wiped the wet, tearful face of the traitress liza with his big soft hand. he treated his twenty-year-old wife as though she were a child. "come, that's enough. . . . i forgive you. only god forbid it should happen again! i forgive you for the fifth time, but i shall not forgive you for the sixth, as god is holy. god does not forgive such as you for such things." bugrov bent down and put out his shining lips towards liza's little head. but the kiss did not follow. the doors of the hall, of the dining-room, of the parlour, and of the drawing-room all slammed, and groholsky flew into the drawing-room like a whirlwind. he was pale and trembling. he was flourishing his arms and crushing his expensive hat in his hands. his coat fluttered upon him as though it were on a peg. he was the incarnation of acute fever. when bugrov saw him he moved away from his wife and began looking out of the other window. groholsky flew up to him, and waving his arms and breathing heavily and looking at no one, he began in a shaking voice: "ivan petrovitch! let us leave off keeping up this farce with one another! we have deceived each other long enough! it's too much! i cannot stand it. you must do as you like, but i cannot! it's hateful and mean, it's revolting! do you understand that it is revolting?" groholsky spluttered and gasped for breath. "it's against my principles. and you are an honest man. i love her! i love her more than anything on earth! you have noticed it and . . . it's my duty to say this!" "what am i to say to him?" ivan petrovitch wondered. "we must make an end of it. this farce cannot drag on much longer! it must be settled somehow." groholsky drew a breath and went on: "i cannot live without her; she feels the same. you are an educated man, you will understand that in such circumstances your family life is impossible. this woman is not yours, so . . . in short, i beg you to look at the matter from an indulgent humane point of view. . . . ivan petrovitch, you must understand at last that i love her--love her more than myself, more than anything in the world, and to struggle against that love is beyond my power!" "and she?" bugrov asked in a sullen, somewhat ironical tone. "ask her; come now, ask her! for her to live with a man she does not love, to live with you is . . . is a misery!" "and she?" bugrov repeated, this time not in an ironical tone. "she . . . she loves me! we love each other, ivan petrovitch! kill us, despise us, pursue us, do as you will, but we can no longer conceal it from you. we are standing face to face--you may judge us with all the severity of a man whom we . . . whom fate has robbed of happiness!" bugrov turned as red as a boiled crab, and looked out of one eye at liza. he began blinking. his fingers, his lips, and his eyelids twitched. poor fellow! the eyes of his weeping wife told him that groholsky was right, that it was a serious matter. "well!" he muttered. "if you. . . . in these days. . . . you are always. . . ." "as god is above," groholsky shrilled in his high tenor, "we understand you. do you suppose we have no sense, no feeling? i know what agonies i am causing you, as god's above! but be indulgent, i beseech you! we are not to blame. love is not a crime. no will can struggle against it. . . . give her up to me, ivan petrovitch! let her go with me! take from me what you will for your sufferings. take my life, but give me liza. i am ready to do anything. . . . come, tell me how i can do something to make up in part at least! to make up for that lost happiness, i can give you other happiness. i can, ivan petrovitch; i am ready to do anything! it would be base on my part to leave you without satisfaction. . . . i understand you at this moment." bugrov waved his hand as though to say, 'for god's sake, go away.' his eyes began to be dimmed by a treacherous moisture--in a moment they would see him crying like a child. "i understand you, ivan petrovitch. i will give you another happiness, such as hitherto you have not known. what would you like? i have money, my father is an influential man. . . . will you? come, how much do you want?" bugrov's heart suddenly began throbbing. . . . he clutched at the window curtains with both hands. . . . "will you have fifty thousand? ivan petrovitch, i entreat you. . . . it's not a bribe, not a bargain. . . . i only want by a sacrifice on my part to atone a little for your inevitable loss. would you like a hundred thousand? i am willing. a hundred thousand?" my god! two immense hammers began beating on the perspiring temples of the unhappy ivan petrovitch. russian sledges with tinkling bells began racing in his ears. . . . "accept this sacrifice from me," groholsky went on, "i entreat you! you will take a load off my conscience. . . . i implore you!" my god! a smart carriage rolled along the road wet from a may shower, passed the window through which bugrov's wet eyes were looking. the horses were fine, spirited, well-trained beasts. people in straw hats, with contented faces, were sitting in the carriage with long fishing-rods and bags. . . . a schoolboy in a white cap was holding a gun. they were driving out into the country to catch fish, to shoot, to walk about and have tea in the open air. they were driving to that region of bliss in which bugrov as a boy--the barefoot, sunburnt, but infinitely happy son of a village deacon--had once raced about the meadows, the woods, and the river banks. oh, how fiendishly seductive was that may! how happy those who can take off their heavy uniforms, get into a carriage and fly off to the country where the quails are calling and there is the scent of fresh hay. bugrov's heart ached with a sweet thrill that made him shiver. a hundred thousand! with the carriage there floated before him all the secret dreams over which he had gloated, through the long years of his life as a government clerk as he sat in the office of his department or in his wretched little study. . . . a river, deep, with fish, a wide garden with narrow avenues, little fountains, shade, flowers, arbours, a luxurious villa with terraces and turrets with an aeolian harp and little silver bells (he had heard of the existence of an aeolian harp from german romances); a cloudless blue sky; pure limpid air fragrant with the scents that recall his hungry, barefoot, crushed childhood. . . . to get up at five, to go to bed at nine; to spend the day catching fish, talking with the peasants. . . . what happiness! "ivan petrovitch, do not torture me! will you take a hundred thousand?" "h'm . . . a hundred and fifty thousand!" muttered bugrov in a hollow voice, the voice of a husky bull. he muttered it, and bowed his head, ashamed of his words, and awaiting the answer. "good," said groholsky, "i agree. i thank you, ivan petrovitch . . . . in a minute. . . . i will not keep you waiting. . . ." groholsky jumped up, put on his hat, and staggering backwards, ran out of the drawing-room. bugrov clutched the window curtains more tightly than ever. . . . he was ashamed . . . . there was a nasty, stupid feeling in his soul, but, on the other hand, what fair shining hopes swarmed between his throbbing temples! he was rich! liza, who had grasped nothing of what was happening, darted through the half-opened door trembling all over and afraid that he would come to her window and fling her away from it. she went into the nursery, laid herself down on the nurse's bed, and curled herself up. she was shivering with fever. bugrov was left alone. he felt stifled, and he opened the window. what glorious air breathed fragrance on his face and neck! it would be good to breathe such air lolling on the cushions of a carriage . . . . out there, far beyond the town, among the villages and the summer villas, the air was sweeter still. . . . bugrov actually smiled as he dreamed of the air that would be about him when he would go out on the verandah of his villa and admire the view. a long while he dreamed. . . . the sun had set, and still he stood and dreamed, trying his utmost to cast out of his mind the image of liza which obstinately pursued him in all his dreams. "i have brought it, ivan petrovitch!" groholsky, re-entering, whispered above his ear. "i have brought it--take it. . . . here in this roll there are forty thousand. . . . with this cheque will you kindly get twenty the day after to-morrow from valentinov? . . . here is a bill of exchange . . . a cheque. . . . the remaining thirty thousand in a day or two. . . . my steward will bring it to you." groholsky, pink and excited, with all his limbs in motion, laid before bugrov a heap of rolls of notes and bundles of papers. the heap was big, and of all sorts of hues and tints. never in the course of his life had bugrov seen such a heap. he spread out his fat fingers and, not looking at groholsky, fell to going through the bundles of notes and bonds. . . . groholsky spread out all the money, and moved restlessly about the room, looking for the dulcinea who had been bought and sold. filling his pockets and his pocket-book, bugrov thrust the securities into the table drawer, and, drinking off half a decanter full of water, dashed out into the street. "cab!" he shouted in a frantic voice. at half-past eleven that night he drove up to the entrance of the paris hotel. he went noisily upstairs and knocked at the door of groholsky's apartments. he was admitted. groholsky was packing his things in a portmanteau, liza was sitting at the table trying on bracelets. they were both frightened when bugrov went in to them. they fancied that he had come for liza and had brought back the money which he had taken in haste without reflection. but bugrov had not come for liza. ashamed of his new get-up and feeling frightfully awkward in it, he bowed and stood at the door in the attitude of a flunkey. the get-up was superb. bugrov was unrecognisable. his huge person, which had never hitherto worn anything but a uniform, was clothed in a fresh, brand-new suit of fine french cloth and of the most fashionable cut. on his feet spats shone with sparkling buckles. he stood ashamed of his new get-up, and with his right hand covered the watch-chain for which he had, an hour before, paid three hundred roubles. "i have come about something," he began. "a business agreement is beyond price. i am not going to give up mishutka. . . ." "what mishutka?" asked groholsky. "my son." groholsky and liza looked at each other. liza's eyes bulged, her cheeks flushed, and her lips twitched. . . . "very well," she said. she thought of mishutka's warm little cot. it would be cruel to exchange that warm little cot for a chilly sofa in the hotel, and she consented. "i shall see him," she said. bugrov bowed, walked out, and flew down the stairs in his splendour, cleaving the air with his expensive cane. . . . "home," he said to the cabman. "i am starting at five o'clock to-morrow morning. . . . you will come; if i am asleep, you will wake me. we are driving out of town." ii it was a lovely august evening. the sun, set in a golden background lightly flecked with purple, stood above the western horizon on the point of sinking behind the far-away tumuli. in the garden, shadows and half-shadows had vanished, and the air had grown damp, but the golden light was still playing on the tree-tops. . . . it was warm. . . . rain had just fallen, and made the fresh, transparent fragrant air still fresher. i am not describing the august of petersburg or moscow, foggy, tearful, and dark, with its cold, incredibly damp sunsets. god forbid! i am not describing our cruel northern august. i ask the reader to move with me to the crimea, to one of its shores, not far from feodosia, the spot where stands the villa of one of our heroes. it is a pretty, neat villa surrounded by flower-beds and clipped bushes. a hundred paces behind it is an orchard in which its inmates walk. . . . groholsky pays a high rent for that villa, a thousand roubles a year, i believe. . . . the villa is not worth that rent, but it is pretty. . . . tall, with delicate walls and very delicate parapets, fragile, slender, painted a pale blue colour, hung with curtains, _portières_, draperies, it suggests a charming, fragile chinese lady. . . . on the evening described above, groholsky and liza were sitting on the verandah of this villa. groholsky was reading _novoye vremya_ and drinking milk out of a green mug. a syphon of seltzer water was standing on the table before him. groholsky imagined that he was suffering from catarrh of the lungs, and by the advice of dr. dmitriev consumed an immense quantity of grapes, milk, and seltzer water. liza was sitting in a soft easy chair some distance from the table. with her elbows on the parapet, and her little face propped on her little fists, she was gazing at the villa opposite. . . . the sun was playing upon the windows of the villa opposite, the glittering panes reflected the dazzling light. . . . beyond the little garden and the few trees that surrounded the villa there was a glimpse of the sea with its waves, its dark blue colour, its immensity, its white masts. . . . it was so delightful! groholsky was reading an article by anonymous, and after every dozen lines he raised his blue eyes to liza's back. . . . the same passionate, fervent love was shining in those eyes still. . . . he was infinitely happy in spite of his imaginary catarrh of the lungs. . . . liza was conscious of his eyes upon her back, and was thinking of mishutka's brilliant future, and she felt so comfortable, so serene . . . . she was not so much interested by the sea, and the glittering reflection on the windows of the villa opposite as by the waggons which were trailing up to that villa one after another. the waggons were full of furniture and all sorts of domestic articles. liza watched the trellis gates and big glass doors of the villa being opened and the men bustling about the furniture and wrangling incessantly. big armchairs and a sofa covered with dark raspberry coloured velvet, tables for the hall, the drawing-room and the dining-room, a big double bed and a child's cot were carried in by the glass doors; something big, wrapped up in sacking, was carried in too. a grand piano, thought liza, and her heart throbbed. it was long since she had heard the piano, and she was so fond of it. they had not a single musical instrument in their villa. groholsky and she were musicians only in soul, no more. there were a great many boxes and packages with the words: "with care" upon them carried in after the piano. they were boxes of looking-glasses and crockery. a gorgeous and luxurious carriage was dragged in, at the gate, and two white horses were led in looking like swans. "my goodness, what riches!" thought liza, remembering her old pony which groholsky, who did not care for riding, had bought her for a hundred roubles. compared with those swan-like steeds, her pony seemed to her no better than a bug. groholsky, who was afraid of riding fast, had purposely bought liza a poor horse. "what wealth!" liza thought and murmured as she gazed at the noisy carriers. the sun hid behind the tumuli, the air began to lose its dryness and limpidity, and still the furniture was being driven up and hauled into the house. at last it was so dark that groholsky left off reading the newspaper while liza still gazed and gazed. "shouldn't we light the lamp?" said groholsky, afraid that a fly might drop into his milk and be swallowed in the darkness. "liza! shouldn't we light the lamp? shall we sit in darkness, my angel?" liza did not answer. she was interested in a chaise which had driven up to the villa opposite. . . . what a charming little mare was in that chaise. of medium size, not large, but graceful. . . . a gentleman in a top hat was sitting in the chaise, a child about three, apparently a boy, was sitting on his knees waving his little hands. . . . he was waving his little hands and shouting with delight. liza suddenly uttered a shriek, rose from her seat and lurched forward. "what is the matter?" asked groholsky. "nothing. . . i only . . . i fancied. . . ." the tall, broad-shouldered gentleman in the top hat jumped out of the chaise, lifted the boy down, and with a skip and a hop ran gaily in at the glass door. the door opened noisily and he vanished into the darkness of the villa apartments. two smart footmen ran up to the horse in the chaise, and most respectfully led it to the gate. soon the villa opposite was lighted up, and the clatter of plates, knives, and forks was audible. the gentleman in the top hat was having his supper, and judging by the duration of the clatter of crockery, his supper lasted long. liza fancied she could smell chicken soup and roast duck. after supper discordant sounds of the piano floated across from the villa. in all probability the gentleman in the top hat was trying to amuse the child in some way, and allowing it to strum on it. groholsky went up to liza and put his arm round her waist. "what wonderful weather!" he said. "what air! do you feel it? i am very happy, liza, very happy indeed. my happiness is so great that i am really afraid of its destruction. the greatest things are usually destroyed, and do you know, liza, in spite of all my happiness, i am not absolutely . . . at peace. . . . one haunting thought torments me . . . it torments me horribly. it gives me no peace by day or by night. . . ." "what thought?" "an awful thought, my love. i am tortured by the thought of your husband. i have been silent hitherto. i have feared to trouble your inner peace, but i cannot go on being silent. where is he? what has happened to him? what has become of him with his money? it is awful! every night i see his face, exhausted, suffering, imploring. . . . why, only think, my angel--can the money he so generously accepted make up to him for you? he loved you very much, didn't he?" "very much!" "there you see! he has either taken to drink now, or . . . i am anxious about him! ah, how anxious i am! should we write to him, do you think? we ought to comfort him . . . a kind word, you know." groholsky heaved a deep sigh, shook his head, and sank into an easy chair exhausted by painful reflection. leaning his head on his fists he fell to musing. judging from his face, his musings were painful. "i am going to bed," said liza; "it's time." liza went to her own room, undressed, and dived under the bedclothes. she used to go to bed at ten o'clock and get up at ten. she was fond of her comfort. she was soon in the arms of morpheus. throughout the whole night she had the most fascinating dreams. . . . she dreamed whole romances, novels, arabian nights. . . . the hero of all these dreams was the gentleman in the top hat, who had caused her to utter a shriek that evening. the gentleman in the top hat was carrying her off from groholsky, was singing, was beating groholsky and her, was flogging the boy under the window, was declaring his love, and driving her off in the chaise. . . . oh, dreams! in one night, lying with one's eyes shut, one may sometimes live through more than ten years of happiness . . . . that night liza lived through a great variety of experiences, and very happy ones, even in spite of the beating. waking up between six and seven, she flung on her clothes, hurriedly did her hair, and without even putting on her tatar slippers with pointed toes, ran impulsively on to the verandah. shading her eyes from the sun with one hand, and with the other holding up her slipping clothes, she gazed at the villa opposite. her face beamed . . . . there could be no further doubt it was he. on the verandah in the villa opposite there was a table in front of the glass door. a tea service was shining and glistening on the table with a silver samovar at the head. ivan petrovitch was sitting at the table. he had in his hand a glass in a silver holder, and was drinking tea. he was drinking it with great relish. that fact could be deduced from the smacking of his lips, the sound of which reached liza's ears. he was wearing a brown dressing-gown with black flowers on it. massive tassels fell down to the ground. it was the first time in her life liza had seen her husband in a dressing-gown, and such an expensive-looking one. mishutka was sitting on one of his knees, and hindering him from drinking his tea. the child jumped up and down and tried to clutch his papa's shining lip. after every three or four sips the father bent down to his son and kissed him on the head. a grey cat with its tail in the air was rubbing itself against one of the table legs, and with a plaintive mew proclaiming its desire for food. liza hid behind the verandah curtain, and fastened her eyes upon the members of her former family; her face was radiant with joy. "misha!" she murmured, "misha! are you really here, misha? the darling! and how he loves vanya! heavens!" and liza went off into a giggle when mishutka stirred his father's tea with a spoon. "and how vanya loves misha! my darlings!" liza's heart throbbed, and her head went round with joy and happiness. she sank into an armchair and went on observing them, sitting down. "how did they come here?" she wondered as she sent airy kisses to mishutka. "who gave them the idea of coming here? heavens! can all that wealth belong to them? can those swan-like horses that were led in at the gate belong to ivan petrovitch? ah!" when he had finished his tea, ivan petrovitch went into the house. ten minutes later, he appeared on the steps and liza was astounded . . . . he, who in his youth only seven years ago had been called vanushka and vanka and had been ready to punch a man in the face and turn the house upside down over twenty kopecks, was dressed devilishly well. he had on a broad-brimmed straw hat, exquisite brilliant boots, a piqué waistcoat. . . . thousands of suns, big and little, glistened on his watch-chain. with much _chic_ he held in his right hand his gloves and cane. and what swagger, what style there was in his heavy figure when, with a graceful motion of his hand, he bade the footman bring the horse round. he got into the chaise with dignity, and told the footmen standing round the chaise to give him mishutka and the fishing tackle they had brought. setting mishutka beside him, and putting his left arm round him, he held the reins and drove off. "ge-ee up!" shouted mishutka. liza, unaware of what she was doing, waved her handkerchief after them. if she had looked in the glass she would have been surprised at her flushed, laughing, and, at the same time, tear-stained face. she was vexed that she was not beside her gleeful boy, and that she could not for some reason shower kisses on him at once. for some reason! . . . away with all your petty delicacies! "grisha! grisha!" liza ran into groholsky's bedroom and set to work to wake him. "get up, they have come! the darling!" "who has come?" asked groholsky, waking up. "our people . . . vanya and misha, they have come, they are in the villa opposite. . . . i looked out, and there they were drinking tea. . . . and misha too. . . . what a little angel our misha has grown! if only you had seen him! mother of god!" "seen whom? why, you are. . . . who has come? come where?" "vanya and misha. . . . i have been looking at the villa opposite, while they were sitting drinking tea. misha can drink his tea by himself now. . . . didn't you see them moving in yesterday, it was they who arrived!" groholsky rubbed his forehead and turned pale. "arrived? your husband?" he asked. "why, yes." "what for?" "most likely he is going to live here. they don't know we are here. if they did, they would have looked at our villa, but they drank their tea and took no notice." "where is he now? but for god's sake do talk sense! oh, where is he?" "he has gone fishing with misha in the chaise. did you see the horses yesterday? those are their horses . . . vanya's . . . vanya drives with them. do you know what, grisha? we will have misha to stay with us. . . . we will, won't we? he is such a pretty boy. such an exquisite boy!" groholsky pondered, while liza went on talking and talking. "this is an unexpected meeting," said groholsky, after prolonged and, as usual, harrassing reflection. "well, who could have expected that we should meet here? well. . . there it is. . . . so be it. it seems that it is fated. i can imagine the awkwardness of his position when he meets us." "shall we have misha to stay with us?" "yes, we will. . . . it will be awkward meeting him. . . . why, what can i say to him? what can i talk of? it will be awkward for him and awkward for me. . . . we ought not to meet. we will carry on communications, if necessary, through the servants. . . . my head does ache so, lizotchka. my arms and legs too, i ache all over. is my head feverish?" liza put her hand on his forehead and found that his head was hot. "i had dreadful dreams all night . . . i shan't get up to-day. i shall stay in bed . . . i must take some quinine. send me my breakfast here, little woman." groholsky took quinine and lay in bed the whole day. he drank warm water, moaned, had the sheets and pillowcase changed, whimpered, and induced an agonising boredom in all surrounding him. he was insupportable when he imagined he had caught a chill. liza had continually to interrupt her inquisitive observations and run from the verandah to his room. at dinner-time she had to put on mustard plasters. how boring all this would have been, o reader, if the villa opposite had not been at the service of my heroine! liza watched that villa all day long and was gasping with happiness. at ten o'clock ivan petrovitch and mishutka came back from fishing and had breakfast. at two o'clock they had dinner, and at four o'clock they drove off somewhere in a carriage. the white horses bore them away with the swiftness of lightning. at seven o'clock visitors came to see them--all of them men. they were playing cards on two tables in the verandah till midnight. one of the men played superbly on the piano. the visitors played, ate, drank, and laughed. ivan petrovitch guffawing loudly, told them an anecdote of armenian life at the top of his voice, so that all the villas round could hear. it was very gay and mishutka sat up with them till midnight. "misha is merry, he is not crying," thought liza, "so he does not remember his mamma. so he has forgotten me!" and there was a horrible bitter feeling in liza's soul. she spent the whole night crying. she was fretted by her little conscience, and by vexation and misery, and the desire to talk to mishutka and kiss him. . . . in the morning she got up with a headache and tear-stained eyes. her tears groholsky put down to his own account. "do not weep, darling," he said to her, "i am all right to-day, my chest is a little painful, but that is nothing." while they were having tea, lunch was being served at the villa opposite. ivan petrovitch was looking at his plate, and seeing nothing but a morsel of goose dripping with fat. "i am very glad," said groholsky, looking askance at bugrov, "very glad that his life is so tolerable! i hope that decent surroundings anyway may help to stifle his grief. keep out of sight, liza! they will see you . . . i am not disposed to talk to him just now . . . god be with him! why trouble his peace?" but the dinner did not pass off so quietly. during dinner precisely that "awkward position" which groholsky so dreaded occurred. just when the partridges, groholsky's favorite dish, had been put on the table, liza was suddenly overcome with confusion, and groholsky began wiping his face with his dinner napkin. on the verandah of the villa opposite they saw bugrov. he was standing with his arms leaning on the parapet, and staring straight at them, with his eyes starting out of his head. "go in, liza, go in," groholsky whispered. "i said we must have dinner indoors! what a girl you are, really. . . ." bugrov stared and stared, and suddenly began shouting. groholsky looked at him and saw a face full of astonishment. . . . "is that you?" bawled ivan petrovitch, "you! are you here too?" groholsky passed his fingers from one shoulder to another, as though to say, "my chest is weak, and so i can't shout across such a distance." liza's heart began throbbing, and everything turned round before her eyes. bugrov ran from his verandah, ran across the road, and a few seconds later was standing under the verandah on which groholsky and liza were dining. alas for the partridges! "how are you?" he began, flushing crimson, and stuffing his big hands in his pockets. "are you here? are you here too?" "yes, we are here too. . . ." "how did you get here?" "why, how did you?" "i? it's a long story, a regular romance, my good friend! but don't put yourselves out--eat your dinner! i've been living, you know, ever since then . . . in the oryol province. i rented an estate. a splendid estate! but do eat your dinner! i stayed there from the end of may, but now i have given it up. . . . it was cold there, and--well, the doctor advised me to go to the crimea. . . ." "are you ill, then?" inquired groholsky. "oh, well. . . . there always seems, as it were . . . something gurgling here. . . ." and at the word "here" ivan petrovitch passed his open hand from his neck down to the middle of his stomach. "so you are here too. . . . yes . . . that's very pleasant. have you been here long?" "since july." "oh, and you, liza, how are you? quite well?" "quite well," answered liza, and was embarrassed. "you miss mishutka, i'll be bound. eh? well, he's here with me. . . . i'll send him over to you directly with nikifor. this is very nice. well, good-bye! i have to go off directly. . . . i made the acquaintance of prince ter-haimazov yesterday; delightful man, though he is an armenian. so he has a croquet party to-day; we are going to play croquet. . . . good-bye! the carriage is waiting . . . ." ivan petrovitch whirled round, tossed his head, and, waving adieu to them, ran home. "unhappy man," said groholsky, heaving a deep sigh as he watched him go off. "in what way is he unhappy?" asked liza. "to see you and not have the right to call you his!" "fool!" liza was so bold to think. "idiot!" before evening liza was hugging and kissing mishutka. at first the boy howled, but when he was offered jam, he was all friendly smiles. for three days groholsky and liza did not see bugrov. he had disappeared somewhere, and was only at home at night. on the fourth day he visited them again at dinner-time. he came in, shook hands with both of them, and sat down to the table. his face was serious. "i have come to you on business," he said. "read this." and he handed groholsky a letter. "read it! read it aloud!" groholsky read as follows: "my beloved and consoling, never-forgotten son ioann! i have received the respectful and loving letter in which you invite your aged father to the mild and salubrious crimea, to breathe the fragrant air, and behold strange lands. to that letter i reply that on taking my holiday, i will come to you, but not for long. my colleague, father gerasim, is a frail and delicate man, and cannot be left alone for long. i am very sensible of your not forgetting your parents, your father and your mother. . . . you rejoice your father with your affection, and you remember your mother in your prayers, and so it is fitting to do. meet me at feodosia. what sort of town is feodosia--what is it like? it will be very agreeable to see it. your godmother, who took you from the font, is called feodosia. you write that god has been graciously pleased that you should win two hundred thousand roubles. that is gratifying to me. but i cannot approve of your having left the service while still of a grade of little importance; even a rich man ought to be in the service. i bless you always, now and hereafter. ilya and seryozhka andronov send you their greetings. you might send them ten roubles each--they are badly off! "your loving father, "pyotr bugrov, _priest._" groholsky read this letter aloud, and he and liza both looked inquiringly at bugrov. "you see what it is," ivan petrovitch began hesitatingly. "i should like to ask you, liza, not to let him see you, to keep out of his sight while he is here. i have written to him that you are ill and gone to the caucasus for a cure. if you meet him. . . you see yourself. . . . it's awkward. . . h'm. . . ." "very well," said liza. "we can do that," thought groholsky, "since he makes sacrifices, why shouldn't we?" "please do. . . . if he sees you there will be trouble. . . . my father is a man of strict principles. he would curse me in seven churches. don't go out of doors, liza, that is all. he won't be here long. don't be afraid." father pyotr did not long keep them waiting. one fine morning ivan petrovitch ran in and hissed in a mysterious tone: "he has come! he is asleep now, so please be careful." and liza was shut up within four walls. she did not venture to go out into the yard or on to the verandah. she could only see the sky from behind the window curtain. unluckily for her, ivan petrovitch's papa spent his whole time in the open air, and even slept on the verandah. usually father pyotr, a little parish priest, in a brown cassock and a top hat with a curly brim, walked slowly round the villas and gazed with curiosity at the "strange lands" through his grandfatherly spectacles. ivan petrovitch with the stanislav on a little ribbon accompanied him. he did not wear a decoration as a rule, but before his own people he liked to show off. in their society he always wore the stanislav. liza was bored to death. groholsky suffered too. he had to go for his walks alone without a companion. he almost shed tears, but . . . had to submit to his fate. and to make things worse, bugrov would run across every morning and in a hissing whisper would give some quite unnecessary bulletin concerning the health of father pyotr. he bored them with those bulletins. "he slept well," he informed them. "yesterday he was put out because i had no salted cucumbers. . . he has taken to mishutka; he keeps patting him on the head." at last, a fortnight later, little father pyotr walked for the last time round the villas and, to groholsky's immense relief, departed. he had enjoyed himself, and went off very well satisfied. liza and groholsky fell back into their old manner of life. groholsky once more blessed his fate. but his happiness did not last for long. a new trouble worse than father pyotr followed. ivan petrovitch took to coming to see them every day. ivan petrovitch, to be frank, though a capital fellow, was a very tedious person. he came at dinner-time, dined with them and stayed a very long time. that would not have mattered. but they had to buy vodka, which groholsky could not endure, for his dinner. he would drink five glasses and talk the whole dinner-time. that, too, would not have mattered. . . . but he would sit on till two o'clock in the morning, and not let them get to bed, and, worse still, he permitted himself to talk of things about which he should have been silent. when towards two o'clock in the morning he had drunk too much vodka and champagne, he would take mishutka in his arms, and weeping, say to him, before groholsky and liza: "mihail, my son, what am i? i . . . am a scoundrel. i have sold your mother! sold her for thirty pieces of silver, may the lord punish me! mihail ivanitch, little sucking pig, where is your mother? lost! gone! sold into slavery! well, i am a scoundrel." these tears and these words turned groholsky's soul inside out. he would look timidly at liza's pale face and wring his hands. "go to bed, ivan petrovitch," he would say timidly. "i am going. . . . come along, mishutka. . . . the lord be our judge! i cannot think of sleep while i know that my wife is a slave . . . . but it is not groholsky's fault. . . . the goods were mine, the money his. . . . freedom for the free and heaven for the saved." by day ivan petrovitch was no less insufferable to groholsky. to groholsky's intense horror, he was always at liza's side. he went fishing with her, told her stories, walked with her, and even on one occasion, taking advantage of groholsky's having a cold, carried her off in his carriage, goodness knows where, and did not bring her back till night! "it's outrageous, inhuman," thought groholsky, biting his lips. groholsky liked to be continually kissing liza. he could not exist without those honeyed kisses, and it was awkward to kiss her before ivan petrovitch. it was agony. the poor fellow felt forlorn, but fate soon had compassion on him. ivan petrovitch suddenly went off somewhere for a whole week. visitors had come and carried him off with them . . . and mishutka was taken too. one fine morning groholsky came home from a walk good-humoured and beaming. "he has come," he said to liza, rubbing his hands. "i am very glad he has come. ha-ha-ha!" "what are you laughing at?" "there are women with him." "what women?" "i don't know. . . . it's a good thing he has got women. . . . a capital thing, in fact. . . . he is still young and fresh. come here! look!" groholsky led liza on to the verandah, and pointed to the villa opposite. they both held their sides, and roared with laughter. it was funny. ivan petrovitch was standing on the verandah of the villa opposite, smiling. two dark-haired ladies and mishutka were standing below, under the verandah. the ladies were laughing, and loudly talking french. "french women," observed groholsky. "the one nearest us isn't at all bad-looking. lively damsels, but that's no matter. there are good women to be found even among such. . . . but they really do go too far." what was funny was that ivan petrovitch bent across the verandah, and stretching with his long arms, put them round the shoulders of one of the french girls, lifted her in the air, and set her giggling on the verandah. after lifting up both ladies on to the verandah, he lifted up mishutka too. the ladies ran down and the proceedings were repeated. "powerful muscles, i must say," muttered groholsky looking at this scene. the operation was repeated some six times, the ladies were so amiable as to show no embarrassment whatever when the boisterous wind disposed of their inflated skirts as it willed while they were being lifted. groholsky dropped his eyes in a shamefaced way when the ladies flung their legs over the parapet as they reached the verandah. but liza watched and laughed! what did she care? it was not a case of men misbehaving themselves, which would have put her, as a woman, to shame, but of ladies. in the evening, ivan petrovitch flew over, and with some embarrassment announced that he was now a man with a household to look after . . . . "you mustn't imagine they are just anybody," he said. "it is true they are french. they shout at the top of their voices, and drink . . . but we all know! the french are brought up to be like that! it can't be helped. . . . the prince," ivan petrovitch added, "let me have them almost for nothing. . . . he said: 'take them, take them. . . .' i must introduce you to the prince sometime. a man of culture! he's for ever writing, writing. . . . and do you know what their names are? one is fanny, the other isabella. . . . there's europe, ha-ha-ha! . . . the west! good-bye!" ivan petrovitch left liza and groholsky in peace, and devoted himself to his ladies. all day long sound of talk, laughter, and the clatter of crockery came from his villa. . . . the lights were not put out till far into the night. . . . groholsky was in bliss. . . . at last, after a prolonged interval of agony, he felt happy and at peace again. ivan petrovitch with his two ladies had no such happiness as he had with one. but alas, destiny has no heart. she plays with the groholskys, the lizas, the ivans, and the mishutkas as with pawns. . . . groholsky lost his peace again. . . . one morning, about ten days afterwards, on waking up late, he went out on to the verandah and saw a spectacle which shocked him, revolted him, and moved him to intense indignation. under the verandah of the villa opposite stood the french women, and between them liza. she was talking and looking askance at her own villa as though to see whether that tyrant, that despot were awake (so groholsky interpreted those looks). ivan petrovitch standing on the verandah with his sleeves tucked up, lifted isabella into the air, then fanny, and then liza. when he was lifting liza it seemed to groholsky that he pressed her to himself. . . . liza too flung one leg over the parapet. . . . oh these women! all sphinxes, every one of them! when liza returned home from her husband's villa and went into the bedroom on tip-toe, as though nothing had happened, groholsky, pale, with hectic flushes on his cheeks, was lying in the attitude of a man at his last gasp and moaning. on seeing liza, he sprang out of bed, and began pacing about the bedroom. "so that's what you are like, is it?" he shrieked in a high tenor. "so that's it! very much obliged to you! it's revolting, madam! immoral, in fact! let me tell you that!" liza turned pale, and of course burst into tears. when women feel that they are in the right, they scold and shed tears; when they are conscious of being in fault, they shed tears only. "on a level with those depraved creatures! it's . . . it's . . . it's . . . lower than any impropriety! why, do you know what they are? they are kept women! cocottes! and you a respectable woman go rushing off where they are. . . and he . . . he! what does he want? what more does he want of me? i don't understand it! i have given him half of my property--i have given him more! you know it yourself! i have given him what i have not myself. . . . i have given him almost all. . . . and he! i've put up with your calling him vanya, though he has no right whatever to such intimacy. i have put up with your walks, kisses after dinner. . . . i have put up with everything, but this i will not put up with. . . . either he or i! let him go away, or i go away! i'm not equal to living like this any longer, no! you can see that for yourself! . . . either he or i. . . . enough! the cup is brimming over. . . . i have suffered a great deal as it is. . . . i am going to talk to him at once--this minute! what is he, after all? what has he to be proud of? no, indeed. . . . he has no reason to think so much of himself . . . ." groholsky said a great many more valiant and stinging things, but did not "go at once"; he felt timid and abashed. . . . he went to ivan petrovitch three days later. when he went into his apartment, he gaped with astonishment. he was amazed at the wealth and luxury with which bugrov had surrounded himself. velvet hangings, fearfully expensive chairs. . . . one was positively ashamed to step on the carpet. groholsky had seen many rich men in his day, but he had never seen such frenzied luxury. . . . and the higgledy-piggledy muddle he saw when, with an inexplicable tremor, he walked into the drawing-room--plates with bits of bread on them were lying about on the grand piano, a glass was standing on a chair, under the table there was a basket with a filthy rag in it. . . . nut shells were strewn about in the windows. bugrov himself was not quite in his usual trim when groholsky walked in . . . . with a red face and uncombed locks he was pacing about the room in deshabille, talking to himself, apparently much agitated. mishutka was sitting on the sofa there in the drawing-room, and was making the air vibrate with a piercing scream. "it's awful, grigory vassilyevitch!" bugrov began on seeing groholsky, "such disorder . . . such disorder . . . please sit down. you must excuse my being in the costume of adam and eve. . . . it's of no consequence. . . . horrible disorderliness! i don't understand how people can exist here, i don't understand it! the servants won't do what they are told, the climate is horrible, everything is expensive. . . . stop your noise," bugrov shouted, suddenly coming to a halt before mishutka; "stop it, i tell you! little beast, won't you stop it?" and bugrov pulled mishutka's ear. "that's revolting, ivan petrovitch," said groholsky in a tearful voice. "how can you treat a tiny child like that? you really are. . ." "let him stop yelling then. . . . be quiet--i'll whip you!" "don't cry, misha darling. . . . papa won't touch you again. don't beat him, ivan petrovitch; why, he is hardly more than a baby. . . . there, there. . . . would you like a little horse? i'll send you a little horse. . . . you really are hard-hearted. . . ." groholsky paused, and then asked: "and how are your ladies getting on, ivan petrovitch?" "not at all. i've turned them out without ceremony. i might have gone on keeping them, but it's awkward. . . . the boy will grow up . . . . a father's example. . . . if i were alone, then it would be a different thing. . . . besides, what's the use of my keeping them? poof . . . it's a regular farce! i talk to them in russian, and they answer me in french. they don't understand a thing--you can't knock anything into their heads." "i've come to you about something, ivan petrovitch, to talk things over. . . . h'm. . . . it's nothing very particular. but just . . . two or three words. . . . in reality, i have a favour to ask of you." "what's that?" "would you think it possible, ivan petrovitch, to go away? we are delighted that you are here; it's very agreeable for us, but it's inconvenient, don't you know. . . . you will understand me. it's awkward in a way. . . . such indefinite relations, such continual awkwardness in regard to one another. . . . we must part. . . . it's essential in fact. excuse my saying so, but . . . you must see for yourself, of course, that in such circumstances to be living side by side leads to . . . reflections . . . that is . . . not to reflections, but there is a certain awkward feeling. . . ." "yes. . . . that is so, i have thought of it myself. very good, i will go away." "we shall be very grateful to you. . . . believe me, ivan petrovitch, we shall preserve the most flattering memory of you. the sacrifice which you. . ." "very good. . . . only what am i to do with all this? i say, you buy this furniture of mine! what do you say? it's not expensive, eight thousand . . . ten. . . . the furniture, the carriage, the grand piano. . . ." "very good. . . . i will give you ten thousand. . . ." "well, that is capital! i will set off to-morrow. i shall go to moscow. it's impossible to live here. everything is so dear! awfully dear! the money fairly flies. . . . you can't take a step without spending a thousand! i can't go on like that. i have a child to bring up. . . . well, thank god that you will buy my furniture. . . . that will be a little more in hand, or i should have been regularly bankrupt. . . ." groholsky got up, took leave of bugrov, and went home rejoicing. in the evening he sent him ten thousand roubles. early next morning bugrov and mishutka were already at feodosia. iii several months had passed; spring had come. with spring, fine bright days had come too. life was not so dull and hateful, and the earth was more fair to look upon. . . . there was a warm breeze from the sea and the open country. . . . the earth was covered with fresh grass, fresh leaves were green upon the trees. nature had sprung into new life, and had put on new array. it might be thought that new hopes and new desires would surge up in man when everything in nature is renewed, and young and fresh . . . but it is hard for man to renew life. . . . groholsky was still living in the same villa. his hopes and desires, small and unexacting, were still concentrated on the same liza, on her alone, and on nothing else! as before, he could not take his eyes off her, and gloated over the thought: how happy i am! the poor fellow really did feel awfully happy. liza sat as before on the verandah, and unaccountably stared with bored eyes at the villa opposite and the trees near it through which there was a peep at the dark blue sea. . . . as before, she spent her days for the most part in silence, often in tears and from time to time in putting mustard plasters on groholsky. she might be congratulated on one new sensation, however. there was a worm gnawing at her vitals. . . . that worm was misery. . . . she was fearfully miserable, pining for her son, for her old, her cheerful manner of life. her life in the past had not been particularly cheerful, but still it was livelier than her present existence. when she lived with her husband she used from time to time to go to a theatre, to an entertainment, to visit acquaintances. but here with groholsky it was all quietness and emptiness. . . . besides, here there was one man, and he with his ailments and his continual mawkish kisses, was like an old grandfather for ever shedding tears of joy. it was boring! here she had not mihey sergeyitch who used to be fond of dancing the mazurka with her. she had not spiridon nikolaitch, the son of the editor of the _provincial news_. spiridon nikolaitch sang well and recited poetry. here she had not a table set with lunch for visitors. she had not gerasimovna, the old nurse who used to be continually grumbling at her for eating too much jam. . . . she had no one! there was simply nothing for her but to lie down and die of depression. groholsky rejoiced in his solitude, but . . . he was wrong to rejoice in it. all too soon he paid for his egoism. at the beginning of may when the very air seemed to be in love and faint with happiness, groholsky lost everything; the woman he loved and. . . that year bugrov, too, visited the crimea. he did not take the villa opposite, but pottered about, going from one town to another with mishutka. he spent his time eating, drinking, sleeping, and playing cards. he had lost all relish for fishing, shooting and the french women, who, between ourselves, had robbed him a bit. he had grown thin, lost his broad and beaming smiles, and had taken to dressing in canvas. ivan petrovitch from time to time visited groholsky's villa. he brought liza jam, sweets, and fruit, and seemed trying to dispel her ennui. groholsky was not troubled by these visits, especially as they were brief and infrequent, and were apparently paid on account of mishutka, who could not under any circumstances have been altogether deprived of the privilege of seeing his mother. bugrov came, unpacked his presents, and after saying a few words, departed. and those few words he said not to liza but to groholsky . . . . with liza he was silent and groholsky's mind was at rest; but there is a russian proverb which he would have done well to remember: "don't fear the dog that barks, but fear the dog that's quiet. . . ." a fiendish proverb, but in practical life sometimes indispensable. as he was walking in the garden one day, groholsky heard two voices in conversation. one voice was a man's, the other was a woman's. one belonged to bugrov, the other to liza. groholsky listened, and turning white as death, turned softly towards the speakers. he halted behind a lilac bush, and proceeded to watch and listen. his arms and legs turned cold. a cold sweat came out upon his brow. he clutched several branches of the lilac that he might not stagger and fall down. all was over! bugrov had his arm round liza's waist, and was saying to her: "my darling! what are we to do? it seems it was god's will. . . . i am a scoundrel. . . . i sold you. i was seduced by that herod's money, plague take him, and what good have i had from the money? nothing but anxiety and display! no peace, no happiness, no position . . . . one sits like a fat invalid at the same spot, and never a step forwarder. . . . have you heard that andrushka markuzin has been made a head clerk? andrushka, that fool! while i stagnate. . . . good heavens! i have lost you, i have lost my happiness. i am a scoundrel, a blackguard, how do you think i shall feel at the dread day of judgment?" "let us go away, vanya," wailed liza. "i am dull. . . . i am dying of depression." "we cannot, the money has been taken. . . ." "well, give it back again." "i should be glad to, but . . . wait a minute. i have spent it all. we must submit, my girl. god is chastising us. me for my covetousness and you for your frivolity. well, let us be tortured. . . . it will be the better for us in the next world." and in an access of religious feeling, bugrov turned up his eyes to heaven. "but i cannot go on living here; i am miserable." "well, there is no help for it. i'm miserable too. do you suppose i am happy without you? i am pining and wasting away! and my chest has begun to be bad! . . . you are my lawful wife, flesh of my flesh . . . one flesh. . . . you must live and bear it! while i . . . will drive over . . . visit you." and bending down to liza, bugrov whispered, loudly enough, however, to be heard several yards away: "i will come to you at night, lizanka. . . . don't worry. . . . i am staying at feodosia close by. . . . i will live here near you till i have run through everything . . . and i soon shall be at my last farthing! a-a-ah, what a life it is! dreariness, ill . . . my chest is bad, and my stomach is bad." bugrov ceased speaking, and then it was liza's turn. . . . my god, the cruelty of that woman! she began weeping, complaining, enumerating all the defects of her lover and her own sufferings. groholsky as he listened to her, felt that he was a villain, a miscreant, a murderer. "he makes me miserable. . . ." liza said in conclusion. after kissing liza at parting, and going out at the garden gate, bugrov came upon groholsky, who was standing at the gate waiting for him. "ivan petrovitch," said groholsky in the tone of a dying man, "i have seen and heard it all. . . it's not honourable on your part, but i do not blame you. . . . you love her too, but you must understand that she is mine. mine! i cannot live without her! how is it you don't understand that? granted that you love her, that you are miserable. . . . have i not paid you, in part at least, for your sufferings? for god's sake, go away! for god's sake, go away! go away from here for ever, i implore you, or you will kill me. . . ." "i have nowhere to go," bugrov said thickly. "h'm, you have squandered everything. . . . you are an impulsive man. very well. . . . go to my estate in the province of tchernigov. if you like i will make you a present of the property. it's a small estate, but a good one. . . . on my honour, it's a good one!" bugrov gave a broad grin. he suddenly felt himself in the seventh heaven. "i will give it you. . . . this very day i will write to my steward and send him an authorisation for completing the purchase. you must tell everyone you have bought it. . . . go away, i entreat you." "very good, i will go. i understand." "let us go to a notary . . . at once," said groholsky, greatly cheered, and he went to order the carriage. on the following evening, when liza was sitting on the garden seat where her rendezvous with ivan petrovitch usually took place, groholsky went quietly to her. he sat down beside her, and took her hand. "are you dull, lizotchka?" he said, after a brief silence. "are you depressed? why shouldn't we go away somewhere? why is it we always stay at home? we want to go about, to enjoy ourselves, to make acquaintances. . . . don't we?" "i want nothing," said liza, and turned her pale, thin face towards the path by which bugrov used to come to her. groholsky pondered. he knew who it was she expected, who it was she wanted. "let us go home, liza," he said, "it is damp here. . . ." "you go; i'll come directly." groholsky pondered again. "you are expecting him?" he asked, and made a wry face as though his heart had been gripped with red-hot pincers. "yes. . . . i want to give him the socks for misha. . . ." "he will not come." "how do you know?" "he has gone away. . . ." liza opened her eyes wide. . . . "he has gone away, gone to the tchernigov province. i have given him my estate. . . ." liza turned fearfully pale, and caught at groholsky's shoulder to save herself from falling. "i saw him off at the steamer at three o'clock." liza suddenly clutched at her head, made a movement, and falling on the seat, began shaking all over. "vanya," she wailed, "vanya! i will go to vanya. . . . darling!" she had a fit of hysterics. . . . and from that evening, right up to july, two shadows could be seen in the park in which the summer visitors took their walks. the shadows wandered about from morning till evening, and made the summer visitors feel dismal. . . . after liza's shadow invariably walked the shadow of groholsky. . . . i call them shadows because they had both lost their natural appearance. they had grown thin and pale and shrunken, and looked more like shadows than living people. . . . both were pining away like fleas in the classic anecdote of the jew who sold insect powder. at the beginning of july, liza ran away from groholsky, leaving a note in which she wrote that she was going for a time to "her son" . . . for a time! she ran away by night when groholsky was asleep . . . . after reading her letter groholsky spent a whole week wandering round about the villa as though he were mad, and neither ate nor slept. in august, he had an attack of recurrent fever, and in september he went abroad. there he took to drink. . . . he hoped in drink and dissipation to find comfort. . . . he squandered all his fortune, but did not succeed, poor fellow, in driving out of his brain the image of the beloved woman with the kittenish face . . . . men do not die of happiness, nor do they die of misery. groholsky's hair went grey, but he did not die: he is alive to this day. . . . he came back from abroad to have "just a peep" at liza . . . . bugrov met him with open arms, and made him stay for an indefinite period. he is staying with bugrov to this day. this year i happened to be passing through groholyovka, bugrov's estate. i found the master and the mistress of the house having supper. . . . ivan petrovitch was highly delighted to see me, and fell to pressing good things upon me. . . . he had grown rather stout, and his face was a trifle puffy, though it was still rosy and looked sleek and well-nourished. . . . he was not bald. liza, too, had grown fatter. plumpness did not suit her. her face was beginning to lose the kittenish look, and was, alas! more suggestive of the seal. her cheeks were spreading upwards, outwards, and to both sides. the bugrovs were living in first-rate style. they had plenty of everything. the house was overflowing with servants and edibles. . . . when we had finished supper we got into conversation. forgetting that liza did not play, i asked her to play us something on the piano. "she does not play," said bugrov; "she is no musician. . . . hey, you there! ivan! call grigory vassilyevitch here! what's he doing there?" and turning to me, bugrov added, "our musician will come directly; he plays the guitar. we keep the piano for mishutka--we are having him taught. . . ." five minutes later, groholsky walked into the room--sleepy, unkempt, and unshaven. . . . he walked in, bowed to me, and sat down on one side. "why, whoever goes to bed so early?" said bugrov, addressing him. "what a fellow you are really! he's always asleep, always asleep . . . the sleepy head! come, play us something lively. . . ." groholsky turned the guitar, touched the strings, and began singing: "yesterday i waited for my dear one. . . ." i listened to the singing, looked at bugrov's well-fed countenance, and thought: "nasty brute!" i felt like crying. . . . when he had finished singing, groholsky bowed to us, and went out. "and what am i to do with him?" bugrov said when he had gone away. "i do have trouble with him! in the day he is always brooding and brooding. . . . and at night he moans. . . . he sleeps, but he sighs and moans in his sleep. . . . it is a sort of illness. . . . what am i to do with him, i can't think! he won't let us sleep. . . . i am afraid that he will go out of his mind. people think he is badly treated here. . . . in what way is he badly treated? he eats with us, and he drinks with us. . . . only we won't give him money. if we were to give him any he would spend it on drink or waste it . . . . that's another trouble for me! lord forgive me, a sinner!" they made me stay the night. when i woke next morning, bugrov was giving some one a lecture in the adjoining room. . . . "set a fool to say his prayers, and he will crack his skull on the floor! why, who paints oars green! do think, blockhead! use your sense! why don't you speak?" "i . . . i . . . made a mistake," said a husky tenor apologetically. the tenor belonged to groholsky. groholsky saw me to the station. "he is a despot, a tyrant," he kept whispering to me all the way. "he is a generous man, but a tyrant! neither heart nor brain are developed in him. . . . he tortures me! if it were not for that noble woman, i should have gone away long ago. i am sorry to leave her. it's somehow easier to endure together." groholsky heaved a sigh, and went on: "she is with child. . . . you notice it? it is really my child. . . . mine. . . . she soon saw her mistake, and gave herself to me again. she cannot endure him. . . ." "you are a rag," i could not refrain from saying to groholsky. "yes, i am a man of weak character. . . . that is quite true. i was born so. do you know how i came into the world? my late papa cruelly oppressed a certain little clerk--it was awful how he treated him! he poisoned his life. well . . . and my late mama was tender-hearted. she came from the people, she was of the working class. . . . she took that little clerk to her heart from pity. . . . well . . . and so i came into the world. . . . the son of the ill-treated clerk. how could i have a strong will? where was i to get it from? but that's the second bell. . . . good-bye. come and see us again, but don't tell ivan petrovitch what i have said about him." i pressed groholsky's hand, and got into the train. he bowed towards the carriage, and went to the water-barrel--i suppose he was thirsty! the doctor it was still in the drawing-room, so still that a house-fly that had flown in from outside could be distinctly heard brushing against the ceiling. olga ivanovna, the lady of the villa, was standing by the window, looking out at the flower-beds and thinking. dr. tsvyetkov, who was her doctor as well as an old friend, and had been sent for to treat her son misha, was sitting in an easy chair and swinging his hat, which he held in both hands, and he too was thinking. except them, there was not a soul in the drawing-room or in the adjoining rooms. the sun had set, and the shades of evening began settling in the corners under the furniture and on the cornices. the silence was broken by olga ivanovna. "no misfortune more terrible can be imagined," she said, without turning from the window. "you know that life has no value for me whatever apart from the boy." "yes, i know that," said the doctor. "no value whatever," said olga ivanovna, and her voice quivered. "he is everything to me. he is my joy, my happiness, my wealth. and if, as you say, i cease to be a mother, if he . . . dies, there will be nothing left of me but a shadow. i cannot survive it." wringing her hands, olga ivanovna walked from one window to the other and went on: "when he was born, i wanted to send him away to the foundling hospital, you remember that, but, my god, how can that time be compared with now? then i was vulgar, stupid, feather-headed, but now i am a mother, do you understand? i am a mother, and that's all i care to know. between the present and the past there is an impassable gulf." silence followed again. the doctor shifted his seat from the chair to the sofa and impatiently playing with his hat, kept his eyes fixed upon olga ivanovna. from his face it could be seen that he wanted to speak, and was waiting for a fitting moment. "you are silent, but still i do not give up hope," said the lady, turning round. "why are you silent?" "i should be as glad of any hope as you, olga, but there is none," tsvyetkov answered, "we must look the hideous truth in the face. the boy has a tumour on the brain, and we must try to prepare ourselves for his death, for such cases never recover." "nikolay, are you certain you are not mistaken?" "such questions lead to nothing. i am ready to answer as many as you like, but it will make it no better for us." olga ivanovna pressed her face into the window curtains, and began weeping bitterly. the doctor got up and walked several times up and down the drawing-room, then went to the weeping woman, and lightly touched her arm. judging from his uncertain movements, from the expression of his gloomy face, which looked dark in the dusk of the evening, he wanted to say something. "listen, olga," he began. "spare me a minute's attention; there is something i must ask you. you can't attend to me now, though. i'll come later, afterwards. . . ." he sat down again, and sank into thought. the bitter, imploring weeping, like the weeping of a little girl, continued. without waiting for it to end, tsvyetkov heaved a sigh and walked out of the drawing-room. he went into the nursery to misha. the boy was lying on his back as before, staring at one point as though he were listening. the doctor sat down on his bed and felt his pulse. "misha, does your head ache?" he asked. misha answered, not at once: "yes. i keep dreaming." "what do you dream?" "all sorts of things. . . ." the doctor, who did not know how to talk with weeping women or with children, stroked his burning head, and muttered: "never mind, poor boy, never mind. . . . one can't go through life without illness. . . . misha, who am i--do you know me?" misha did not answer. "does your head ache very badly?" "ve-ery. i keep dreaming." after examining him and putting a few questions to the maid who was looking after the sick child, the doctor went slowly back to the drawing-room. there it was by now dark, and olga ivanovna, standing by the window, looked like a silhouette. "shall i light up?" asked tsvyetkov. no answer followed. the house-fly was still brushing against the ceiling. not a sound floated in from outside as though the whole world, like the doctor, were thinking, and could not bring itself to speak. olga ivanovna was not weeping now, but as before, staring at the flower-bed in profound silence. when tsvyetkov went up to her, and through the twilight glanced at her pale face, exhausted with grief, her expression was such as he had seen before during her attacks of acute, stupefying, sick headache. "nikolay trofimitch!" she addressed him, "and what do you think about a consultation?" "very good; i'll arrange it to-morrow." from the doctor's tone it could be easily seen that he put little faith in the benefit of a consultation. olga ivanovna would have asked him something else, but her sobs prevented her. again she pressed her face into the window curtain. at that moment, the strains of a band playing at the club floated in distinctly. they could hear not only the wind instruments, but even the violins and the flutes. "if he is in pain, why is he silent?" asked olga ivanovna. "all day long, not a sound, he never complains, and never cries. i know god will take the poor boy from us because we have not known how to prize him. such a treasure!" the band finished the march, and a minute later began playing a lively waltz for the opening of the ball. "good god, can nothing really be done?" moaned olga ivanovna. "nikolay, you are a doctor and ought to know what to do! you must understand that i can't bear the loss of him! i can't survive it." the doctor, who did not know how to talk to weeping women, heaved a sigh, and paced slowly about the drawing-room. there followed a succession of oppressive pauses interspersed with weeping and the questions which lead to nothing. the band had already played a quadrille, a polka, and another quadrille. it got quite dark. in the adjoining room, the maid lighted the lamp; and all the while the doctor kept his hat in his hands, and seemed trying to say something. several times olga ivanovna went off to her son, sat by him for half an hour, and came back again into the drawing-room; she was continually breaking into tears and lamentations. the time dragged agonisingly, and it seemed as though the evening had no end. at midnight, when the band had played the cotillion and ceased altogether, the doctor got ready to go. "i will come again to-morrow," he said, pressing the mother's cold hand. "you go to bed." after putting on his greatcoat in the passage and picking up his walking-stick, he stopped, thought a minute, and went back into the drawing-room. "i'll come to-morrow, olga," he repeated in a quivering voice. "do you hear?" she did not answer, and it seemed as though grief had robbed her of all power of speech. in his greatcoat and with his stick still in his hand, the doctor sat down beside her, and began in a soft, tender half-whisper, which was utterly out of keeping with his heavy, dignified figure: "olga! for the sake of your sorrow which i share. . . . now, when falsehood is criminal, i beseech you to tell me the truth. you have always declared that the boy is my son. is that the truth?" olga ivanovna was silent. "you have been the one attachment in my life," the doctor went on, "and you cannot imagine how deeply my feeling is wounded by falsehood . . . . come, i entreat you, olga, for once in your life, tell me the truth. . . . at these moments one cannot lie. tell me that misha is not my son. i am waiting." "he is." olga ivanovna's face could not be seen, but in her voice the doctor could hear hesitation. he sighed. "even at such moments you can bring yourself to tell a lie," he said in his ordinary voice. "there is nothing sacred to you! do listen, do understand me. . . . you have been the one only attachment in my life. yes, you were depraved, vulgar, but i have loved no one else but you in my life. that trivial love, now that i am growing old, is the one solitary bright spot in my memories. why do you darken it with deception? what is it for?" "i don't understand you." "oh my god!" cried tsvyetkov. "you are lying, you understand very well!" he cried more loudly, and he began pacing about the drawing-room, angrily waving his stick. "or have you forgotten? then i will remind you! a father's rights to the boy are equally shared with me by petrov and kurovsky the lawyer, who still make you an allowance for their son's education, just as i do! yes, indeed! i know all that quite well! i forgive your lying in the past, what does it matter? but now when you have grown older, at this moment when the boy is dying, your lying stifles me! how sorry i am that i cannot speak, how sorry i am!" the doctor unbuttoned his overcoat, and still pacing about, said: "wretched woman! even such moments have no effect on her! even now she lies as freely as nine years ago in the hermitage restaurant! she is afraid if she tells me the truth i shall leave off giving her money, she thinks that if she did not lie i should not love the boy! you are lying! it's contemptible!" the doctor rapped the floor with his stick, and cried: "it's loathsome. warped, corrupted creature! i must despise you, and i ought to be ashamed of my feeling. yes! your lying has stuck in my throat these nine years, i have endured it, but now it's too much--too much." from the dark corner where olga ivanovna was sitting there came the sound of weeping. the doctor ceased speaking and cleared his throat. a silence followed. the doctor slowly buttoned up his over-coat, and began looking for his hat which he had dropped as he walked about. "i lost my temper," he muttered, bending down to the floor. "i quite lost sight of the fact that you cannot attend to me now. . . . god knows what i have said. . . . don't take any notice of it, olga." he found his hat and went towards the dark corner. "i have wounded you," he said in a soft, tender half-whisper, "but once more i entreat you, tell me the truth; there should not be lying between us. . . . i blurted it out, and now you know that petrov and kurovsky are no secret to me. so now it is easy for you to tell me the truth." olga ivanovna thought a moment, and with perceptible hesitation, said: "nikolay, i am not lying--misha is your child." "my god," moaned the doctor, "then i will tell you something more: i have kept your letter to petrov in which you call him misha's father! olga, i know the truth, but i want to hear it from you! do you hear?" olga ivanovna made no reply, but went on weeping. after waiting for an answer the doctor shrugged his shoulders and went out. "i will come to-morrow," he called from the passage. all the way home, as he sat in his carriage, he was shrugging his shoulders and muttering: "what a pity that i don't know how to speak! i haven't the gift of persuading and convincing. it's evident she does not understand me since she lies! it's evident! how can i make her see? how?" too early! the bells are ringing for service in the village of shalmovo. the sun is already kissing the earth on the horizon; it has turned crimson and will soon disappear. in semyon's pothouse, which has lately changed its name and become a restaurant--a title quite out of keeping with the wretched little hut with its thatch torn off its roof, and its couple of dingy windows--two peasant sportsmen are sitting. one of them is called filimon slyunka; he is an old man of sixty, formerly a house-serf, belonging to the counts zavalin, by trade a carpenter. he has at one time been employed in a nail factory, has been turned off for drunkenness and idleness, and now lives upon his old wife, who begs for alms. he is thin and weak, with a mangy-looking little beard, speaks with a hissing sound, and after every word twitches the right side of his face and jerkily shrugs his right shoulder. the other, ignat ryabov, a sturdy, broad-shouldered peasant who never does anything and is everlastingly silent, is sitting in the corner under a big string of bread rings. the door, opening inwards, throws a thick shadow upon him, so that slyunka and semyon the publican can see nothing but his patched knees, his long fleshy nose, and a big tuft of hair which has escaped from the thick uncombed tangle covering his head. semyon, a sickly little man, with a pale face and a long sinewy neck, stands behind his counter, looks mournfully at the string of bread rings, and coughs meekly. "you think it over now, if you have any sense," slyunka says to him, twitching his cheek. "you have the thing lying by unused and get no sort of benefit from it. while we need it. a sportsman without a gun is like a sacristan without a voice. you ought to understand that, but i see you don't understand it, so you can have no real sense. . . . hand it over!" "you left the gun in pledge, you know!" says semyon in a thin womanish little voice, sighing deeply, and not taking his eyes off the string of bread rings. "hand over the rouble you borrowed, and then take your gun." "i haven't got a rouble. i swear to you, semyon mitritch, as god sees me: you give me the gun and i will go to-day with ignashka and bring it you back again. i'll bring it back, strike me dead. may i have happiness neither in this world nor the next, if i don't." "semyon mitritch, do give it," ignat ryabov says in his bass, and his voice betrays a passionate desire to get what he asks for. "but what do you want the gun for?" sighs semyon, sadly shaking his head. "what sort of shooting is there now? it's still winter outside, and no game at all but crows and jackdaws." "winter, indeed," says slyunka, hooing the ash out of his pipe with his finger, "it is early yet of course, but you never can tell with the snipe. the snipe's a bird that wants watching. if you are unlucky, you may sit waiting at home, and miss his flying over, and then you must wait till autumn. . . . it is a business! the snipe is not a rook. . . . last year he was flying the week before easter, while the year before we had to wait till the week after easter! come, do us a favour, semyon mitritch, give us the gun. make us pray for you for ever. as ill-luck would have it, ignashka has pledged his gun for drink too. ah, when you drink you feel nothing, but now . . . ah, i wish i had never looked at it, the cursed vodka! truly it is the blood of satan! give it us, semyon mitritch!" "i won't give it you," says semyon, clasping his yellow hands on his breast as though he were going to pray. "you must act fairly, filimonushka. . . . a thing is not taken out of pawn just anyhow; you must pay the money. . . . besides, what do you want to kill birds for? what's the use? it's lent now--you are not going to eat them." slyunka exchanges glances with ryabov in embarrassment, sighs, and says: "we would only go stand-shooting." "and what for? it's all foolishness. you are not the sort of man to spend your time in foolishness. . . . ignashka, to be sure, is a man of no understanding, god has afflicted him, but you, thank the lord, are an old man. it's time to prepare for your end. here, you ought to go to the midnight service." the allusion to his age visibly stings slyunka. he clears his throat, wrinkles up his forehead, and remains silent for a full minute. "i say, semyon mitritch," he says hotly, getting up and twitching not only in his right cheek but all over his face. "it's god's truth. . . . may the almighty strike me dead, after easter i shall get something from stepan kuzmitch for an axle, and i will pay you not one rouble but two! may the lord chastise me! before the holy image, i tell you, only give me the gun!" "gi-ive it," ryabov says in his growling bass; they can hear him breathing hard, and it seems that he would like to say a great deal, but cannot find the words. "gi-ive it." "no, brothers, and don't ask," sighs semyon, shaking his head mournfully. "don't lead me into sin. i won't give you the gun. it's not the fashion for a thing to be taken out of pawn and no money paid. besides--why this indulgence? go your way and god bless you!" slyunka rubs his perspiring face with his sleeve and begins hotly swearing and entreating. he crosses himself, holds out his hands to the ikon, calls his deceased father and mother to bear witness, but semyon sighs and meekly looks as before at the string of bread rings. in the end ignashka ryabov, hitherto motionless, gets up impulsively and bows down to the ground before the innkeeper, but even that has no effect on him. "may you choke with my gun, you devil," says slyunka, with his face twitching, and his shoulders, shrugging. "may you choke, you plague, you scoundrelly soul." swearing and shaking his fists, he goes out of the tavern with ryabov and stands still in the middle of the road. "he won't give it, the damned brute," he says, in a weeping voice, looking into ryabov's face with an injured air. "he won't give it," booms ryabov. the windows of the furthest huts, the starling cote on the tavern, the tops of the poplars, and the cross on the church are all gleaming with a bright golden flame. now they can see only half of the sun, which, as it goes to its night's rest, is winking, shedding a crimson light, and seems laughing gleefully. slyunka and ryabov can see the forest lying, a dark blur, to the right of the sun, a mile and a half from the village, and tiny clouds flitting over the clear sky, and they feel that the evening will be fine and still. "now is just the time," says slyunka, with his face twitching. "it would be nice to stand for an hour or two. he won't give it us, the damned brute. may he . . ." "for stand-shooting, now is the very time . . ." ryabov articulated, as though with an effort, stammering. after standing still for a little they walk out of the village, without saying a word to each other, and look towards the dark streak of the forest. the whole sky above the forest is studded with moving black spots, the rooks flying home to roost. the snow, lying white here and there on the dark brown plough-land, is lightly flecked with gold by the sun. "this time last year i went stand-shooting in zhivki," says slyunka, after a long silence. "i brought back three snipe." again there follows a silence. both stand a long time and look towards the forest, and then lazily move and walk along the muddy road from the village. "it's most likely the snipe haven't come yet," says slyunka, "but may be they are here." "kostka says they are not here yet." "maybe they are not, who can tell; one year is not like another. but what mud!" "but we ought to stand." "to be sure we ought--why not?" "we can stand and watch; it wouldn't be amiss to go to the forest and have a look. if they are there we will tell kostka, or maybe get a gun ourselves and come to-morrow. what a misfortune, god forgive me. it was the devil put it in my mind to take my gun to the pothouse! i am more sorry than i can tell you, ignashka." conversing thus, the sportsmen approach the forest. the sun has set and left behind it a red streak like the glow of a fire, scattered here and there with clouds; there is no catching the colours of those clouds: their edges are red, but they themselves are one minute grey, at the next lilac, at the next ashen. in the forest, among the thick branches of fir-trees and under the birch bushes, it is dark, and only the outermost twigs on the side of the sun, with their fat buds and shining bark, stand out clearly in the air. there is a smell of thawing snow and rotting leaves. it is still; nothing stirs. from the distance comes the subsiding caw of the rooks. "we ought to be standing in zhivki now," whispers slyunka, looking with awe at ryabov; "there's good stand-shooting there." ryabov too looks with awe at slyunka, with unblinking eyes and open mouth. "a lovely time," slyunka says in a trembling whisper. "the lord is sending a fine spring . . . and i should think the snipe are here by now. . . . why not? the days are warm now. . . . the cranes were flying in the morning, lots and lots of them." slyunka and ryabov, splashing cautiously through the melting snow and sticking in the mud, walk two hundred paces along the edge of the forest and there halt. their faces wear a look of alarm and expectation of something terrible and extraordinary. they stand like posts, do not speak nor stir, and their hands gradually fall into an attitude as though they were holding a gun at the cock. . . . a big shadow creeps from the left and envelops the earth. the dusk of evening comes on. if one looks to the right, through the bushes and tree trunks, there can be seen crimson patches of the after-glow. it is still and damp. . . . "there's no sound of them," whispers slyunka, shrugging with the cold and sniffing with his chilly nose. but frightened by his own whisper, he holds his finger up at some one, opens his eyes wide, and purses up his lips. there is a sound of a light snapping. the sportsmen look at each other significantly, and tell each other with their eyes that it is nothing. it is the snapping of a dry twig or a bit of bark. the shadows of evening keep growing and growing, the patches of crimson gradually grow dim, and the dampness becomes unpleasant. the sportsmen remain standing a long time, but they see and hear nothing. every instant they expect to see a delicate leaf float through the air, to hear a hurried call like the husky cough of a child, and the flutter of wings. "no, not a sound," slyunka says aloud, dropping his hands and beginning to blink. "so they have not come yet." "it's early!" "you are right there." the sportsmen cannot see each other's faces, it is getting rapidly dark. "we must wait another five days," says slyunka, as he comes out from behind a bush with ryabov. "it's too early!" they go homewards, and are silent all the way. the cossack maxim tortchakov, a farmer in southern russia, was driving home from church with his young wife and bringing back an easter cake which had just been blessed. the sun had not yet risen, but the east was all tinged with red and gold and had dissipated the haze which usually, in the early morning, screens the blue of the sky from the eyes. it was quiet. . . . the birds were hardly yet awake . . . . the corncrake uttered its clear note, and far away above a little tumulus, a sleepy kite floated, heavily flapping its wings, and no other living creature could be seen all over the steppe. tortchakov drove on and thought that there was no better nor happier holiday than the feast of christ's resurrection. he had only lately been married, and was now keeping his first easter with his wife. whatever he looked at, whatever he thought about, it all seemed to him bright, joyous, and happy. he thought about his farming, and thought that it was all going well, that the furnishing of his house was all the heart could desire--there was enough of everything and all of it good; he looked at his wife, and she seemed to him lovely, kind, and gentle. he was delighted by the glow in the east, and the young grass, and his squeaking chaise, and the kite. . . . and when on the way, he ran into a tavern to light his cigarette and drank a glass, he felt happier still. "it is said, 'great is the day,'" he chattered. "yes, it is great! wait a bit, lizaveta, the sun will begin to dance. it dances every easter. so it rejoices too!" "it is not alive," said his wife. "but there are people on it!" exclaimed tortchakov, "there are really! ivan stepanitch told me that there are people on all the planets--on the sun, and on the moon! truly . . . but maybe the learned men tell lies--the devil only knows! stay, surely that's not a horse? yes, it is!" at the crooked ravine, which was just half-way on the journey home, tortchakov and his wife saw a saddled horse standing motionless, and sniffing last year's dry grass. on a hillock beside the roadside a red-haired cossack was sitting doubled up, looking at his feet. "christ is risen!" maxim shouted to him. "wo-o-o!" "truly he is risen," answered the cossack, without raising his head. "where are you going?" "home on leave." "why are you sitting here, then?" "why . . . i have fallen ill . . . i haven't the strength to go on." "what is wrong?" "i ache all over." "h'm. what a misfortune! people are keeping holiday, and you fall sick! but you should ride on to a village or an inn, what's the use of sitting here!" the cossack raised his head, and with big, exhausted eyes, scanned maxim, his wife, and the horse. "have you come from church?" he asked. "yes." "the holiday found me on the high road. it was not god's will for me to reach home. i'd get on my horse at once and ride off, but i haven't the strength. . . . you might, good christians, give a wayfarer some easter cake to break his fast!" "easter cake?" tortchakov repeated, "that we can, to be sure. . . . stay, i'll. . . ." maxim fumbled quickly in his pockets, glanced at his wife, and said: "i haven't a knife, nothing to cut it with. and i don't like to break it, it would spoil the whole cake. there's a problem! you look and see if you haven't a knife?" the cossack got up groaning, and went to his saddle to get a knife. "what an idea," said tortchakov's wife angrily. "i won't let you slice up the easter cake! what should i look like, taking it home already cut! ride on to the peasants in the village, and break your fast there!" the wife took the napkin with the easter cake in it out of her husband's hands and said: "i won't allow it! one must do things properly; it's not a loaf, but a holy easter cake. and it's a sin to cut it just anyhow." "well, cossack, don't be angry," laughed tortchakov. "the wife forbids it! good-bye. good luck on your journey!" maxim shook the reins, clicked to his horse, and the chaise rolled on squeaking. for some time his wife went on grumbling, and declaring that to cut the easter cake before reaching home was a sin and not the proper thing. in the east the first rays of the rising sun shone out, cutting their way through the feathery clouds, and the song of the lark was heard in the sky. now not one but three kites were hovering over the steppe at a respectful distance from one another. grasshoppers began churring in the young grass. when they had driven three-quarters of a mile from the crooked ravine, tortchakov looked round and stared intently into the distance. "i can't see the cossack," he said. "poor, dear fellow, to take it into his head to fall ill on the road. there couldn't be a worse misfortune, to have to travel and not have the strength. . . . i shouldn't wonder if he dies by the roadside. we didn't give him any easter cake, lizaveta, and we ought to have given it. i'll be bound he wants to break his fast too." the sun had risen, but whether it was dancing or not tortchakov did not see. he remained silent all the way home, thinking and keeping his eyes fixed on the horse's black tail. for some unknown reason he felt overcome by depression, and not a trace of the holiday gladness was left in his heart. when he had arrived home and said, "christ is risen" to his workmen, he grew cheerful again and began talking, but when he had sat down to break the fast and had taken a bite from his piece of easter cake, he looked regretfully at his wife, and said: "it wasn't right of us, lizaveta, not to give that cossack something to eat." "you are a queer one, upon my word," said lizaveta, shrugging her shoulders in surprise. "where did you pick up such a fashion as giving away the holy easter cake on the high road? is it an ordinary loaf? now that it is cut and lying on the table, let anyone eat it that likes--your cossack too! do you suppose i grudge it?" "that's all right, but we ought to have given the cossack some. . . . why, he was worse off than a beggar or an orphan. on the road, and far from home, and sick too." tortchakov drank half a glass of tea, and neither ate nor drank anything more. he had no appetite, the tea seemed to choke him, and he felt depressed again. after breaking their fast, his wife and he lay down to sleep. when lizaveta woke two hours later, he was standing by the window, looking into the yard. "are you up already?" asked his wife. "i somehow can't sleep. . . . ah, lizaveta," he sighed. "we were unkind, you and i, to that cossack!" "talking about that cossack again!" yawned his wife. "you have got him on the brain." "he has served his tsar, shed his blood maybe, and we treated him as though he were a pig. we ought to have brought the sick man home and fed him, and we did not even give him a morsel of bread." "catch me letting you spoil the easter cake for nothing! and one that has been blessed too! you would have cut it on the road, and shouldn't i have looked a fool when i got home?" without saying anything to his wife, maxim went into the kitchen, wrapped a piece of cake up in a napkin, together with half a dozen eggs, and went to the labourers in the barn. "kuzma, put down your concertina," he said to one of them. "saddle the bay, or ivantchik, and ride briskly to the crooked ravine. there you will see a sick cossack with a horse, so give him this. maybe he hasn't ridden away yet." maxim felt cheerful again, but after waiting for kuzma for some hours, he could bear it no longer, so he saddled a horse and went off to meet him. he met him just at the ravine. "well, have you seen the cossack?" "i can't find him anywhere, he must have ridden on." "h'm . . . a queer business." tortchakov took the bundle from kuzma, and galloped on farther. when he reached shustrovo he asked the peasants: "friends, have you seen a sick cossack with a horse? didn't he ride by here? a red-headed fellow on a bay horse." the peasants looked at one another, and said they had not seen the cossack. "the returning postman drove by, it's true, but as for a cossack or anyone else, there has been no such." maxim got home at dinner time. "i can't get that cossack out of my head, do what you will!" he said to his wife. "he gives me no peace. i keep thinking: what if god meant to try us, and sent some saint or angel in the form of a cossack? it does happen, you know. it's bad, lizaveta; we were unkind to the man!" "what do you keep pestering me with that cossack for?" cried lizaveta, losing patience at last. "you stick to it like tar!" "you are not kind, you know . . ." said maxim, looking into his wife's face. and for the first time since his marriage he perceived that he wife was not kind. "i may be unkind," cried lizaveta, tapping angrily with her spoon, "but i am not going to give away the holy easter cake to every drunken man in the road." "the cossack wasn't drunk!" "he was drunk!" "well, you are a fool then!" maxim got up from the table and began reproaching his young wife for hard-heartedness and stupidity. she, getting angry too, answered his reproaches with reproaches, burst into tears, and went away into their bedroom, declaring she would go home to her father's. this was the first matrimonial squabble that had happened in the tortchakov's married life. he walked about the yard till the evening, picturing his wife's face, and it seemed to him now spiteful and ugly. and as though to torment him the cossack haunted his brain, and maxim seemed to see now his sick eyes, now his unsteady walk. "ah, we were unkind to the man," he muttered. when it got dark, he was overcome by an insufferable depression such as he had never felt before. feeling so dreary, and being angry with his wife, he got drunk, as he had sometimes done before he was married. in his drunkenness he used bad language and shouted to his wife that she had a spiteful, ugly face, and that next day he would send her packing to her father's. on the morning of easter monday, he drank some more to sober himself, and got drunk again. and with that his downfall began. his horses, cows, sheep, and hives disappeared one by one from the yard; maxim was more and more often drunk, debts mounted up, he felt an aversion for his wife. maxim put down all his misfortunes to the fact that he had an unkind wife, and above all, that god was angry with him on account of the sick cossack. lizaveta saw their ruin, but who was to blame for it she did not understand. aborigines between nine and ten in the morning. ivan lyashkevsky, a lieutenant of polish origin, who has at some time or other been wounded in the head, and now lives on his pension in a town in one of the southern provinces, is sitting in his lodgings at the open window talking to franz stepanitch finks, the town architect, who has come in to see him for a minute. both have thrust their heads out of the window, and are looking in the direction of the gate near which lyashkevsky's landlord, a plump little native with pendulous perspiring cheeks, in full, blue trousers, is sitting on a bench with his waistcoat unbuttoned. the native is plunged in deep thought, and is absent-mindedly prodding the toe of his boot with a stick. "extraordinary people, i tell you," grumbled lyashkevsky, looking angrily at the native, "here he has sat down on the bench, and so he will sit, damn the fellow, with his hands folded till evening. they do absolutely nothing. the wastrels and loafers! it would be all right, you scoundrel, if you had money lying in the bank, or had a farm of your own where others would be working for you, but here you have not a penny to your name, you eat the bread of others, you are in debt all round, and you starve your family--devil take you! you wouldn't believe me, franz stepanitch, sometimes it makes me so cross that i could jump out of the window and give the low fellow a good horse-whipping. come, why don't you work? what are you sitting there for?" the native looks indifferently at lyashkevsky, tries to say something but cannot; sloth and the sultry heat have paralysed his conversational faculties. . . . yawning lazily, he makes the sign of the cross over his mouth, and turns his eyes up towards the sky where pigeons fly, bathing in the hot air. "you must not be too severe in your judgments, honoured friend," sighs finks, mopping his big bald head with his handkerchief. "put yourself in their place: business is slack now, there's unemployment all round, a bad harvest, stagnation in trade." "good gracious, how you talk!" cries lyashkevsky in indignation, angrily wrapping his dressing gown round him. "supposing he has no job and no trade, why doesn't he work in his own home, the devil flay him! i say! is there no work for you at home? just look, you brute! your steps have come to pieces, the plankway is falling into the ditch, the fence is rotten; you had better set to and mend it all, or if you don't know how, go into the kitchen and help your wife. your wife is running out every minute to fetch water or carry out the slops. why shouldn't you run instead, you rascal? and then you must remember, franz stepanitch, that he has six acres of garden, that he has pigsties and poultry houses, but it is all wasted and no use. the flower garden is overgrown with weeds and almost baked dry, while the boys play ball in the kitchen garden. isn't he a lazy brute? i assure you, though i have only the use of an acre and a half with my lodgings, you will always find radishes, and salad, and fennel, and onions, while that blackguard buys everything at the market." "he is a russian, there is no doing anything with him," said finks with a condescending smile; "it's in the russian blood. . . . they are a very lazy people! if all property were given to germans or poles, in a year's time you would not recognise the town." the native in the blue trousers beckons a girl with a sieve, buys a kopeck's worth of sunflower seeds from her and begins cracking them. "a race of curs!" says lyashkevsky angrily. "that's their only occupation, they crack sunflower seeds and they talk politics! the devil take them!" staring wrathfully at the blue trousers, lyashkevsky is gradually roused to fury, and gets so excited that he actually foams at the mouth. he speaks with a polish accent, rapping out each syllable venomously, till at last the little bags under his eyes swell, and he abandons the russian "scoundrels, blackguards, and rascals," and rolling his eyes, begins pouring out a shower of polish oaths, coughing from his efforts. "lazy dogs, race of curs. may the devil take them!" the native hears this abuse distinctly, but, judging from the appearance of his crumpled little figure, it does not affect him. apparently he has long ago grown as used to it as to the buzzing of the flies, and feels it superfluous to protest. at every visit finks has to listen to a tirade on the subject of the lazy good-for-nothing aborigines, and every time exactly the same one. "but . . . i must be going," he says, remembering that he has no time to spare. "good-bye!" "where are you off to?" "i only looked in on you for a minute. the wall of the cellar has cracked in the girls' high school, so they asked me to go round at once to look at it. i must go." "h'm. . . . i have told varvara to get the samovar," says lyashkevsky, surprised. "stay a little, we will have some tea; then you shall go." finks obediently puts down his hat on the table and remains to drink tea. over their tea lyashkevsky maintains that the natives are hopelessly ruined, that there is only one thing to do, to take them all indiscriminately and send them under strict escort to hard labour. "why, upon my word," he says, getting hot, "you may ask what does that goose sitting there live upon! he lets me lodgings in his house for seven roubles a month, and he goes to name-day parties, that's all that he has to live on, the knave, may the devil take him! he has neither earnings nor an income. they are not merely sluggards and wastrels, they are swindlers too, they are continually borrowing money from the town bank, and what do they do with it? they plunge into some scheme such as sending bulls to moscow, or building oil presses on a new system; but to send bulls to moscow or to press oil you want to have a head on your shoulders, and these rascals have pumpkins on theirs! of course all their schemes end in smoke . . . . they waste their money, get into a mess, and then snap their fingers at the bank. what can you get out of them? their houses are mortgaged over and over again, they have no other property--it's all been drunk and eaten up long ago. nine-tenths of them are swindlers, the scoundrels! to borrow money and not return it is their rule. thanks to them the town bank is going smash!" "i was at yegorov's yesterday," finks interrupts the pole, anxious to change the conversation, "and only fancy, i won six roubles and a half from him at picquet." "i believe i still owe you something at picquet," lyashkevsky recollects, "i ought to win it back. wouldn't you like one game?" "perhaps just one," finks assents. "i must make haste to the high school, you know." lyashkevsky and finks sit down at the open window and begin a game of picquet. the native in the blue trousers stretches with relish, and husks of sunflower seeds fall in showers from all over him on to the ground. at that moment from the gate opposite appears another native with a long beard, wearing a crumpled yellowish-grey cotton coat. he screws up his eyes affectionately at the blue trousers and shouts: "good-morning, semyon nikolaitch, i have the honour to congratulate you on the thursday." "and the same to you, kapiton petrovitch!" "come to my seat! it's cool here!" the blue trousers, with much sighing and groaning and waddling from side to side like a duck, cross the street. "tierce major . . ." mutters lyashkevsky, "from the queen. . . . five and fifteen. . . . the rascals are talking of politics. . . . do you hear? they have begun about england. i have six hearts." "i have the seven spades. my point." "yes, it's yours. do you hear? they are abusing beaconsfield. they don't know, the swine, that beaconsfield has been dead for ever so long. so i have twenty-nine. . . . your lead." "eight . . . nine . . . ten . . . . yes, amazing people, these russians! eleven . . . twelve. . . . the russian inertia is unique on the terrestrial globe." "thirty . . . thirty-one. . . . one ought to take a good whip, you know. go out and give them beaconsfield. i say, how their tongues are wagging! it's easier to babble than to work. i suppose you threw away the queen of clubs and i didn't realise it." "thirteen . . . fourteen. . . . it's unbearably hot! one must be made of iron to sit in such heat on a seat in the full sun! fifteen." the first game is followed by a second, the second by a third. . . . finks loses, and by degrees works himself up into a gambling fever and forgets all about the cracking walls of the high school cellar. as lyashkevsky plays he keeps looking at the aborigines. he sees them, entertaining each other with conversation, go to the open gate, cross the filthy yard and sit down on a scanty patch of shade under an aspen tree. between twelve and one o'clock the fat cook with brown legs spreads before them something like a baby's sheet with brown stains upon it, and gives them their dinner. they eat with wooden spoons, keep brushing away the flies, and go on talking. "the devil, it is beyond everything," cries lyashkevsky, revolted. "i am very glad i have not a gun or a revolver or i should have a shot at those cattle. i have four knaves--fourteen. . . . your point. . . . it really gives me a twitching in my legs. i can't see those ruffians without being upset." "don't excite yourself, it is bad for you." "but upon my word, it is enough to try the patience of a stone!" when he has finished dinner the native in blue trousers, worn out and exhausted, staggering with laziness and repletion, crosses the street to his own house and sinks feebly on to his bench. he is struggling with drowsiness and the gnats, and is looking about him as dejectedly as though he were every minute expecting his end. his helpless air drives lyashkevsky out of all patience. the pole pokes his head out of the window and shouts at him, spluttering: "been gorging? ah, the old woman! the sweet darling. he has been stuffing himself, and now he doesn't know what to do with his tummy! get out of my sight, you confounded fellow! plague take you!" the native looks sourly at him, and merely twiddles his fingers instead of answering. a school-boy of his acquaintance passes by him with his satchel on his back. stopping him the native ponders a long time what to say to him, and asks: "well, what now?" "nothing." "how, nothing?" "why, just nothing." "h'm. . . . and which subject is the hardest?" "that's according." the school-boy shrugs his shoulders. "i see--er . . . what is the latin for tree?" "arbor." "aha. . . . and so one has to know all that," sighs the blue trousers. "you have to go into it all. . . . it's hard work, hard work. . . . is your dear mamma well?" "she is all right, thank you." "ah. . . . well, run along." after losing two roubles finks remembers the high school and is horrified. "holy saints, why it's three o'clock already. how i have been staying on. good-bye, i must run. . . ." "have dinner with me, and then go," says lyashkevsky. "you have plenty of time." finks stays, but only on condition that dinner shall last no more than ten minutes. after dining he sits for some five minutes on the sofa and thinks of the cracked wall, then resolutely lays his head on the cushion and fills the room with a shrill whistling through his nose. while he is asleep, lyashkevsky, who does not approve of an afternoon nap, sits at the window, stares at the dozing native, and grumbles: "race of curs! i wonder you don't choke with laziness. no work, no intellectual or moral interests, nothing but vegetating . . . . disgusting. tfoo!" at six o'clock finks wakes up. "it's too late to go to the high school now," he says, stretching. "i shall have to go to-morrow, and now. . . . how about my revenge? let's have one more game. . . ." after seeing his visitor off, between nine and ten, lyashkevsky looks after him for some time, and says: "damn the fellow, staying here the whole day and doing absolutely nothing. . . . simply get their salary and do no work; the devil take them! . . . the german pig. . . ." he looks out of the window, but the native is no longer there. he has gone to bed. there is no one to grumble at, and for the first time in the day he keeps his mouth shut, but ten minutes passes and he cannot restrain the depression that overpowers him, and begins to grumble, shoving the old shabby armchair: "you only take up room, rubbishly old thing! you ought to have been burnt long ago, but i keep forgetting to tell them to chop you up. it's a disgrace!" and as he gets into bed he presses his hand on a spring of the mattress, frowns and says peevishly: "the con--found--ed spring! it will cut my side all night. i will tell them to rip up the mattress to-morrow and get you out, you useless thing." he falls asleep at midnight, and dreams that he is pouring boiling water over the natives, finks, and the old armchair. an inquiry it was midday. voldyrev, a tall, thick-set country gentleman with a cropped head and prominent eyes, took off his overcoat, mopped his brow with his silk handkerchief, and somewhat diffidently went into the government office. there they were scratching away. . . . "where can i make an inquiry here?" he said, addressing a porter who was bringing a trayful of glasses from the furthest recesses of the office. "i have to make an inquiry here and to take a copy of a resolution of the council." "that way please! to that one sitting near the window!" said the porter, indicating with the tray the furthest window. voldyrev coughed and went towards the window; there, at a green table spotted like typhus, was sitting a young man with his hair standing up in four tufts on his head, with a long pimply nose, and a long faded uniform. he was writing, thrusting his long nose into the papers. a fly was walking about near his right nostril, and he was continually stretching out his lower lip and blowing under his nose, which gave his face an extremely care-worn expression. "may i make an inquiry about my case here . . . of you? my name is voldyrev. and, by the way, i have to take a copy of the resolution of the council of the second of march." the clerk dipped his pen in the ink and looked to see if he had got too much on it. having satisfied himself that the pen would not make a blot, he began scribbling away. his lip was thrust out, but it was no longer necessary to blow: the fly had settled on his ear. "can i make an inquiry here?" voldyrev repeated a minute later, "my name is voldyrev, i am a landowner. . . ." "ivan alexeitch!" the clerk shouted into the air as though he had not observed voldyrev, "will you tell the merchant yalikov when he comes to sign the copy of the complaint lodged with the police! i've told him a thousand times!" "i have come in reference to my lawsuit with the heirs of princess gugulin," muttered voldyrev. "the case is well known. i earnestly beg you to attend to me." still failing to observe voldyrev, the clerk caught the fly on his lip, looked at it attentively and flung it away. the country gentleman coughed and blew his nose loudly on his checked pocket handkerchief. but this was no use either. he was still unheard. the silence lasted for two minutes. voldyrev took a rouble note from his pocket and laid it on an open book before the clerk. the clerk wrinkled up his forehead, drew the book towards him with an anxious air and closed it. "a little inquiry. . . . i want only to find out on what grounds the heirs of princess gugulin. . . . may i trouble you?" the clerk, absorbed in his own thoughts, got up and, scratching his elbow, went to a cupboard for something. returning a minute later to his table he became absorbed in the book again: another rouble note was lying upon it. "i will trouble you for one minute only. . . . i have only to make an inquiry." the clerk did not hear, he had begun copying something. voldyrev frowned and looked hopelessly at the whole scribbling brotherhood. "they write!" he thought, sighing. "they write, the devil take them entirely!" he walked away from the table and stopped in the middle of the room, his hands hanging hopelessly at his sides. the porter, passing again with glasses, probably noticed the helpless expression of his face, for he went close up to him and asked him in a low voice: "well? have you inquired?" "i've inquired, but he wouldn't speak to me." "you give him three roubles," whispered the porter. "i've given him two already." "give him another." voldyrev went back to the table and laid a green note on the open book. the clerk drew the book towards him again and began turning over the leaves, and all at once, as though by chance, lifted his eyes to voldyrev. his nose began to shine, turned red, and wrinkled up in a grin. "ah . . . what do you want?" he asked. "i want to make an inquiry in reference to my case. . . . my name is voldyrev." "with pleasure! the gugulin case, isn't it? very good. what is it then exactly?" voldyrev explained his business. the clerk became as lively as though he were whirled round by a hurricane. he gave the necessary information, arranged for a copy to be made, gave the petitioner a chair, and all in one instant. he even spoke about the weather and asked after the harvest. and when voldyrev went away he accompanied him down the stairs, smiling affably and respectfully, and looking as though he were ready any minute to fall on his face before the gentleman. voldyrev for some reason felt uncomfortable, and in obedience to some inward impulse he took a rouble out of his pocket and gave it to the clerk. and the latter kept bowing and smiling, and took the rouble like a conjuror, so that it seemed to flash through the air. "well, what people!" thought the country gentleman as he went out into the street, and he stopped and mopped his brow with his handkerchief. martyrs lizotchka kudrinsky, a young married lady who had many admirers, was suddenly taken ill, and so seriously that her husband did not go to his office, and a telegram was sent to her mamma at tver. this is how she told the story of her illness: "i went to lyesnoe to auntie's. i stayed there a week and then i went with all the rest to cousin varya's. varya's husband is a surly brute and a despot (i'd shoot a husband like that), but we had a very jolly time there. to begin with i took part in some private theatricals. it was _a scandal in a respectable family_. hrustalev acted marvellously! between the acts i drank some cold, awfully cold, lemon squash, with the tiniest nip of brandy in it. lemon squash with brandy in it is very much like champagne. . . . i drank it and i felt nothing. next day after the performance i rode out on horseback with that adolf ivanitch. it was rather damp and there was a strong wind. it was most likely then that i caught cold. three days later i came home to see how my dear, good vassya was getting on, and while here to get my silk dress, the one that has little flowers on it. vassya, of course, i did not find at home. i went into the kitchen to tell praskovya to set the samovar, and there i saw on the table some pretty little carrots and turnips like playthings. i ate one little carrot and well, a turnip too. i ate very little, but only fancy, i began having a sharp pain at once--spasms . . . spasms . . . spasms . . . ah, i am dying. vassya runs from the office. naturally he clutches at his hair and turns white. they run for the doctor. . . . do you understand, i am dying, dying." the spasms began at midday, before three o'clock the doctor came, and at six lizotchka fell asleep and slept soundly till two o'clock in the morning. it strikes two. . . . the light of the little night lamp filters scantily through the pale blue shade. lizotchka is lying in bed, her white lace cap stands out sharply against the dark background of the red cushion. shadows from the blue lamp-shade lie in patterns on her pale face and her round plump shoulders. vassily stepanovitch is sitting at her feet. the poor fellow is happy that his wife is at home at last, and at the same time he is terribly alarmed by her illness. "well, how do you feel, lizotchka?" he asks in a whisper, noticing that she is awake. "i am better," moans lizotchka. "i don't feel the spasms now, but there is no sleeping. . . . i can't get to sleep!" "isn't it time to change the compress, my angel?" lizotchka sits up slowly with the expression of a martyr and gracefully turns her head on one side. vassily stepanovitch with reverent awe, scarcely touching her hot body with his fingers, changes the compress. lizotchka shrinks, laughs at the cold water which tickles her, and lies down again. "you are getting no sleep, poor boy!" she moans. "as though i could sleep!" "it's my nerves, vassya, i am a very nervous woman. the doctor has prescribed for stomach trouble, but i feel that he doesn't understand my illness. it's nerves and not the stomach, i swear that it is my nerves. there is only one thing i am afraid of, that my illness may take a bad turn." "no, lizotchka, no, to-morrow you will be all right!" "hardly likely! i am not afraid for myself. . . . i don't care, indeed, i shall be glad to die, but i am sorry for you! you'll be a widower and left all alone." vassitchka rarely enjoys his wife's society, and has long been used to solitude, but lizotchka's words agitate him. "goodness knows what you are saying, little woman! why these gloomy thoughts?" "well, you will cry and grieve, and then you will get used to it. you'll even get married again." the husband clutches his head. "there, there, i won't!" lizotchka soothes him, "only you ought to be prepared for anything." "and all of a sudden i shall die," she thinks, shutting her eyes. and lizotchka draws a mental picture of her own death, how her mother, her husband, her cousin varya with her husband, her relations, the admirers of her "talent" press round her death bed, as she whispers her last farewell. all are weeping. then when she is dead they dress her, interestingly pale and dark-haired, in a pink dress (it suits her) and lay her in a very expensive coffin on gold legs, full of flowers. there is a smell of incense, the candles splutter. her husband never leaves the coffin, while the admirers of her talent cannot take their eyes off her, and say: "as though living! she is lovely in her coffin!" the whole town is talking of the life cut short so prematurely. but now they are carrying her to the church. the bearers are ivan petrovitch, adolf ivanitch, varya's husband, nikolay semyonitch, and the black-eyed student who had taught her to drink lemon squash with brandy. it's only a pity there's no music playing. after the burial service comes the leave-taking. the church is full of sobs, they bring the lid with tassels, and . . . lizotchka is shut off from the light of day for ever, there is the sound of hammering nails. knock, knock, knock. lizotchka shudders and opens her eyes. "vassya, are you here?" she asks. "i have such gloomy thoughts. goodness, why am i so unlucky as not to sleep. vassya, have pity, do tell me something!" "what shall i tell you?" "something about love," lizotchka says languidly. "or some anecdote about jews. . . ." vassily stepanovitch, ready for anything if only his wife will be cheerful and not talk about death, combs locks of hair over his ears, makes an absurd face, and goes up to lizotchka. "does your vatch vant mending?" he asks. "it does, it does," giggles lizotchka, and hands him her gold watch from the little table. "mend it." vassya takes the watch, examines the mechanism for a long time, and wriggling and shrugging, says: "she can not be mended . . . in vun veel two cogs are vanting. . . ." this is the whole performance. lizotchka laughs and claps her hands. "capital," she exclaims. "wonderful. do you know, vassya, it's awfully stupid of you not to take part in amateur theatricals! you have a remarkable talent! you are much better than sysunov. there was an amateur called sysunov who played with us in _it's my birthday_. a first-class comic talent, only fancy: a nose as thick as a parsnip, green eyes, and he walks like a crane. . . . we all roared; stay, i will show you how he walks." lizotchka springs out of bed and begins pacing about the floor, barefooted and without her cap. "a very good day to you!" she says in a bass, imitating a man's voice. "anything pretty? anything new under the moon? ha, ha, ha!" she laughs. "ha, ha, ha!" vassya seconds her. and the young pair, roaring with laughter, forgetting the illness, chase one another about the room. the race ends in vassya's catching his wife by her nightgown and eagerly showering kisses upon her. after one particularly passionate embrace lizotchka suddenly remembers that she is seriously ill. . . . "what silliness!" she says, making a serious face and covering herself with the quilt. "i suppose you have forgotten that i am ill! clever, i must say!" "sorry . . ." falters her husband in confusion. "if my illness takes a bad turn it will be your fault. not kind! not good!" lizotchka closes her eyes and is silent. her former languor and expression of martyrdom return again, there is a sound of gentle moans. vassya changes the compress, and glad that his wife is at home and not gadding off to her aunt's, sits meekly at her feet. he does not sleep all night. at ten o'clock the doctor comes. "well, how are we feeling?" he asks as he takes her pulse. "have you slept?" "badly," lizotchka's husband answers for her, "very badly." the doctor walks away to the window and stares at a passing chimney-sweep. "doctor, may i have coffee to-day?" asks lizotchka. "you may." "and may i get up?" "you might, perhaps, but . . . you had better lie in bed another day." "she is awfully depressed," vassya whispers in his ear, "such gloomy thoughts, such pessimism. i am dreadfully uneasy about her." the doctor sits down to the little table, and rubbing his forehead, prescribes bromide of potassium for lizotchka, then makes his bow, and promising to look in again in the evening, departs. vassya does not go to the office, but sits all day at his wife's feet. at midday the admirers of her talent arrive in a crowd. they are agitated and alarmed, they bring masses of flowers and french novels. lizotchka, in a snow-white cap and a light dressing jacket, lies in bed with an enigmatic look, as though she did not believe in her own recovery. the admirers of her talent see her husband, but readily forgive his presence: they and he are united by one calamity at that bedside! at six o'clock in the evening lizotchka falls asleep, and again sleeps till two o'clock in the morning. vassya as before sits at her feet, struggles with drowsiness, changes her compress, plays at being a jew, and in the morning after a second night of suffering, liza is prinking before the looking-glass and putting on her hat. "wherever are you going, my dear?" asks vassya, with an imploring look at her. "what?" says lizotchka in wonder, assuming a scared expression, "don't you know that there is a rehearsal to-day at marya lvovna's?" after escorting her there, vassya having nothing to do to while away his boredom, takes his portfolio and goes to the office. his head aches so violently from his sleepless nights that his left eye shuts of itself and refuses to open. . . . "what's the matter with you, my good sir?" his chief asks him. "what is it?" vassya waves his hand and sits down. "don't ask me, your excellency," he says with a sigh. "what i have suffered in these two days, what i have suffered! liza has been ill!" "good heavens," cried his chief in alarm. "lizaveta pavlovna, what is wrong with her?" vassily stepanovitch merely throws up his hands and raises his eyes to the ceiling, as though he would say: "it's the will of providence." "ah, my boy, i can sympathise with you with all my heart!" sighs his chief, rolling his eyes. "i've lost my wife, my dear, i understand. that is a loss, it is a loss! it's awful, awful! i hope lizaveta pavlovna is better now! what doctor is attending her?" "von schterk." "von schterk! but you would have been better to have called in magnus or semandritsky. but how very pale your face is. you are ill yourself! this is awful!" "yes, your excellency, i haven't slept. what i have suffered, what i have been through!" "and yet you came! why you came i can't understand? one can't force oneself like that! one mustn't do oneself harm like that. go home and stay there till you are well again! go home, i command you! zeal is a very fine thing in a young official, but you mustn't forget as the romans used to say: 'mens sana in corpore sano,' that is, a healthy brain in a healthy body." vassya agrees, puts his papers back in his portfolio, and, taking leave of his chief, goes home to bed. the lion and the sun in one of the towns lying on this side of the urals a rumour was afloat that a persian magnate, called rahat-helam, was staying for a few days in the town and putting up at the "japan hotel." this rumour made no impression whatever upon the inhabitants; a persian had arrived, well, so be it. only stepan ivanovitch kutsyn, the mayor of the town, hearing of the arrival of the oriental gentleman from the secretary of the town hall, grew thoughtful and inquired: "where is he going?" "to paris or to london, i believe." "h'm. . . . then he is a big-wig, i suppose?" "the devil only knows." as he went home from the town hall and had his dinner, the mayor sank into thought again, and this time he went on thinking till the evening. the arrival of the distinguished persian greatly intrigued him. it seemed to him that fate itself had sent him this rahat-helam, and that a favourable opportunity had come at last for realising his passionate, secretly cherished dream. kutsyn had already two medals, and the stanislav of the third degree, the badge of the red cross, and the badge of the society of saving from drowning, and in addition to these he had made himself a little gold gun crossed by a guitar, and this ornament, hung from a buttonhole in his uniform, looked in the distance like something special, and delightfully resembled a badge of distinction. it is well known that the more orders and medals you have the more you want--and the mayor had long been desirous of receiving the persian order of the lion and the sun; he desired it passionately, madly. he knew very well that there was no need to fight, or to subscribe to an asylum, or to serve on committees to obtain this order; all that was needed was a favourable opportunity. and now it seemed to him that this opportunity had come. at noon on the following day he put on his chain and all his badges of distinction and went to the 'japan.' destiny favoured him. when he entered the distinguished persian's apartment the latter was alone and doing nothing. rahat-helam, an enormous asiatic, with a long nose like the beak of a snipe, with prominent eyes, and with a fez on his head, was sitting on the floor rummaging in his portmanteau. "i beg you to excuse my disturbing you," began kutsyn, smiling. "i have the honour to introduce myself, the hereditary, honourable citizen and cavalier, stepan ivanovitch kutsyn, mayor of this town. i regard it as my duty to honour, in the person of your highness, so to say, the representative of a friendly and neighbourly state." the persian turned and muttered something in very bad french, that sounded like tapping a board with a piece of wood. "the frontiers of persia"--kutsyn continued the greeting he had previously learned by heart--"are in close contact with the borders of our spacious fatherland, and therefore mutual sympathies impel me, so to speak, to express my solidarity with you." the illustrious persian got up and again muttered something in a wooden tongue. kutsyn, who knew no foreign language, shook his head to show that he did not understand. "well, how am i to talk to him?" he thought. "it would be a good thing to send for an interpreter at once, but it is a delicate matter, i can't talk before witnesses. the interpreter would be chattering all over the town afterwards." and kutsyn tried to recall the foreign words he had picked up from the newspapers. "i am the mayor of the town," he muttered. "that is the _lord mayor_ . . . _municipalais_ . . . vwee? kompreney?" he wanted to express his social position in words or in gesture, and did not know how. a picture hanging on the wall with an inscription in large letters, "the town of venice," helped him out of his difficulties. he pointed with his finger at the town, then at his own head, and in that way obtained, as he imagined, the phrase: "i am the head of the town." the persian did not understand, but he gave a smile, and said: "goot, monsieur . . . goot . . . . ." half-an-hour later the mayor was slapping the persian, first on the knee and then on the shoulder, and saying: "kompreney? vwee? as _lord mayor_ and _municipalais_ i suggest that you should take a little _promenage . . . kompreney? promenage._" kutsyn pointed at venice, and with two fingers represented walking legs. rahat-helam who kept his eyes fixed on his medals, and was apparently guessing that this was the most important person in the town, understood the word _promenage_ and grinned politely. then they both put on their coats and went out of the room. downstairs near the door leading to the restaurant of the 'japan,' kutsyn reflected that it would not be amiss to entertain the persian. he stopped and indicating the tables, said: "by russian custom it wouldn't be amiss . . . _puree, entrekot_, champagne and so on, kompreney." the illustrious visitor understood, and a little later they were both sitting in the very best room of the restaurant, eating, and drinking champagne. "let us drink to the prosperity of persia!" said kutsyn. "we russians love the persians. though we are of another faith, yet there are common interests, mutual, so to say, sympathies . . . progress . . . asiatic markets. . . . the campaigns of peace so to say. . . ." the illustrious persian ate and drank with an excellent appetite, he stuck his fork into a slice of smoked sturgeon, and wagging his head, enthusiastically said: "_goot, bien._" "you like it?" said the mayor delighted. "_bien_, that's capital." and turning to the waiter he said: "luka, my lad, see that two pieces of smoked sturgeon, the best you have, are sent up to his highness's room!" then the mayor and the persian magnate went to look at the menagerie. the townspeople saw their stepan ivanovitch, flushed with champagne, gay and very well pleased, leading the persian about the principal streets and the bazaar, showing him the points of interest of the town, and even taking him to the fire tower. among other things the townspeople saw him stop near some stone gates with lions on it, and point out to the persian first the lion, then the sun overhead, and then his own breast; then again he pointed to the lion and to the sun while the persian nodded his head as though in sign of assent, and smiling showed his white teeth. in the evening they were sitting in the london hotel listening to the harp-players, and where they spent the night is not known. next day the mayor was at the town hall in the morning; the officials there apparently already knew something and were making their conjectures, for the secretary went up to him and said with an ironical smile: "it is the custom of the persians when an illustrious visitor comes to visit you, you must slaughter a sheep with your own hands." and a little later an envelope that had come by post was handed to him. the mayor tore it open and saw a caricature in it. it was a drawing of rahat-helam with the mayor on his knees before him, stretching out his hands and saying: "to prove our russian friendship for persia's mighty realm, and show respect for you, her envoy, myself i'd slaughter like a lamb, but, pardon me, for i'm a--donkey!" the mayor was conscious of an unpleasant feeling like a gnawing in the pit of the stomach, but not for long. by midday he was again with the illustrious persian, again he was regaling him and showing him the points of interest in the town. again he led him to the stone gates, and again pointed to the lion, to the sun and to his own breast. they dined at the 'japan'; after dinner, with cigars in their teeth, both, flushed and blissful, again mounted the fire tower, and the mayor, evidently wishing to entertain the visitor with an unusual spectacle, shouted from the top to a sentry walking below: "sound the alarm!" but the alarm was not sounded as the firemen were at the baths at the moment. they supped at the 'london' and, after supper, the persian departed. when he saw him off, stepan ivanovitch kissed him three times after the russian fashion, and even grew tearful. and when the train started, he shouted: "give our greeting to persia! tell her that we love her!" a year and four months had passed. there was a bitter frost, thirty-five degrees, and a piercing wind was blowing. stepan ivanovitch was walking along the street with his fur coat thrown open over his chest, and he was annoyed that he met no one to see the lion and the sun upon his breast. he walked about like this till evening with his fur coat open, was chilled to the bone, and at night tossed from side to side and could not get to sleep. he felt heavy at heart. there was a burning sensation inside him, and his heart throbbed uneasily; he had a longing now to get a serbian order. it was a painful, passionate longing. a daughter of albion a fine carriage with rubber tyres, a fat coachman, and velvet on the seats, rolled up to the house of a landowner called gryabov. fyodor andreitch otsov, the district marshal of nobility, jumped out of the carriage. a drowsy footman met him in the hall. "are the family at home?" asked the marshal. "no, sir. the mistress and the children are gone out paying visits, while the master and mademoiselle are catching fish. fishing all the morning, sir." otsov stood a little, thought a little, and then went to the river to look for gryabov. going down to the river he found him a mile and a half from the house. looking down from the steep bank and catching sight of gryabov, otsov gushed with laughter. . . . gryabov, a large stout man, with a very big head, was sitting on the sand, angling, with his legs tucked under him like a turk. his hat was on the back of his head and his cravat had slipped on one side. beside him stood a tall thin englishwoman, with prominent eyes like a crab's, and a big bird-like nose more like a hook than a nose. she was dressed in a white muslin gown through which her scraggy yellow shoulders were very distinctly apparent. on her gold belt hung a little gold watch. she too was angling. the stillness of the grave reigned about them both. both were motionless, as the river upon which their floats were swimming. "a desperate passion, but deadly dull!" laughed otsov. "good-day, ivan kuzmitch." "ah . . . is that you?" asked gryabov, not taking his eyes off the water. "have you come?" "as you see . . . . and you are still taken up with your crazy nonsense! not given it up yet?" "the devil's in it. . . . i begin in the morning and fish all day . . . . the fishing is not up to much to-day. i've caught nothing and this dummy hasn't either. we sit on and on and not a devil of a fish! i could scream!" "well, chuck it up then. let's go and have some vodka!" "wait a little, maybe we shall catch something. towards evening the fish bite better . . . . i've been sitting here, my boy, ever since the morning! i can't tell you how fearfully boring it is. it was the devil drove me to take to this fishing! i know that it is rotten idiocy for me to sit here. i sit here like some scoundrel, like a convict, and i stare at the water like a fool. i ought to go to the haymaking, but here i sit catching fish. yesterday his holiness held a service at haponyevo, but i didn't go. i spent the day here with this . . . with this she-devil." "but . . . have you taken leave of your senses?" asked otsov, glancing in embarrassment at the englishwoman. "using such language before a lady and she . . . ." "oh, confound her, it doesn't matter, she doesn't understand a syllable of russian, whether you praise her or blame her, it is all the same to her! just look at her nose! her nose alone is enough to make one faint. we sit here for whole days together and not a single word! she stands like a stuffed image and rolls the whites of her eyes at the water." the englishwoman gave a yawn, put a new worm on, and dropped the hook into the water. "i wonder at her not a little," gryabov went on, "the great stupid has been living in russia for ten years and not a word of russian! . . . any little aristocrat among us goes to them and learns to babble away in their lingo, while they . . . there's no making them out. just look at her nose, do look at her nose!" "come, drop it . . . it's uncomfortable. why attack a woman?" "she's not a woman, but a maiden lady. . . . i bet she's dreaming of suitors. the ugly doll. and she smells of something decaying . . . . i've got a loathing for her, my boy! i can't look at her with indifference. when she turns her ugly eyes on me it sends a twinge all through me as though i had knocked my elbow on the parapet. she likes fishing too. watch her: she fishes as though it were a holy rite! she looks upon everything with disdain . . . . she stands there, the wretch, and is conscious that she is a human being, and that therefore she is the monarch of nature. and do you know what her name is? wilka charlesovna fyce! tfoo! there is no getting it out!" the englishwoman, hearing her name, deliberately turned her nose in gryabov's direction and scanned him with a disdainful glance; she raised her eyes from gryabov to otsov and steeped him in disdain. and all this in silence, with dignity and deliberation. "did you see?" said gryabov chuckling. "as though to say 'take that.' ah, you monster! it's only for the children's sake that i keep that triton. if it weren't for the children, i wouldn't let her come within ten miles of my estate. . . . she has got a nose like a hawk's . . . and her figure! that doll makes me think of a long nail, so i could take her, and knock her into the ground, you know. stay, i believe i have got a bite. . . ." gryabov jumped up and raised his rod. the line drew taut. . . . gryabov tugged again, but could not pull out the hook. "it has caught," he said, frowning, "on a stone i expect . . . damnation take it . . . ." there was a look of distress on gryabov's face. sighing, moving uneasily, and muttering oaths, he began tugging at the line. "what a pity; i shall have to go into the water." "oh, chuck it!" "i can't. . . . there's always good fishing in the evening. . . . what a nuisance. lord, forgive us, i shall have to wade into the water, i must! and if only you knew, i have no inclination to undress. i shall have to get rid of the englishwoman. . . . it's awkward to undress before her. after all, she is a lady, you know!" gryabov flung off his hat, and his cravat. "meess . . . er, er . . ." he said, addressing the englishwoman, "meess fyce, je voo pree . . . ? well, what am i to say to her? how am i to tell you so that you can understand? i say . . . over there! go away over there! do you hear?" miss fyce enveloped gryabov in disdain, and uttered a nasal sound. "what? don't you understand? go away from here, i tell you! i must undress, you devil's doll! go over there! over there!" gryabov pulled the lady by her sleeve, pointed her towards the bushes, and made as though he would sit down, as much as to say: go behind the bushes and hide yourself there. . . . the englishwoman, moving her eyebrows vigorously, uttered rapidly a long sentence in english. the gentlemen gushed with laughter. "it's the first time in my life i've heard her voice. there's no denying, it is a voice! she does not understand! well, what am i to do with her?" "chuck it, let's go and have a drink of vodka!" "i can't. now's the time to fish, the evening. . . . it's evening . . . . come, what would you have me do? it is a nuisance! i shall have to undress before her. . . ." gryabov flung off his coat and his waistcoat and sat on the sand to take off his boots. "i say, ivan kuzmitch," said the marshal, chuckling behind his hand. "it's really outrageous, an insult." "nobody asks her not to understand! it's a lesson for these foreigners!" gryabov took off his boots and his trousers, flung off his undergarments and remained in the costume of adam. otsov held his sides, he turned crimson both from laughter and embarrassment. the englishwoman twitched her brows and blinked . . . . a haughty, disdainful smile passed over her yellow face. "i must cool off," said gryabov, slapping himself on the ribs. "tell me if you please, fyodor andreitch, why i have a rash on my chest every summer." "oh, do get into the water quickly or cover yourself with something, you beast." "and if only she were confused, the nasty thing," said gryabov, crossing himself as he waded into the water. "brrrr . . . the water's cold. . . . look how she moves her eyebrows! she doesn't go away . . . she is far above the crowd! he, he, he . . . . and she doesn't reckon us as human beings." wading knee deep in the water and drawing his huge figure up to its full height, he gave a wink and said: "this isn't england, you see!" miss fyce coolly put on another worm, gave a yawn, and dropped the hook in. otsov turned away, gryabov released his hook, ducked into the water and, spluttering, waded out. two minutes later he was sitting on the sand and angling as before. choristers the justice of the peace, who had received a letter from petersburg, had set the news going that the owner of yefremovo, count vladimir ivanovitch, would soon be arriving. when he would arrive--there was no saying. "like a thief in the night," said father kuzma, a grey-headed little priest in a lilac cassock. "and when he does come the place will be crowded with the nobility and other high gentry. all the neighbours will flock here. mind now, do your best, alexey alexeitch. . . . i beg you most earnestly." "you need not trouble about me," said alexey alexeitch, frowning. "i know my business. if only my enemy intones the litany in the right key. he may . . . out of sheer spite. . . ." "there, there. . . . i'll persuade the deacon. . . i'll persuade him." alexey alexeitch was the sacristan of the yefremovo church. he also taught the schoolboys church and secular singing, for which he received sixty roubles a year from the revenues of the count's estate. the schoolboys were bound to sing in church in return for their teaching. alexey alexeitch was a tall, thick-set man of dignified deportment, with a fat, clean-shaven face that reminded one of a cow's udder. his imposing figure and double chin made him look like a man occupying an important position in the secular hierarchy rather than a sacristan. it was strange to see him, so dignified and imposing, flop to the ground before the bishop and, on one occasion, after too loud a squabble with the deacon yevlampy avdiessov, remain on his knees for two hours by order of the head priest of the district. grandeur was more in keeping with his figure than humiliation. on account of the rumours of the count's approaching visit he had a choir practice every day, morning and evening. the choir practice was held at the school. it did not interfere much with the school work. during the practice the schoolmaster, sergey makaritch, set the children writing copies while he joined the tenors as an amateur. this is how the choir practice was conducted. alexey alexeitch would come into the school-room, slamming the door and blowing his nose. the trebles and altos extricated themselves noisily from the school-tables. the tenors and basses, who had been waiting for some time in the yard, came in, tramping like horses. they all took their places. alexey alexeitch drew himself up, made a sign to enforce silence, and struck a note with the tuning fork. "to-to-li-to-tom . . . do-mi-sol-do!" "adagio, adagio. . . . once more." after the "amen" there followed "lord have mercy upon us" from the great litany. all this had been learned long ago, sung a thousand times and thoroughly digested, and it was gone through simply as a formality. it was sung indolently, unconsciously. alexey alexeitch waved his arms calmly and chimed in now in a tenor, now in a bass voice. it was all slow, there was nothing interesting. . . . but before the "cherubim" hymn the whole choir suddenly began blowing their noses, coughing and zealously turning the pages of their music. the sacristan turned his back on the choir and with a mysterious expression on his face began tuning his violin. the preparations lasted a couple of minutes. "take your places. look at your music carefully. . . . basses, don't overdo it . . . rather softly." bortnyansky's "cherubim" hymn, no. , was selected. at a given signal silence prevailed. all eyes were fastened on the music, the trebles opened their mouths. alexey alexeitch softly lowered his arm. "piano . . . piano. . . . you see 'piano' is written there. . . . more lightly, more lightly." when they had to sing "piano" an expression of benevolence and amiability overspread alexey alexeitch's face, as though he was dreaming of a dainty morsel. "forte . . . forte! hold it!" and when they had to sing "forte" the sacristan's fat face expressed alarm and even horror. the "cherubim" hymn was sung well, so well that the school-children abandoned their copies and fell to watching the movements of alexey alexeitch. people stood under the windows. the schoolwatchman, vassily, came in wearing an apron and carrying a dinner-knife in his hand and stood listening. father kuzma, with an anxious face appeared suddenly as though he had sprung from out of the earth. . . . after 'let us lay aside all earthly cares' alexey alexeitch wiped the sweat off his brow and went up to father kuzma in excitement. "it puzzles me, father kuzma," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "why is it that the russian people have no understanding? it puzzles me, may the lord chastise me! such an uncultured people that you really cannot tell whether they have a windpipe in their throats or some other sort of internal arrangement. were you choking, or what?" he asked, addressing the bass gennady semitchov, the innkeeper's brother. "why?" "what is your voice like? it rattles like a saucepan. i bet you were boozing yesterday! that's what it is! your breath smells like a tavern. . . . e-ech! you are a clodhopper, brother! you are a lout! how can you be a chorister if you keep company with peasants in the tavern? ech, you are an ass, brother!" "it's a sin, it's a sin, brother," muttered father kuzma. "god sees everything . . . through and through . . . ." "that's why you have no idea of singing--because you care more for vodka than for godliness, you fool." "don't work yourself up," said father kuzma. "don't be cross. . . . i will persuade him." father kuzma went up to gennady semitchov and began "persuading" him: "what do you do it for? try and put your mind to it. a man who sings ought to restrain himself, because his throat is . . . er . . tender." gennady scratched his neck and looked sideways towards the window as though the words did not apply to him. after the "cherubim" hymn they sang the creed, then "it is meet and right"; they sang smoothly and with feeling, and so right on to "our father." "to my mind, father kuzma," said the sacristan, "the old 'our father' is better than the modern. that's what we ought to sing before the count." "no, no. . . . sing the modern one. for the count hears nothing but modern music when he goes to mass in petersburg or moscow. . . . in the churches there, i imagine . . . there's very different sort of music there, brother!" after "our father" there was again a great blowing of noses, coughing and turning over of pages. the most difficult part of the performance came next: the "concert." alexey alexeitch was practising two pieces, "who is the god of glory" and "universal praise." whichever the choir learned best would be sung before the count. during the "concert" the sacristan rose to a pitch of enthusiasm. the expression of benevolence was continually alternating with one of alarm. "forte!" he muttered. "andante! let yourselves go! sing, you image! tenors, you don't bring it off! to-to-ti-to-tom. . . . sol . . . si . . . sol, i tell you, you blockhead! glory! basses, glo . . . o . . . ry." his bow travelled over the heads and shoulders of the erring trebles and altos. his left hand was continually pulling the ears of the young singers. on one occasion, carried away by his feelings he flipped the bass gennady under the chin with his bent thumb. but the choristers were not moved to tears or to anger at his blows: they realised the full gravity of their task. after the "concert" came a minute of silence. alexey alexeitch, red, perspiring and exhausted, sat down on the window-sill, and turned upon the company lustreless, wearied, but triumphant eyes. in the listening crowd he observed to his immense annoyance the deacon avdiessov. the deacon, a tall thick-set man with a red pock-marked face, and straw in his hair, stood leaning against the stove and grinning contemptuously. "that's right, sing away! perform your music!" he muttered in a deep bass. "much the count will care for your singing! he doesn't care whether you sing with music or without. . . . for he is an atheist." father kuzma looked round in a scared way and twiddled his fingers. "come, come," he muttered. "hush, deacon, i beg." after the "concert" they sang "may our lips be filled with praise," and the choir practice was over. the choir broke up to reassemble in the evening for another practice. and so it went on every day. one month passed and then a second. . . . the steward, too, had by then received a notice that the count would soon be coming. at last the dusty sun-blinds were taken off the windows of the big house, and yefremovo heard the strains of the broken-down, out-of-tune piano. father kuzma was pining, though he could not himself have said why, or whether it was from delight or alarm. . . . the deacon went about grinning. the following saturday evening father kuzma went to the sacristan's lodgings. his face was pale, his shoulders drooped, the lilac of his cassock looked faded. "i have just been at his excellency's," he said to the sacristan, stammering. "he is a cultivated gentleman with refined ideas. but . . . er . . . it's mortifying, brother. . . . 'at what o'clock, your excellency, do you desire us to ring for mass to-morrow?' and he said: 'as you think best. only, couldn't it be as short and quick as possible without a choir.' without a choir! er . . . do you understand, without, without a choir. . . ." alexey alexeitch turned crimson. he would rather have spent two hours on his knees again than have heard those words! he did not sleep all night. he was not so much mortified at the waste of his labours as at the fact that the deacon would give him no peace now with his jeers. the deacon was delighted at his discomfiture. next day all through the service he was casting disdainful glances towards the choir where alexey alexeitch was booming responses in solitude. when he passed by the choir with the censer he muttered: "perform your music! do your utmost! the count will give a ten-rouble note to the choir!" after the service the sacristan went home, crushed and ill with mortification. at the gate he was overtaken by the red-faced deacon. "stop a minute, alyosha!" said the deacon. "stop a minute, silly, don't be cross! you are not the only one, i am in for it too! immediately after the mass father kuzma went up to the count and asked: 'and what did you think of the deacon's voice, your excellency. he has a deep bass, hasn't he?' and the count--do you know what he answered by way of compliment? 'anyone can bawl,' he said. 'a man's voice is not as important as his brains.' a learned gentleman from petersburg! an atheist is an atheist, and that's all about it! come, brother in misfortune, let us go and have a drop to drown our troubles!" and the enemies went out of the gate arm-in-arm. nerves dmitri osipovitch vaxin, the architect, returned from town to his holiday cottage greatly impressed by the spiritualistic séance at which he had been present. as he undressed and got into his solitary bed (madame vaxin had gone to an all-night service) he could not help remembering all he had seen and heard. it had not, properly speaking, been a séance at all, but the whole evening had been spent in terrifying conversation. a young lady had begun it by talking, apropos of nothing, about thought-reading. from thought-reading they had passed imperceptibly to spirits, and from spirits to ghosts, from ghosts to people buried alive. . . . a gentleman had read a horrible story of a corpse turning round in the coffin. vaxin himself had asked for a saucer and shown the young ladies how to converse with spirits. he had called up among others the spirit of his deceased uncle, klavdy mironitch, and had mentally asked him: "has not the time come for me to transfer the ownership of our house to my wife?" to which his uncle's spirit had replied: "all things are good in their season." "there is a great deal in nature that is mysterious and . . . terrible . . ." thought vaxin, as he got into bed. "it's not the dead but the unknown that's so horrible." it struck one o'clock. vaxin turned over on the other side and peeped out from beneath the bedclothes at the blue light of the lamp burning before the holy ikon. the flame flickered and cast a faint light on the ikon-stand and the big portrait of uncle klavdy that hung facing his bed. "and what if the ghost of uncle klavdy should appear this minute?" flashed through vaxin's mind. "but, of course, that's impossible." ghosts are, we all know, a superstition, the offspring of undeveloped intelligence, but vaxin, nevertheless, pulled the bed-clothes over his head, and shut his eyes very tight. the corpse that turned round in its coffin came back to his mind, and the figures of his deceased mother-in-law, of a colleague who had hanged himself, and of a girl who had drowned herself, rose before his imagination. . . . vaxin began trying to dispel these gloomy ideas, but the more he tried to drive them away the more haunting the figures and fearful fancies became. he began to feel frightened. "hang it all!" he thought. "here i am afraid in the dark like a child! idiotic!" tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . he heard the clock in the next room. the church-bell chimed the hour in the churchyard close by. the bell tolled slowly, depressingly, mournfully. . . . a cold chill ran down vaxin's neck and spine. he fancied he heard someone breathing heavily over his head, as though uncle klavdy had stepped out of his frame and was bending over his nephew. . . . vaxin felt unbearably frightened. he clenched his teeth and held his breath in terror. at last, when a cockchafer flew in at the open window and began buzzing over his bed, he could bear it no longer and gave a violent tug at the bellrope. "dmitri osipitch, _was wollen sie?_" he heard the voice of the german governess at his door a moment later. "ah, it's you, rosalia karlovna!" vaxin cried, delighted. "why do you trouble? gavrila might just . . ." "yourself gavrila to the town sent. and glafira is somewhere all the evening gone. . . . there's nobody in the house. . . . _was wollen sie doch?_" "well, what i wanted . . . it's . . . but, please, come in . . . you needn't mind! . . . it's dark." rosalia karlovna, a stout red-cheeked person, came in to the bedroom and stood in an expectant attitude at the door. "sit down, please . . . you see, it's like this. . . . what on earth am i to ask her for?" he wondered, stealing a glance at uncle klavdy's portrait and feeling his soul gradually returning to tranquility. "what i really wanted to ask you was . . . oh, when the man goes to town, don't forget to tell him to . . . er . . . er . . . to get some cigarette-papers. . . . but do, please sit down." "cigarette-papers? good. . . . _was wollen sie noch?_" "_ich will_ . . . there's nothing i will, but. . . but do sit down! i shall think of something else in a minute." "it is shocking for a maiden in a man's room to remain. . . . mr. vaxin, you are, i see, a naughty man. . . . i understand. . . . to order cigarette-papers one does not a person wake. . . . i understand you. . . ." rosalia karlovna turned and went out of the room. somewhat reassured by his conversation with her and ashamed of his cowardice, vaxin pulled the bedclothes over his head and shut his eyes. for about ten minutes he felt fairly comfortable, then the same nonsense came creeping back into his mind. . . . he swore to himself, felt for the matches, and without opening his eyes lighted a candle. but even the light was no use. to vaxin' s excited imagination it seemed as though someone were peeping round the corner and that his uncle's eyes were moving. "i'll ring her up again . . . damn the woman!" he decided. "i'll tell her i'm unwell and ask for some drops." vaxin rang. there was no response. he rang again, and as though answering his ring, he heard the church-bell toll the hour. overcome with terror, cold all over, he jumped out of bed, ran headlong out of his bedroom, and making the sign of the cross and cursing himself for his cowardice, he fled barefoot in his night-shirt to the governess's room. "rosalia karlovna!" he began in a shaking voice as he knocked at her door, "rosalia karlovna! . . . are you asleep? . . . i feel . . . so . . . er . . . er . . . unwell. . . . drops! . . ." there was no answer. silence reigned. "i beg you . . . do you understand? i beg you! why this squeamishness, i can't understand . . . especially when a man . . . is ill . . . how absurdly _zierlich manierlich_ you are really . . . at your age. . . ." "i to your wife shall tell. . . . will not leave an honest maiden in peace. . . . when i was at baron anzig's, and the baron try to come to me for matches, i understand at once what his matches mean and tell to the baroness. . . . i am an honest maiden." "hang your honesty! i am ill i tell you . . . and asking you for drops. do you understand? i'm ill!" "your wife is an honest, good woman, and you ought her to love! _ja!_ she is noble! . . . i will not be her foe!" "you are a fool! simply a fool! do you understand, a fool?" vaxin leaned against the door-post, folded his arms and waited for his panic to pass off. to return to his room where the lamp flickered and his uncle stared at him from his frame was more than he could face, and to stand at the governess's door in nothing but his night-shirt was inconvenient from every point of view. what could he do? it struck two o'clock and his terror had not left him. there was no light in the passage and something dark seemed to be peeping out from every corner. vaxin turned so as to face the door-post, but at that instant it seemed as though somebody tweaked his night-shirt from behind and touched him on the shoulder. "damnation! . . . rosalia karlovna!" no answer. vaxin hesitatingly opened the door and peeped into the room. the virtuous german was sweetly slumbering. the tiny flame of a night-light threw her solid buxom person into relief. vaxin stepped into the room and sat down on a wickerwork trunk near the door. he felt better in the presence of a living creature, even though that creature was asleep. "let the german idiot sleep," he thought, "i'll sit here, and when it gets light i'll go back. . . . it's daylight early now." vaxin curled up on the trunk and put his arm under his head to await the coming of dawn. "what a thing it is to have nerves!" he reflected. "an educated, intelligent man! . . . hang it all! . . . it's a perfect disgrace!" as he listened to the gentle, even breathing of rosalia karlovna, he soon recovered himself completely. at six o'clock, vaxin's wife returned from the all-night service, and not finding her husband in their bedroom, went to the governess to ask her for some change for the cabman. on entering the german's room, a strange sight met her eyes. on the bed lay stretched rosalia karlovna fast asleep, and a couple of yards from her was her husband curled up on the trunk sleeping the sleep of the just and snoring loudly. what she said to her husband, and how he looked when he woke, i leave to others to describe. it is beyond my powers. a work of art sasha smirnov, the only son of his mother, holding under his arm, something wrapped up in no. of the _financial news_, assumed a sentimental expression, and went into dr. koshelkov's consulting-room. "ah, dear lad!" was how the doctor greeted him. "well! how are we feeling? what good news have you for me?" sasha blinked, laid his hand on his heart and said in an agitated voice: "mamma sends her greetings to you, ivan nikolaevitch, and told me to thank you. . . . i am the only son of my mother and you have saved my life . . . you have brought me through a dangerous illness and . . . we do not know how to thank you." "nonsense, lad!" said the doctor, highly delighted. "i only did what anyone else would have done in my place." "i am the only son of my mother . . . we are poor people and cannot of course repay you, and we are quite ashamed, doctor, although, however, mamma and i . . . the only son of my mother, earnestly beg you to accept in token of our gratitude . . . this object, which . . . an object of great value, an antique bronze. . . . a rare work of art." "you shouldn't!" said the doctor, frowning. "what's this for!" "no, please do not refuse," sasha went on muttering as he unpacked the parcel. "you will wound mamma and me by refusing. . . . it's a fine thing . . . an antique bronze. . . . it was left us by my deceased father and we have kept it as a precious souvenir. my father used to buy antique bronzes and sell them to connoisseurs . . . mamma and i keep on the business now." sasha undid the object and put it solemnly on the table. it was a not very tall candelabra of old bronze and artistic workmanship. it consisted of a group: on the pedestal stood two female figures in the costume of eve and in attitudes for the description of which i have neither the courage nor the fitting temperament. the figures were smiling coquettishly and altogether looked as though, had it not been for the necessity of supporting the candlestick, they would have skipped off the pedestal and have indulged in an orgy such as is improper for the reader even to imagine. looking at the present, the doctor slowly scratched behind his ear, cleared his throat and blew his nose irresolutely. "yes, it certainly is a fine thing," he muttered, "but . . . how shall i express it? . . . it's . . . h'm . . . it's not quite for family reading. it's not simply decolleté but beyond anything, dash it all. . . ." "how do you mean?" "the serpent-tempter himself could not have invented anything worse . . . . why, to put such a phantasmagoria on the table would be defiling the whole flat." "what a strange way of looking at art, doctor!" said sasha, offended. "why, it is an artistic thing, look at it! there is so much beauty and elegance that it fills one's soul with a feeling of reverence and brings a lump into one's throat! when one sees anything so beautiful one forgets everything earthly. . . . only look, how much movement, what an atmosphere, what expression!" "i understand all that very well, my dear boy," the doctor interposed, "but you know i am a family man, my children run in here, ladies come in." "of course if you look at it from the point of view of the crowd," said sasha, "then this exquisitely artistic work may appear in a certain light. . . . but, doctor, rise superior to the crowd, especially as you will wound mamma and me by refusing it. i am the only son of my mother, you have saved my life. . . . we are giving you the thing most precious to us and . . . and i only regret that i have not the pair to present to you. . . ." "thank you, my dear fellow, i am very grateful . . . give my respects to your mother but really consider, my children run in here, ladies come. . . . however, let it remain! i see there's no arguing with you." "and there is nothing to argue about," said sasha, relieved. "put the candlestick here, by this vase. what a pity we have not the pair to it! it is a pity! well, good-bye, doctor." after sasha's departure the doctor looked for a long time at the candelabra, scratched behind his ear and meditated. "it's a superb thing, there's no denying it," he thought, "and it would be a pity to throw it away. . . . but it's impossible for me to keep it. . . . h'm! . . . here's a problem! to whom can i make a present of it, or to what charity can i give it?" after long meditation he thought of his good friend, the lawyer uhov, to whom he was indebted for the management of legal business. "excellent," the doctor decided, "it would be awkward for him as a friend to take money from me, and it will be very suitable for me to present him with this. i will take him the devilish thing! luckily he is a bachelor and easy-going." without further procrastination the doctor put on his hat and coat, took the candelabra and went off to uhov's. "how are you, friend!" he said, finding the lawyer at home. "i've come to see you . . . to thank you for your efforts. . . . you won't take money so you must at least accept this thing here. . . . see, my dear fellow. . . . the thing is magnificent!" on seeing the bronze the lawyer was moved to indescribable delight. "what a specimen!" he chuckled. "ah, deuce take it, to think of them imagining such a thing, the devils! exquisite! ravishing! where did you get hold of such a delightful thing?" after pouring out his ecstasies the lawyer looked timidly towards the door and said: "only you must carry off your present, my boy . . . . i can't take it. . . ." "why?" cried the doctor, disconcerted. "why . . . because my mother is here at times, my clients . . . besides i should be ashamed for my servants to see it." "nonsense! nonsense! don't you dare to refuse!" said the doctor, gesticulating. "it's piggish of you! it's a work of art! . . . what movement . . . what expression! i won't even talk of it! you will offend me!" "if one could plaster it over or stick on fig-leaves . . ." but the doctor gesticulated more violently than before, and dashing out of the flat went home, glad that he had succeeded in getting the present off his hands. when he had gone away the lawyer examined the candelabra, fingered it all over, and then, like the doctor, racked his brains over the question what to do with the present. "it's a fine thing," he mused, "and it would be a pity to throw it away and improper to keep it. the very best thing would be to make a present of it to someone. . . . i know what! i'll take it this evening to shashkin, the comedian. the rascal is fond of such things, and by the way it is his benefit tonight." no sooner said than done. in the evening the candelabra, carefully wrapped up, was duly carried to shashkin's. the whole evening the comic actor's dressing-room was besieged by men coming to admire the present; the dressing-room was filled with the hum of enthusiasm and laughter like the neighing of horses. if one of the actresses approached the door and asked: "may i come in?" the comedian's husky voice was heard at once: "no, no, my dear, i am not dressed!" after the performance the comedian shrugged his shoulders, flung up his hands and said: "well what am i to do with the horrid thing? why, i live in a private flat! actresses come and see me! it's not a photograph that you can put in a drawer!" "you had better sell it, sir," the hairdresser who was disrobing the actor advised him. "there's an old woman living about here who buys antique bronzes. go and enquire for madame smirnov . . . everyone knows her." the actor followed his advice. . . . two days later the doctor was sitting in his consulting-room, and with his finger to his brow was meditating on the acids of the bile. all at once the door opened and sasha smirnov flew into the room. he was smiling, beaming, and his whole figure was radiant with happiness. in his hands he held something wrapped up in newspaper. "doctor!" he began breathlessly, "imagine my delight! happily for you we have succeeded in picking up the pair to your candelabra! mamma is so happy. . . . i am the only son of my mother, you saved my life. . . ." and sasha, all of a tremor with gratitude, set the candelabra before the doctor. the doctor opened his mouth, tried to say something, but said nothing: he could not speak. a joke it was a bright winter midday. . . . there was a sharp snapping frost and the curls on nadenka's temples and the down on her upper lip were covered with silvery frost. she was holding my arm and we were standing on a high hill. from where we stood to the ground below there stretched a smooth sloping descent in which the sun was reflected as in a looking-glass. beside us was a little sledge lined with bright red cloth. "let us go down, nadyezhda petrovna!" i besought her. "only once! i assure you we shall be all right and not hurt." but nadenka was afraid. the slope from her little goloshes to the bottom of the ice hill seemed to her a terrible, immensely deep abyss. her spirit failed her, and she held her breath as she looked down, when i merely suggested her getting into the sledge, but what would it be if she were to risk flying into the abyss! she would die, she would go out of her mind. "i entreat you!" i said. "you mustn't be afraid! you know it's poor-spirited, it's cowardly!" nadenka gave way at last, and from her face i saw that she gave way in mortal dread. i sat her in the sledge, pale and trembling, put my arm round her and with her cast myself down the precipice. the sledge flew like a bullet. the air cleft by our flight beat in our faces, roared, whistled in our ears, tore at us, nipped us cruelly in its anger, tried to tear our heads off our shoulders. we had hardly strength to breathe from the pressure of the wind. it seemed as though the devil himself had caught us in his claws and was dragging us with a roar to hell. surrounding objects melted into one long furiously racing streak . . . another moment and it seemed we should perish. "i love you, nadya!" i said in a low voice. the sledge began moving more and more slowly, the roar of the wind and the whirr of the runners was no longer so terrible, it was easier to breathe, and at last we were at the bottom. nadenka was more dead than alive. she was pale and scarcely breathing. . . . i helped her to get up. "nothing would induce me to go again," she said, looking at me with wide eyes full of horror. "nothing in the world! i almost died!" a little later she recovered herself and looked enquiringly into my eyes, wondering had i really uttered those four words or had she fancied them in the roar of the hurricane. and i stood beside her smoking and looking attentively at my glove. she took my arm and we spent a long while walking near the ice-hill. the riddle evidently would not let her rest. . . . had those words been uttered or not? . . . yes or no? yes or no? it was the question of pride, or honour, of life--a very important question, the most important question in the world. nadenka kept impatiently, sorrowfully looking into my face with a penetrating glance; she answered at random, waiting to see whether i would not speak. oh, the play of feeling on that sweet face! i saw that she was struggling with herself, that she wanted to say something, to ask some question, but she could not find the words; she felt awkward and frightened and troubled by her joy. . . . "do you know what," she said without looking at me. "well?" i asked. "let us . . . slide down again." we clambered up the ice-hill by the steps again. i sat nadenka, pale and trembling, in the sledge; again we flew into the terrible abyss, again the wind roared and the runners whirred, and again when the flight of our sledge was at its swiftest and noisiest, i said in a low voice: "i love you, nadenka!" when the sledge stopped, nadenka flung a glance at the hill down which we had both slid, then bent a long look upon my face, listened to my voice which was unconcerned and passionless, and the whole of her little figure, every bit of it, even her muff and her hood expressed the utmost bewilderment, and on her face was written: "what does it mean? who uttered _those_ words? did he, or did i only fancy it?" the uncertainty worried her and drove her out of all patience. the poor girl did not answer my questions, frowned, and was on the point of tears. "hadn't we better go home?" i asked. "well, i . . . i like this tobogganning," she said, flushing. "shall we go down once more?" she "liked" the tobogganning, and yet as she got into the sledge she was, as both times before, pale, trembling, hardly able to breathe for terror. we went down for the third time, and i saw she was looking at my face and watching my lips. but i put my handkerchief to my lips, coughed, and when we reached the middle of the hill i succeeded in bringing out: "i love you, nadya!" and the mystery remained a mystery! nadenka was silent, pondering on something. . . . i saw her home, she tried to walk slowly, slackened her pace and kept waiting to see whether i would not say those words to her, and i saw how her soul was suffering, what effort she was making not to say to herself: "it cannot be that the wind said them! and i don't want it to be the wind that said them!" next morning i got a little note: "if you are tobogganning to-day, come for me.--n." and from that time i began going every day tobogganning with nadenka, and as we flew down in the sledge, every time i pronounced in a low voice the same words: "i love you, nadya!" soon nadenka grew used to that phrase as to alcohol or morphia. she could not live without it. it is true that flying down the ice-hill terrified her as before, but now the terror and danger gave a peculiar fascination to words of love--words which as before were a mystery and tantalized the soul. the same two--the wind and i were still suspected. . . . which of the two was making love to her she did not know, but apparently by now she did not care; from which goblet one drinks matters little if only the beverage is intoxicating. it happened i went to the skating-ground alone at midday; mingling with the crowd i saw nadenka go up to the ice-hill and look about for me . . . then she timidly mounted the steps. . . . she was frightened of going alone--oh, how frightened! she was white as the snow, she was trembling, she went as though to the scaffold, but she went, she went without looking back, resolutely. she had evidently determined to put it to the test at last: would those sweet amazing words be heard when i was not there? i saw her, pale, her lips parted with horror, get into the sledge, shut her eyes and saying good-bye for ever to the earth, set off. . . . "whrrr!" whirred the runners. whether nadenka heard those words i do not know. i only saw her getting up from the sledge looking faint and exhausted. and one could tell from her face that she could not tell herself whether she had heard anything or not. her terror while she had been flying down had deprived of her all power of hearing, of discriminating sounds, of understanding. but then the month of march arrived . . . the spring sunshine was more kindly. . . . our ice-hill turned dark, lost its brilliance and finally melted. we gave up tobogganning. there was nowhere now where poor nadenka could hear those words, and indeed no one to utter them, since there was no wind and i was going to petersburg--for long, perhaps for ever. it happened two days before my departure i was sitting in the dusk in the little garden which was separated from the yard of nadenka's house by a high fence with nails in it. . . . it was still pretty cold, there was still snow by the manure heap, the trees looked dead but there was already the scent of spring and the rooks were cawing loudly as they settled for their night's rest. i went up to the fence and stood for a long while peeping through a chink. i saw nadenka come out into the porch and fix a mournful yearning gaze on the sky. . . . the spring wind was blowing straight into her pale dejected face. . . . it reminded her of the wind which roared at us on the ice-hill when she heard those four words, and her face became very, very sorrowful, a tear trickled down her cheek, and the poor child held out both arms as though begging the wind to bring her those words once more. and waiting for the wind i said in a low voice: "i love you, nadya!" mercy! the change that came over nadenka! she uttered a cry, smiled all over her face and looking joyful, happy and beautiful, held out her arms to meet the wind. and i went off to pack up. . . . that was long ago. now nadenka is married; she married--whether of her own choice or not does not matter--a secretary of the nobility wardenship and now she has three children. that we once went tobogganning together, and that the wind brought her the words "i love you, nadenka," is not forgotten; it is for her now the happiest, most touching, and beautiful memory in her life. . . . but now that i am older i cannot understand why i uttered those words, what was my motive in that joke. . . . a country cottage two young people who had not long been married were walking up and down the platform of a little country station. his arm was round her waist, her head was almost on his shoulder, and both were happy. the moon peeped up from the drifting cloudlets and frowned, as it seemed, envying their happiness and regretting her tedious and utterly superfluous virginity. the still air was heavy with the fragrance of lilac and wild cherry. somewhere in the distance beyond the line a corncrake was calling. "how beautiful it is, sasha, how beautiful!" murmured the young wife. "it all seems like a dream. see, how sweet and inviting that little copse looks! how nice those solid, silent telegraph posts are! they add a special note to the landscape, suggesting humanity, civilization in the distance. . . . don't you think it's lovely when the wind brings the rushing sound of a train?" "yes. . . . but what hot little hands you've got. . . that's because you're excited, varya. . . . what have you got for our supper to-night?" "chicken and salad. . . . it's a chicken just big enough for two . . . . then there is the salmon and sardines that were sent from town." the moon as though she had taken a pinch of snuff hid her face behind a cloud. human happiness reminded her of her own loneliness, of her solitary couch beyond the hills and dales. "the train is coming!" said varya, "how jolly!" three eyes of fire could be seen in the distance. the stationmaster came out on the platform. signal lights flashed here and there on the line. "let's see the train in and go home," said sasha, yawning. "what a splendid time we are having together, varya, it's so splendid, one can hardly believe it's true!" the dark monster crept noiselessly alongside the platform and came to a standstill. they caught glimpses of sleepy faces, of hats and shoulders at the dimly lighted windows. "look! look!" they heard from one of the carriages. "varya and sasha have come to meet us! there they are! . . . varya! . . . varya. . . . look!" two little girls skipped out of the train and hung on varya's neck. they were followed by a stout, middle-aged lady, and a tall, lanky gentleman with grey whiskers; behind them came two schoolboys, laden with bags, and after the schoolboys, the governess, after the governess the grandmother. "here we are, here we are, dear boy!" began the whiskered gentleman, squeezing sasha's hand. "sick of waiting for us, i expect! you have been pitching into your old uncle for not coming down all this time, i daresay! kolya, kostya, nina, fifa . . . children! kiss your cousin sasha! we're all here, the whole troop of us, just for three or four days. . . . i hope we shan't be too many for you? you mustn't let us put you out!" at the sight of their uncle and his family, the young couple were horror-stricken. while his uncle talked and kissed them, sasha had a vision of their little cottage: he and varya giving up their three little rooms, all the pillows and bedding to their guests; the salmon, the sardines, the chicken all devoured in a single instant; the cousins plucking the flowers in their little garden, spilling the ink, filled the cottage with noise and confusion; his aunt talking continually about her ailments and her papa's having been baron von fintich. . . . and sasha looked almost with hatred at his young wife, and whispered: "it's you they've come to see! . . . damn them!" "no, it's you," answered varya, pale with anger. "they're your relations! they're not mine!" and turning to her visitors, she said with a smile of welcome: "welcome to the cottage!" the moon came out again. she seemed to smile, as though she were glad she had no relations. sasha, turning his head away to hide his angry despairing face, struggled to give a note of cordial welcome to his voice as he said: "it is jolly of you! welcome to the cottage!" a blunder ilya sergeitch peplov and his wife kleopatra petrovna were standing at the door, listening greedily. on the other side in the little drawing-room a love scene was apparently taking place between two persons: their daughter natashenka and a teacher of the district school, called shchupkin. "he's rising!" whispered peplov, quivering with impatience and rubbing his hands. "now, kleopatra, mind; as soon as they begin talking of their feelings, take down the ikon from the wall and we'll go in and bless them. . . . we'll catch him. . . . a blessing with an ikon is sacred and binding. . . he couldn't get out of it, if he brought it into court." on the other side of the door this was the conversation: "don't go on like that!" said shchupkin, striking a match against his checked trousers. "i never wrote you any letters!" "i like that! as though i didn't know your writing!" giggled the girl with an affected shriek, continually peeping at herself in the glass. "i knew it at once! and what a queer man you are! you are a writing master, and you write like a spider! how can you teach writing if you write so badly yourself?" "h'm! . . . that means nothing. the great thing in writing lessons is not the hand one writes, but keeping the boys in order. you hit one on the head with a ruler, make another kneel down. . . . besides, there's nothing in handwriting! nekrassov was an author, but his handwriting's a disgrace, there's a specimen of it in his collected works." "you are not nekrassov. . . ." (a sigh). "i should love to marry an author. he'd always be writing poems to me." "i can write you a poem, too, if you like." "what can you write about?" "love--passion--your eyes. you'll be crazy when you read it. it would draw a tear from a stone! and if i write you a real poem, will you let me kiss your hand?" "that's nothing much! you can kiss it now if you like." shchupkin jumped up, and making sheepish eyes, bent over the fat little hand that smelt of egg soap. "take down the ikon," peplov whispered in a fluster, pale with excitement, and buttoning his coat as he prodded his wife with his elbow. "come along, now!" and without a second's delay peplov flung open the door. "children," he muttered, lifting up his arms and blinking tearfully, "the lord bless you, my children. may you live--be fruitful--and multiply." "and--and i bless you, too," the mamma brought out, crying with happiness. "may you be happy, my dear ones! oh, you are taking from me my only treasure!" she said to shchupkin. "love my girl, be good to her. . . ." shchupkin's mouth fell open with amazement and alarm. the parents' attack was so bold and unexpected that he could not utter a single word. "i'm in for it! i'm spliced!" he thought, going limp with horror. "it's all over with you now, my boy! there's no escape!" and he bowed his head submissively, as though to say, "take me, i'm vanquished." "ble-blessings on you," the papa went on, and he, too, shed tears. "natashenka, my daughter, stand by his side. kleopatra, give me the ikon." but at this point the father suddenly left off weeping, and his face was contorted with anger. "you ninny!" he said angrily to his wife. "you are an idiot! is that the ikon?" "ach, saints alive!" what had happened? the writing master raised himself and saw that he was saved; in her flutter the mamma had snatched from the wall the portrait of lazhetchnikov, the author, in mistake for the ikon. old peplov and his wife stood disconcerted in the middle of the room, holding the portrait aloft, not knowing what to do or what to say. the writing master took advantage of the general confusion and slipped away. fat and thin two friends--one a fat man and the other a thin man--met at the nikolaevsky station. the fat man had just dined in the station and his greasy lips shone like ripe cherries. he smelt of sherry and _fleur d'orange_. the thin man had just slipped out of the train and was laden with portmanteaus, bundles, and bandboxes. he smelt of ham and coffee grounds. a thin woman with a long chin, his wife, and a tall schoolboy with one eye screwed up came into view behind his back. "porfiry," cried the fat man on seeing the thin man. "is it you? my dear fellow! how many summers, how many winters!" "holy saints!" cried the thin man in amazement. "misha! the friend of my childhood! where have you dropped from?" the friends kissed each other three times, and gazed at each other with eyes full of tears. both were agreeably astounded. "my dear boy!" began the thin man after the kissing. "this is unexpected! this is a surprise! come have a good look at me! just as handsome as i used to be! just as great a darling and a dandy! good gracious me! well, and how are you? made your fortune? married? i am married as you see. . . . this is my wife luise, her maiden name was vantsenbach . . . of the lutheran persuasion. . . . and this is my son nafanail, a schoolboy in the third class. this is the friend of my childhood, nafanya. we were boys at school together!" nafanail thought a little and took off his cap. "we were boys at school together," the thin man went on. "do you remember how they used to tease you? you were nicknamed herostratus because you burned a hole in a schoolbook with a cigarette, and i was nicknamed ephialtes because i was fond of telling tales. ho--ho! . . . we were children! . . . don't be shy, nafanya. go nearer to him. and this is my wife, her maiden name was vantsenbach, of the lutheran persuasion. . . ." nafanail thought a little and took refuge behind his father's back. "well, how are you doing my friend?" the fat man asked, looking enthusiastically at his friend. "are you in the service? what grade have you reached?" "i am, dear boy! i have been a collegiate assessor for the last two years and i have the stanislav. the salary is poor, but that's no great matter! the wife gives music lessons, and i go in for carving wooden cigarette cases in a private way. capital cigarette cases! i sell them for a rouble each. if any one takes ten or more i make a reduction of course. we get along somehow. i served as a clerk, you know, and now i have been transferred here as a head clerk in the same department. i am going to serve here. and what about you? i bet you are a civil councillor by now? eh?" "no dear boy, go higher than that," said the fat man. "i have risen to privy councillor already . . . i have two stars." the thin man turned pale and rigid all at once, but soon his face twisted in all directions in the broadest smile; it seemed as though sparks were flashing from his face and eyes. he squirmed, he doubled together, crumpled up. . . . his portmanteaus, bundles and cardboard boxes seemed to shrink and crumple up too. . . . his wife's long chin grew longer still; nafanail drew himself up to attention and fastened all the buttons of his uniform. "your excellency, i . . . delighted! the friend, one may say, of childhood and to have turned into such a great man! he--he!" "come, come!" the fat man frowned. "what's this tone for? you and i were friends as boys, and there is no need of this official obsequiousness!" "merciful heavens, your excellency! what are you saying. . . ?" sniggered the thin man, wriggling more than ever. "your excellency's gracious attention is like refreshing manna. . . . this, your excellency, is my son nafanail, . . . my wife luise, a lutheran in a certain sense." the fat man was about to make some protest, but the face of the thin man wore an expression of such reverence, sugariness, and mawkish respectfulness that the privy councillor was sickened. he turned away from the thin man, giving him his hand at parting. the thin man pressed three fingers, bowed his whole body and sniggered like a chinaman: "he--he--he!" his wife smiled. nafanail scraped with his foot and dropped his cap. all three were agreeably overwhelmed. the death of a government clerk one fine evening, a no less fine government clerk called ivan dmitritch tchervyakov was sitting in the second row of the stalls, gazing through an opera glass at the _cloches de corneville_. he gazed and felt at the acme of bliss. but suddenly. . . . in stories one so often meets with this "but suddenly." the authors are right: life is so full of surprises! but suddenly his face puckered up, his eyes disappeared, his breathing was arrested . . . he took the opera glass from his eyes, bent over and . . . "aptchee!!" he sneezed as you perceive. it is not reprehensible for anyone to sneeze anywhere. peasants sneeze and so do police superintendents, and sometimes even privy councillors. all men sneeze. tchervyakov was not in the least confused, he wiped his face with his handkerchief, and like a polite man, looked round to see whether he had disturbed any one by his sneezing. but then he was overcome with confusion. he saw that an old gentleman sitting in front of him in the first row of the stalls was carefully wiping his bald head and his neck with his glove and muttering something to himself. in the old gentleman, tchervyakov recognised brizzhalov, a civilian general serving in the department of transport. "i have spattered him," thought tchervyakov, "he is not the head of my department, but still it is awkward. i must apologise." tchervyakov gave a cough, bent his whole person forward, and whispered in the general's ear. "pardon, your excellency, i spattered you accidentally. . . ." "never mind, never mind." "for goodness sake excuse me, i . . . i did not mean to." "oh, please, sit down! let me listen!" tchervyakov was embarrassed, he smiled stupidly and fell to gazing at the stage. he gazed at it but was no longer feeling bliss. he began to be troubled by uneasiness. in the interval, he went up to brizzhalov, walked beside him, and overcoming his shyness, muttered: "i spattered you, your excellency, forgive me . . . you see . . . i didn't do it to . . . ." "oh, that's enough . . . i'd forgotten it, and you keep on about it!" said the general, moving his lower lip impatiently. "he has forgotten, but there is a fiendish light in his eye," thought tchervyakov, looking suspiciously at the general. "and he doesn't want to talk. i ought to explain to him . . . that i really didn't intend . . . that it is the law of nature or else he will think i meant to spit on him. he doesn't think so now, but he will think so later!" on getting home, tchervyakov told his wife of his breach of good manners. it struck him that his wife took too frivolous a view of the incident; she was a little frightened, but when she learned that brizzhalov was in a different department, she was reassured. "still, you had better go and apologise," she said, "or he will think you don't know how to behave in public." "that's just it! i did apologise, but he took it somehow queerly . . . he didn't say a word of sense. there wasn't time to talk properly." next day tchervyakov put on a new uniform, had his hair cut and went to brizzhalov's to explain; going into the general's reception room he saw there a number of petitioners and among them the general himself, who was beginning to interview them. after questioning several petitioners the general raised his eyes and looked at tchervyakov. "yesterday at the _arcadia_, if you recollect, your excellency," the latter began, "i sneezed and . . . accidentally spattered . . . exc. . . ." "what nonsense. . . . it's beyond anything! what can i do for you," said the general addressing the next petitioner. "he won't speak," thought tchervyakov, turning pale; "that means that he is angry. . . . no, it can't be left like this. . . . i will explain to him." when the general had finished his conversation with the last of the petitioners and was turning towards his inner apartments, tchervyakov took a step towards him and muttered: "your excellency! if i venture to trouble your excellency, it is simply from a feeling i may say of regret! . . . it was not intentional if you will graciously believe me." the general made a lachrymose face, and waved his hand. "why, you are simply making fun of me, sir," he said as he closed the door behind him. "where's the making fun in it?" thought tchervyakov, "there is nothing of the sort! he is a general, but he can't understand. if that is how it is i am not going to apologise to that _fanfaron_ any more! the devil take him. i'll write a letter to him, but i won't go. by jove, i won't." so thought tchervyakov as he walked home; he did not write a letter to the general, he pondered and pondered and could not make up that letter. he had to go next day to explain in person. "i ventured to disturb your excellency yesterday," he muttered, when the general lifted enquiring eyes upon him, "not to make fun as you were pleased to say. i was apologising for having spattered you in sneezing. . . . and i did not dream of making fun of you. should i dare to make fun of you, if we should take to making fun, then there would be no respect for persons, there would be. . . ." "be off!" yelled the general, turning suddenly purple, and shaking all over. "what?" asked tchervyakov, in a whisper turning numb with horror. "be off!" repeated the general, stamping. something seemed to give way in tchervyakov's stomach. seeing nothing and hearing nothing he reeled to the door, went out into the street, and went staggering along. . . . reaching home mechanically, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa and died. a pink stocking a dull, rainy day. the sky is completely covered with heavy clouds, and there is no prospect of the rain ceasing. outside sleet, puddles, and drenched jackdaws. indoors it is half dark, and so cold that one wants the stove heated. pavel petrovitch somov is pacing up and down his study, grumbling at the weather. the tears of rain on the windows and the darkness of the room make him depressed. he is insufferably bored and has nothing to do. . . . the newspapers have not been brought yet; shooting is out of the question, and it is not nearly dinner-time . . . . somov is not alone in his study. madame somov, a pretty little lady in a light blouse and pink stockings, is sitting at his writing table. she is eagerly scribbling a letter. every time he passes her as he strides up and down, ivan petrovitch looks over her shoulder at what she is writing. he sees big sprawling letters, thin and narrow, with all sorts of tails and flourishes. there are numbers of blots, smears, and finger-marks. madame somov does not like ruled paper, and every line runs downhill with horrid wriggles as it reaches the margin. . . . "lidotchka, who is it you are writing such a lot to?" somov inquires, seeing that his wife is just beginning to scribble the sixth page. "to sister varya." "hm . . . it's a long letter! i'm so bored--let me read it!" "here, you may read it, but there's nothing interesting in it." somov takes the written pages and, still pacing up and down, begins reading. lidotchka leans her elbows on the back of her chair and watches the expression of his face. . . . after the first page his face lengthens and an expression of something almost like panic comes into it. . . . at the third page somov frowns and scratches the back of his head. at the fourth he pauses, looks with a scared face at his wife, and seems to ponder. after thinking a little, he takes up the letter again with a sigh. . . . his face betrays perplexity and even alarm. . . ." "well, this is beyond anything!" he mutters, as he finishes reading the letter and flings the sheets on the table, "it's positively incredible!" "what's the matter?" asks lidotchka, flustered. "what's the matter! you've covered six pages, wasted a good two hours scribbling, and there's nothing in it at all! if there were one tiny idea! one reads on and on, and one's brain is as muddled as though one were deciphering the chinese wriggles on tea chests! ough!" "yes, that's true, vanya, . . ." says lidotchka, reddening. "i wrote it carelessly. . . ." "queer sort of carelessness! in a careless letter there is some meaning and style--there is sense in it--while yours . . . excuse me, but i don't know what to call it! it's absolute twaddle! there are words and sentences, but not the slightest sense in them. your whole letter is exactly like the conversation of two boys: 'we had pancakes to-day! and we had a soldier come to see us!' you say the same thing over and over again! you drag it out, repeat yourself . . . . the wretched ideas dance about like devils: there's no making out where anything begins, where anything ends. . . . how can you write like that?" "if i had been writing carefully," lidotchka says in self defence, "then there would not have been mistakes. . . ." "oh, i'm not talking about mistakes! the awful grammatical howlers! there's not a line that's not a personal insult to grammar! no stops nor commas--and the spelling . . . brrr! 'earth' has an _a_ in it!! and the writing! it's desperate! i'm not joking, lida. . . . i'm surprised and appalled at your letter. . . . you mustn't be angry, darling, but, really, i had no idea you were such a duffer at grammar. . . . and yet you belong to a cultivated, well-educated circle: you are the wife of a university man, and the daughter of a general! tell me, did you ever go to school?" "what next! i finished at the von mebke's boarding school. . . ." somov shrugs his shoulders and continues to pace up and down, sighing. lidotchka, conscious of her ignorance and ashamed of it, sighs too and casts down her eyes. . . . ten minutes pass in silence. "you know, lidotchka, it really is awful!" says somov, suddenly halting in front of her and looking into her face with horror. "you are a mother . . . do you understand? a mother! how can you teach your children if you know nothing yourself? you have a good brain, but what's the use of it if you have never mastered the very rudiments of knowledge? there--never mind about knowledge . . . the children will get that at school, but, you know, you are very shaky on the moral side too! you sometimes use such language that it makes my ears tingle!" somov shrugs his shoulders again, wraps himself in the folds of his dressing-gown and continues his pacing. . . . he feels vexed and injured, and at the same time sorry for lidotchka, who does not protest, but merely blinks. . . . both feel oppressed and miserable . . . . absorbed in their woes, they do not notice how time is passing and the dinner hour is approaching. sitting down to dinner, somov, who is fond of good eating and of eating in peace, drinks a large glass of vodka and begins talking about something else. lidotchka listens and assents, but suddenly over the soup her eyes fill with tears and she begins whimpering. "it's all mother's fault!" she says, wiping away her tears with her dinner napkin. "everyone advised her to send me to the high school, and from the high school i should have been sure to go on to the university!" "university . . . high school," mutters somov. "that's running to extremes, my girl! what's the good of being a blue stocking! a blue stocking is the very deuce! neither man nor woman, but just something midway: neither one thing nor another. . . i hate blue stockings! i would never have married a learned woman. . . ." "there's no making you out . . .", says lidotchka. "you are angry because i am not learned, and at the same time you hate learned women; you are annoyed because i have no ideas in my letter, and yet you yourself are opposed to my studying. . . ." "you do catch me up at a word, my dear," yawns somov, pouring out a second glass of vodka in his boredom. under the influence of vodka and a good dinner, somov grows more good-humoured, lively, and soft. . . . he watches his pretty wife making the salad with an anxious face and a rush of affection for her, of indulgence and forgiveness comes over him. "it was stupid of me to depress her, poor girl . . . ," he thought. "why did i say such a lot of dreadful things? she is silly, that's true, uncivilised and narrow; but . . . there are two sides to the question, and _audiatur et altera pars_. . . . perhaps people are perfectly right when they say that woman's shallowness rests on her very vocation. granted that it is her vocation to love her husband, to bear children, and to mix salad, what the devil does she want with learning? no, indeed!" at that point he remembers that learned women are usually tedious, that they are exacting, strict, and unyielding; and, on the other hand, how easy it is to get on with silly lidotchka, who never pokes her nose into anything, does not understand so much, and never obtrudes her criticism. there is peace and comfort with lidotchka, and no risk of being interfered with. "confound them, those clever and learned women! it's better and easier to live with simple ones," he thinks, as he takes a plate of chicken from lidotchka. he recollects that a civilised man sometimes feels a desire to talk and share his thoughts with a clever and well-educated woman. "what of it?" thinks somov. "if i want to talk of intellectual subjects, i'll go to natalya andreyevna . . . or to marya frantsovna. . . . it's very simple! but no, i shan't go. one can discuss intellectual subjects with men," he finally decides. at a summer villa "i love you. you are my life, my happiness--everything to me! forgive the avowal, but i have not the strength to suffer and be silent. i ask not for love in return, but for sympathy. be at the old arbour at eight o'clock this evening. . . . to sign my name is unnecessary i think, but do not be uneasy at my being anonymous. i am young, nice-looking . . . what more do you want?" when pavel ivanitch vyhodtsev, a practical married man who was spending his holidays at a summer villa, read this letter, he shrugged his shoulders and scratched his forehead in perplexity. "what devilry is this?" he thought. "i'm a married man, and to send me such a queer . . . silly letter! who wrote it?" pavel ivanitch turned the letter over and over before his eyes, read it through again, and spat with disgust. "'i love you'" . . . he said jeeringly. "a nice boy she has pitched on! so i'm to run off to meet you in the arbour! . . . i got over all such romances and _fleurs d'amour_ years ago, my girl. . . . hm! she must be some reckless, immoral creature. . . . well, these women are a set! what a whirligig--god forgive us!--she must be to write a letter like that to a stranger, and a married man, too! it's real demoralisation!" in the course of his eight years of married life pavel ivanitch had completely got over all sentimental feeling, and he had received no letters from ladies except letters of congratulation, and so, although he tried to carry it off with disdain, the letter quoted above greatly intrigued and agitated him. an hour after receiving it, he was lying on his sofa, thinking: "of course i am not a silly boy, and i am not going to rush off to this idiotic rendezvous; but yet it would be interesting to know who wrote it! hm. . . . it is certainly a woman's writing. . . . the letter is written with genuine feeling, and so it can hardly be a joke. . . . most likely it's some neurotic girl, or perhaps a widow . . . widows are frivolous and eccentric as a rule. hm. . . . who could it be?" what made it the more difficult to decide the question was that pavel ivanitch had not one feminine acquaintance among all the summer visitors, except his wife. "it is queer . . ." he mused. "'i love you!'. . . when did she manage to fall in love? amazing woman! to fall in love like this, apropos of nothing, without making any acquaintance and finding out what sort of man i am. . . . she must be extremely young and romantic if she is capable of falling in love after two or three looks at me. . . . but . . . who is she?" pavel ivanitch suddenly recalled that when he had been walking among the summer villas the day before, and the day before that, he had several times been met by a fair young lady with a light blue hat and a turn-up nose. the fair charmer had kept looking at him, and when he sat down on a seat she had sat down beside him. . . . "can it be she?" vyhodtsev wondered. "it can't be! could a delicate ephemeral creature like that fall in love with a worn-out old eel like me? no, it's impossible!" at dinner pavel ivanitch looked blankly at his wife while he meditated: "she writes that she is young and nice-looking. . . . so she's not old. . . . hm. . . . to tell the truth, honestly i am not so old and plain that no one could fall in love with me. my wife loves me! besides, love is blind, we all know. . . ." "what are you thinking about?" his wife asked him. "oh. . . my head aches a little. . ." pavel ivanitch said, quite untruly. he made up his mind that it was stupid to pay attention to such a nonsensical thing as a love-letter, and laughed at it and at its authoress, but--alas!--powerful is the "dacha" enemy of mankind! after dinner, pavel ivanitch lay down on his bed, and instead of going to sleep, reflected: "but there, i daresay she is expecting me to come! what a silly! i can just imagine what a nervous fidget she'll be in and how her _tournure_ will quiver when she does not find me in the arbour! i shan't go, though. . . . bother her!" but, i repeat, powerful is the enemy of mankind. "though i might, perhaps, just out of curiosity . . ." he was musing, half an hour later. "i might go and look from a distance what sort of a creature she is. . . . it would be interesting to have a look at her! it would be fun, and that's all! after all, why shouldn't i have a little fun since such a chance has turned up?" pavel ivanitch got up from his bed and began dressing. "what are you getting yourself up so smartly for?" his wife asked, noticing that he was putting on a clean shirt and a fashionable tie. "oh, nothing. . . . i must have a walk. . . . my head aches. . . . hm." pavel ivanitch dressed in his best, and waiting till eight o'clock, went out of the house. when the figures of gaily dressed summer visitors of both sexes began passing before his eyes against the bright green background, his heart throbbed. "which of them is it? . . ." he wondered, advancing irresolutely. "come, what am i afraid of? why, i am not going to the rendezvous! what . . . a fool! go forward boldly! and what if i go into the arbour? well, well . . . there is no reason i should." pavel ivanitch's heart beat still more violently. . . . involuntarily, with no desire to do so, he suddenly pictured to himself the half-darkness of the arbour. . . . a graceful fair girl with a little blue hat and a turn-up nose rose before his imagination. he saw her, abashed by her love and trembling all over, timidly approach him, breathing excitedly, and . . . suddenly clasping him in her arms. "if i weren't married it would be all right . . ." he mused, driving sinful ideas out of his head. "though . . . for once in my life, it would do no harm to have the experience, or else one will die without knowing what. . . . and my wife, what will it matter to her? thank god, for eight years i've never moved one step away from her. . . . eight years of irreproachable duty! enough of her. . . . it's positively vexatious. . . . i'm ready to go to spite her!" trembling all over and holding his breath, pavel ivanitch went up to the arbour, wreathed with ivy and wild vine, and peeped into it . . . . a smell of dampness and mildew reached him. . . . "i believe there's nobody . . ." he thought, going into the arbour, and at once saw a human silhouette in the corner. the silhouette was that of a man. . . . looking more closely, pavel ivanitch recognised his wife's brother, mitya, a student, who was staying with them at the villa. "oh, it's you . . ." he growled discontentedly, as he took off his hat and sat down. "yes, it's i" . . . answered mitya. two minutes passed in silence. "excuse me, pavel ivanitch," began mitya: "but might i ask you to leave me alone?? . . . i am thinking over the dissertation for my degree and . . . and the presence of anybody else prevents my thinking." "you had better go somewhere in a dark avenue. . ." pavel ivanitch observed mildly. "it's easier to think in the open air, and, besides, . . . er . . . i should like to have a little sleep here on this seat. . . it's not so hot here. . . ." "you want to sleep, but it's a question of my dissertation . . ." mitya grumbled. "the dissertation is more important." again there was a silence. pavel ivanitch, who had given the rein to his imagination and was continually hearing footsteps, suddenly leaped up and said in a plaintive voice: "come, i beg you, mitya! you are younger and ought to consider me . . . . i am unwell and . . . i need sleep. . . . go away!" "that's egoism. . . . why must you be here and not i? i won't go as a matter of principle." "come, i ask you to! suppose i am an egoist, a despot and a fool . . . but i ask you to go! for once in my life i ask you a favour! show some consideration!" mitya shook his head. "what a beast! . . ." thought pavel ivanitch. "that can't be a rendezvous with him here! it's impossible with him here!" "i say, mitya," he said, "i ask you for the last time. . . . show that you are a sensible, humane, and cultivated man!" "i don't know why you keep on so!" . . . said mitya, shrugging his shoulders. "i've said i won't go, and i won't. i shall stay here as a matter of principle. . . ." at that moment a woman's face with a turn-up nose peeped into the arbour. . . . seeing mitya and pavel ivanitch, it frowned and vanished. "she is gone!" thought pavel ivanitch, looking angrily at mitya. "she saw that blackguard and fled! it's all spoilt!" after waiting a little longer, he got up, put on his hat and said: "you're a beast, a low brute and a blackguard! yes! a beast! it's mean . . . and silly! everything is at an end between us!" "delighted to hear it!" muttered mitya, also getting up and putting on his hat. "let me tell you that by being here just now you've played me such a dirty trick that i'll never forgive you as long as i live." pavel ivanitch went out of the arbour, and beside himself with rage, strode rapidly to his villa. even the sight of the table laid for supper did not soothe him. "once in a lifetime such a chance has turned up," he thought in agitation; "and then it's been prevented! now she is offended . . . crushed!" at supper pavel ivanitch and mitya kept their eyes on their plates and maintained a sullen silence. . . . they were hating each other from the bottom of their hearts. "what are you smiling at?" asked pavel ivanitch, pouncing on his wife. "it's only silly fools who laugh for nothing!" his wife looked at her husband's angry face, and went off into a peal of laughter. "what was that letter you got this morning?" she asked. "i? . . . i didn't get one. . . ." pavel ivanitch was overcome with confusion. "you are inventing . . . imagination." "oh, come, tell us! own up, you did! why, it was i sent you that letter! honour bright, i did! ha ha!" pavel ivanitch turned crimson and bent over his plate. "silly jokes," he growled. "but what could i do? tell me that. . . . we had to scrub the rooms out this evening, and how could we get you out of the house? there was no other way of getting you out. . . . but don't be angry, stupid. . . . i didn't want you to be dull in the arbour, so i sent the same letter to mitya too! mitya, have you been to the arbour?" mitya grinned and left off glaring with hatred at his rival. the tales of chekhov volume the party and other stories by anton tchekhov translated by constance garnett contents the party terror a woman's kingdom a problem the kiss 'anna on the neck' the teacher of literature not wanted typhus a misfortune a trifle from life the party i after the festive dinner with its eight courses and its endless conversation, olga mihalovna, whose husband's name-day was being celebrated, went out into the garden. the duty of smiling and talking incessantly, the clatter of the crockery, the stupidity of the servants, the long intervals between the courses, and the stays she had put on to conceal her condition from the visitors, wearied her to exhaustion. she longed to get away from the house, to sit in the shade and rest her heart with thoughts of the baby which was to be born to her in another two months. she was used to these thoughts coming to her as she turned to the left out of the big avenue into the narrow path. here in the thick shade of the plums and cherry-trees the dry branches used to scratch her neck and shoulders; a spider's web would settle on her face, and there would rise up in her mind the image of a little creature of undetermined sex and undefined features, and it began to seem as though it were not the spider's web that tickled her face and neck caressingly, but that little creature. when, at the end of the path, a thin wicker hurdle came into sight, and behind it podgy beehives with tiled roofs; when in the motionless, stagnant air there came a smell of hay and honey, and a soft buzzing of bees was audible, then the little creature would take complete possession of olga mihalovna. she used to sit down on a bench near the shanty woven of branches, and fall to thinking. this time, too, she went on as far as the seat, sat down, and began thinking; but instead of the little creature there rose up in her imagination the figures of the grown-up people whom she had just left. she felt dreadfully uneasy that she, the hostess, had deserted her guests, and she remembered how her husband, pyotr dmitritch, and her uncle, nikolay nikolaitch, had argued at dinner about trial by jury, about the press, and about the higher education of women. her husband, as usual, argued in order to show off his conservative ideas before his visitors--and still more in order to disagree with her uncle, whom he disliked. her uncle contradicted him and wrangled over every word he uttered, so as to show the company that he, uncle nikolay nikolaitch, still retained his youthful freshness of spirit and free-thinking in spite of his fifty-nine years. and towards the end of dinner even olga mihalovna herself could not resist taking part and unskilfully attempting to defend university education for women--not that that education stood in need of her defence, but simply because she wanted to annoy her husband, who to her mind was unfair. the guests were wearied by this discussion, but they all thought it necessary to take part in it, and talked a great deal, although none of them took any interest in trial by jury or the higher education of women. . . . olga mihalovna was sitting on the nearest side of the hurdle near the shanty. the sun was hidden behind the clouds. the trees and the air were overcast as before rain, but in spite of that it was hot and stifling. the hay cut under the trees on the previous day was lying ungathered, looking melancholy, with here and there a patch of colour from the faded flowers, and from it came a heavy, sickly scent. it was still. the other side of the hurdle there was a monotonous hum of bees. . . . suddenly she heard footsteps and voices; some one was coming along the path towards the beehouse. "how stifling it is!" said a feminine voice. "what do you think-- is it going to rain, or not?" "it is going to rain, my charmer, but not before night," a very familiar male voice answered languidly. "there will be a good rain." olga mihalovna calculated that if she made haste to hide in the shanty they would pass by without seeing her, and she would not have to talk and to force herself to smile. she picked up her skirts, bent down and crept into the shanty. at once she felt upon her face, her neck, her arms, the hot air as heavy as steam. if it had not been for the stuffiness and the close smell of rye bread, fennel, and brushwood, which prevented her from breathing freely, it would have been delightful to hide from her visitors here under the thatched roof in the dusk, and to think about the little creature. it was cosy and quiet. "what a pretty spot!" said a feminine voice. "let us sit here, pyotr dmitritch." olga mihalovna began peeping through a crack between two branches. she saw her husband, pyotr dmitritch, and lubotchka sheller, a girl of seventeen who had not long left boarding-school. pyotr dmitritch, with his hat on the back of his head, languid and indolent from having drunk so much at dinner, slouched by the hurdle and raked the hay into a heap with his foot; lubotchka, pink with the heat and pretty as ever, stood with her hands behind her, watching the lazy movements of his big handsome person. olga mihalovna knew that her husband was attractive to women, and did not like to see him with them. there was nothing out of the way in pyotr dmitritch's lazily raking together the hay in order to sit down on it with lubotchka and chatter to her of trivialities; there was nothing out of the way, either, in pretty lubotchka's looking at him with her soft eyes; but yet olga mihalovna felt vexed with her husband and frightened and pleased that she could listen to them. "sit down, enchantress," said pyotr dmitritch, sinking down on the hay and stretching. "that's right. come, tell me something." "what next! if i begin telling you anything you will go to sleep." "me go to sleep? allah forbid! can i go to sleep while eyes like yours are watching me?" in her husband's words, and in the fact that he was lolling with his hat on the back of his head in the presence of a lady, there was nothing out of the way either. he was spoilt by women, knew that they found him attractive, and had adopted with them a special tone which every one said suited him. with lubotchka he behaved as with all women. but, all the same, olga mihalovna was jealous. "tell me, please," said lubotchka, after a brief silence--"is it true that you are to be tried for something?" "i? yes, i am . . . numbered among the transgressors, my charmer." "but what for?" "for nothing, but just . . . it's chiefly a question of politics," yawned pyotr dmitritch--"the antagonisms of left and right. i, an obscurantist and reactionary, ventured in an official paper to make use of an expression offensive in the eyes of such immaculate gladstones as vladimir pavlovitch vladimirov and our local justice of the peace--kuzma grigoritch vostryakov." pytor dmitritch yawned again and went on: "and it is the way with us that you may express disapproval of the sun or the moon, or anything you like, but god preserve you from touching the liberals! heaven forbid! a liberal is like the poisonous dry fungus which covers you with a cloud of dust if you accidentally touch it with your finger." "what happened to you?" "nothing particular. the whole flare-up started from the merest trifle. a teacher, a detestable person of clerical associations, hands to vostryakov a petition against a tavern-keeper, charging him with insulting language and behaviour in a public place. everything showed that both the teacher and the tavern-keeper were drunk as cobblers, and that they behaved equally badly. if there had been insulting behaviour, the insult had anyway been mutual. vostryakov ought to have fined them both for a breach of the peace and have turned them out of the court--that is all. but that's not our way of doing things. with us what stands first is not the person--not the fact itself, but the trade-mark and label. however great a rascal a teacher may be, he is always in the right because he is a teacher; a tavern-keeper is always in the wrong because he is a tavern-keeper and a money-grubber. vostryakov placed the tavern-keeper under arrest. the man appealed to the circuit court; the circuit court triumphantly upheld vostryakov's decision. well, i stuck to my own opinion. . . . got a little hot. . . . that was all." pyotr dmitritch spoke calmly with careless irony. in reality the trial that was hanging over him worried him extremely. olga mihalovna remembered how on his return from the unfortunate session he had tried to conceal from his household how troubled he was, and how dissatisfied with himself. as an intelligent man he could not help feeling that he had gone too far in expressing his disagreement; and how much lying had been needful to conceal that feeling from himself and from others! how many unnecessary conversations there had been! how much grumbling and insincere laughter at what was not laughable! when he learned that he was to be brought up before the court, he seemed at once harassed and depressed; he began to sleep badly, stood oftener than ever at the windows, drumming on the panes with his fingers. and he was ashamed to let his wife see that he was worried, and it vexed her. "they say you have been in the province of poltava?" lubotchka questioned him. "yes," answered pyotr dmitritch. "i came back the day before yesterday." "i expect it is very nice there." "yes, it is very nice, very nice indeed; in fact, i arrived just in time for the haymaking, i must tell you, and in the ukraine the haymaking is the most poetical moment of the year. here we have a big house, a big garden, a lot of servants, and a lot going on, so that you don't see the haymaking; here it all passes unnoticed. there, at the farm, i have a meadow of forty-five acres as flat as my hand. you can see the men mowing from any window you stand at. they are mowing in the meadow, they are mowing in the garden. there are no visitors, no fuss nor hurry either, so that you can't help seeing, feeling, hearing nothing but the haymaking. there is a smell of hay indoors and outdoors. there's the sound of the scythes from sunrise to sunset. altogether little russia is a charming country. would you believe it, when i was drinking water from the rustic wells and filthy vodka in some jew's tavern, when on quiet evenings the strains of the little russian fiddle and the tambourines reached me, i was tempted by a fascinating idea--to settle down on my place and live there as long as i chose, far away from circuit courts, intellectual conversations, philosophizing women, long dinners. . . ." pyotr dmitritch was not lying. he was unhappy and really longed to rest. and he had visited his poltava property simply to avoid seeing his study, his servants, his acquaintances, and everything that could remind him of his wounded vanity and his mistakes. lubotchka suddenly jumped up and waved her hands about in horror. "oh! a bee, a bee!" she shrieked. "it will sting!" "nonsense; it won't sting," said pyotr dmitritch. "what a coward you are!" "no, no, no," cried lubotchka; and looking round at the bees, she walked rapidly back. pyotr dmitritch walked away after her, looking at her with a softened and melancholy face. he was probably thinking, as he looked at her, of his farm, of solitude, and--who knows?--perhaps he was even thinking how snug and cosy life would be at the farm if his wife had been this girl--young, pure, fresh, not corrupted by higher education, not with child. . . . when the sound of their footsteps had died away, olga mihalovna came out of the shanty and turned towards the house. she wanted to cry. she was by now acutely jealous. she could understand that her husband was worried, dissatisfied with himself and ashamed, and when people are ashamed they hold aloof, above all from those nearest to them, and are unreserved with strangers; she could understand, also, that she had nothing to fear from lubotchka or from those women who were now drinking coffee indoors. but everything in general was terrible, incomprehensible, and it already seemed to olga mihalovna that pyotr dmitritch only half belonged to her. "he has no right to do it!" she muttered, trying to formulate her jealousy and her vexation with her husband. "he has no right at all. i will tell him so plainly!" she made up her mind to find her husband at once and tell him all about it: it was disgusting, absolutely disgusting, that he was attractive to other women and sought their admiration as though it were some heavenly manna; it was unjust and dishonourable that he should give to others what belonged by right to his wife, that he should hide his soul and his conscience from his wife to reveal them to the first pretty face he came across. what harm had his wife done him? how was she to blame? long ago she had been sickened by his lying: he was for ever posing, flirting, saying what he did not think, and trying to seem different from what he was and what he ought to be. why this falsity? was it seemly in a decent man? if he lied he was demeaning himself and those to whom he lied, and slighting what he lied about. could he not understand that if he swaggered and posed at the judicial table, or held forth at dinner on the prerogatives of government, that he, simply to provoke her uncle, was showing thereby that he had not a ha'p'orth of respect for the court, or himself, or any of the people who were listening and looking at him? coming out into the big avenue, olga mihalovna assumed an expression of face as though she had just gone away to look after some domestic matter. in the verandah the gentlemen were drinking liqueur and eating strawberries: one of them, the examining magistrate--a stout elderly man, _blagueur_ and wit--must have been telling some rather free anecdote, for, seeing their hostess, he suddenly clapped his hands over his fat lips, rolled his eyes, and sat down. olga mihalovna did not like the local officials. she did not care for their clumsy, ceremonious wives, their scandal-mongering, their frequent visits, their flattery of her husband, whom they all hated. now, when they were drinking, were replete with food and showed no signs of going away, she felt their presence an agonizing weariness; but not to appear impolite, she smiled cordially to the magistrate, and shook her finger at him. she walked across the dining-room and drawing-room smiling, and looking as though she had gone to give some order and make some arrangement. "god grant no one stops me," she thought, but she forced herself to stop in the drawing-room to listen from politeness to a young man who was sitting at the piano playing: after standing for a minute, she cried, "bravo, bravo, m. georges!" and clapping her hands twice, she went on. she found her husband in his study. he was sitting at the table, thinking of something. his face looked stern, thoughtful, and guilty. this was not the same pyotr dmitritch who had been arguing at dinner and whom his guests knew, but a different man--wearied, feeling guilty and dissatisfied with himself, whom nobody knew but his wife. he must have come to the study to get cigarettes. before him lay an open cigarette-case full of cigarettes, and one of his hands was in the table drawer; he had paused and sunk into thought as he was taking the cigarettes. olga mihalovna felt sorry for him. it was as clear as day that this man was harassed, could find no rest, and was perhaps struggling with himself. olga mihalovna went up to the table in silence: wanting to show that she had forgotten the argument at dinner and was not cross, she shut the cigarette-case and put it in her husband's coat pocket. "what should i say to him?" she wondered; "i shall say that lying is like a forest--the further one goes into it the more difficult it is to get out of it. i will say to him, 'you have been carried away by the false part you are playing; you have insulted people who were attached to you and have done you no harm. go and apologize to them, laugh at yourself, and you will feel better. and if you want peace and solitude, let us go away together.'" meeting his wife's gaze, pyotr dmitritch's face immediately assumed the expression it had worn at dinner and in the garden--indifferent and slightly ironical. he yawned and got up. "it's past five," he said, looking at his watch. "if our visitors are merciful and leave us at eleven, even then we have another six hours of it. it's a cheerful prospect, there's no denying!" and whistling something, he walked slowly out of the study with his usual dignified gait. she could hear him with dignified firmness cross the dining-room, then the drawing-room, laugh with dignified assurance, and say to the young man who was playing, "bravo! bravo!" soon his footsteps died away: he must have gone out into the garden. and now not jealousy, not vexation, but real hatred of his footsteps, his insincere laugh and voice, took possession of olga mihalovna. she went to the window and looked out into the garden. pyotr dmitritch was already walking along the avenue. putting one hand in his pocket and snapping the fingers of the other, he walked with confident swinging steps, throwing his head back a little, and looking as though he were very well satisfied with himself, with his dinner, with his digestion, and with nature. . . . two little schoolboys, the children of madame tchizhevsky, who had only just arrived, made their appearance in the avenue, accompanied by their tutor, a student wearing a white tunic and very narrow trousers. when they reached pyotr dmitritch, the boys and the student stopped, and probably congratulated him on his name-day. with a graceful swing of his shoulders, he patted the children on their cheeks, and carelessly offered the student his hand without looking at him. the student must have praised the weather and compared it with the climate of petersburg, for pyotr dmitritch said in a loud voice, in a tone as though he were not speaking to a guest, but to an usher of the court or a witness: "what! it's cold in petersburg? and here, my good sir, we have a salubrious atmosphere and the fruits of the earth in abundance. eh? what?" and thrusting one hand in his pocket and snapping the fingers of the other, he walked on. till he had disappeared behind the nut bushes, olga mihalovna watched the back of his head in perplexity. how had this man of thirty-four come by the dignified deportment of a general? how had he come by that impressive, elegant manner? where had he got that vibration of authority in his voice? where had he got these "what's," "to be sure's," and "my good sir's"? olga mihalovna remembered how in the first months of her marriage she had felt dreary at home alone and had driven into the town to the circuit court, at which pyotr dmitritch had sometimes presided in place of her godfather, count alexey petrovitch. in the presidential chair, wearing his uniform and a chain on his breast, he was completely changed. stately gestures, a voice of thunder, "what," "to be sure," careless tones. . . . everything, all that was ordinary and human, all that was individual and personal to himself that olga mihalovna was accustomed to seeing in him at home, vanished in grandeur, and in the presidential chair there sat not pyotr dmitritch, but another man whom every one called mr. president. this consciousness of power prevented him from sitting still in his place, and he seized every opportunity to ring his bell, to glance sternly at the public, to shout. . . . where had he got his short-sight and his deafness when he suddenly began to see and hear with difficulty, and, frowning majestically, insisted on people speaking louder and coming closer to the table? from the height of his grandeur he could hardly distinguish faces or sounds, so that it seemed that if olga mihalovna herself had gone up to him he would have shouted even to her, "your name?" peasant witnesses he addressed familiarly, he shouted at the public so that his voice could be heard even in the street, and behaved incredibly with the lawyers. if a lawyer had to speak to him, pyotr dmitritch, turning a little away from him, looked with half-closed eyes at the ceiling, meaning to signify thereby that the lawyer was utterly superfluous and that he was neither recognizing him nor listening to him; if a badly-dressed lawyer spoke, pyotr dmitritch pricked up his ears and looked the man up and down with a sarcastic, annihilating stare as though to say: "queer sort of lawyers nowadays!" "what do you mean by that?" he would interrupt. if a would-be eloquent lawyer mispronounced a foreign word, saying, for instance, "factitious" instead of "fictitious," pyotr dmitritch brightened up at once and asked, "what? how? factitious? what does that mean?" and then observed impressively: "don't make use of words you do not understand." and the lawyer, finishing his speech, would walk away from the table, red and perspiring, while pyotr dmitritch; with a self-satisfied smile, would lean back in his chair triumphant. in his manner with the lawyers he imitated count alexey petrovitch a little, but when the latter said, for instance, "counsel for the defence, you keep quiet for a little!" it sounded paternally good-natured and natural, while the same words in pyotr dmitritch's mouth were rude and artificial. ii there were sounds of applause. the young man had finished playing. olga mihalovna remembered her guests and hurried into the drawing-room. "i have so enjoyed your playing," she said, going up to the piano. "i have so enjoyed it. you have a wonderful talent! but don't you think our piano's out of tune?" at that moment the two schoolboys walked into the room, accompanied by the student. "my goodness! mitya and kolya," olga mihalovna drawled joyfully, going to meet them: "how big they have grown! one would not know you! but where is your mamma?" "i congratulate you on the name-day," the student began in a free-and-easy tone, "and i wish you all happiness. ekaterina andreyevna sends her congratulations and begs you to excuse her. she is not very well." "how unkind of her! i have been expecting her all day. is it long since you left petersburg?" olga mihalovna asked the student. "what kind of weather have you there now?" and without waiting for an answer, she looked cordially at the schoolboys and repeated: "how tall they have grown! it is not long since they used to come with their nurse, and they are at school already! the old grow older while the young grow up. . . . have you had dinner?" "oh, please don't trouble!" said the student. "why, you have not had dinner?" "for goodness' sake, don't trouble!" "but i suppose you are hungry?" olga mihalovna said it in a harsh, rude voice, with impatience and vexation--it escaped her unawares, but at once she coughed, smiled, and flushed crimson. "how tall they have grown!" she said softly. "please don't trouble!" the student said once more. the student begged her not to trouble; the boys said nothing; obviously all three of them were hungry. olga mihalovna took them into the dining-room and told vassily to lay the table. "how unkind of your mamma!" she said as she made them sit down. "she has quite forgotten me. unkind, unkind, unkind . . . you must tell her so. what are you studying?" she asked the student. "medicine." "well, i have a weakness for doctors, only fancy. i am very sorry my husband is not a doctor. what courage any one must have to perform an operation or dissect a corpse, for instance! horrible! aren't you frightened? i believe i should die of terror! of course, you drink vodka?" "please don't trouble." "after your journey you must have something to drink. though i am a woman, even i drink sometimes. and mitya and kolya will drink malaga. it's not a strong wine; you need not be afraid of it. what fine fellows they are, really! they'll be thinking of getting married next." olga mihalovna talked without ceasing; she knew by experience that when she had guests to entertain it was far easier and more comfortable to talk than to listen. when you talk there is no need to strain your attention to think of answers to questions, and to change your expression of face. but unawares she asked the student a serious question; the student began a lengthy speech and she was forced to listen. the student knew that she had once been at the university, and so tried to seem a serious person as he talked to her. "what subject are you studying?" she asked, forgetting that she had already put that question to him. "medicine." olga mihalovna now remembered that she had been away from the ladies for a long while. "yes? then i suppose you are going to be a doctor?" she said, getting up. "that's splendid. i am sorry i did not go in for medicine myself. so you will finish your dinner here, gentlemen, and then come into the garden. i will introduce you to the young ladies." she went out and glanced at her watch: it was five minutes to six. and she wondered that the time had gone so slowly, and thought with horror that there were six more hours before midnight, when the party would break up. how could she get through those six hours? what phrases could she utter? how should she behave to her husband? there was not a soul in the drawing-room or on the verandah. all the guests were sauntering about the garden. "i shall have to suggest a walk in the birchwood before tea, or else a row in the boats," thought olga mihalovna, hurrying to the croquet ground, from which came the sounds of voices and laughter. "and sit the old people down to _vint_. . . ." she met grigory the footman coming from the croquet ground with empty bottles. "where are the ladies?" she asked. "among the raspberry-bushes. the master's there, too." "oh, good heavens!" some one on the croquet lawn shouted with exasperation. "i have told you a thousand times over! to know the bulgarians you must see them! you can't judge from the papers!" either because of the outburst or for some other reason, olga mihalovna was suddenly aware of a terrible weakness all over, especially in her legs and in her shoulders. she felt she could not bear to speak, to listen, or to move. "grigory," she said faintly and with an effort, "when you have to serve tea or anything, please don't appeal to me, don't ask me anything, don't speak of anything. . . . do it all yourself, and . . . and don't make a noise with your feet, i entreat you. . . . i can't, because . . ." without finishing, she walked on towards the croquet lawn, but on the way she thought of the ladies, and turned towards the raspberry-bushes. the sky, the air, and the trees looked gloomy again and threatened rain; it was hot and stifling. an immense flock of crows, foreseeing a storm, flew cawing over the garden. the paths were more overgrown, darker, and narrower as they got nearer the kitchen garden. in one of them, buried in a thick tangle of wild pear, crab-apple, sorrel, young oaks, and hopbine, clouds of tiny black flies swarmed round olga mihalovna. she covered her face with her hands and began forcing herself to think of the little creature . . . . there floated through her imagination the figures of grigory, mitya, kolya, the faces of the peasants who had come in the morning to present their congratulations. she heard footsteps, and she opened her eyes. uncle nikolay nikolaitch was coming rapidly towards her. "it's you, dear? i am very glad . . ." he began, breathless. "a couple of words. . . ." he mopped with his handkerchief his red shaven chin, then suddenly stepped back a pace, flung up his hands and opened his eyes wide. "my dear girl, how long is this going on?" he said rapidly, spluttering. "i ask you: is there no limit to it? i say nothing of the demoralizing effect of his martinet views on all around him, of the way he insults all that is sacred and best in me and in every honest thinking man--i will say nothing about that, but he might at least behave decently! why, he shouts, he bellows, gives himself airs, poses as a sort of bonaparte, does not let one say a word. . . . i don't know what the devil's the matter with him! these lordly gestures, this condescending tone; and laughing like a general! who is he, allow me to ask you? i ask you, who is he? the husband of his wife, with a few paltry acres and the rank of a titular who has had the luck to marry an heiress! an upstart and a _junker_, like so many others! a type out of shtchedrin! upon my word, it's either that he's suffering from megalomania, or that old rat in his dotage, count alexey petrovitch, is right when he says that children and young people are a long time growing up nowadays, and go on playing they are cabmen and generals till they are forty!" "that's true, that's true," olga mihalovna assented. "let me pass." "now just consider: what is it leading to?" her uncle went on, barring her way. "how will this playing at being a general and a conservative end? already he has got into trouble! yes, to stand his trial! i am very glad of it! that's what his noise and shouting has brought him to--to stand in the prisoner's dock. and it's not as though it were the circuit court or something: it's the central court! nothing worse could be imagined, i think! and then he has quarrelled with every one! he is celebrating his name-day, and look, vostryakov's not here, nor yahontov, nor vladimirov, nor shevud, nor the count. . . . there is no one, i imagine, more conservative than count alexey petrovitch, yet even he has not come. and he never will come again. he won't come, you will see!" "my god! but what has it to do with me?" asked olga mihalovna. "what has it to do with you? why, you are his wife! you are clever, you have had a university education, and it was in your power to make him an honest worker!" "at the lectures i went to they did not teach us how to influence tiresome people. it seems as though i should have to apologize to all of you for having been at the university," said olga mihalovna sharply. "listen, uncle. if people played the same scales over and over again the whole day long in your hearing, you wouldn't be able to sit still and listen, but would run away. i hear the same thing over again for days together all the year round. you must have pity on me at last." her uncle pulled a very long face, then looked at her searchingly and twisted his lips into a mocking smile. "so that's how it is," he piped in a voice like an old woman's. "i beg your pardon!" he said, and made a ceremonious bow. "if you have fallen under his influence yourself, and have abandoned your convictions, you should have said so before. i beg your pardon!" "yes, i have abandoned my convictions," she cried. "there; make the most of it!" "i beg your pardon!" her uncle for the last time made her a ceremonious bow, a little on one side, and, shrinking into himself, made a scrape with his foot and walked back. "idiot!" thought olga mihalovna. "i hope he will go home." she found the ladies and the young people among the raspberries in the kitchen garden. some were eating raspberries; others, tired of eating raspberries, were strolling about the strawberry beds or foraging among the sugar-peas. a little on one side of the raspberry bed, near a branching appletree propped up by posts which had been pulled out of an old fence, pyotr dmitritch was mowing the grass. his hair was falling over his forehead, his cravat was untied. his watch-chain was hanging loose. every step and every swing of the scythe showed skill and the possession of immense physical strength. near him were standing lubotchka and the daughters of a neighbour, colonel bukryeev--two anaemic and unhealthily stout fair girls, natalya and valentina, or, as they were always called, nata and vata, both wearing white frocks and strikingly like each other. pyotr dmitritch was teaching them to mow. "it's very simple," he said. "you have only to know how to hold the scythe and not to get too hot over it--that is, not to use more force than is necessary! like this. . . . wouldn't you like to try?" he said, offering the scythe to lubotchka. "come!" lubotchka took the scythe clumsily, blushed crimson, and laughed. "don't be afraid, lubov alexandrovna!" cried olga mihalovna, loud enough for all the ladies to hear that she was with them. "don't be afraid! you must learn! if you marry a tolstoyan he will make you mow." lubotchka raised the scythe, but began laughing again, and, helpless with laughter, let go of it at once. she was ashamed and pleased at being talked to as though grown up. nata, with a cold, serious face, with no trace of smiling or shyness, took the scythe, swung it and caught it in the grass; vata, also without a smile, as cold and serious as her sister, took the scythe, and silently thrust it into the earth. having done this, the two sisters linked arms and walked in silence to the raspberries. pyotr dmitritch laughed and played about like a boy, and this childish, frolicsome mood in which he became exceedingly good-natured suited him far better than any other. olga mihalovna loved him when he was like that. but his boyishness did not usually last long. it did not this time; after playing with the scythe, he for some reason thought it necessary to take a serious tone about it. "when i am mowing, i feel, do you know, healthier and more normal," he said. "if i were forced to confine myself to an intellectual life i believe i should go out of my mind. i feel that i was not born to be a man of culture! i ought to mow, plough, sow, drive out the horses." and pyotr dmitritch began a conversation with the ladies about the advantages of physical labour, about culture, and then about the pernicious effects of money, of property. listening to her husband, olga mihalovna, for some reason, thought of her dowry. "and the time will come, i suppose," she thought, "when he will not forgive me for being richer than he. he is proud and vain. maybe he will hate me because he owes so much to me." she stopped near colonel bukryeev, who was eating raspberries and also taking part in the conversation. "come," he said, making room for olga mihalovna and pyotr dmitritch. "the ripest are here. . . . and so, according to proudhon," he went on, raising his voice, "property is robbery. but i must confess i don't believe in proudhon, and don't consider him a philosopher. the french are not authorities, to my thinking--god bless them!" "well, as for proudhons and buckles and the rest of them, i am weak in that department," said pyotr dmitritch. "for philosophy you must apply to my wife. she has been at university lectures and knows all your schopenhauers and proudhons by heart. . . ." olga mihalovna felt bored again. she walked again along a little path by apple and pear trees, and looked again as though she was on some very important errand. she reached the gardener's cottage. in the doorway the gardener's wife, varvara, was sitting together with her four little children with big shaven heads. varvara, too, was with child and expecting to be confined on elijah's day. after greeting her, olga mihalovna looked at her and the children in silence and asked: "well, how do you feel?" "oh, all right. . . ." a silence followed. the two women seemed to understand each other without words. "it's dreadful having one's first baby," said olga mihalovna after a moment's thought. "i keep feeling as though i shall not get through it, as though i shall die." "i fancied that, too, but here i am alive. one has all sorts of fancies." varvara, who was just going to have her fifth, looked down a little on her mistress from the height of her experience and spoke in a rather didactic tone, and olga mihalovna could not help feeling her authority; she would have liked to have talked of her fears, of the child, of her sensations, but she was afraid it might strike varvara as naïve and trivial. and she waited in silence for varvara to say something herself. "olya, we are going indoors," pyotr dmitritch called from the raspberries. olga mihalovna liked being silent, waiting and watching varvara. she would have been ready to stay like that till night without speaking or having any duty to perform. but she had to go. she had hardly left the cottage when lubotchka, nata, and vata came running to meet her. the sisters stopped short abruptly a couple of yards away; lubotchka ran right up to her and flung herself on her neck. "you dear, darling, precious," she said, kissing her face and her neck. "let us go and have tea on the island!" "on the island, on the island!" said the precisely similar nata and vata, both at once, without a smile. "but it's going to rain, my dears." "it's not, it's not," cried lubotchka with a woebegone face. "they've all agreed to go. dear! darling!" "they are all getting ready to have tea on the island," said pyotr dmitritch, coming up. "see to arranging things. . . . we will all go in the boats, and the samovars and all the rest of it must be sent in the carriage with the servants." he walked beside his wife and gave her his arm. olga mihalovna had a desire to say something disagreeable to her husband, something biting, even about her dowry perhaps--the crueller the better, she felt. she thought a little, and said: "why is it count alexey petrovitch hasn't come? what a pity!" "i am very glad he hasn't come," said pyotr dmitritch, lying. "i'm sick to death of that old lunatic." "but yet before dinner you were expecting him so eagerly!" iii half an hour later all the guests were crowding on the bank near the pile to which the boats were fastened. they were all talking and laughing, and were in such excitement and commotion that they could hardly get into the boats. three boats were crammed with passengers, while two stood empty. the keys for unfastening these two boats had been somehow mislaid, and messengers were continually running from the river to the house to look for them. some said grigory had the keys, others that the bailiff had them, while others suggested sending for a blacksmith and breaking the padlocks. and all talked at once, interrupting and shouting one another down. pyotr dmitritch paced impatiently to and fro on the bank, shouting: "what the devil's the meaning of it! the keys ought always to be lying in the hall window! who has dared to take them away? the bailiff can get a boat of his own if he wants one!" at last the keys were found. then it appeared that two oars were missing. again there was a great hullabaloo. pyotr dmitritch, who was weary of pacing about the bank, jumped into a long, narrow boat hollowed out of the trunk of a poplar, and, lurching from side to side and almost falling into the water, pushed off from the bank. the other boats followed him one after another, amid loud laughter and the shrieks of the young ladies. the white cloudy sky, the trees on the riverside, the boats with the people in them, and the oars, were reflected in the water as in a mirror; under the boats, far away below in the bottomless depths, was a second sky with the birds flying across it. the bank on which the house and gardens stood was high, steep, and covered with trees; on the other, which was sloping, stretched broad green water-meadows with sheets of water glistening in them. the boats had floated a hundred yards when, behind the mournfully drooping willows on the sloping banks, huts and a herd of cows came into sight; they began to hear songs, drunken shouts, and the strains of a concertina. here and there on the river fishing-boats were scattered about, setting their nets for the night. in one of these boats was the festive party, playing on home-made violins and violoncellos. olga mihalovna was sitting at the rudder; she was smiling affably and talking a great deal to entertain her visitors, while she glanced stealthily at her husband. he was ahead of them all, standing up punting with one oar. the light sharp-nosed canoe, which all the guests called the "death-trap"--while pyotr dmitritch, for some reason, called it _penderaklia_--flew along quickly; it had a brisk, crafty expression, as though it hated its heavy occupant and was looking out for a favourable moment to glide away from under his feet. olga mihalovna kept looking at her husband, and she loathed his good looks which attracted every one, the back of his head, his attitude, his familiar manner with women; she hated all the women sitting in the boat with her, was jealous, and at the same time was trembling every minute in terror that the frail craft would upset and cause an accident. "take care, pyotr!" she cried, while her heart fluttered with terror. "sit down! we believe in your courage without all that!" she was worried, too, by the people who were in the boat with her. they were all ordinary good sort of people like thousands of others, but now each one of them struck her as exceptional and evil. in each one of them she saw nothing but falsity. "that young man," she thought, "rowing, in gold-rimmed spectacles, with chestnut hair and a nice-looking beard: he is a mamma's darling, rich, and well-fed, and always fortunate, and every one considers him an honourable, free-thinking, advanced man. it's not a year since he left the university and came to live in the district, but he already talks of himself as 'we active members of the zemstvo.' but in another year he will be bored like so many others and go off to petersburg, and to justify running away, will tell every one that the zemstvos are good-for-nothing, and that he has been deceived in them. while from the other boat his young wife keeps her eyes fixed on him, and believes that he is 'an active member of the zemstvo,' just as in a year she will believe that the zemstvo is good-for-nothing. and that stout, carefully shaven gentleman in the straw hat with the broad ribbon, with an expensive cigar in his mouth: he is fond of saying, 'it is time to put away dreams and set to work!' he has yorkshire pigs, butler's hives, rape-seed, pine-apples, a dairy, a cheese factory, italian bookkeeping by double entry; but every summer he sells his timber and mortgages part of his land to spend the autumn with his mistress in the crimea. and there's uncle nikolay nikolaitch, who has quarrelled with pyotr dmitritch, and yet for some reason does not go home." olga mihalovna looked at the other boats, and there, too, she saw only uninteresting, queer creatures, affected or stupid people. she thought of all the people she knew in the district, and could not remember one person of whom one could say or think anything good. they all seemed to her mediocre, insipid, unintelligent, narrow, false, heartless; they all said what they did not think, and did what they did not want to. dreariness and despair were stifling her; she longed to leave off smiling, to leap up and cry out, "i am sick of you," and then jump out and swim to the bank. "i say, let's take pyotr dmitritch in tow!" some one shouted. "in tow, in tow!" the others chimed in. "olga mihalovna, take your husband in tow." to take him in tow, olga mihalovna, who was steering, had to seize the right moment and to catch bold of his boat by the chain at the beak. when she bent over to the chain pyotr dmitritch frowned and looked at her in alarm. "i hope you won't catch cold," he said. "if you are uneasy about me and the child, why do you torment me?" thought olga mihalovna. pyotr dmitritch acknowledged himself vanquished, and, not caring to be towed, jumped from the _penderaklia_ into the boat which was overful already, and jumped so carelessly that the boat lurched violently, and every one cried out in terror. "he did that to please the ladies," thought olga mihalovna; "he knows it's charming." her hands and feet began trembling, as she supposed, from boredom, vexation from the strain of smiling and the discomfort she felt all over her body. and to conceal this trembling from her guests, she tried to talk more loudly, to laugh, to move. "if i suddenly begin to cry," she thought, "i shall say i have toothache. . . ." but at last the boats reached the "island of good hope," as they called the peninsula formed by a bend in the river at an acute angle, covered with a copse of old birch-trees, oaks, willows, and poplars. the tables were already laid under the trees; the samovars were smoking, and vassily and grigory, in their swallow-tails and white knitted gloves, were already busy with the tea-things. on the other bank, opposite the "island of good hope," there stood the carriages which had come with the provisions. the baskets and parcels of provisions were carried across to the island in a little boat like the _penderaklia_. the footmen, the coachmen, and even the peasant who was sitting in the boat, had the solemn expression befitting a name-day such as one only sees in children and servants. while olga mihalovna was making the tea and pouring out the first glasses, the visitors were busy with the liqueurs and sweet things. then there was the general commotion usual at picnics over drinking tea, very wearisome and exhausting for the hostess. grigory and vassily had hardly had time to take the glasses round before hands were being stretched out to olga mihalovna with empty glasses. one asked for no sugar, another wanted it stronger, another weak, a fourth declined another glass. and all this olga mihalovna had to remember, and then to call, "ivan petrovitch, is it without sugar for you?" or, "gentlemen, which of you wanted it weak?" but the guest who had asked for weak tea, or no sugar, had by now forgotten it, and, absorbed in agreeable conversation, took the first glass that came. depressed-looking figures wandered like shadows at a little distance from the table, pretending to look for mushrooms in the grass, or reading the labels on the boxes--these were those for whom there were not glasses enough. "have you had tea?" olga mihalovna kept asking, and the guest so addressed begged her not to trouble, and said, "i will wait," though it would have suited her better for the visitors not to wait but to make haste. some, absorbed in conversation, drank their tea slowly, keeping their glasses for half an hour; others, especially some who had drunk a good deal at dinner, would not leave the table, and kept on drinking glass after glass, so that olga mihalovna scarcely had time to fill them. one jocular young man sipped his tea through a lump of sugar, and kept saying, "sinful man that i am, i love to indulge myself with the chinese herb." he kept asking with a heavy sigh: "another tiny dish of tea more, if you please." he drank a great deal, nibbled his sugar, and thought it all very amusing and original, and imagined that he was doing a clever imitation of a russian merchant. none of them understood that these trifles were agonizing to their hostess, and, indeed, it was hard to understand it, as olga mihalovna went on all the time smiling affably and talking nonsense. but she felt ill. . . . she was irritated by the crowd of people, the laughter, the questions, the jocular young man, the footmen harassed and run off their legs, the children who hung round the table; she was irritated at vata's being like nata, at kolya's being like mitya, so that one could not tell which of them had had tea and which of them had not. she felt that her smile of forced affability was passing into an expression of anger, and she felt every minute as though she would burst into tears. "rain, my friends," cried some one. every one looked at the sky. "yes, it really is rain . . ." pyotr dmitritch assented, and wiped his cheek. only a few drops were falling from the sky--the real rain had not begun yet; but the company abandoned their tea and made haste to get off. at first they all wanted to drive home in the carriages, but changed their minds and made for the boats. on the pretext that she had to hasten home to give directions about the supper, olga mihalovna asked to be excused for leaving the others, and went home in the carriage. when she got into the carriage, she first of all let her face rest from smiling. with an angry face she drove through the village, and with an angry face acknowledged the bows of the peasants she met. when she got home, she went to the bedroom by the back way and lay down on her husband's bed. "merciful god!" she whispered. "what is all this hard labour for? why do all these people hustle each other here and pretend that they are enjoying themselves? why do i smile and lie? i don't understand it." she heard steps and voices. the visitors had come back. "let them come," thought olga mihalovna; "i shall lie a little longer." but a maid-servant came and said: "marya grigoryevna is going, madam." olga mihalovna jumped up, tidied her hair and hurried out of the room. "marya grigoryevna, what is the meaning of this?" she began in an injured voice, going to meet marya grigoryevna. "why are you in such a hurry?" "i can't help it, darling! i've stayed too long as it is; my children are expecting me home." "it's too bad of you! why didn't you bring your children with you?" "if you will let me, dear, i will bring them on some ordinary day, but to-day . . ." "oh, please do," olga mihalovna interrupted; "i shall be delighted! your children are so sweet! kiss them all for me. . . . but, really, i am offended with you! i don't understand why you are in such a hurry!" "i really must, i really must. . . . good-bye, dear. take care of yourself. in your condition, you know . . ." and the ladies kissed each other. after seeing the departing guest to her carriage, olga mihalovna went in to the ladies in the drawing-room. there the lamps were already lighted and the gentlemen were sitting down to cards. iv the party broke up after supper about a quarter past twelve. seeing her visitors off, olga mihalovna stood at the door and said: "you really ought to take a shawl! it's turning a little chilly. please god, you don't catch cold!" "don't trouble, olga mihalovna," the ladies answered as they got into the carriage. "well, good-bye. mind now, we are expecting you; don't play us false!" "wo-o-o!" the coachman checked the horses. "ready, denis! good-bye, olga mihalovna!" "kiss the children for me!" the carriage started and immediately disappeared into the darkness. in the red circle of light cast by the lamp in the road, a fresh pair or trio of impatient horses, and the silhouette of a coachman with his hands held out stiffly before him, would come into view. again there began kisses, reproaches, and entreaties to come again or to take a shawl. pyotr dmitritch kept running out and helping the ladies into their carriages. "you go now by efremovshtchina," he directed the coachman; "it's nearer through mankino, but the road is worse that way. you might have an upset. . . . good-bye, my charmer. _mille_ compliments to your artist!" "good-bye, olga mihalovna, darling! go indoors, or you will catch cold! it's damp!" "wo-o-o! you rascal!" "what horses have you got here?" pyotr dmitritch asked. "they were bought from haidorov, in lent," answered the coachman. "capital horses. . . ." and pyotr dmitritch patted the trace horse on the haunch. "well, you can start! god give you good luck!" the last visitor was gone at last; the red circle on the road quivered, moved aside, contracted and went out, as vassily carried away the lamp from the entrance. on previous occasions when they had seen off their visitors, pyotr dmitritch and olga mihalovna had begun dancing about the drawing-room, facing each other, clapping their hands and singing: "they've gone! they've gone!" but now olga mihalovna was not equal to that. she went to her bedroom, undressed, and got into bed. she fancied she would fall asleep at once and sleep soundly. her legs and her shoulders ached painfully, her head was heavy from the strain of talking, and she was conscious, as before, of discomfort all over her body. covering her head over, she lay still for three or four minutes, then peeped out from under the bed-clothes at the lamp before the ikon, listened to the silence, and smiled. "it's nice, it's nice," she whispered, curling up her legs, which felt as if they had grown longer from so much walking. "sleep, sleep . . . ." her legs would not get into a comfortable position; she felt uneasy all over, and she turned on the other side. a big fly blew buzzing about the bedroom and thumped against the ceiling. she could hear, too, grigory and vassily stepping cautiously about the drawing-room, putting the chairs back in their places; it seemed to olga mihalovna that she could not go to sleep, nor be comfortable till those sounds were hushed. and again she turned over on the other side impatiently. she heard her husband's voice in the drawing-room. some one must be staying the night, as pyotr dmitritch was addressing some one and speaking loudly: "i don't say that count alexey petrovitch is an impostor. but he can't help seeming to be one, because all of you gentlemen attempt to see in him something different from what he really is. his craziness is looked upon as originality, his familiar manners as good-nature, and his complete absence of opinions as conservatism. even granted that he is a conservative of the stamp of ' , what after all is conservatism?" pyotr dmitritch, angry with count alexey petrovitch, his visitors, and himself, was relieving his heart. he abused both the count and his visitors, and in his vexation with himself was ready to speak out and to hold forth upon anything. after seeing his guest to his room, he walked up and down the drawing-room, walked through the dining-room, down the corridor, then into his study, then again went into the drawing-room, and came into the bedroom. olga mihalovna was lying on her back, with the bed-clothes only to her waist (by now she felt hot), and with an angry face, watched the fly that was thumping against the ceiling. "is some one staying the night?" she asked. "yegorov." pyotr dmitritch undressed and got into his bed. without speaking, he lighted a cigarette, and he, too, fell to watching the fly. there was an uneasy and forbidding look in his eyes. olga mihalovna looked at his handsome profile for five minutes in silence. it seemed to her for some reason that if her husband were suddenly to turn facing her, and to say, "olga, i am unhappy," she would cry or laugh, and she would be at ease. she fancied that her legs were aching and her body was uncomfortable all over because of the strain on her feelings. "pyotr, what are you thinking of?" she said. "oh, nothing . . ." her husband answered. "you have taken to having secrets from me of late: that's not right." "why is it not right?" answered pyotr dmitritch drily and not at once. "we all have our personal life, every one of us, and we are bound to have our secrets." "personal life, our secrets . . . that's all words! understand you are wounding me!" said olga mihalovna, sitting up in bed. "if you have a load on your heart, why do you hide it from me? and why do you find it more suitable to open your heart to women who are nothing to you, instead of to your wife? i overheard your outpourings to lubotchka by the bee-house to-day." "well, i congratulate you. i am glad you did overhear it." this meant "leave me alone and let me think." olga mihalovna was indignant. vexation, hatred, and wrath, which had been accumulating within her during the whole day, suddenly boiled over; she wanted at once to speak out, to hurt her husband without putting it off till to-morrow, to wound him, to punish him. . . . making an effort to control herself and not to scream, she said: "let me tell you, then, that it's all loathsome, loathsome, loathsome! i've been hating you all day; you see what you've done." pyotr dmitritch, too, got up and sat on the bed. "it's loathsome, loathsome, loathsome," olga mihalovna went on, beginning to tremble all over. "there's no need to congratulate me; you had better congratulate yourself! it's a shame, a disgrace. you have wrapped yourself in lies till you are ashamed to be alone in the room with your wife! you are a deceitful man! i see through you and understand every step you take!" "olya, i wish you would please warn me when you are out of humour. then i will sleep in the study." saying this, pyotr dmitritch picked up his pillow and walked out of the bedroom. olga mihalovna had not foreseen this. for some minutes she remained silent with her mouth open, trembling all over and looking at the door by which her husband had gone out, and trying to understand what it meant. was this one of the devices to which deceitful people have recourse when they are in the wrong, or was it a deliberate insult aimed at her pride? how was she to take it? olga mihalovna remembered her cousin, a lively young officer, who often used to tell her, laughing, that when "his spouse nagged at him" at night, he usually picked up his pillow and went whistling to spend the night in his study, leaving his wife in a foolish and ridiculous position. this officer was married to a rich, capricious, and foolish woman whom he did not respect but simply put up with. olga mihalovna jumped out of bed. to her mind there was only one thing left for her to do now; to dress with all possible haste and to leave the house forever. the house was her own, but so much the worse for pyotr dmitritch. without pausing to consider whether this was necessary or not, she went quickly to the study to inform her husband of her intention ("feminine logic!" flashed through her mind), and to say something wounding and sarcastic at parting. . . . pyotr dmitritch was lying on the sofa and pretending to read a newspaper. there was a candle burning on a chair near him. his face could not be seen behind the newspaper. "be so kind as to tell me what this means? i am asking you." "be so kind . . ." pyotr dmitritch mimicked her, not showing his face. "it's sickening, olga! upon my honour, i am exhausted and not up to it. . . . let us do our quarrelling to-morrow." "no, i understand you perfectly!" olga mihalovna went on. "you hate me! yes, yes! you hate me because i am richer than you! you will never forgive me for that, and will always be lying to me!" ("feminine logic!" flashed through her mind again.) "you are laughing at me now. . . . i am convinced, in fact, that you only married me in order to have property qualifications and those wretched horses. . . . oh, i am miserable!" pyotr dmitritch dropped the newspaper and got up. the unexpected insult overwhelmed him. with a childishly helpless smile he looked desperately at his wife, and holding out his hands to her as though to ward off blows, he said imploringly: "olya!" and expecting her to say something else awful, he leaned back in his chair, and his huge figure seemed as helplessly childish as his smile. "olya, how could you say it?" he whispered. olga mihalovna came to herself. she was suddenly aware of her passionate love for this man, remembered that he was her husband, pyotr dmitritch, without whom she could not live for a day, and who loved her passionately, too. she burst into loud sobs that sounded strange and unlike her, and ran back to her bedroom. she fell on the bed, and short hysterical sobs, choking her and making her arms and legs twitch, filled the bedroom. remembering there was a visitor sleeping three or four rooms away, she buried her head under the pillow to stifle her sobs, but the pillow rolled on to the floor, and she almost fell on the floor herself when she stooped to pick it up. she pulled the quilt up to her face, but her hands would not obey her, but tore convulsively at everything she clutched. she thought that everything was lost, that the falsehood she had told to wound her husband had shattered her life into fragments. her husband would not forgive her. the insult she had hurled at him was not one that could be effaced by any caresses, by any vows. . . . how could she convince her husband that she did not believe what she had said? "it's all over, it's all over!" she cried, not noticing that the pillow had slipped on to the floor again. "for god's sake, for god's sake!" probably roused by her cries, the guest and the servants were now awake; next day all the neighbourhood would know that she had been in hysterics and would blame pyotr dmitritch. she made an effort to restrain herself, but her sobs grew louder and louder every minute. "for god's sake," she cried in a voice not like her own, and not knowing why she cried it. "for god's sake!" she felt as though the bed were heaving under her and her feet were entangled in the bed-clothes. pyotr dmitritch, in his dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand, came into the bedroom. "olya, hush!" he said. she raised herself, and kneeling up in bed, screwing up her eyes at the light, articulated through her sobs: "understand . . . understand! . . . ." she wanted to tell him that she was tired to death by the party, by his falsity, by her own falsity, that it had all worked together, but she could only articulate: "understand . . . understand!" "come, drink!" he said, handing her some water. she took the glass obediently and began drinking, but the water splashed over and was spilt on her arms, her throat and knees. "i must look horribly unseemly," she thought. pyotr dmitritch put her back in bed without a word, and covered her with the quilt, then he took the candle and went out. "for god's sake!" olga mihalovna cried again. "pyotr, understand, understand!" suddenly something gripped her in the lower part of her body and back with such violence that her wailing was cut short, and she bit the pillow from the pain. but the pain let her go again at once, and she began sobbing again. the maid came in, and arranging the quilt over her, asked in alarm: "mistress, darling, what is the matter?" "go out of the room," said pyotr dmitritch sternly, going up to the bed. "understand . . . understand! . . ." olga mihalovna began. "olya, i entreat you, calm yourself," he said. "i did not mean to hurt you. i would not have gone out of the room if i had known it would have hurt you so much; i simply felt depressed. i tell you, on my honour . . ." "understand! . . . you were lying, i was lying. . . ." "i understand. . . . come, come, that's enough! i understand," said pyotr dmitritch tenderly, sitting down on her bed. "you said that in anger; i quite understand. i swear to god i love you beyond anything on earth, and when i married you i never once thought of your being rich. i loved you immensely, and that's all . . . i assure you. i have never been in want of money or felt the value of it, and so i cannot feel the difference between your fortune and mine. it always seemed to me we were equally well off. and that i have been deceitful in little things, that . . . of course, is true. my life has hitherto been arranged in such a frivolous way that it has somehow been impossible to get on without paltry lying. it weighs on me, too, now. . . . let us leave off talking about it, for goodness' sake!" olga mihalovna again felt in acute pain, and clutched her husband by the sleeve. "i am in pain, in pain, in pain . . ." she said rapidly. "oh, what pain!" "damnation take those visitors!" muttered pyotr dmitritch, getting up. "you ought not to have gone to the island to-day!" he cried. "what an idiot i was not to prevent you! oh, my god!" he scratched his head in vexation, and, with a wave of his hand, walked out of the room. then he came into the room several times, sat down on the bed beside her, and talked a great deal, sometimes tenderly, sometimes angrily, but she hardly heard him. her sobs were continually interrupted by fearful attacks of pain, and each time the pain was more acute and prolonged. at first she held her breath and bit the pillow during the pain, but then she began screaming on an unseemly piercing note. once seeing her husband near her, she remembered that she had insulted him, and without pausing to think whether it were really pyotr dmitritch or whether she were in delirium, clutched his hand in both hers and began kissing it. "you were lying, i was lying . . ." she began justifying herself. "understand, understand. . . . they have exhausted me, driven me out of all patience." "olya, we are not alone," said pyotr dmitritch. olga mihalovna raised her head and saw varvara, who was kneeling by the chest of drawers and pulling out the bottom drawer. the top drawers were already open. then varvara got up, red from the strained position, and with a cold, solemn face began trying to unlock a box. "marya, i can't unlock it!" she said in a whisper. "you unlock it, won't you?" marya, the maid, was digging a candle end out of the candlestick with a pair of scissors, so as to put in a new candle; she went up to varvara and helped her to unlock the box. "there should be nothing locked . . ." whispered varvara. "unlock this basket, too, my good girl. master," she said, "you should send to father mihail to unlock the holy gates! you must!" "do what you like," said pyotr dmitritch, breathing hard, "only, for god's sake, make haste and fetch the doctor or the midwife! has vassily gone? send some one else. send your husband!" "it's the birth," olga mihalovna thought. "varvara," she moaned, "but he won't be born alive!" "it's all right, it's all right, mistress," whispered varvara. "please god, he will be alive! he will be alive!" when olga mihalovna came to herself again after a pain she was no longer sobbing nor tossing from side to side, but moaning. she could not refrain from moaning even in the intervals between the pains. the candles were still burning, but the morning light was coming through the blinds. it was probably about five o'clock in the morning. at the round table there was sitting some unknown woman with a very discreet air, wearing a white apron. from her whole appearance it was evident she had been sitting there a long time. olga mihalovna guessed that she was the midwife. "will it soon be over?" she asked, and in her voice she heard a peculiar and unfamiliar note which had never been there before. "i must be dying in childbirth," she thought. pyotr dmitritch came cautiously into the bedroom, dressed for the day, and stood at the window with his back to his wife. he lifted the blind and looked out of window. "what rain!" he said. "what time is it?" asked olga mihalovna, in order to hear the unfamiliar note in her voice again. "a quarter to six," answered the midwife. "and what if i really am dying?" thought olga mihalovna, looking at her husband's head and the window-panes on which the rain was beating. "how will he live without me? with whom will he have tea and dinner, talk in the evenings, sleep?" and he seemed to her like a forlorn child; she felt sorry for him and wanted to say something nice, caressing and consolatory. she remembered how in the spring he had meant to buy himself some harriers, and she, thinking it a cruel and dangerous sport, had prevented him from doing it. "pyotr, buy yourself harriers," she moaned. he dropped the blind and went up to the bed, and would have said something; but at that moment the pain came back, and olga mihalovna uttered an unseemly, piercing scream. the pain and the constant screaming and moaning stupefied her. she heard, saw, and sometimes spoke, but hardly understood anything, and was only conscious that she was in pain or was just going to be in pain. it seemed to her that the nameday party had been long, long ago--not yesterday, but a year ago perhaps; and that her new life of agony had lasted longer than her childhood, her school-days, her time at the university, and her marriage, and would go on for a long, long time, endlessly. she saw them bring tea to the midwife, and summon her at midday to lunch and afterwards to dinner; she saw pyotr dmitritch grow used to coming in, standing for long intervals by the window, and going out again; saw strange men, the maid, varvara, come in as though they were at home. . . . varvara said nothing but, "he will, he will," and was angry when any one closed the drawers and the chest. olga mihalovna saw the light change in the room and in the windows: at one time it was twilight, then thick like fog, then bright daylight as it had been at dinner-time the day before, then again twilight . . . and each of these changes lasted as long as her childhood, her school-days, her life at the university. . . . in the evening two doctors--one bony, bald, with a big red beard; the other with a swarthy jewish face and cheap spectacles--performed some sort of operation on olga mihalovna. to these unknown men touching her body she felt utterly indifferent. by now she had no feeling of shame, no will, and any one might do what he would with her. if any one had rushed at her with a knife, or had insulted pyotr dmitritch, or had robbed her of her right to the little creature, she would not have said a word. they gave her chloroform during the operation. when she came to again, the pain was still there and insufferable. it was night. and olga mihalovna remembered that there had been just such a night with the stillness, the lamp, with the midwife sitting motionless by the bed, with the drawers of the chest pulled out, with pyotr dmitritch standing by the window, but some time very, very long ago. . . . v "i am not dead . . ." thought olga mihalovna when she began to understand her surroundings again, and when the pain was over. a bright summer day looked in at the widely open windows; in the garden below the windows, the sparrows and the magpies never ceased chattering for one instant. the drawers were shut now, her husband's bed had been made. there was no sign of the midwife or of the maid, or of varvara in the room, only pyotr dmitritch was standing, as before, motionless by the window looking into the garden. there was no sound of a child's crying, no one was congratulating her or rejoicing, it was evident that the little creature had not been born alive. "pyotr!" olga mihalovna called to her husband. pyotr dmitritch looked round. it seemed as though a long time must have passed since the last guest had departed and olga mihalovna had insulted her husband, for pyotr dmitritch was perceptibly thinner and hollow-eyed. "what is it?" he asked, coming up to the bed. he looked away, moved his lips and smiled with childlike helplessness. "is it all over?" asked olga mihalovna. pyotr dmitritch tried to make some answer, but his lips quivered and his mouth worked like a toothless old man's, like uncle nikolay nikolaitch's. "olya," he said, wringing his hands; big tears suddenly dropping from his eyes. "olya, i don't care about your property qualification, nor the circuit courts . . ." (he gave a sob) "nor particular views, nor those visitors, nor your fortune. . . . i don't care about anything! why didn't we take care of our child? oh, it's no good talking!" with a despairing gesture he went out of the bedroom. but nothing mattered to olga mihalovna now, there was a mistiness in her brain from the chloroform, an emptiness in her soul. . . . the dull indifference to life which had overcome her when the two doctors were performing the operation still had possession of her. terror my friend's story dmitri petrovitch silin had taken his degree and entered the government service in petersburg, but at thirty he gave up his post and went in for agriculture. his farming was fairly successful, and yet it always seemed to me that he was not in his proper place, and that he would do well to go back to petersburg. when sunburnt, grey with dust, exhausted with toil, he met me near the gates or at the entrance, and then at supper struggled with sleepiness and his wife took him off to bed as though he were a baby; or when, overcoming his sleepiness, he began in his soft, cordial, almost imploring voice, to talk about his really excellent ideas, i saw him not as a farmer nor an agriculturist, but only as a worried and exhausted man, and it was clear to me that he did not really care for farming, but that all he wanted was for the day to be over and "thank god for it." i liked to be with him, and i used to stay on his farm for two or three days at a time. i liked his house, and his park, and his big fruit garden, and the river--and his philosophy, which was clear, though rather spiritless and rhetorical. i suppose i was fond of him on his own account, though i can't say that for certain, as i have not up to now succeeded in analysing my feelings at that time. he was an intelligent, kind-hearted, genuine man, and not a bore, but i remember that when he confided to me his most treasured secrets and spoke of our relation to each other as friendship, it disturbed me unpleasantly, and i was conscious of awkwardness. in his affection for me there was something inappropriate, tiresome, and i should have greatly preferred commonplace friendly relations. the fact is that i was extremely attracted by his wife, marya sergeyevna. i was not in love with her, but i was attracted by her face, her eyes, her voice, her walk. i missed her when i did not see her for a long time, and my imagination pictured no one at that time so eagerly as that young, beautiful, elegant woman. i had no definite designs in regard to her, and did not dream of anything of the sort, yet for some reason, whenever we were left alone, i remembered that her husband looked upon me as his friend, and i felt awkward. when she played my favourite pieces on the piano or told me something interesting, i listened with pleasure, and yet at the same time for some reason the reflection that she loved her husband, that he was my friend, and that she herself looked upon me as his friend, obtruded themselves upon me, my spirits flagged, and i became listless, awkward, and dull. she noticed this change and would usually say: "you are dull without your friend. we must send out to the fields for him." and when dmitri petrovitch came in, she would say: "well, here is your friend now. rejoice." so passed a year and a half. it somehow happened one july sunday that dmitri petrovitch and i, having nothing to do, drove to the big village of klushino to buy things for supper. while we were going from one shop to another the sun set and the evening came on--the evening which i shall probably never forget in my life. after buying cheese that smelt like soap, and petrified sausages that smelt of tar, we went to the tavern to ask whether they had any beer. our coachman went off to the blacksmith to get our horses shod, and we told him we would wait for him near the church. we walked, talked, laughed over our purchases, while a man who was known in the district by a very strange nickname, "forty martyrs," followed us all the while in silence with a mysterious air like a detective. this forty martyrs was no other than gavril syeverov, or more simply gavryushka, who had been for a short time in my service as a footman and had been dismissed by me for drunkenness. he had been in dmitri petrovitch's service, too, and by him had been dismissed for the same vice. he was an inveterate drunkard, and indeed his whole life was as drunk and disorderly as himself. his father had been a priest and his mother of noble rank, so by birth he belonged to the privileged class; but however carefully i scrutinized his exhausted, respectful, and always perspiring face, his red beard now turning grey, his pitifully torn reefer jacket and his red shirt, i could not discover in him the faintest trace of anything we associate with privilege. he spoke of himself as a man of education, and used to say that he had been in a clerical school, but had not finished his studies there, as he had been expelled for smoking; then he had sung in the bishop's choir and lived for two years in a monastery, from which he was also expelled, but this time not for smoking but for "his weakness." he had walked all over two provinces, had presented petitions to the consistory, and to various government offices, and had been four times on his trial. at last, being stranded in our district, he had served as a footman, as a forester, as a kennelman, as a sexton, had married a cook who was a widow and rather a loose character, and had so hopelessly sunk into a menial position, and had grown so used to filth and dirt, that he even spoke of his privileged origin with a certain scepticism, as of some myth. at the time i am describing, he was hanging about without a job, calling himself a carrier and a huntsman, and his wife had disappeared and made no sign. from the tavern we went to the church and sat in the porch, waiting for the coachman. forty martyrs stood a little way off and put his hand before his mouth in order to cough in it respectfully if need be. by now it was dark; there was a strong smell of evening dampness, and the moon was on the point of rising. there were only two clouds in the clear starry sky exactly over our heads: one big one and one smaller; alone in the sky they were racing after one another like mother and child, in the direction where the sunset was glowing. "what a glorious day!" said dmitri petrovitch. "in the extreme . . ." forty martyrs assented, and he coughed respectfully into his hand. "how was it, dmitri petrovitch, you thought to visit these parts?" he asked in an ingratiating voice, evidently anxious to get up a conversation. dmitri petrovitch made no answer. forty martyrs heaved a deep sigh and said softly, not looking at us: "i suffer solely through a cause to which i must answer to almighty god. no doubt about it, i am a hopeless and incompetent man; but believe me, on my conscience, i am without a crust of bread and worse off than a dog. . . . forgive me, dmitri petrovitch." silin was not listening, but sat musing with his head propped on his fists. the church stood at the end of the street on the high river-bank, and through the trellis gate of the enclosure we could see the river, the water-meadows on the near side of it, and the crimson glare of a camp fire about which black figures of men and horses were moving. and beyond the fire, further away, there were other lights, where there was a little village. they were singing there. on the river, and here and there on the meadows, a mist was rising. high narrow coils of mist, thick and white as milk, were trailing over the river, hiding the reflection of the stars and hovering over the willows. every minute they changed their form, and it seemed as though some were embracing, others were bowing, others lifting up their arms to heaven with wide sleeves like priests, as though they were praying. . . . probably they reminded dmitri petrovitch of ghosts and of the dead, for he turned facing me and asked with a mournful smile: "tell me, my dear fellow, why is it that when we want to tell some terrible, mysterious, and fantastic story, we draw our material, not from life, but invariably from the world of ghosts and of the shadows beyond the grave." "we are frightened of what we don't understand." "and do you understand life? tell me: do you understand life better than the world beyond the grave?" dmitri petrovitch was sitting quite close to me, so that i felt his breath upon my cheek. in the evening twilight his pale, lean face seemed paler than ever and his dark beard was black as soot. his eyes were sad, truthful, and a little frightened, as though he were about to tell me something horrible. he looked into my eyes and went on in his habitual imploring voice: "our life and the life beyond the grave are equally incomprehensible and horrible. if any one is afraid of ghosts he ought to be afraid, too, of me, and of those lights and of the sky, seeing that, if you come to reflect, all that is no less fantastic and beyond our grasp than apparitions from the other world. prince hamlet did not kill himself because he was afraid of the visions that might haunt his dreams after death. i like that famous soliloquy of his, but, to be candid, it never touched my soul. i will confess to you as a friend that in moments of depression i have sometimes pictured to myself the hour of my death. my fancy invented thousands of the gloomiest visions, and i have succeeded in working myself up to an agonizing exaltation, to a state of nightmare, and i assure you that that did not seem to me more terrible than reality. what i mean is, apparitions are terrible, but life is terrible, too. i don't understand life and i am afraid of it, my dear boy; i don't know. perhaps i am a morbid person, unhinged. it seems to a sound, healthy man that he understands everything he sees and hears, but that 'seeming' is lost to me, and from day to day i am poisoning myself with terror. there is a disease, the fear of open spaces, but my disease is the fear of life. when i lie on the grass and watch a little beetle which was born yesterday and understands nothing, it seems to me that its life consists of nothing else but fear, and in it i see myself." "what is it exactly you are frightened of?" i asked. "i am afraid of everything. i am not by nature a profound thinker, and i take little interest in such questions as the life beyond the grave, the destiny of humanity, and, in fact, i am rarely carried away to the heights. what chiefly frightens me is the common routine of life from which none of us can escape. i am incapable of distinguishing what is true and what is false in my actions, and they worry me. i recognize that education and the conditions of life have imprisoned me in a narrow circle of falsity, that my whole life is nothing else than a daily effort to deceive myself and other people, and to avoid noticing it; and i am frightened at the thought that to the day of my death i shall not escape from this falsity. to-day i do something and to-morrow i do not understand why i did it. i entered the service in petersburg and took fright; i came here to work on the land, and here, too, i am frightened. . . . i see that we know very little and so make mistakes every day. we are unjust, we slander one another and spoil each other's lives, we waste all our powers on trash which we do not need and which hinders us from living; and that frightens me, because i don't understand why and for whom it is necessary. i don't understand men, my dear fellow, and i am afraid of them. it frightens me to look at the peasants, and i don't know for what higher objects they are suffering and what they are living for. if life is an enjoyment, then they are unnecessary, superfluous people; if the object and meaning of life is to be found in poverty and unending, hopeless ignorance, i can't understand for whom and what this torture is necessary. i understand no one and nothing. kindly try to understand this specimen, for instance," said dmitri petrovitch, pointing to forty martyrs. "think of him!" noticing that we were looking at him, forty martyrs coughed deferentially into his fist and said: "i was always a faithful servant with good masters, but the great trouble has been spirituous liquor. if a poor fellow like me were shown consideration and given a place, i would kiss the ikon. my word's my bond." the sexton walked by, looked at us in amazement, and began pulling the rope. the bell, abruptly breaking upon the stillness of the evening, struck ten with a slow and prolonged note. "it's ten o'clock, though," said dmitri petrovitch. "it's time we were going. yes, my dear fellow," he sighed, "if only you knew how afraid i am of my ordinary everyday thoughts, in which one would have thought there should be nothing dreadful. to prevent myself thinking i distract my mind with work and try to tire myself out that i may sleep sound at night. children, a wife--all that seems ordinary with other people; but how that weighs upon me, my dear fellow!" he rubbed his face with his hands, cleared his throat, and laughed. "if i could only tell you how i have played the fool in my life!" he said. "they all tell me that i have a sweet wife, charming children, and that i am a good husband and father. they think i am very happy and envy me. but since it has come to that, i will tell you in secret: my happy family life is only a grievous misunderstanding, and i am afraid of it." his pale face was distorted by a wry smile. he put his arm round my waist and went on in an undertone: "you are my true friend; i believe in you and have a deep respect for you. heaven gave us friendship that we may open our hearts and escape from the secrets that weigh upon us. let me take advantage of your friendly feeling for me and tell you the whole truth. my home life, which seems to you so enchanting, is my chief misery and my chief terror. i got married in a strange and stupid way. i must tell you that i was madly in love with masha before i married her, and was courting her for two years. i asked her to marry me five times, and she refused me because she did not care for me in the least. the sixth, when burning with passion i crawled on my knees before her and implored her to take a beggar and marry me, she consented. . . . what she said to me was: 'i don't love you, but i will be true to you. . . .' i accepted that condition with rapture. at the time i understood what that meant, but i swear to god i don't understand it now. 'i don't love you, but i will be true to you.' what does that mean? it's a fog, a darkness. i love her now as intensely as i did the day we were married, while she, i believe, is as indifferent as ever, and i believe she is glad when i go away from home. i don't know for certain whether she cares for me or not --i don't know, i don't know; but, as you see, we live under the same roof, call each other 'thou,' sleep together, have children, our property is in common. . . . what does it mean, what does it mean? what is the object of it? and do you understand it at all, my dear fellow? it's cruel torture! because i don't understand our relations, i hate, sometimes her, sometimes myself, sometimes both at once. everything is in a tangle in my brain; i torment myself and grow stupid. and as though to spite me, she grows more beautiful every day, she is getting more wonderful. . . i fancy her hair is marvellous, and her smile is like no other woman's. i love her, and i know that my love is hopeless. hopeless love for a woman by whom one has two children! is that intelligible? and isn't it terrible? isn't it more terrible than ghosts?" he was in the mood to have talked on a good deal longer, but luckily we heard the coachman's voice. our horses had arrived. we got into the carriage, and forty martyrs, taking off his cap, helped us both into the carriage with an expression that suggested that he had long been waiting for an opportunity to come in contact with our precious persons. "dmitri petrovitch, let me come to you," he said, blinking furiously and tilting his head on one side. "show divine mercy! i am dying of hunger!" "very well," said silin. "come, you shall stay three days, and then we shall see." "certainly, sir," said forty martyrs, overjoyed. "i'll come today, sir." it was a five miles' drive home. dmitri petrovitch, glad that he had at last opened his heart to his friend, kept his arm round my waist all the way; and speaking now, not with bitterness and not with apprehension, but quite cheerfully, told me that if everything had been satisfactory in his home life, he should have returned to petersburg and taken up scientific work there. the movement which had driven so many gifted young men into the country was, he said, a deplorable movement. we had plenty of rye and wheat in russia, but absolutely no cultured people. the strong and gifted among the young ought to take up science, art, and politics; to act otherwise meant being wasteful. he generalized with pleasure and expressed regret that he would be parting from me early next morning, as he had to go to a sale of timber. and i felt awkward and depressed, and it seemed to me that i was deceiving the man. and at the same time it was pleasant to me. i gazed at the immense crimson moon which was rising, and pictured the tall, graceful, fair woman, with her pale face, always well-dressed and fragrant with some special scent, rather like musk, and for some reason it pleased me to think she did not love her husband. on reaching home, we sat down to supper. marya sergeyevna, laughing, regaled us with our purchases, and i thought that she certainly had wonderful hair and that her smile was unlike any other woman's. i watched her, and i wanted to detect in every look and movement that she did not love her husband, and i fancied that i did see it. dmitri petrovitch was soon struggling with sleep. after supper he sat with us for ten minutes and said: "do as you please, my friends, but i have to be up at three o'clock tomorrow morning. excuse my leaving you." he kissed his wife tenderly, pressed my hand with warmth and gratitude, and made me promise that i would certainly come the following week. that he might not oversleep next morning, he went to spend the night in the lodge. marya sergeyevna always sat up late, in the petersburg fashion, and for some reason on this occasion i was glad of it. "and now," i began when we were left alone, "and now you'll be kind and play me something." i felt no desire for music, but i did not know how to begin the conversation. she sat down to the piano and played, i don't remember what. i sat down beside her and looked at her plump white hands and tried to read something on her cold, indifferent face. then she smiled at something and looked at me. "you are dull without your friend," she said. i laughed. "it would be enough for friendship to be here once a month, but i turn up oftener than once a week." saying this, i got up and walked from one end of the room to the other. she too got up and walked away to the fireplace. "what do you mean to say by that?" she said, raising her large, clear eyes and looking at me. i made no answer. "what you say is not true," she went on, after a moment's thought. "you only come here on account of dmitri petrovitch. well, i am very glad. one does not often see such friendships nowadays." "aha!" i thought, and, not knowing what to say, i asked: "would you care for a turn in the garden?" i went out upon the verandah. nervous shudders were running over my head and i felt chilly with excitement. i was convinced now that our conversation would be utterly trivial, and that there was nothing particular we should be able to say to one another, but that, that night, what i did not dare to dream of was bound to happen--that it was bound to be that night or never. "what lovely weather!" i said aloud. "it makes absolutely no difference to me," she answered. i went into the drawing-room. marya sergeyevna was standing, as before, near the fireplace, with her hands behind her back, looking away and thinking of something. "why does it make no difference to you?" i asked. "because i am bored. you are only bored without your friend, but i am always bored. however . . . that is of no interest to you." i sat down to the piano and struck a few chords, waiting to hear what she would say. "please don't stand on ceremony," she said, looking angrily at me, and she seemed as though on the point of crying with vexation. "if you are sleepy, go to bed. because you are dmitri petrovitch's friend, you are not in duty bound to be bored with his wife's company. i don't want a sacrifice. please go." i did not, of course, go to bed. she went out on the verandah while i remained in the drawing-room and spent five minutes turning over the music. then i went out, too. we stood close together in the shadow of the curtains, and below us were the steps bathed in moonlight. the black shadows of the trees stretched across the flower beds and the yellow sand of the paths. "i shall have to go away tomorrow, too," i said. "of course, if my husband's not at home you can't stay here," she said sarcastically. "i can imagine how miserable you would be if you were in love with me! wait a bit: one day i shall throw myself on your neck. . . . i shall see with what horror you will run away from me. that would be interesting." her words and her pale face were angry, but her eyes were full of tender passionate love. i already looked upon this lovely creature as my property, and then for the first time i noticed that she had golden eyebrows, exquisite eyebrows. i had never seen such eyebrows before. the thought that i might at once press her to my heart, caress her, touch her wonderful hair, seemed to me such a miracle that i laughed and shut my eyes. "it's bed-time now. . . . a peaceful night," she said. "i don't want a peaceful night," i said, laughing, following her into the drawing-room. "i shall curse this night if it is a peaceful one." pressing her hand, and escorting her to the door, i saw by her face that she understood me, and was glad that i understood her, too. i went to my room. near the books on the table lay dmitri petrovitch's cap, and that reminded me of his affection for me. i took my stick and went out into the garden. the mist had risen here, too, and the same tall, narrow, ghostly shapes which i had seen earlier on the river were trailing round the trees and bushes and wrapping about them. what a pity i could not talk to them! in the extraordinarily transparent air, each leaf, each drop of dew stood out distinctly; it was all smiling at me in the stillness half asleep, and as i passed the green seats i recalled the words in some play of shakespeare's: "how sweetly falls the moonlight on yon seat!" there was a mound in the garden; i went up it and sat down. i was tormented by a delicious feeling. i knew for certain that in a moment i should hold in my arms, should press to my heart her magnificent body, should kiss her golden eyebrows; and i wanted to disbelieve it, to tantalize myself, and was sorry that she had cost me so little trouble and had yielded so soon. but suddenly i heard heavy footsteps. a man of medium height appeared in the avenue, and i recognized him at once as forty martyrs. he sat down on the bench and heaved a deep sigh, then crossed himself three times and lay down. a minute later he got up and lay on the other side. the gnats and the dampness of the night prevented his sleeping. "oh, life!" he said. "wretched, bitter life!" looking at his bent, wasted body and hearing his heavy, noisy sighs, i thought of an unhappy, bitter life of which the confession had been made to me that day, and i felt uneasy and frightened at my blissful mood. i came down the knoll and went to the house. "life, as he thinks, is terrible," i thought, "so don't stand on ceremony with it, bend it to your will, and until it crushes you, snatch all you can wring from it." marya sergeyevna was standing on the verandah. i put my arms round her without a word, and began greedily kissing her eyebrows, her temples, her neck. . . . in my room she told me she had loved me for a long time, more than a year. she vowed eternal love, cried and begged me to take her away with me. i repeatedly took her to the window to look at her face in the moonlight, and she seemed to me a lovely dream, and i made haste to hold her tight to convince myself of the truth of it. it was long since i had known such raptures. . . . yet somewhere far away at the bottom of my heart i felt an awkwardness, and i was ill at ease. in her love for me there was something incongruous and burdensome, just as in dmitri petrovitch's friendship. it was a great, serious passion with tears and vows, and i wanted nothing serious in it--no tears, no vows, no talk of the future. let that moonlight night flash through our lives like a meteor and--_basta!_ at three o'clock she went out of my room, and, while i was standing in the doorway, looking after her, at the end of the corridor dmitri petrovitch suddenly made his appearance; she started and stood aside to let him pass, and her whole figure was expressive of repulsion. he gave a strange smile, coughed, and came into my room. "i forgot my cap here yesterday," he said without looking at me. he found it and, holding it in both hands, put it on his head; then he looked at my confused face, at my slippers, and said in a strange, husky voice unlike his own: "i suppose it must be my fate that i should understand nothing. . . . if you understand anything, i congratulate you. it's all darkness before my eyes." and he went out, clearing his throat. afterwards from the window i saw him by the stable, harnessing the horses with his own hands. his hands were trembling, he was in nervous haste and kept looking round at the house; probably he was feeling terror. then he got into the gig, and, with a strange expression as though afraid of being pursued, lashed the horses. shortly afterwards i set off, too. the sun was already rising, and the mist of the previous day clung timidly to the bushes and the hillocks. on the box of the carriage was sitting forty martyrs; he had already succeeded in getting drunk and was muttering tipsy nonsense. "i am a free man," he shouted to the horses. "ah, my honeys, i am a nobleman in my own right, if you care to know!" the terror of dmitri petrovitch, the thought of whom i could not get out of my head, infected me. i thought of what had happened and could make nothing of it. i looked at the rooks, and it seemed so strange and terrible that they were flying. "why have i done this?" i kept asking myself in bewilderment and despair. "why has it turned out like this and not differently? to whom and for what was it necessary that she should love me in earnest, and that he should come into my room to fetch his cap? what had a cap to do with it?" i set off for petersburg that day, and i have not seen dmitri petrovitch nor his wife since. i am told that they are still living together. a woman's kingdom i christmas eve here was a thick roll of notes. it came from the bailiff at the forest villa; he wrote that he was sending fifteen hundred roubles, which he had been awarded as damages, having won an appeal. anna akimovna disliked and feared such words as "awarded damages" and "won the suit." she knew that it was impossible to do without the law, but for some reason, whenever nazaritch, the manager of the factory, or the bailiff of her villa in the country, both of whom frequently went to law, used to win lawsuits of some sort for her benefit, she always felt uneasy and, as it were, ashamed. on this occasion, too, she felt uneasy and awkward, and wanted to put that fifteen hundred roubles further away that it might be out of her sight. she thought with vexation that other girls of her age--she was in her twenty-sixth year--were now busy looking after their households, were weary and would sleep sound, and would wake up tomorrow morning in holiday mood; many of them had long been married and had children. only she, for some reason, was compelled to sit like an old woman over these letters, to make notes upon them, to write answers, then to do nothing the whole evening till midnight, but wait till she was sleepy; and tomorrow they would all day long be coming with christmas greetings and asking for favours; and the day after tomorrow there would certainly be some scandal at the factory--some one would be beaten or would die of drinking too much vodka, and she would be fretted by pangs of conscience; and after the holidays nazaritch would turn off some twenty of the workpeople for absence from work, and all of the twenty would hang about at the front door, without their caps on, and she would be ashamed to go out to them, and they would be driven away like dogs. and all her acquaintances would say behind her back, and write to her in anonymous letters, that she was a millionaire and exploiter --that she was devouring other men's lives and sucking the blood of the workers. here there lay a heap of letters read through and laid aside already. they were all begging letters. they were from people who were hungry, drunken, dragged down by large families, sick, degraded, despised . . . . anna akimovna had already noted on each letter, three roubles to be paid to one, five to another; these letters would go the same day to the office, and next the distribution of assistance would take place, or, as the clerks used to say, the beasts would be fed. they would distribute also in small sums four hundred and seventy roubles--the interest on a sum bequeathed by the late akim ivanovitch for the relief of the poor and needy. there would be a hideous crush. from the gates to the doors of the office there would stretch a long file of strange people with brutal faces, in rags, numb with cold, hungry and already drunk, in husky voices calling down blessings upon anna akimovna, their benefactress, and her parents: those at the back would press upon those in front, and those in front would abuse them with bad language. the clerk would get tired of the noise, the swearing, and the sing-song whining and blessing; would fly out and give some one a box on the ear to the delight of all. and her own people, the factory hands, who received nothing at christmas but their wages, and had already spent every farthing of it, would stand in the middle of the yard, looking on and laughing--some enviously, others ironically. "merchants, and still more their wives, are fonder of beggars than they are of their own workpeople," thought anna akimovna. "it's always so." her eye fell upon the roll of money. it would be nice to distribute that hateful, useless money among the workpeople tomorrow, but it did not do to give the workpeople anything for nothing, or they would demand it again next time. and what would be the good of fifteen hundred roubles when there were eighteen hundred workmen in the factory besides their wives and children? or she might, perhaps, pick out one of the writers of those begging letters-- some luckless man who had long ago lost all hope of anything better, and give him the fifteen hundred. the money would come upon the poor creature like a thunder-clap, and perhaps for the first time in his life he would feel happy. this idea struck anna akimovna as original and amusing, and it fascinated her. she took one letter at random out of the pile and read it. some petty official called tchalikov had long been out of a situation, was ill, and living in gushtchin's buildings; his wife was in consumption, and he had five little girls. anna akimovna knew well the four-storeyed house, gushtchin's buildings, in which tchalikov lived. oh, it was a horrid, foul, unhealthy house! "well, i will give it to that tchalikov," she decided. "i won't send it; i had better take it myself to prevent unnecessary talk. yes," she reflected, as she put the fifteen hundred roubles in her pocket, "and i'll have a look at them, and perhaps i can do something for the little girls." she felt light-hearted; she rang the bell and ordered the horses to be brought round. when she got into the sledge it was past six o'clock in the evening. the windows in all the blocks of buildings were brightly lighted up, and that made the huge courtyard seem very dark: at the gates, and at the far end of the yard near the warehouses and the workpeople's barracks, electric lamps were gleaming. anna akimovna disliked and feared those huge dark buildings, warehouses, and barracks where the workmen lived. she had only once been in the main building since her father's death. the high ceilings with iron girders; the multitude of huge, rapidly turning wheels, connecting straps and levers; the shrill hissing; the clank of steel; the rattle of the trolleys; the harsh puffing of steam; the faces--pale, crimson, or black with coal-dust; the shirts soaked with sweat; the gleam of steel, of copper, and of fire; the smell of oil and coal; and the draught, at times very hot and at times very cold--gave her an impression of hell. it seemed to her as though the wheels, the levers, and the hot hissing cylinders were trying to tear themselves away from their fastenings to crush the men, while the men, not hearing one another, ran about with anxious faces, and busied themselves about the machines, trying to stop their terrible movement. they showed anna akimovna something and respectfully explained it to her. she remembered how in the forge a piece of red-hot iron was pulled out of the furnace; and how an old man with a strap round his head, and another, a young man in a blue shirt with a chain on his breast, and an angry face, probably one of the foremen, struck the piece of iron with hammers; and how the golden sparks had been scattered in all directions; and how, a little afterwards, they had dragged out a huge piece of sheet-iron with a clang. the old man had stood erect and smiled, while the young man had wiped his face with his sleeve and explained something to her. and she remembered, too, how in another department an old man with one eye had been filing a piece of iron, and how the iron filings were scattered about; and how a red-haired man in black spectacles, with holes in his shirt, had been working at a lathe, making something out of a piece of steel: the lathe roared and hissed and squeaked, and anna akimovna felt sick at the sound, and it seemed as though they were boring into her ears. she looked, listened, did not understand, smiled graciously, and felt ashamed. to get hundreds of thousands of roubles from a business which one does not understand and cannot like--how strange it is! and she had not once been in the workpeople's barracks. there, she was told, it was damp; there were bugs, debauchery, anarchy. it was an astonishing thing: a thousand roubles were spent annually on keeping the barracks in good order, yet, if she were to believe the anonymous letters, the condition of the workpeople was growing worse and worse every year. "there was more order in my father's day," thought anna akimovna, as she drove out of the yard, "because he had been a workman himself. i know nothing about it and only do silly things." she felt depressed again, and was no longer glad that she had come, and the thought of the lucky man upon whom fifteen hundred roubles would drop from heaven no longer struck her as original and amusing. to go to some tchalikov or other, when at home a business worth a million was gradually going to pieces and being ruined, and the workpeople in the barracks were living worse than convicts, meant doing something silly and cheating her conscience. along the highroad and across the fields near it, workpeople from the neighbouring cotton and paper factories were walking towards the lights of the town. there was the sound of talk and laughter in the frosty air. anna akimovna looked at the women and young people, and she suddenly felt a longing for a plain rough life among a crowd. she recalled vividly that far-away time when she used to be called anyutka, when she was a little girl and used to lie under the same quilt with her mother, while a washerwoman who lodged with them used to wash clothes in the next room; while through the thin walls there came from the neighbouring flats sounds of laughter, swearing, children's crying, the accordion, and the whirr of carpenters' lathes and sewing-machines; while her father, akim ivanovitch, who was clever at almost every craft, would be soldering something near the stove, or drawing or planing, taking no notice whatever of the noise and stuffiness. and she longed to wash, to iron, to run to the shop and the tavern as she used to do every day when she lived with her mother. she ought to have been a work-girl and not the factory owner! her big house with its chandeliers and pictures; her footman mishenka, with his glossy moustache and swallowtail coat; the devout and dignified varvarushka, and smooth-tongued agafyushka; and the young people of both sexes who came almost every day to ask her for money, and with whom she always for some reason felt guilty; and the clerks, the doctors, and the ladies who were charitable at her expense, who flattered her and secretly despised her for her humble origin-- how wearisome and alien it all was to her! here was the railway crossing and the city gate; then came houses alternating with kitchen gardens; and at last the broad street where stood the renowned gushtchin's buildings. the street, usually quiet, was now on christmas eve full of life and movement. the eating-houses and beer-shops were noisy. if some one who did not belong to that quarter but lived in the centre of the town had driven through the street now, he would have noticed nothing but dirty, drunken, and abusive people; but anna akimovna, who had lived in those parts all her life, was constantly recognizing in the crowd her own father or mother or uncle. her father was a soft fluid character, a little fantastical, frivolous, and irresponsible. he did not care for money, respectability, or power; he used to say that a working man had no time to keep the holy-days and go to church; and if it had not been for his wife, he would probably never have gone to confession, taken the sacrament or kept the fasts. while her uncle, ivan ivanovitch, on the contrary, was like flint; in everything relating to religion, politics, and morality, he was harsh and relentless, and kept a strict watch, not only over himself, but also over all his servants and acquaintances. god forbid that one should go into his room without crossing oneself before the ikon! the luxurious mansion in which anna akimovna now lived he had always kept locked up, and only opened it on great holidays for important visitors, while he lived himself in the office, in a little room covered with ikons. he had leanings towards the old believers, and was continually entertaining priests and bishops of the old ritual, though he had been christened, and married, and had buried his wife in accordance with the orthodox rites. he disliked akim, his only brother and his heir, for his frivolity, which he called simpleness and folly, and for his indifference to religion. he treated him as an inferior, kept him in the position of a workman, paid him sixteen roubles a month. akim addressed his brother with formal respect, and on the days of asking forgiveness, he and his wife and daughter bowed down to the ground before him. but three years before his death ivan ivanovitch had drawn closer to his brother, forgave his shortcomings, and ordered him to get a governess for anyutka. there was a dark, deep, evil-smelling archway under gushtchin's buildings; there was a sound of men coughing near the walls. leaving the sledge in the street, anna akimovna went in at the gate and there inquired how to get to no. to see a clerk called tchalikov. she was directed to the furthest door on the right in the third story. and in the courtyard and near the outer door, and even on the stairs, there was still the same loathsome smell as under the archway. in anna akimovna's childhood, when her father was a simple workman, she used to live in a building like that, and afterwards, when their circumstances were different, she had often visited them in the character of a lady bountiful. the narrow stone staircase with its steep dirty steps, with landings at every story; the greasy swinging lanterns; the stench; the troughs, pots, and rags on the landings near the doors,--all this had been familiar to her long ago. . . . one door was open, and within could be seen jewish tailors in caps, sewing. anna akimovna met people on the stairs, but it never entered her head that people might be rude to her. she was no more afraid of peasants or workpeople, drunk or sober, than of her acquaintances of the educated class. there was no entry at no. ; the door opened straight into the kitchen. as a rule the dwellings of workmen and mechanics smell of varnish, tar, hides, smoke, according to the occupation of the tenant; the dwellings of persons of noble or official class who have come to poverty may be known by a peculiar rancid, sour smell. this disgusting smell enveloped anna akimovna on all sides, and as yet she was only on the threshold. a man in a black coat, no doubt tchalikov himself, was sitting in a corner at the table with his back to the door, and with him were five little girls. the eldest, a broad-faced thin girl with a comb in her hair, looked about fifteen, while the youngest, a chubby child with hair that stood up like a hedge-hog, was not more than three. all the six were eating. near the stove stood a very thin little woman with a yellow face, far gone in pregnancy. she was wearing a skirt and a white blouse, and had an oven fork in her hand. "i did not expect you to be so disobedient, liza," the man was saying reproachfully. "fie, fie, for shame! do you want papa to whip you--eh?" seeing an unknown lady in the doorway, the thin woman started, and put down the fork. "vassily nikititch!" she cried, after a pause, in a hollow voice, as though she could not believe her eyes. the man looked round and jumped up. he was a flat-chested, bony man with narrow shoulders and sunken temples. his eyes were small and hollow with dark rings round them, he had a wide mouth, and a long nose like a bird's beak--a little bit bent to the right. his beard was parted in the middle, his moustache was shaven, and this made him look more like a hired footman than a government clerk. "does mr. tchalikov live here?" asked anna akimovna. "yes, madam," tchalikov answered severely, but immediately recognizing anna akimovna, he cried: "anna akimovna!" and all at once he gasped and clasped his hands as though in terrible alarm. "benefactress!" with a moan he ran to her, grunting inarticulately as though he were paralyzed--there was cabbage on his beard and he smelt of vodka--pressed his forehead to her muff, and seemed as though he were in a swoon. "your hand, your holy hand!" he brought out breathlessly. "it's a dream, a glorious dream! children, awaken me!" he turned towards the table and said in a sobbing voice, shaking his fists: "providence has heard us! our saviour, our angel, has come! we are saved! children, down on your knees! on your knees!" madame tchalikov and the little girls, except the youngest one, began for some reason rapidly clearing the table. "you wrote that your wife was very ill," said anna akimovna, and she felt ashamed and annoyed. "i am not going to give them the fifteen hundred," she thought. "here she is, my wife," said tchalikov in a thin feminine voice, as though his tears had gone to his head. "here she is, unhappy creature! with one foot in the grave! but we do not complain, madam. better death than such a life. better die, unhappy woman!" "why is he playing these antics?" thought anna akimovna with annoyance. "one can see at once he is used to dealing with merchants." "speak to me like a human being," she said. "i don't care for farces.'' "yes, madam; five bereaved children round their mother's coffin with funeral candles--that's a farce? eh?" said tchalikov bitterly, and turned away. "hold your tongue," whispered his wife, and she pulled at his sleeve. "the place has not been tidied up, madam," she said, addressing anna akimovna; "please excuse it . . . you know what it is where there are children. a crowded hearth, but harmony." "i am not going to give them the fifteen hundred," anna akimovna thought again. and to escape as soon as possible from these people and from the sour smell, she brought out her purse and made up her mind to leave them twenty-five roubles, not more; but she suddenly felt ashamed that she had come so far and disturbed people for so little. "if you give me paper and ink, i will write at once to a doctor who is a friend of mine to come and see you," she said, flushing red. "he is a very good doctor. and i will leave you some money for medicine." madame tchalikov was hastening to wipe the table. "it's messy here! what are you doing?" hissed tchalikov, looking at her wrathfully. "take her to the lodger's room! i make bold to ask you, madam, to step into the lodger's room," he said, addressing anna akimovna. "it's clean there." "osip ilyitch told us not to go into his room!" said one of the little girls, sternly. but they had already led anna akimovna out of the kitchen, through a narrow passage room between two bedsteads: it was evident from the arrangement of the beds that in one two slept lengthwise, and in the other three slept across the bed. in the lodger's room, that came next, it really was clean. a neat-looking bed with a red woollen quilt, a pillow in a white pillow-case, even a slipper for the watch, a table covered with a hempen cloth and on it, an inkstand of milky-looking glass, pens, paper, photographs in frames-- everything as it ought to be; and another table for rough work, on which lay tidily arranged a watchmaker's tools and watches taken to pieces. on the walls hung hammers, pliers, awls, chisels, nippers, and so on, and there were three hanging clocks which were ticking; one was a big clock with thick weights, such as one sees in eating-houses. as she sat down to write the letter, anna akimovna saw facing her on the table the photographs of her father and of herself. that surprised her. "who lives here with you?" she asked. "our lodger, madam, pimenov. he works in your factory." "oh, i thought he must be a watchmaker." "he repairs watches privately, in his leisure hours. he is an amateur." after a brief silence during which nothing could be heard but the ticking of the clocks and the scratching of the pen on the paper, tchalikov heaved a sigh and said ironically, with indignation: "it's a true saying: gentle birth and a grade in the service won't put a coat on your back. a cockade in your cap and a noble title, but nothing to eat. to my thinking, if any one of humble class helps the poor he is much more of a gentleman than any tchalikov who has sunk into poverty and vice." to flatter anna akimovna, he uttered a few more disparaging phrases about his gentle birth, and it was evident that he was humbling himself because he considered himself superior to her. meanwhile she had finished her letter and had sealed it up. the letter would be thrown away and the money would not be spent on medicine--that she knew, but she put twenty-five roubles on the table all the same, and after a moment's thought, added two more red notes. she saw the wasted, yellow hand of madame tchalikov, like the claw of a hen, dart out and clutch the money tight. "you have graciously given this for medicine," said tchalikov in a quivering voice, "but hold out a helping hand to me also . . . and the children!" he added with a sob. "my unhappy children! i am not afraid for myself; it is for my daughters i fear! it's the hydra of vice that i fear!" trying to open her purse, the catch of which had gone wrong, anna akimovna was confused and turned red. she felt ashamed that people should be standing before her, looking at her hands and waiting, and most likely at the bottom of their hearts laughing at her. at that instant some one came into the kitchen and stamped his feet, knocking the snow off. "the lodger has come in," said madame tchalikov. anna akimovna grew even more confused. she did not want any one from the factory to find her in this ridiculous position. as ill-luck would have it, the lodger came in at the very moment when, having broken the catch at last, she was giving tchalikov some notes, and tchalikov, grunting as though he were paraylzed, was feeling about with his lips where he could kiss her. in the lodger she recognized the workman who had once clanked the sheet-iron before her in the forge, and had explained things to her. evidently he had come in straight from the factory; his face looked dark and grimy, and on one cheek near his nose was a smudge of soot. his hands were perfectly black, and his unbelted shirt shone with oil and grease. he was a man of thirty, of medium height, with black hair and broad shoulders, and a look of great physical strength. at the first glance anna akimovna perceived that he must be a foreman, who must be receiving at least thirty-five roubles a month, and a stern, loud-voiced man who struck the workmen in the face; all this was evident from his manner of standing, from the attitude he involuntarily assumed at once on seeing a lady in his room, and most of all from the fact that he did not wear top-boots, that he had breast pockets, and a pointed, picturesquely clipped beard. her father, akim ivanovitch, had been the brother of the factory owner, and yet he had been afraid of foremen like this lodger and had tried to win their favour. "excuse me for having come in here in your absence," said anna akimovna. the workman looked at her in surprise, smiled in confusion and did not speak. "you must speak a little louder, madam . . . ." said tchalikov softly. "when mr. pimenov comes home from the factory in the evenings he is a little hard of hearing." but anna akimovna was by now relieved that there was nothing more for her to do here; she nodded to them and went rapidly out of the room. pimenov went to see her out. "have you been long in our employment?" she asked in a loud voice, without turning to him. "from nine years old. i entered the factory in your uncle's time." "that's a long while! my uncle and my father knew all the workpeople, and i know hardly any of them. i had seen you before, but i did not know your name was pimenov." anna akimovna felt a desire to justify herself before him, to pretend that she had just given the money not seriously, but as a joke. "oh, this poverty," she sighed. "we give charity on holidays and working days, and still there is no sense in it. i believe it is useless to help such people as this tchalikov." "of course it is useless," he agreed. "however much you give him, he will drink it all away. and now the husband and wife will be snatching it from one another and fighting all night," he added with a laugh. "yes, one must admit that our philanthropy is useless, boring, and absurd. but still, you must agree, one can't sit with one's hand in one's lap; one must do something. what's to be done with the tchalikovs, for instance?" she turned to pimenov and stopped, expecting an answer from him; he, too, stopped and slowly, without speaking, shrugged his shoulders. obviously he knew what to do with the tchalikovs, but the treatment would have been so coarse and inhuman that he did not venture to put it into words. and the tchalikovs were to him so utterly uninteresting and worthless, that a moment later he had forgotten them; looking into anna akimovna's eyes, he smiled with pleasure, and his face wore an expression as though he were dreaming about something very pleasant. only, now standing close to him, anna akimovna saw from his face, and especially from his eyes, how exhausted and sleepy he was. "here, i ought to give him the fifteen hundred roubles!" she thought, but for some reason this idea seemed to her incongruous and insulting to pimenov. "i am sure you are aching all over after your work, and you come to the door with me," she said as they went down the stairs. "go home." but he did not catch her words. when they came out into the street, he ran on ahead, unfastened the cover of the sledge, and helping anna akimovna in, said: "i wish you a happy christmas!" ii christmas morning "they have left off ringing ever so long! it's dreadful; you won't be there before the service is over! get up!" "two horses are racing, racing . . ." said anna akimovna, and she woke up; before her, candle in hand, stood her maid, red-haired masha. "well, what is it?" "service is over already," said masha with despair. "i have called you three times! sleep till evening for me, but you told me yourself to call you!" anna akimovna raised herself on her elbow and glanced towards the window. it was still quite dark outside, and only the lower edge of the window-frame was white with snow. she could hear a low, mellow chime of bells; it was not the parish church, but somewhere further away. the watch on the little table showed three minutes past six. "very well, masha. . . . in three minutes . . ." said anna akimovna in an imploring voice, and she snuggled under the bed-clothes. she imagined the snow at the front door, the sledge, the dark sky, the crowd in the church, and the smell of juniper, and she felt dread at the thought; but all the same, she made up her mind that she would get up at once and go to early service. and while she was warm in bed and struggling with sleep--which seems, as though to spite one, particularly sweet when one ought to get up--and while she had visions of an immense garden on a mountain and then gushtchin's buildings, she was worried all the time by the thought that she ought to get up that very minute and go to church. but when she got up it was quite light, and it turned out to be half-past nine. there had been a heavy fall of snow in the night; the trees were clothed in white, and the air was particularly light, transparent, and tender, so that when anna akimovna looked out of the window her first impulse was to draw a deep, deep breath. and when she had washed, a relic of far-away childish feelings--joy that today was christmas--suddenly stirred within her; after that she felt light-hearted, free and pure in soul, as though her soul, too, had been washed or plunged in the white snow. masha came in, dressed up and tightly laced, and wished her a happy christmas; then she spent a long time combing her mistress's hair and helping her to dress. the fragrance and feeling of the new, gorgeous, splendid dress, its faint rustle, and the smell of fresh scent, excited anna akimoyna. "well, it's christmas," she said gaily to masha. "now we will try our fortunes." "last year, i was to marry an old man. it turned up three times the same." "well, god is merciful." "well, anna akimovna, what i think is, rather than neither one thing nor the other, i'd marry an old man," said masha mournfully, and she heaved a sigh. "i am turned twenty; it's no joke." every one in the house knew that red-haired masha was in love with mishenka, the footman, and this genuine, passionate, hopeless love had already lasted three years. "come, don't talk nonsense," anna akimovna consoled her. "i am going on for thirty, but i am still meaning to marry a young man." while his mistress was dressing, mishenka, in a new swallow-tail and polished boots, walked about the hall and drawing-room and waited for her to come out, to wish her a happy christmas. he had a peculiar walk, stepping softly and delicately; looking at his feet, his hands, and the bend of his head, it might be imagined that he was not simply walking, but learning to dance the first figure of a quadrille. in spite of his fine velvety moustache and handsome, rather flashy appearance, he was steady, prudent, and devout as an old man. he said his prayers, bowing down to the ground, and liked burning incense in his room. he respected people of wealth and rank and had a reverence for them; he despised poor people, and all who came to ask favours of any kind, with all the strength of his cleanly flunkey soul. under his starched shirt he wore a flannel, winter and summer alike, being very careful of his health; his ears were plugged with cotton-wool. when anna akimovna crossed the hall with masha, he bent his head downwards a little and said in his agreeable, honeyed voice: "i have the honour to congratulate you, anna akimovna, on the most solemn feast of the birth of our lord." anna akimovna gave him five roubles, while poor masha was numb with ecstasy. his holiday get-up, his attitude, his voice, and what he said, impressed her by their beauty and elegance; as she followed her mistress she could think of nothing, could see nothing, she could only smile, first blissfully and then bitterly. the upper story of the house was called the best or visitors' half, while the name of the business part--old people's or simply women's part --was given to the rooms on the lower story where aunt tatyana ivanovna kept house. in the upper part the gentry and educated visitors were entertained; in the lower story, simpler folk and the aunt's personal friends. handsome, plump, and healthy, still young and fresh, and feeling she had on a magnificent dress which seemed to her to diffuse a sort of radiance all about her, anna akimovna went down to the lower story. here she was met with reproaches for forgetting god now that she was so highly educated, for sleeping too late for the service, and for not coming downstairs to break the fast, and they all clasped their hands and exclaimed with perfect sincerity that she was lovely, wonderful; and she believed it, laughed, kissed them, gave one a rouble, another three or five according to their position. she liked being downstairs. wherever one looked there were shrines, ikons, little lamps, portraits of ecclesiastical personages--the place smelt of monks; there was a rattle of knives in the kitchen, and already a smell of something savoury, exceedingly appetizing, was pervading all the rooms. the yellow-painted floors shone, and from the doors narrow rugs with bright blue stripes ran like little paths to the ikon corner, and the sunshine was simply pouring in at the windows. in the dining-room some old women, strangers, were sitting; in varvarushka's room, too, there were old women, and with them a deaf and dumb girl, who seemed abashed about something and kept saying, "bli, bli! . . ." two skinny-looking little girls who had been brought out of the orphanage for christmas came up to kiss anna akimovna's hand, and stood before her transfixed with admiration of her splendid dress; she noticed that one of the girls squinted, and in the midst of her light-hearted holiday mood she felt a sick pang at her heart at the thought that young men would despise the girl, and that she would never marry. in the cook agafya's room, five huge peasants in new shirts were sitting round the samovar; these were not workmen from the factory, but relations of the cook. seeing anna akimovna, all the peasants jumped up from their seats, and from regard for decorum, ceased munching, though their mouths were full. the cook stepan, in a white cap, with a knife in his hand, came into the room and gave her his greetings; porters in high felt boots came in, and they, too, offered their greetings. the water-carrier peeped in with icicles on his beard, but did not venture to come in. anna akimovna walked through the rooms followed by her retinue-- the aunt, varvarushka, nikandrovna, the sewing-maid marfa petrovna, and the downstairs masha. varvarushka--a tall, thin, slender woman, taller than any one in the house, dressed all in black, smelling of cypress and coffee--crossed herself in each room before the ikon, bowing down from the waist. and whenever one looked at her one was reminded that she had already prepared her shroud and that lottery tickets were hidden away by her in the same box. "anyutinka, be merciful at christmas," she said, opening the door into the kitchen. "forgive him, bless the man! have done with it!" the coachman panteley, who had been dismissed for drunkenness in november, was on his knees in the middle of the kitchen. he was a good-natured man, but he used to be unruly when he was drunk, and could not go to sleep, but persisted in wandering about the buildings and shouting in a threatening voice, "i know all about it!" now from his beefy and bloated face and from his bloodshot eyes it could be seen that he had been drinking continually from november till christmas. "forgive me, anna akimovna," he brought out in a hoarse voice, striking his forehead on the floor and showing his bull-like neck. "it was auntie dismissed you; ask her." "what about auntie?" said her aunt, walking into the kitchen, breathing heavily; she was very stout, and on her bosom one might have stood a tray of teacups and a samovar. "what about auntie now? you are mistress here, give your own orders; though these rascals might be all dead for all i care. come, get up, you hog!" she shouted at panteley, losing patience. "get out of my sight! it's the last time i forgive you, but if you transgress again--don't ask for mercy!" then they went into the dining-room to coffee. but they had hardly sat down, when the downstairs masha rushed headlong in, saying with horror, "the singers!" and ran back again. they heard some one blowing his nose, a low bass cough, and footsteps that sounded like horses' iron-shod hoofs tramping about the entry near the hall. for half a minute all was hushed. . . . the singers burst out so suddenly and loudly that every one started. while they were singing, the priest from the almshouses with the deacon and the sexton arrived. putting on the stole, the priest slowly said that when they were ringing for matins it was snowing and not cold, but that the frost was sharper towards morning, god bless it! and now there must be twenty degrees of frost. "many people maintain, though, that winter is healthier than summer," said the deacon; then immediately assumed an austere expression and chanted after the priest. "thy birth, o christ our lord. . . ." soon the priest from the workmen's hospital came with the deacon, then the sisters from the hospital, children from the orphanage, and then singing could be heard almost uninterruptedly. they sang, had lunch, and went away. about twenty men from the factory came to offer their christmas greetings. they were only the foremen, mechanicians, and their assistants, the pattern-makers, the accountant, and so on--all of good appearance, in new black coats. they were all first-rate men, as it were picked men; each one knew his value--that is, knew that if he lost his berth today, people would be glad to take him on at another factory. evidently they liked auntie, as they behaved freely in her presence and even smoked, and when they had all trooped in to have something to eat, the accountant put his arm round her immense waist. they were free-and-easy, perhaps, partly also because varvarushka, who under the old masters had wielded great power and had kept watch over the morals of the clerks, had now no authority whatever in the house; and perhaps because many of them still remembered the time when auntie tatyana ivanovna, whose brothers kept a strict hand over her, had been dressed like a simple peasant woman like agafya, and when anna akimovna used to run about the yard near the factory buildings and every one used to call her anyutya. the foremen ate, talked, and kept looking with amazement at anna akimovna, how she had grown up and how handsome she had become! but this elegant girl, educated by governesses and teachers, was a stranger to them; they could not understand her, and they instinctively kept closer to "auntie," who called them by their names, continually pressed them to eat and drink, and, clinking glasses with them, had already drunk two wineglasses of rowanberry wine with them. anna akimovna was always afraid of their thinking her proud, an upstart, or a crow in peacock's feathers; and now while the foremen were crowding round the food, she did not leave the dining-room, but took part in the conversation. she asked pimenov, her acquaintance of the previous day: "why have you so many clocks in your room?" "i mend clocks," he answered. "i take the work up between times, on holidays, or when i can't sleep." "so if my watch goes wrong i can bring it to you to be repaired?" anna akimovna asked, laughing. "to be sure, i will do it with pleasure," said pimenov, and there was an expression of tender devotion in his face, when, not herself knowing why, she unfastened her magnificent watch from its chain and handed it to him; he looked at it in silence and gave it back. "to be sure, i will do it with pleasure," he repeated. "i don't mend watches now. my eyes are weak, and the doctors have forbidden me to do fine work. but for you i can make an exception." "doctors talk nonsense," said the accountant. they all laughed. "don't you believe them," he went on, flattered by the laughing; "last year a tooth flew out of a cylinder and hit old kalmykov such a crack on the head that you could see his brains, and the doctor said he would die; but he is alive and working to this day, only he has taken to stammering since that mishap." "doctors do talk nonsense, they do, but not so much," sighed auntie. "pyotr andreyitch, poor dear, lost his sight. just like you, he used to work day in day out at the factory near the hot furnace, and he went blind. the eyes don't like heat. but what are we talking about?" she said, rousing herself. "come and have a drink. my best wishes for christmas, my dears. i never drink with any one else, but i drink with you, sinful woman as i am. please god!" anna akimovna fancied that after yesterday pimenov despised her as a philanthropist, but was fascinated by her as a woman. she looked at him and thought that he behaved very charmingly and was nicely dressed. it is true that the sleeves of his coat were not quite long enough, and the coat itself seemed short-waisted, and his trousers were not wide and fashionable, but his tie was tied carelessly and with taste and was not as gaudy as the others'. and he seemed to be a good-natured man, for he ate submissively whatever auntie put on his plate. she remembered how black he had been the day before, and how sleepy, and the thought of it for some reason touched her. when the men were preparing to go, anna akimovna put out her hand to pimenov. she wanted to ask him to come in sometimes to see her, without ceremony, but she did not know how to--her tongue would not obey her; and that they might not think she was attracted by pimenov, she shook hands with his companions, too. then the boys from the school of which she was a patroness came. they all had their heads closely cropped and all wore grey blouses of the same pattern. the teacher--a tall, beardless young man with patches of red on his face--was visibly agitated as he formed the boys into rows; the boys sang in tune, but with harsh, disagreeable voices. the manager of the factory, nazaritch, a bald, sharp-eyed old believer, could never get on with the teachers, but the one who was now anxiously waving his hands he despised and hated, though he could not have said why. he behaved rudely and condescendingly to the young man, kept back his salary, meddled with the teaching, and had finally tried to dislodge him by appointing, a fortnight before christmas, as porter to the school a drunken peasant, a distant relation of his wife's, who disobeyed the teacher and said rude things to him before the boys. anna akimovna was aware of all this, but she could be of no help, for she was afraid of nazaritch herself. now she wanted at least to be very nice to the schoolmaster, to tell him she was very much pleased with him; but when after the singing he began apologizing for something in great confusion, and auntie began to address him familiarly as she drew him without ceremony to the table, she felt, for some reason, bored and awkward, and giving orders that the children should be given sweets, went upstairs. "in reality there is something cruel in these christmas customs," she said a little while afterwards, as it were to herself, looking out of window at the boys, who were flocking from the house to the gates and shivering with cold, putting their coats on as they ran. "at christmas one wants to rest, to sit at home with one's own people, and the poor boys, the teacher, and the clerks and foremen, are obliged for some reason to go through the frost, then to offer their greetings, show their respect, be put to confusion . . ." mishenka, who was standing at the door of the drawing-room and overheard this, said: "it has not come from us, and it will not end with us. of course, i am not an educated man, anna akimovna, but i do understand that the poor must always respect the rich. it is well said, 'god marks the rogue.' in prisons, night refuges, and pot-houses you never see any but the poor, while decent people, you may notice, are always rich. it has been said of the rich, 'deep calls to deep.'" "you always express yourself so tediously and incomprehensibly," said anna akimovna, and she walked to the other end of the big drawing-room. it was only just past eleven. the stillness of the big room, only broken by the singing that floated up from below, made her yawn. the bronzes, the albums, and the pictures on the walls, representing a ship at sea, cows in a meadow, and views of the rhine, were so absolutely stale that her eyes simply glided over them without observing them. the holiday mood was already growing tedious. as before, anna akimovna felt that she was beautiful, good-natured, and wonderful, but now it seemed to her that that was of no use to any one; it seemed to her that she did not know for whom and for what she had put on this expensive dress, too, and, as always happened on all holidays, she began to be fretted by loneliness and the persistent thought that her beauty, her health, and her wealth, were a mere cheat, since she was not wanted, was of no use to any one, and nobody loved her. she walked through all the rooms, humming and looking out of window; stopping in the drawing-room, she could not resist beginning to talk to mishenka. "i don't know what you think of yourself, misha," she said, and heaved a sigh. "really, god might punish you for it." "what do you mean?" "you know what i mean. excuse my meddling in your affairs. but it seems you are spoiling your own life out of obstinacy. you'll admit that it is high time you got married, and she is an excellent and deserving girl. you will never find any one better. she's a beauty, clever, gentle, and devoted. . . . and her appearance! . . . if she belonged to our circle or a higher one, people would be falling in love with her for her red hair alone. see how beautifully her hair goes with her complexion. oh, goodness! you don't understand anything, and don't know what you want," anna akimovna said bitterly, and tears came into her eyes. "poor girl, i am so sorry for her! i know you want a wife with money, but i have told you already i will give masha a dowry." mishenka could not picture his future spouse in his imagination except as a tall, plump, substantial, pious woman, stepping like a peacock, and, for some reason, with a long shawl over her shoulders; while masha was thin, slender, tightly laced, and walked with little steps, and, worst of all, she was too fascinating and at times extremely attractive to mishenka, and that, in his opinion, was incongruous with matrimony and only in keeping with loose behaviour. when anna akimovna had promised to give masha a dowry, he had hesitated for a time; but once a poor student in a brown overcoat over his uniform, coming with a letter for anna akimovna, was fascinated by masha, and could not resist embracing her near the hat-stand, and she had uttered a faint shriek; mishenka, standing on the stairs above, had seen this, and from that time had begun to cherish a feeling of disgust for masha. a poor student! who knows, if she had been embraced by a rich student or an officer the consequences might have been different. "why don't you wish it?" anna akimovna asked. "what more do you want?" mishenka was silent and looked at the arm-chair fixedly, and raised his eyebrows. "do you love some one else?" silence. the red-haired masha came in with letters and visiting cards on a tray. guessing that they were talking about her, she blushed to tears. "the postmen have come," she muttered. "and there is a clerk called tchalikov waiting below. he says you told him to come to-day for something." "what insolence!" said anna akimovna, moved to anger. "i gave him no orders. tell him to take himself off; say i am not at home!" a ring was heard. it was the priests from her parish. they were always shown into the aristocratic part of the house--that is, upstairs. after the priests, nazaritch, the manager of the factory, came to pay his visit, and then the factory doctor; then mishenka announced the inspector of the elementary schools. visitors kept arriving. when there was a moment free, anna akimovna sat down in a deep arm-chair in the drawing-room, and shutting her eyes, thought that her loneliness was quite natural because she had not married and never would marry. . . . but that was not her fault. fate itself had flung her out of the simple working-class surroundings in which, if she could trust her memory, she had felt so snug and at home, into these immense rooms, where she could never think what to do with herself, and could not understand why so many people kept passing before her eyes. what was happening now seemed to her trivial, useless, since it did not and could not give her happiness for one minute. "if i could fall in love," she thought, stretching; the very thought of this sent a rush of warmth to her heart. "and if i could escape from the factory . . ." she mused, imagining how the weight of those factory buildings, barracks, and schools would roll off her conscience, roll off her mind. . . . then she remembered her father, and thought if he had lived longer he would certainly have married her to a working man--to pimenov, for instance. he would have told her to marry, and that would have been all about it. and it would have been a good thing; then the factory would have passed into capable hands. she pictured his curly head, his bold profile, his delicate, ironical lips and the strength, the tremendous strength, in his shoulders, in his arms, in his chest, and the tenderness with which he had looked at her watch that day. "well," she said, "it would have been all right. i would have married him." "anna akimovna," said mishenka, coming noiselessly into the drawing-room. "how you frightened me!" she said, trembling all over. "what do you want?" "anna akimovna," he said, laying his hand on his heart and raising his eyebrows, "you are my mistress and my benefactress, and no one but you can tell me what i ought to do about marriage, for you are as good as a mother to me. . . . but kindly forbid them to laugh and jeer at me downstairs. they won't let me pass without it." "how do they jeer at you?" "they call me mashenka's mishenka." "pooh, what nonsense!" cried anna akimovna indignantly. "how stupid you all are! what a stupid you are, misha! how sick i am of you! i can't bear the sight of you." iii dinner just as the year before, the last to pay her visits were krylin, an actual civil councillor, and lysevitch, a well-known barrister. it was already dark when they arrived. krylin, a man of sixty, with a wide mouth and with grey whiskers close to his ears, with a face like a lynx, was wearing a uniform with an anna ribbon, and white trousers. he held anna akimovna's hand in both of his for a long while, looked intently in her face, moved his lips, and at last said, drawling upon one note: "i used to respect your uncle . . . and your father, and enjoyed the privilege of their friendship. now i feel it an agreeable duty, as you see, to present my christmas wishes to their honoured heiress in spite of my infirmities and the distance i have to come. . . . and i am very glad to see you in good health." the lawyer lysevitch, a tall, handsome fair man, with a slight sprinkling of grey on his temples and beard, was distinguished by exceptionally elegant manners; he walked with a swaying step, bowed as it were reluctantly, and shrugged his shoulders as he talked, and all this with an indolent grace, like a spoiled horse fresh from the stable. he was well fed, extremely healthy, and very well off; on one occasion he had won forty thousand roubles, but concealed the fact from his friends. he was fond of good fare, especially cheese, truffles, and grated radish with hemp oil; while in paris he had eaten, so he said, baked but unwashed guts. he spoke smoothly, fluently, without hesitation, and only occasionally, for the sake of effect, permitted himself to hesitate and snap his fingers as if picking up a word. he had long ceased to believe in anything he had to say in the law courts, or perhaps he did believe in it, but attached no kind of significance to it; it had all so long been familiar, stale, ordinary. . . . he believed in nothing but what was original and unusual. a copy-book moral in an original form would move him to tears. both his notebooks were filled with extraordinary expressions which he had read in various authors; and when he needed to look up any expression, he would search nervously in both books, and usually failed to find it. anna akimovna's father had in a good-humoured moment ostentatiously appointed him legal adviser in matters concerning the factory, and had assigned him a salary of twelve thousand roubles. the legal business of the factory had been confined to two or three trivial actions for recovering debts, which lysevitch handed to his assistants. anna akimovna knew that he had nothing to do at the factory, but she could not dismiss him--she had not the moral courage; and besides, she was used to him. he used to call himself her legal adviser, and his salary, which he invariably sent for on the first of the month punctually, he used to call "stern prose." anna akimovna knew that when, after her father's death, the timber of her forest was sold for railway sleepers, lysevitch had made more than fifteen thousand out of the transaction, and had shared it with nazaritch. when first she found out they had cheated her she had wept bitterly, but afterwards she had grown used to it. wishing her a happy christmas, and kissing both her hands, he looked her up and down, and frowned. "you mustn't," he said with genuine disappointment. "i have told you, my dear, you mustn't!" "what do you mean, viktor nikolaitch?" "i have told you you mustn't get fat. all your family have an unfortunate tendency to grow fat. you mustn't," he repeated in an imploring voice, and kissed her hand. "you are so handsome! you are so splendid! here, your excellency, let me introduce the one woman in the world whom i have ever seriously loved." "there is nothing surprising in that. to know anna akimovna at your age and not to be in love with her, that would be impossible." "i adore her," the lawyer continued with perfect sincerity, but with his usual indolent grace. "i love her, but not because i am a man and she is a woman. when i am with her i always feel as though she belongs to some third sex, and i to a fourth, and we float away together into the domain of the subtlest shades, and there we blend into the spectrum. leconte de lisle defines such relations better than any one. he has a superb passage, a marvellous passage. . . ." lysevitch rummaged in one notebook, then in the other, and, not finding the quotation, subsided. they began talking of the weather, of the opera, of the arrival, expected shortly, of duse. anna akimovna remembered that the year before lysevitch and, she fancied, krylin had dined with her, and now when they were getting ready to go away, she began with perfect sincerity pointing out to them in an imploring voice that as they had no more visits to pay, they ought to remain to dinner with her. after some hesitation the visitors agreed. in addition to the family dinner, consisting of cabbage soup, sucking pig, goose with apples, and so on, a so-called "french" or "chef's" dinner used to be prepared in the kitchen on great holidays, in case any visitor in the upper story wanted a meal. when they heard the clatter of crockery in the dining-room, lysevitch began to betray a noticeable excitement; he rubbed his hands, shrugged his shoulders, screwed up his eyes, and described with feeling what dinners her father and uncle used to give at one time, and a marvellous _matelote_ of turbots the cook here could make: it was not a _matelote_, but a veritable revelation! he was already gloating over the dinner, already eating it in imagination and enjoying it. when anna akimovna took his arm and led him to the dining-room, he tossed off a glass of vodka and put a piece of salmon in his mouth; he positively purred with pleasure. he munched loudly, disgustingly, emitting sounds from his nose, while his eyes grew oily and rapacious. the _hors d'oeuvres_ were superb; among other things, there were fresh white mushrooms stewed in cream, and sauce _provençale_ made of fried oysters and crayfish, strongly flavoured with some bitter pickles. the dinner, consisting of elaborate holiday dishes, was excellent, and so were the wines. mishenka waited at table with enthusiasm. when he laid some new dish on the table and lifted the shining cover, or poured out the wine, he did it with the solemnity of a professor of black magic, and, looking at his face and his movements suggesting the first figure of a quadrille, the lawyer thought several times, "what a fool!" after the third course lysevitch said, turning to anna akimovna: "the _fin de siècle_ woman--i mean when she is young, and of course wealthy--must be independent, clever, elegant, intellectual, bold, and a little depraved. depraved within limits, a little; for excess, you know, is wearisome. you ought not to vegetate, my dear; you ought not to live like every one else, but to get the full savour of life, and a slight flavour of depravity is the sauce of life. revel among flowers of intoxicating fragrance, breathe the perfume of musk, eat hashish, and best of all, love, love, love . . . . to begin with, in your place i would set up seven lovers--one for each day of the week; and one i would call monday, one tuesday, the third wednesday, and so on, so that each might know his day." this conversation troubled anna akimovna; she ate nothing and only drank a glass of wine. "let me speak at last," she said. "for myself personally, i can't conceive of love without family life. i am lonely, lonely as the moon in the sky, and a waning moon, too; and whatever you may say, i am convinced, i feel that this waning can only be restored by love in its ordinary sense. it seems to me that such love would define my duties, my work, make clear my conception of life. i want from love peace of soul, tranquillity; i want the very opposite of musk, and spiritualism, and _fin de siècle_ . . . in short"--she grew embarrassed--"a husband and children." "you want to be married? well, you can do that, too," lysevitch assented. "you ought to have all experiences: marriage, and jealousy, and the sweetness of the first infidelity, and even children. . . . but make haste and live--make haste, my dear: time is passing; it won't wait." "yes, i'll go and get married!" she said, looking angrily at his well-fed, satisfied face. "i will marry in the simplest, most ordinary way and be radiant with happiness. and, would you believe it, i will marry some plain working man, some mechanic or draughtsman." "there is no harm in that, either. the duchess josiana loved gwinplin, and that was permissible for her because she was a grand duchess. everything is permissible for you, too, because you are an exceptional woman: if, my dear, you want to love a negro or an arab, don't scruple; send for a negro. don't deny yourself anything. you ought to be as bold as your desires; don't fall short of them." "can it be so hard to understand me?" anna akimovna asked with amazement, and her eyes were bright with tears. "understand, i have an immense business on my hands--two thousand workmen, for whom i must answer before god. the men who work for me grow blind and deaf. i am afraid to go on like this; i am afraid! i am wretched, and you have the cruelty to talk to me of negroes and . . . and you smile!" anna akimovna brought her fist down on the table. "to go on living the life i am living now, or to marry some one as idle and incompetent as myself, would be a crime. i can't go on living like this," she said hotly, "i cannot!" "how handsome she is!" said lysevitch, fascinated by her. "my god, how handsome she is! but why are you angry, my dear? perhaps i am wrong; but surely you don't imagine that if, for the sake of ideas for which i have the deepest respect, you renounce the joys of life and lead a dreary existence, your workmen will be any the better for it? not a scrap! no, frivolity, frivolity!" he said decisively. "it's essential for you; it's your duty to be frivolous and depraved! ponder that, my dear, ponder it." anna akimovna was glad she had spoken out, and her spirits rose. she was pleased she had spoken so well, and that her ideas were so fine and just, and she was already convinced that if pimenov, for instance, loved her, she would marry him with pleasure. mishenka began to pour out champagne. "you make me angry, viktor nikolaitch," she said, clinking glasses with the lawyer. "it seems to me you give advice and know nothing of life yourself. according to you, if a man be a mechanic or a draughtsman, he is bound to be a peasant and an ignoramus! but they are the cleverest people! extraordinary people!" "your uncle and father . . . i knew them and respected them . . ." krylin said, pausing for emphasis (he had been sitting upright as a post, and had been eating steadily the whole time), "were people of considerable intelligence and . . . of lofty spiritual qualities." "oh, to be sure, we know all about their qualities," the lawyer muttered, and asked permission to smoke. when dinner was over krylin was led away for a nap. lysevitch finished his cigar, and, staggering from repletion, followed anna akimovna into her study. cosy corners with photographs and fans on the walls, and the inevitable pink or pale blue lanterns in the middle of the ceiling, he did not like, as the expression of an insipid and unoriginal character; besides, the memory of certain of his love affairs of which he was now ashamed was associated with such lanterns. anna akimovna's study with its bare walls and tasteless furniture pleased him exceedingly. it was snug and comfortable for him to sit on a turkish divan and look at anna akimovna, who usually sat on the rug before the fire, clasping her knees and looking into the fire and thinking of something; and at such moments it seemed to him that her peasant old believer blood was stirring within her. every time after dinner when coffee and liqueurs were handed, he grew livelier and began telling her various bits of literary gossip. he spoke with eloquence and inspiration, and was carried away by his own stories; and she listened to him and thought every time that for such enjoyment it was worth paying not only twelve thousand, but three times that sum, and forgave him everything she disliked in him. he sometimes told her the story of some tale or novel he had been reading, and then two or three hours passed unnoticed like a minute. now he began rather dolefully in a failing voice with his eyes shut. "it's ages, my dear, since i have read anything," he said when she asked him to tell her something. "though i do sometimes read jules verne." "i was expecting you to tell me something new." "h'm! . . . new," lysevitch muttered sleepily, and he settled himself further back in the corner of the sofa. "none of the new literature, my dear, is any use for you or me. of course, it is bound to be such as it is, and to refuse to recognize it is to refuse to recognize --would mean refusing to recognize the natural order of things, and i do recognize it, but . . ." lysevitch seemed to have fallen asleep. but a minute later his voice was heard again: "all the new literature moans and howls like the autumn wind in the chimney. 'ah, unhappy wretch! ah, your life may be likened to a prison! ah, how damp and dark it is in your prison! ah, you will certainly come to ruin, and there is no chance of escape for you!' that's very fine, but i should prefer a literature that would tell us how to escape from prison. of all contemporary writers, however, i prefer maupassant." lysevitch opened his eyes. "a fine writer, a perfect writer!" lysevitch shifted in his seat. "a wonderful artist! a terrible, prodigious, supernatural artist!" lysevitch got up from the sofa and raised his right arm. "maupassant!" he said rapturously. "my dear, read maupassant! one page of his gives you more than all the riches of the earth! every line is a new horizon. the softest, tenderest impulses of the soul alternate with violent tempestuous sensations; your soul, as though under the weight of forty thousand atmospheres, is transformed into the most insignificant little bit of some great thing of an undefined rosy hue which i fancy, if one could put it on one's tongue, would yield a pungent, voluptuous taste. what a fury of transitions, of motives, of melodies! you rest peacefully on the lilies and the roses, and suddenly a thought --a terrible, splendid, irresistible thought--swoops down upon you like a locomotive, and bathes you in hot steam and deafens you with its whistle. read maupassant, dear girl; i insist on it." lysevitch waved his arms and paced from corner to corner in violent excitement. "yes, it is inconceivable," he pronounced, as though in despair; "his last thing overwhelmed me, intoxicated me! but i am afraid you will not care for it. to be carried away by it you must savour it, slowly suck the juice from each line, drink it in. . . . you must drink it in! . . ." after a long introduction, containing many words such as dæmonic sensuality, a network of the most delicate nerves, simoom, crystal, and so on, he began at last telling the story of the novel. he did not tell the story so whimsically, but told it in minute detail, quoting from memory whole descriptions and conversations; the characters of the novel fascinated him, and to describe them he threw himself into attitudes, changed the expression of his face and voice like a real actor. he laughed with delight at one moment in a deep bass, and at another, on a high shrill note, clasped his hands and clutched at his head with an expression which suggested that it was just going to burst. anna akimovna listened enthralled, though she had already read the novel, and it seemed to her ever so much finer and more subtle in the lawyer's version than in the book itself. he drew her attention to various subtleties, and emphasized the felicitous expressions and the profound thoughts, but she saw in it, only life, life, life and herself, as though she had been a character in the novel. her spirits rose, and she, too, laughing and clasping her hands, thought that she could not go on living such a life, that there was no need to have a wretched life when one might have a splendid one. she remembered her words and thoughts at dinner, and was proud of them; and when pimenov suddenly rose up in her imagination, she felt happy and longed for him to love her. when he had finished the story, lysevitch sat down on the sofa, exhausted. "how splendid you are! how handsome!" he began, a little while afterwards in a faint voice as if he were ill. "i am happy near you, dear girl, but why am i forty-two instead of thirty? your tastes and mine do not coincide: you ought to be depraved, and i have long passed that phase, and want a love as delicate and immaterial as a ray of sunshine--that is, from the point of view of a woman of your age, i am of no earthly use." in his own words, he loved turgenev, the singer of virginal love and purity, of youth, and of the melancholy russian landscape; but he loved virginal love, not from knowledge but from hearsay, as something abstract, existing outside real life. now he assured himself that he loved anna akimovna platonically, ideally, though he did not know what those words meant. but he felt comfortable, snug, warm. anna akimovna seemed to him enchanting, original, and he imagined that the pleasant sensation that was aroused in him by these surroundings was the very thing that was called platonic love. he laid his cheek on her hand and said in the tone commonly used in coaxing little children: "my precious, why have you punished me?" "how? when?" "i have had no christmas present from you." anna akimovna had never heard before of their sending a christmas box to the lawyer, and now she was at a loss how much to give him. but she must give him something, for he was expecting it, though he looked at her with eyes full of love. "i suppose nazaritch forgot it," she said, "but it is not too late to set it right." she suddenly remembered the fifteen hundred she had received the day before, which was now lying in the toilet drawer in her bedroom. and when she brought that ungrateful money and gave it to the lawyer, and he put it in his coat pocket with indolent grace, the whole incident passed off charmingly and naturally. the sudden reminder of a christmas box and this fifteen hundred was not unbecoming in lysevitch. "merci," he said, and kissed her finger. krylin came in with blissful, sleepy face, but without his decorations. lysevitch and he stayed a little longer and drank a glass of tea each, and began to get ready to go. anna akimovna was a little embarrassed. . . . she had utterly forgotten in what department krylin served, and whether she had to give him money or not; and if she had to, whether to give it now or send it afterwards in an envelope. "where does he serve?" she whispered to lysevitch. "goodness knows," muttered lysevitch, yawning. she reflected that if krylin used to visit her father and her uncle and respected them, it was probably not for nothing: apparently he had been charitable at their expense, serving in some charitable institution. as she said good-bye she slipped three hundred roubles into his hand; he seemed taken aback, and looked at her for a minute in silence with his pewtery eyes, but then seemed to understand and said: "the receipt, honoured anna akimovna, you can only receive on the new year." lysevitch had become utterly limp and heavy, and he staggered when mishenka put on his overcoat. as he went downstairs he looked like a man in the last stage of exhaustion, and it was evident that he would drop asleep as soon as he got into his sledge. "your excellency," he said languidly to krylin, stopping in the middle of the staircase, "has it ever happened to you to experience a feeling as though some unseen force were drawing you out longer and longer? you are drawn out and turn into the finest wire. subjectively this finds expression in a curious voluptuous feeling which is impossible to compare with anything." anna akimovna, standing at the top of the stairs, saw each of them give mishenka a note. "good-bye! come again!" she called to them, and ran into her bedroom. she quickly threw off her dress, that she was weary of already, put on a dressing-gown, and ran downstairs; and as she ran downstairs she laughed and thumped with her feet like a school-boy; she had a great desire for mischief. iv evening auntie, in a loose print blouse, varvarushka and two old women, were sitting in the dining-room having supper. a big piece of salt meat, a ham, and various savouries, were lying on the table before them, and clouds of steam were rising from the meat, which looked particularly fat and appetizing. wine was not served on the lower story, but they made up for it with a great number of spirits and home-made liqueurs. agafyushka, the fat, white-skinned, well-fed cook, was standing with her arms crossed in the doorway and talking to the old women, and the dishes were being handed by the downstairs masha, a dark girl with a crimson ribbon in her hair. the old women had had enough to eat before the morning was over, and an hour before supper had had tea and buns, and so they were now eating with effort--as it were, from a sense of duty. "oh, my girl!" sighed auntie, as anna akimovna ran into the dining-room and sat down beside her. "you've frightened me to death!" every one in the house was pleased when anna akimovna was in good spirits and played pranks; this always reminded them that the old men were dead and that the old women had no authority in the house, and any one could do as he liked without any fear of being sharply called to account for it. only the two old women glanced askance at anna akimovna with amazement: she was humming, and it was a sin to sing at table. "our mistress, our beauty, our picture," agafyushka began chanting with sugary sweetness. "our precious jewel! the people, the people that have come to-day to look at our queen. lord have mercy upon us! generals, and officers and gentlemen. . . . i kept looking out of window and counting and counting till i gave it up." "i'd as soon they did not come at all," said auntie; she looked sadly at her niece and added: "they only waste the time for my poor orphan girl." anna akimovna felt hungry, as she had eaten nothing since the morning. they poured her out some very bitter liqueur; she drank it off, and tasted the salt meat with mustard, and thought it extraordinarily nice. then the downstairs masha brought in the turkey, the pickled apples and the gooseberries. and that pleased her, too. there was only one thing that was disagreeable: there was a draught of hot air from the tiled stove; it was stiflingly close and every one's cheeks were burning. after supper the cloth was taken off and plates of peppermint biscuits, walnuts, and raisins were brought in. "you sit down, too . . . no need to stand there!" said auntie to the cook. agafyushka sighed and sat down to the table; masha set a wineglass of liqueur before her, too, and anna akimovna began to feel as though agafyushka's white neck were giving out heat like the stove. they were all talking of how difficult it was nowadays to get married, and saying that in old days, if men did not court beauty, they paid attention to money, but now there was no making out what they wanted; and while hunchbacks and cripples used to be left old maids, nowadays men would not have even the beautiful and wealthy. auntie began to set this down to immorality, and said that people had no fear of god, but she suddenly remembered that ivan ivanitch, her brother, and varvarushka--both people of holy life--had feared god, but all the same had had children on the sly, and had sent them to the foundling asylum. she pulled herself up and changed the conversation, telling them about a suitor she had once had, a factory hand, and how she had loved him, but her brothers had forced her to marry a widower, an ikon-painter, who, thank god, had died two years after. the downstairs masha sat down to the table, too, and told them with a mysterious air that for the last week some unknown man with a black moustache, in a great-coat with an astrachan collar, had made his appearance every morning in the yard, had stared at the windows of the big house, and had gone on further-- to the buildings; the man was all right, nice-looking. all this conversation made anna akimovna suddenly long to be married --long intensely, painfully; she felt as though she would give half her life and all her fortune only to know that upstairs there was a man who was closer to her than any one in the world, that he loved her warmly and was missing her; and the thought of such closeness, ecstatic and inexpressible in words, troubled her soul. and the instinct of youth and health flattered her with lying assurances that the real poetry of life was not over but still to come, and she believed it, and leaning back in her chair (her hair fell down as she did so), she began laughing, and, looking at her, the others laughed, too. and it was a long time before this causeless laughter died down in the dining-room. she was informed that the stinging beetle had come. this was a pilgrim woman called pasha or spiridonovna--a thin little woman of fifty, in a black dress with a white kerchief, with keen eyes, sharp nose, and a sharp chin; she had sly, viperish eyes and she looked as though she could see right through every one. her lips were shaped like a heart. her viperishness and hostility to every one had earned her the nickname of the stinging beetle. going into the dining-room without looking at any one, she made for the ikons and chanted in a high voice "thy holy birth," then she sang "the virgin today gives birth to the son," then "christ is born," then she turned round and bent a piercing gaze upon all of them. "a happy christmas," she said, and she kissed anna akimovna on the shoulder. "it's all i could do, all i could do to get to you, my kind friends." she kissed auntie on the shoulder. "i should have come to you this morning, but i went in to some good people to rest on the way. 'stay, spiridonovna, stay,' they said, and i did not notice that evening was coming on." as she did not eat meat, they gave her salmon and caviare. she ate looking from under her eyelids at the company, and drank three glasses of vodka. when she had finished she said a prayer and bowed down to anna akimovna's feet. they began to play a game of "kings," as they had done the year before, and the year before that, and all the servants in both stories crowded in at the doors to watch the game. anna akimovna fancied she caught a glimpse once or twice of mishenka, with a patronizing smile on his face, among the crowd of peasant men and women. the first to be king was stinging beetle, and anna akimovna as the soldier paid her tribute; and then auntie was king and anna akimovna was peasant, which excited general delight, and agafyushka was prince, and was quite abashed with pleasure. another game was got up at the other end of the table--played by the two mashas, varvarushka, and the sewing-maid marfa ptrovna, who was waked on purpose to play "kings," and whose face looked cross and sleepy. while they were playing they talked of men, and of how difficult it was to get a good husband nowadays, and which state was to be preferred--that of an old maid or a widow. "you are a handsome, healthy, sturdy lass," said stinging beetle to anna akimovna. "but i can't make out for whose sake you are holding back." "what's to be done if nobody will have me?" "or maybe you have taken a vow to remain a maid?" stinging beetle went on, as though she did not hear. "well, that's a good deed. . . . remain one," she repeated, looking intently and maliciously at her cards. "all right, my dear, remain one. . . . yes . . . only maids, these saintly maids, are not all alike." she heaved a sigh and played the king. "oh, no, my girl, they are not all alike! some really watch over themselves like nuns, and butter would not melt in their mouths; and if such a one does sin in an hour of weakness, she is worried to death, poor thing! so it would be a sin to condemn her. while others will go dressed in black and sew their shroud, and yet love rich old men on the sly. yes, y-es, my canary birds, some hussies will bewitch an old man and rule over him, my doves, rule over him and turn his head; and when they've saved up money and lottery tickets enough, they will bewitch him to his death." varvarushka's only response to these hints was to heave a sigh and look towards the ikons. there was an expression of christian meekness on her countenance. "i know a maid like that, my bitterest enemy," stinging beetle went on, looking round at every one in triumph; "she is always sighing, too, and looking at the ikons, the she-devil. when she used to rule in a certain old man's house, if one went to her she would give one a crust, and bid one bow down to the ikons while she would sing: 'in conception thou dost abide a virgin . . . !' on holidays she will give one a bite, and on working days she will reproach one for it. but nowadays i will make merry over her! i will make as merry as i please, my jewel." varvarushka glanced at the ikons again and crossed herself. "but no one will have me, spiridonovna," said anna akimovna to change the conversation. "what's to be done?" "it's your own fault. you keep waiting for highly educated gentlemen, but you ought to marry one of your own sort, a merchant." "we don't want a merchant," said auntie, all in a flutter. "queen of heaven, preserve us! a gentleman will spend your money, but then he will be kind to you, you poor little fool. but a merchant will be so strict that you won't feel at home in your own house. you'll be wanting to fondle him and he will be counting his money, and when you sit down to meals with him, he'll grudge you every mouthful, though it's your own, the lout! . . . marry a gentleman." they all talked at once, loudly interrupting one another, and auntie tapped on the table with the nutcrackers and said, flushed and angry: "we won't have a merchant; we won't have one! if you choose a merchant i shall go to an almshouse." "sh . . . sh! . . . hush!" cried stinging beetle; when all were silent she screwed up one eye and said: "do you know what, annushka, my birdie . . . ? there is no need for you to get married really like every one else. you're rich and free, you are your own mistress; but yet, my child, it doesn't seem the right thing for you to be an old maid. i'll find you, you know, some trumpery and simple-witted man. you'll marry him for appearances and then have your fling, bonny lass! you can hand him five thousand or ten maybe, and pack him off where he came from, and you will be mistress in your own house--you can love whom you like and no one can say anything to you. and then you can love your highly educated gentleman. you'll have a jolly time!" stinging beetle snapped her fingers and gave a whistle. "it's sinful," said auntie. "oh, sinful," laughed stinging beetle. "she is educated, she understands. to cut some one's throat or bewitch an old man-- that's a sin, that's true; but to love some charming young friend is not a sin at all. and what is there in it, really? there's no sin in it at all! the old pilgrim women have invented all that to make fools of simple folk. i, too, say everywhere it's a sin; i don't know myself why it's a sin." stinging beetle emptied her glass and cleared her throat. "have your fling, bonny lass," this time evidently addressing herself. "for thirty years, wenches, i have thought of nothing but sins and been afraid, but now i see i have wasted my time, i've let it slip by like a ninny! ah, i have been a fool, a fool!" she sighed. "a woman's time is short and every day is precious. you are handsome, annushka, and very rich; but as soon as thirty-five or forty strikes for you your time is up. don't listen to any one, my girl; live, have your fling till you are forty, and then you will have time to pray forgiveness--there will be plenty of time to bow down and to sew your shroud. a candle to god and a poker to the devil! you can do both at once! well, how is it to be? will you make some little man happy?" "i will," laughed anna akimovna. "i don't care now; i would marry a working man." "well, that would do all right! oh, what a fine fellow you would choose then!" stinging beetle screwed up her eyes and shook her head. "o--o--oh!" "i tell her myself," said auntie, "it's no good waiting for a gentleman, so she had better marry, not a gentleman, but some one humbler; anyway we should have a man in the house to look after things. and there are lots of good men. she might have some one out of the factory. they are all sober, steady men. . . ." "i should think so," stinging beetle agreed. "they are capital fellows. if you like, aunt, i will make a match for her with vassily lebedinsky?" "oh, vasya's legs are so long," said auntie seriously. "he is so lanky. he has no looks." there was laughter in the crowd by the door. "well, pimenov? would you like to marry pimenov?" stinging beetle asked anna akimovna. "very good. make a match for me with pimenov." "really?" "yes, do!" anna akimovna said resolutely, and she struck her fist on the table. "on my honour, i will marry him." "really?" anna akimovna suddenly felt ashamed that her cheeks were burning and that every one was looking at her; she flung the cards together on the table and ran out of the room. as she ran up the stairs and, reaching the upper story, sat down to the piano in the drawing-room, a murmur of sound reached her from below like the roar of the sea; most likely they were talking of her and of pimenov, and perhaps stinging beetle was taking advantage of her absence to insult varvarushka and was putting no check on her language. the lamp in the big room was the only light burning in the upper story, and it sent a glimmer through the door into the dark drawing-room. it was between nine and ten, not later. anna akimovna played a waltz, then another, then a third; she went on playing without stopping. she looked into the dark corner beyond the piano, smiled, and inwardly called to it, and the idea occurred to her that she might drive off to the town to see some one, lysevitch for instance, and tell him what was passing in her heart. she wanted to talk without ceasing, to laugh, to play the fool, but the dark corner was sullenly silent, and all round in all the rooms of the upper story it was still and desolate. she was fond of sentimental songs, but she had a harsh, untrained voice, and so she only played the accompaniment and sang hardly audibly, just above her breath. she sang in a whisper one song after another, for the most part about love, separation, and frustrated hopes, and she imagined how she would hold out her hands to him and say with entreaty, with tears, "pimenov, take this burden from me!" and then, just as though her sins had been forgiven, there would be joy and comfort in her soul, and perhaps a free, happy life would begin. in an anguish of anticipation she leant over the keys, with a passionate longing for the change in her life to come at once without delay, and was terrified at the thought that her old life would go on for some time longer. then she played again and sang hardly above her breath, and all was stillness about her. there was no noise coming from downstairs now, they must have gone to bed. it had struck ten some time before. a long, solitary, wearisome night was approaching. anna akimovna walked through all the rooms, lay down for a while on the sofa, and read in her study the letters that had come that evening; there were twelve letters of christmas greetings and three anonymous letters. in one of them some workman complained in a horrible, almost illegible handwriting that lenten oil sold in the factory shop was rancid and smelt of paraffin; in another, some one respectfully informed her that over a purchase of iron nazaritch had lately taken a bribe of a thousand roubles from some one; in a third she was abused for her inhumanity. the excitement of christmas was passing off, and to keep it up anna akimovna sat down at the piano again and softly played one of the new waltzes, then she remembered how cleverly and creditably she had spoken at dinner today. she looked round at the dark windows, at the walls with the pictures, at the faint light that came from the big room, and all at once she began suddenly crying, and she felt vexed that she was so lonely, and that she had no one to talk to and consult. to cheer herself she tried to picture pimenov in her imagination, but it was unsuccessful. it struck twelve. mishenka, no longer wearing his swallow-tail but in his reefer jacket, came in, and without speaking lighted two candles; then he went out and returned a minute later with a cup of tea on a tray. "what are you laughing at?" she asked, noticing a smile on his face. "i was downstairs and heard the jokes you were making about pimenov . . ." he said, and put his hand before his laughing mouth. "if he were sat down to dinner today with viktor nikolaevitch and the general, he'd have died of fright." mishenka's shoulders were shaking with laughter. "he doesn't know even how to hold his fork, i bet." the footman's laughter and words, his reefer jacket and moustache, gave anna akimovna a feeling of uncleanness. she shut her eyes to avoid seeing him, and, against her own will, imagined pimenov dining with lysevitch and krylin, and his timid, unintellectual figure seemed to her pitiful and helpless, and she felt repelled by it. and only now, for the first time in the whole day, she realized clearly that all she had said and thought about pimenov and marrying a workman was nonsense, folly, and wilfulness. to convince herself of the opposite, to overcome her repulsion, she tried to recall what she had said at dinner, but now she could not see anything in it: shame at her own thoughts and actions, and the fear that she had said something improper during the day, and disgust at her own lack of spirit, overwhelmed her completely. she took up a candle and, as rapidly as if some one were pursuing her, ran downstairs, woke spiridonovna, and began assuring her she had been joking. then she went to her bedroom. red-haired masha, who was dozing in an arm-chair near the bed, jumped up and began shaking up the pillows. her face was exhausted and sleepy, and her magnificent hair had fallen on one side. "tchalikov came again this evening," she said, yawning, "but i did not dare to announce him; he was very drunk. he says he will come again tomorrow." "what does he want with me?" said anna akimovna, and she flung her comb on the floor. "i won't see him, i won't." she made up her mind she had no one left in life but this tchalikov, that he would never leave off persecuting her, and would remind her every day how uninteresting and absurd her life was. so all she was fit for was to help the poor. oh, how stupid it was! she lay down without undressing, and sobbed with shame and depression: what seemed to her most vexatious and stupid of all was that her dreams that day about pimenov had been right, lofty, honourable, but at the same time she felt that lysevitch and even krylin were nearer to her than pimenov and all the workpeople taken together. she thought that if the long day she had just spent could have been represented in a picture, all that had been bad and vulgar--as, for instance, the dinner, the lawyer's talk, the game of "kings" --would have been true, while her dreams and talk about pimenov would have stood out from the whole as something false, as out of drawing; and she thought, too, that it was too late to dream of happiness, that everything was over for her, and it was impossible to go back to the life when she had slept under the same quilt with her mother, or to devise some new special sort of life. red-haired masha was kneeling before the bed, gazing at her in mournful perplexity; then she, too, began crying, and laid her face against her mistress's arm, and without words it was clear why she was so wretched. "we are fools!" said anna akimovna, laughing and crying. "we are fools! oh, what fools we are!" a problem the strictest measures were taken that the uskovs' family secret might not leak out and become generally known. half of the servants were sent off to the theatre or the circus; the other half were sitting in the kitchen and not allowed to leave it. orders were given that no one was to be admitted. the wife of the colonel, her sister, and the governess, though they had been initiated into the secret, kept up a pretence of knowing nothing; they sat in the dining-room and did not show themselves in the drawing-room or the hall. sasha uskov, the young man of twenty-five who was the cause of all the commotion, had arrived some time before, and by the advice of kind-hearted ivan markovitch, his uncle, who was taking his part, he sat meekly in the hall by the door leading to the study, and prepared himself to make an open, candid explanation. the other side of the door, in the study, a family council was being held. the subject under discussion was an exceedingly disagreeable and delicate one. sasha uskov had cashed at one of the banks a false promissory note, and it had become due for payment three days before, and now his two paternal uncles and ivan markovitch, the brother of his dead mother, were deciding the question whether they should pay the money and save the family honour, or wash their hands of it and leave the case to go for trial. to outsiders who have no personal interest in the matter such questions seem simple; for those who are so unfortunate as to have to decide them in earnest they are extremely difficult. the uncles had been talking for a long time, but the problem seemed no nearer decision. "my friends!" said the uncle who was a colonel, and there was a note of exhaustion and bitterness in his voice. "who says that family honour is a mere convention? i don't say that at all. i am only warning you against a false view; i am pointing out the possibility of an unpardonable mistake. how can you fail to see it? i am not speaking chinese; i am speaking russian!" "my dear fellow, we do understand," ivan markovitch protested mildly. "how can you understand if you say that i don't believe in family honour? i repeat once more: fa-mil-y ho-nour fal-sely un-der-stood is a prejudice! falsely understood! that's what i say: whatever may be the motives for screening a scoundrel, whoever he may be, and helping him to escape punishment, it is contrary to law and unworthy of a gentleman. it's not saving the family honour; it's civic cowardice! take the army, for instance. . . . the honour of the army is more precious to us than any other honour, yet we don't screen our guilty members, but condemn them. and does the honour of the army suffer in consequence? quite the opposite!" the other paternal uncle, an official in the treasury, a taciturn, dull-witted, and rheumatic man, sat silent, or spoke only of the fact that the uskovs' name would get into the newspapers if the case went for trial. his opinion was that the case ought to be hushed up from the first and not become public property; but, apart from publicity in the newspapers, he advanced no other argument in support of this opinion. the maternal uncle, kind-hearted ivan markovitch, spoke smoothly, softly, and with a tremor in his voice. he began with saying that youth has its rights and its peculiar temptations. which of us has not been young, and who has not been led astray? to say nothing of ordinary mortals, even great men have not escaped errors and mistakes in their youth. take, for instance, the biography of great writers. did not every one of them gamble, drink, and draw down upon himself the anger of right-thinking people in his young days? if sasha's error bordered upon crime, they must remember that sasha had received practically no education; he had been expelled from the high school in the fifth class; he had lost his parents in early childhood, and so had been left at the tenderest age without guidance and good, benevolent influences. he was nervous, excitable, had no firm ground under his feet, and, above all, he had been unlucky. even if he were guilty, anyway he deserved indulgence and the sympathy of all compassionate souls. he ought, of course, to be punished, but he was punished as it was by his conscience and the agonies he was enduring now while awaiting the sentence of his relations. the comparison with the army made by the colonel was delightful, and did credit to his lofty intelligence; his appeal to their feeling of public duty spoke for the chivalry of his soul, but they must not forget that in each individual the citizen is closely linked with the christian. . . . "shall we be false to civic duty," ivan markovitch exclaimed passionately, "if instead of punishing an erring boy we hold out to him a helping hand?" ivan markovitch talked further of family honour. he had not the honour to belong to the uskov family himself, but he knew their distinguished family went back to the thirteenth century; he did not forget for a minute, either, that his precious, beloved sister had been the wife of one of the representatives of that name. in short, the family was dear to him for many reasons, and he refused to admit the idea that, for the sake of a paltry fifteen hundred roubles, a blot should be cast on the escutcheon that was beyond all price. if all the motives he had brought forward were not sufficiently convincing, he, ivan markovitch, in conclusion, begged his listeners to ask themselves what was meant by crime? crime is an immoral act founded upon ill-will. but is the will of man free? philosophy has not yet given a positive answer to that question. different views were held by the learned. the latest school of lombroso, for instance, denies the freedom of the will, and considers every crime as the product of the purely anatomical peculiarities of the individual. "ivan markovitch," said the colonel, in a voice of entreaty, "we are talking seriously about an important matter, and you bring in lombroso, you clever fellow. think a little, what are you saying all this for? can you imagine that all your thunderings and rhetoric will furnish an answer to the question?" sasha uskov sat at the door and listened. he felt neither terror, shame, nor depression, but only weariness and inward emptiness. it seemed to him that it made absolutely no difference to him whether they forgave him or not; he had come here to hear his sentence and to explain himself simply because kind-hearted ivan markovitch had begged him to do so. he was not afraid of the future. it made no difference to him where he was: here in the hall, in prison, or in siberia. "if siberia, then let it be siberia, damn it all!" he was sick of life and found it insufferably hard. he was inextricably involved in debt; he had not a farthing in his pocket; his family had become detestable to him; he would have to part from his friends and his women sooner or later, as they had begun to be too contemptuous of his sponging on them. the future looked black. sasha was indifferent, and was only disturbed by one circumstance; the other side of the door they were calling him a scoundrel and a criminal. every minute he was on the point of jumping up, bursting into the study and shouting in answer to the detestable metallic voice of the colonel: "you are lying!" "criminal" is a dreadful word--that is what murderers, thieves, robbers are; in fact, wicked and morally hopeless people. and sasha was very far from being all that. . . . it was true he owed a great deal and did not pay his debts. but debt is not a crime, and it is unusual for a man not to be in debt. the colonel and ivan markovitch were both in debt. . . . "what have i done wrong besides?" sasha wondered. he had discounted a forged note. but all the young men he knew did the same. handrikov and von burst always forged iou's from their parents or friends when their allowances were not paid at the regular time, and then when they got their money from home they redeemed them before they became due. sasha had done the same, but had not redeemed the iou because he had not got the money which handrikov had promised to lend him. he was not to blame; it was the fault of circumstances. it was true that the use of another person's signature was considered reprehensible; but, still, it was not a crime but a generally accepted dodge, an ugly formality which injured no one and was quite harmless, for in forging the colonel's signature sasha had had no intention of causing anybody damage or loss. "no, it doesn't mean that i am a criminal . . ." thought sasha. "and it's not in my character to bring myself to commit a crime. i am soft, emotional. . . . when i have the money i help the poor. . . ." sasha was musing after this fashion while they went on talking the other side of the door. "but, my friends, this is endless," the colonel declared, getting excited. "suppose we were to forgive him and pay the money. you know he would not give up leading a dissipated life, squandering money, making debts, going to our tailors and ordering suits in our names! can you guarantee that this will be his last prank? as far as i am concerned, i have no faith whatever in his reforming!" the official of the treasury muttered something in reply; after him ivan markovitch began talking blandly and suavely again. the colonel moved his chair impatiently and drowned the other's words with his detestable metallic voice. at last the door opened and ivan markovitch came out of the study; there were patches of red on his lean shaven face. "come along," he said, taking sasha by the hand. "come and speak frankly from your heart. without pride, my dear boy, humbly and from your heart." sasha went into the study. the official of the treasury was sitting down; the colonel was standing before the table with one hand in his pocket and one knee on a chair. it was smoky and stifling in the study. sasha did not look at the official or the colonel; he felt suddenly ashamed and uncomfortable. he looked uneasily at ivan markovitch and muttered: "i'll pay it . . . i'll give it back. . . ." "what did you expect when you discounted the iou?" he heard a metallic voice. "i . . . handrikov promised to lend me the money before now." sasha could say no more. he went out of the study and sat down again on the chair near the door. he would have been glad to go away altogether at once, but he was choking with hatred and he awfully wanted to remain, to tear the colonel to pieces, to say something rude to him. he sat trying to think of something violent and effective to say to his hated uncle, and at that moment a woman's figure, shrouded in the twilight, appeared at the drawing-room door. it was the colonel's wife. she beckoned sasha to her, and, wringing her hands, said, weeping: "_alexandre_, i know you don't like me, but . . . listen to me; listen, i beg you. . . . but, my dear, how can this have happened? why, it's awful, awful! for goodness' sake, beg them, defend yourself, entreat them." sasha looked at her quivering shoulders, at the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks, heard behind his back the hollow, nervous voices of worried and exhausted people, and shrugged his shoulders. he had not in the least expected that his aristocratic relations would raise such a tempest over a paltry fifteen hundred roubles! he could not understand her tears nor the quiver of their voices. an hour later he heard that the colonel was getting the best of it; the uncles were finally inclining to let the case go for trial. "the matter's settled," said the colonel, sighing. "enough." after this decision all the uncles, even the emphatic colonel, became noticeably depressed. a silence followed. "merciful heavens!" sighed ivan markovitch. "my poor sister!" and he began saying in a subdued voice that most likely his sister, sasha's mother, was present unseen in the study at that moment. he felt in his soul how the unhappy, saintly woman was weeping, grieving, and begging for her boy. for the sake of her peace beyond the grave, they ought to spare sasha. the sound of a muffled sob was heard. ivan markovitch was weeping and muttering something which it was impossible to catch through the door. the colonel got up and paced from corner to corner. the long conversation began over again. but then the clock in the drawing-room struck two. the family council was over. to avoid seeing the person who had moved him to such wrath, the colonel went from the study, not into the hall, but into the vestibule. . . . ivan markovitch came out into the hall. . . . he was agitated and rubbing his hands joyfully. his tear-stained eyes looked good-humoured and his mouth was twisted into a smile. "capital," he said to sasha. "thank god! you can go home, my dear, and sleep tranquilly. we have decided to pay the sum, but on condition that you repent and come with me tomorrow into the country and set to work." a minute later ivan markovitch and sasha in their great-coats and caps were going down the stairs. the uncle was muttering something edifying. sasha did not listen, but felt as though some uneasy weight were gradually slipping off his shoulders. they had forgiven him; he was free! a gust of joy sprang up within him and sent a sweet chill to his heart. he longed to breathe, to move swiftly, to live! glancing at the street lamps and the black sky, he remembered that von burst was celebrating his name-day that evening at the "bear," and again a rush of joy flooded his soul. . . . "i am going!" he decided. but then he remembered he had not a farthing, that the companions he was going to would despise him at once for his empty pockets. he must get hold of some money, come what may! "uncle, lend me a hundred roubles," he said to ivan markovitch. his uncle, surprised, looked into his face and backed against a lamp-post. "give it to me," said sasha, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other and beginning to pant. "uncle, i entreat you, give me a hundred roubles." his face worked; he trembled, and seemed on the point of attacking his uncle. . . . "won't you?" he kept asking, seeing that his uncle was still amazed and did not understand. "listen. if you don't, i'll give myself up tomorrow! i won't let you pay the iou! i'll present another false note tomorrow!" petrified, muttering something incoherent in his horror, ivan markovitch took a hundred-rouble note out of his pocket-book and gave it to sasha. the young man took it and walked rapidly away from him. . . . taking a sledge, sasha grew calmer, and felt a rush of joy within him again. the "rights of youth" of which kind-hearted ivan markovitch had spoken at the family council woke up and asserted themselves. sasha pictured the drinking-party before him, and, among the bottles, the women, and his friends, the thought flashed through his mind: "now i see that i am a criminal; yes, i am a criminal." the kiss at eight o'clock on the evening of the twentieth of may all the six batteries of the n---- reserve artillery brigade halted for the night in the village of myestetchki on their way to camp. when the general commotion was at its height, while some officers were busily occupied around the guns, while others, gathered together in the square near the church enclosure, were listening to the quartermasters, a man in civilian dress, riding a strange horse, came into sight round the church. the little dun-coloured horse with a good neck and a short tail came, moving not straight forward, but as it were sideways, with a sort of dance step, as though it were being lashed about the legs. when he reached the officers the man on the horse took off his hat and said: "his excellency lieutenant-general von rabbek invites the gentlemen to drink tea with him this minute. . . ." the horse turned, danced, and retired sideways; the messenger raised his hat once more, and in an instant disappeared with his strange horse behind the church. "what the devil does it mean?" grumbled some of the officers, dispersing to their quarters. "one is sleepy, and here this von rabbek with his tea! we know what tea means." the officers of all the six batteries remembered vividly an incident of the previous year, when during manoeuvres they, together with the officers of a cossack regiment, were in the same way invited to tea by a count who had an estate in the neighbourhood and was a retired army officer: the hospitable and genial count made much of them, fed them, and gave them drink, refused to let them go to their quarters in the village and made them stay the night. all that, of course, was very nice--nothing better could be desired, but the worst of it was, the old army officer was so carried away by the pleasure of the young men's company that till sunrise he was telling the officers anecdotes of his glorious past, taking them over the house, showing them expensive pictures, old engravings, rare guns, reading them autograph letters from great people, while the weary and exhausted officers looked and listened, longing for their beds and yawning in their sleeves; when at last their host let them go, it was too late for sleep. might not this von rabbek be just such another? whether he were or not, there was no help for it. the officers changed their uniforms, brushed themselves, and went all together in search of the gentleman's house. in the square by the church they were told they could get to his excellency's by the lower path--going down behind the church to the river, going along the bank to the garden, and there an avenue would taken them to the house; or by the upper way-- straight from the church by the road which, half a mile from the village, led right up to his excellency's granaries. the officers decided to go by the upper way. "what von rabbek is it?" they wondered on the way. "surely not the one who was in command of the n---- cavalry division at plevna?" "no, that was not von rabbek, but simply rabbe and no 'von.'" "what lovely weather!" at the first of the granaries the road divided in two: one branch went straight on and vanished in the evening darkness, the other led to the owner's house on the right. the officers turned to the right and began to speak more softly. . . . on both sides of the road stretched stone granaries with red roofs, heavy and sullen-looking, very much like barracks of a district town. ahead of them gleamed the windows of the manor-house. "a good omen, gentlemen," said one of the officers. "our setter is the foremost of all; no doubt he scents game ahead of us! . . ." lieutenant lobytko, who was walking in front, a tall and stalwart fellow, though entirely without moustache (he was over five-and-twenty, yet for some reason there was no sign of hair on his round, well-fed face), renowned in the brigade for his peculiar faculty for divining the presence of women at a distance, turned round and said: "yes, there must be women here; i feel that by instinct." on the threshold the officers were met by von rabbek himself, a comely-looking man of sixty in civilian dress. shaking hands with his guests, he said that he was very glad and happy to see them, but begged them earnestly for god's sake to excuse him for not asking them to stay the night; two sisters with their children, some brothers, and some neighbours, had come on a visit to him, so that he had not one spare room left. the general shook hands with every one, made his apologies, and smiled, but it was evident by his face that he was by no means so delighted as their last year's count, and that he had invited the officers simply because, in his opinion, it was a social obligation to do so. and the officers themselves, as they walked up the softly carpeted stairs, as they listened to him, felt that they had been invited to this house simply because it would have been awkward not to invite them; and at the sight of the footmen, who hastened to light the lamps in the entrance below and in the anteroom above, they began to feel as though they had brought uneasiness and discomfort into the house with them. in a house in which two sisters and their children, brothers, and neighbours were gathered together, probably on account of some family festivity, or event, how could the presence of nineteen unknown officers possibly be welcome? at the entrance to the drawing-room the officers were met by a tall, graceful old lady with black eyebrows and a long face, very much like the empress eugénie. smiling graciously and majestically, she said she was glad and happy to see her guests, and apologized that her husband and she were on this occasion unable to invite _messieurs les officiers_ to stay the night. from her beautiful majestic smile, which instantly vanished from her face every time she turned away from her guests, it was evident that she had seen numbers of officers in her day, that she was in no humour for them now, and if she invited them to her house and apologized for not doing more, it was only because her breeding and position in society required it of her. when the officers went into the big dining-room, there were about a dozen people, men and ladies, young and old, sitting at tea at the end of a long table. a group of men was dimly visible behind their chairs, wrapped in a haze of cigar smoke; and in the midst of them stood a lanky young man with red whiskers, talking loudly, with a lisp, in english. through a door beyond the group could be seen a light room with pale blue furniture. "gentlemen, there are so many of you that it is impossible to introduce you all!" said the general in a loud voice, trying to sound very cheerful. "make each other's acquaintance, gentlemen, without any ceremony!" the officers--some with very serious and even stern faces, others with forced smiles, and all feeling extremely awkward--somehow made their bows and sat down to tea. the most ill at ease of them all was ryabovitch--a little officer in spectacles, with sloping shoulders, and whiskers like a lynx's. while some of his comrades assumed a serious expression, while others wore forced smiles, his face, his lynx-like whiskers, and spectacles seemed to say: "i am the shyest, most modest, and most undistinguished officer in the whole brigade!" at first, on going into the room and sitting down to the table, he could not fix his attention on any one face or object. the faces, the dresses, the cut-glass decanters of brandy, the steam from the glasses, the moulded cornices--all blended in one general impression that inspired in ryabovitch alarm and a desire to hide his head. like a lecturer making his first appearance before the public, he saw everything that was before his eyes, but apparently only had a dim understanding of it (among physiologists this condition, when the subject sees but does not understand, is called psychical blindness). after a little while, growing accustomed to his surroundings, ryabovitch saw clearly and began to observe. as a shy man, unused to society, what struck him first was that in which he had always been deficient--namely, the extraordinary boldness of his new acquaintances. von rabbek, his wife, two elderly ladies, a young lady in a lilac dress, and the young man with the red whiskers, who was, it appeared, a younger son of von rabbek, very cleverly, as though they had rehearsed it beforehand, took seats between the officers, and at once got up a heated discussion in which the visitors could not help taking part. the lilac young lady hotly asserted that the artillery had a much better time than the cavalry and the infantry, while von rabbek and the elderly ladies maintained the opposite. a brisk interchange of talk followed. ryabovitch watched the lilac young lady who argued so hotly about what was unfamiliar and utterly uninteresting to her, and watched artificial smiles come and go on her face. von rabbek and his family skilfully drew the officers into the discussion, and meanwhile kept a sharp lookout over their glasses and mouths, to see whether all of them were drinking, whether all had enough sugar, why some one was not eating cakes or not drinking brandy. and the longer ryabovitch watched and listened, the more he was attracted by this insincere but splendidly disciplined family. after tea the officers went into the drawing-room. lieutenant lobytko's instinct had not deceived him. there were a great number of girls and young married ladies. the "setter" lieutenant was soon standing by a very young, fair girl in a black dress, and, bending down to her jauntily, as though leaning on an unseen sword, smiled and shrugged his shoulders coquettishly. he probably talked very interesting nonsense, for the fair girl looked at his well-fed face condescendingly and asked indifferently, "really?" and from that uninterested "really?" the setter, had he been intelligent, might have concluded that she would never call him to heel. the piano struck up; the melancholy strains of a valse floated out of the wide open windows, and every one, for some reason, remembered that it was spring, a may evening. every one was conscious of the fragrance of roses, of lilac, and of the young leaves of the poplar. ryabovitch, in whom the brandy he had drunk made itself felt, under the influence of the music stole a glance towards the window, smiled, and began watching the movements of the women, and it seemed to him that the smell of roses, of poplars, and lilac came not from the garden, but from the ladies' faces and dresses. von rabbek's son invited a scraggy-looking young lady to dance, and waltzed round the room twice with her. lobytko, gliding over the parquet floor, flew up to the lilac young lady and whirled her away. dancing began. . . . ryabovitch stood near the door among those who were not dancing and looked on. he had never once danced in his whole life, and he had never once in his life put his arm round the waist of a respectable woman. he was highly delighted that a man should in the sight of all take a girl he did not know round the waist and offer her his shoulder to put her hand on, but he could not imagine himself in the position of such a man. there were times when he envied the boldness and swagger of his companions and was inwardly wretched; the consciousness that he was timid, that he was round-shouldered and uninteresting, that he had a long waist and lynx-like whiskers, had deeply mortified him, but with years he had grown used to this feeling, and now, looking at his comrades dancing or loudly talking, he no longer envied them, but only felt touched and mournful. when the quadrille began, young von rabbek came up to those who were not dancing and invited two officers to have a game at billiards. the officers accepted and went with him out of the drawing-room. ryabovitch, having nothing to do and wishing to take part in the general movement, slouched after them. from the big drawing-room they went into the little drawing-room, then into a narrow corridor with a glass roof, and thence into a room in which on their entrance three sleepy-looking footmen jumped up quickly from the sofa. at last, after passing through a long succession of rooms, young von rabbek and the officers came into a small room where there was a billiard-table. they began to play. ryabovitch, who had never played any game but cards, stood near the billiard-table and looked indifferently at the players, while they in unbuttoned coats, with cues in their hands, stepped about, made puns, and kept shouting out unintelligible words. the players took no notice of him, and only now and then one of them, shoving him with his elbow or accidentally touching him with the end of his cue, would turn round and say "pardon!" before the first game was over he was weary of it, and began to feel he was not wanted and in the way. . . . he felt disposed to return to the drawing-room, and he went out. on his way back he met with a little adventure. when he had gone half-way he noticed he had taken a wrong turning. he distinctly remembered that he ought to meet three sleepy footmen on his way, but he had passed five or six rooms, and those sleepy figures seemed to have vanished into the earth. noticing his mistake, he walked back a little way and turned to the right; he found himself in a little dark room which he had not seen on his way to the billiard-room. after standing there a little while, he resolutely opened the first door that met his eyes and walked into an absolutely dark room. straight in front could be seen the crack in the doorway through which there was a gleam of vivid light; from the other side of the door came the muffled sound of a melancholy mazurka. here, too, as in the drawing-room, the windows were wide open and there was a smell of poplars, lilac and roses. . . . ryabovitch stood still in hesitation. . . . at that moment, to his surprise, he heard hurried footsteps and the rustling of a dress, a breathless feminine voice whispered "at last!" and two soft, fragrant, unmistakably feminine arms were clasped about his neck; a warm cheek was pressed to his cheek, and simultaneously there was the sound of a kiss. but at once the bestower of the kiss uttered a faint shriek and skipped back from him, as it seemed to ryabovitch, with aversion. he, too, almost shrieked and rushed towards the gleam of light at the door. . . . when he went back into the drawing-room his heart was beating and his hands were trembling so noticeably that he made haste to hide them behind his back. at first he was tormented by shame and dread that the whole drawing-room knew that he had just been kissed and embraced by a woman. he shrank into himself and looked uneasily about him, but as he became convinced that people were dancing and talking as calmly as ever, he gave himself up entirely to the new sensation which he had never experienced before in his life. something strange was happening to him. . . . his neck, round which soft, fragrant arms had so lately been clasped, seemed to him to be anointed with oil; on his left cheek near his moustache where the unknown had kissed him there was a faint chilly tingling sensation as from peppermint drops, and the more he rubbed the place the more distinct was the chilly sensation; all over, from head to foot, he was full of a strange new feeling which grew stronger and stronger . . . . he wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to laugh aloud. . . . he quite forgot that he was round-shouldered and uninteresting, that he had lynx-like whiskers and an "undistinguished appearance" (that was how his appearance had been described by some ladies whose conversation he had accidentally overheard). when von rabbek's wife happened to pass by him, he gave her such a broad and friendly smile that she stood still and looked at him inquiringly. "i like your house immensely!" he said, setting his spectacles straight. the general's wife smiled and said that the house had belonged to her father; then she asked whether his parents were living, whether he had long been in the army, why he was so thin, and so on. . . . after receiving answers to her questions, she went on, and after his conversation with her his smiles were more friendly than ever, and he thought he was surrounded by splendid people. . . . at supper ryabovitch ate mechanically everything offered him, drank, and without listening to anything, tried to understand what had just happened to him. . . . the adventure was of a mysterious and romantic character, but it was not difficult to explain it. no doubt some girl or young married lady had arranged a tryst with some one in the dark room; had waited a long time, and being nervous and excited had taken ryabovitch for her hero; this was the more probable as ryabovitch had stood still hesitating in the dark room, so that he, too, had seemed like a person expecting something. . . . this was how ryabovitch explained to himself the kiss he had received. "and who is she?" he wondered, looking round at the women's faces. "she must be young, for elderly ladies don't give rendezvous. that she was a lady, one could tell by the rustle of her dress, her perfume, her voice. . . ." his eyes rested on the lilac young lady, and he thought her very attractive; she had beautiful shoulders and arms, a clever face, and a delightful voice. ryabovitch, looking at her, hoped that she and no one else was his unknown. . . . but she laughed somehow artificially and wrinkled up her long nose, which seemed to him to make her look old. then he turned his eyes upon the fair girl in a black dress. she was younger, simpler, and more genuine, had a charming brow, and drank very daintily out of her wineglass. ryabovitch now hoped that it was she. but soon he began to think her face flat, and fixed his eyes upon the one next her. "it's difficult to guess," he thought, musing. "if one takes the shoulders and arms of the lilac one only, adds the brow of the fair one and the eyes of the one on the left of lobytko, then . . ." he made a combination of these things in his mind and so formed the image of the girl who had kissed him, the image that he wanted her to have, but could not find at the table. . . . after supper, replete and exhilarated, the officers began to take leave and say thank you. von rabbek and his wife began again apologizing that they could not ask them to stay the night. "very, very glad to have met you, gentlemen," said von rabbek, and this time sincerely (probably because people are far more sincere and good-humoured at speeding their parting guests than on meeting them). "delighted. i hope you will come on your way back! don't stand on ceremony! where are you going? do you want to go by the upper way? no, go across the garden; it's nearer here by the lower way." the officers went out into the garden. after the bright light and the noise the garden seemed very dark and quiet. they walked in silence all the way to the gate. they were a little drunk, pleased, and in good spirits, but the darkness and silence made them thoughtful for a minute. probably the same idea occurred to each one of them as to ryabovitch: would there ever come a time for them when, like von rabbek, they would have a large house, a family, a garden-- when they, too, would be able to welcome people, even though insincerely, feed them, make them drunk and contented? going out of the garden gate, they all began talking at once and laughing loudly about nothing. they were walking now along the little path that led down to the river, and then ran along the water's edge, winding round the bushes on the bank, the pools, and the willows that overhung the water. the bank and the path were scarcely visible, and the other bank was entirely plunged in darkness. stars were reflected here and there on the dark water; they quivered and were broken up on the surface--and from that alone it could be seen that the river was flowing rapidly. it was still. drowsy curlews cried plaintively on the further bank, and in one of the bushes on the nearest side a nightingale was trilling loudly, taking no notice of the crowd of officers. the officers stood round the bush, touched it, but the nightingale went on singing. "what a fellow!" they exclaimed approvingly. "we stand beside him and he takes not a bit of notice! what a rascal!" at the end of the way the path went uphill, and, skirting the church enclosure, turned into the road. here the officers, tired with walking uphill, sat down and lighted their cigarettes. on the other side of the river a murky red fire came into sight, and having nothing better to do, they spent a long time in discussing whether it was a camp fire or a light in a window, or something else. . . . ryabovitch, too, looked at the light, and he fancied that the light looked and winked at him, as though it knew about the kiss. on reaching his quarters, ryabovitch undressed as quickly as possible and got into bed. lobytko and lieutenant merzlyakov--a peaceable, silent fellow, who was considered in his own circle a highly educated officer, and was always, whenever it was possible, reading the "vyestnik evropi," which he carried about with him everywhere-- were quartered in the same hut with ryabovitch. lobytko undressed, walked up and down the room for a long while with the air of a man who has not been satisfied, and sent his orderly for beer. merzlyakov got into bed, put a candle by his pillow and plunged into reading the "vyestnik evropi." "who was she?" ryabovitch wondered, looking at the smoky ceiling. his neck still felt as though he had been anointed with oil, and there was still the chilly sensation near his mouth as though from peppermint drops. the shoulders and arms of the young lady in lilac, the brow and the truthful eyes of the fair girl in black, waists, dresses, and brooches, floated through his imagination. he tried to fix his attention on these images, but they danced about, broke up and flickered. when these images vanished altogether from the broad dark background which every man sees when he closes his eyes, he began to hear hurried footsteps, the rustle of skirts, the sound of a kiss and--an intense groundless joy took possession of him . . . . abandoning himself to this joy, he heard the orderly return and announce that there was no beer. lobytko was terribly indignant, and began pacing up and down again. "well, isn't he an idiot?" he kept saying, stopping first before ryabovitch and then before merzlyakov. "what a fool and a dummy a man must be not to get hold of any beer! eh? isn't he a scoundrel?" "of course you can't get beer here," said merzlyakov, not removing his eyes from the "vyestnik evropi." "oh! is that your opinion?" lobytko persisted. "lord have mercy upon us, if you dropped me on the moon i'd find you beer and women directly! i'll go and find some at once. . . . you may call me an impostor if i don't!" he spent a long time in dressing and pulling on his high boots, then finished smoking his cigarette in silence and went out. "rabbek, grabbek, labbek," he muttered, stopping in the outer room. "i don't care to go alone, damn it all! ryabovitch, wouldn't you like to go for a walk? eh?" receiving no answer, he returned, slowly undressed and got into bed. merzlyakov sighed, put the "vyestnik evropi" away, and put out the light. "h'm! . . ." muttered lobytko, lighting a cigarette in the dark. ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, curled himself up in bed, and tried to gather together the floating images in his mind and to combine them into one whole. but nothing came of it. he soon fell asleep, and his last thought was that some one had caressed him and made him happy--that something extraordinary, foolish, but joyful and delightful, had come into his life. the thought did not leave him even in his sleep. when he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck and the chill of peppermint about his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart just as the day before. he looked enthusiastically at the window-frames, gilded by the light of the rising sun, and listened to the movement of the passers-by in the street. people were talking loudly close to the window. lebedetsky, the commander of ryabovitch's battery, who had only just overtaken the brigade, was talking to his sergeant at the top of his voice, being always accustomed to shout. "what else?" shouted the commander. "when they were shoeing yesterday, your high nobility, they drove a nail into pigeon's hoof. the vet. put on clay and vinegar; they are leading him apart now. and also, your honour, artemyev got drunk yesterday, and the lieutenant ordered him to be put in the limber of a spare gun-carriage." the sergeant reported that karpov had forgotten the new cords for the trumpets and the rings for the tents, and that their honours, the officers, had spent the previous evening visiting general von rabbek. in the middle of this conversation the red-bearded face of lebedetsky appeared in the window. he screwed up his short-sighted eyes, looking at the sleepy faces of the officers, and said good-morning to them. "is everything all right?" he asked. "one of the horses has a sore neck from the new collar," answered lobytko, yawning. the commander sighed, thought a moment, and said in a loud voice: "i am thinking of going to see alexandra yevgrafovna. i must call on her. well, good-bye. i shall catch you up in the evening." a quarter of an hour later the brigade set off on its way. when it was moving along the road by the granaries, ryabovitch looked at the house on the right. the blinds were down in all the windows. evidently the household was still asleep. the one who had kissed ryabovitch the day before was asleep, too. he tried to imagine her asleep. the wide-open windows of the bedroom, the green branches peeping in, the morning freshness, the scent of the poplars, lilac, and roses, the bed, a chair, and on it the skirts that had rustled the day before, the little slippers, the little watch on the table --all this he pictured to himself clearly and distinctly, but the features of the face, the sweet sleepy smile, just what was characteristic and important, slipped through his imagination like quicksilver through the fingers. when he had ridden on half a mile, he looked back: the yellow church, the house, and the river, were all bathed in light; the river with its bright green banks, with the blue sky reflected in it and glints of silver in the sunshine here and there, was very beautiful. ryabovitch gazed for the last time at myestetchki, and he felt as sad as though he were parting with something very near and dear to him. and before him on the road lay nothing but long familiar, uninteresting pictures. . . . to right and to left, fields of young rye and buckwheat with rooks hopping about in them. if one looked ahead, one saw dust and the backs of men's heads; if one looked back, one saw the same dust and faces. . . . foremost of all marched four men with sabres--this was the vanguard. next, behind, the crowd of singers, and behind them the trumpeters on horseback. the vanguard and the chorus of singers, like torch-bearers in a funeral procession, often forgot to keep the regulation distance and pushed a long way ahead. . . . ryabovitch was with the first cannon of the fifth battery. he could see all the four batteries moving in front of him. for any one not a military man this long tedious procession of a moving brigade seems an intricate and unintelligible muddle; one cannot understand why there are so many people round one cannon, and why it is drawn by so many horses in such a strange network of harness, as though it really were so terrible and heavy. to ryabovitch it was all perfectly comprehensible and therefore uninteresting. he had known for ever so long why at the head of each battery there rode a stalwart bombardier, and why he was called a bombardier; immediately behind this bombardier could be seen the horsemen of the first and then of the middle units. ryabovitch knew that the horses on which they rode, those on the left, were called one name, while those on the right were called another--it was extremely uninteresting. behind the horsemen came two shaft-horses. on one of them sat a rider with the dust of yesterday on his back and a clumsy and funny-looking piece of wood on his leg. ryabovitch knew the object of this piece of wood, and did not think it funny. all the riders waved their whips mechanically and shouted from time to time. the cannon itself was ugly. on the fore part lay sacks of oats covered with canvas, and the cannon itself was hung all over with kettles, soldiers' knapsacks, bags, and looked like some small harmless animal surrounded for some unknown reason by men and horses. to the leeward of it marched six men, the gunners, swinging their arms. after the cannon there came again more bombardiers, riders, shaft-horses, and behind them another cannon, as ugly and unimpressive as the first. after the second followed a third, a fourth; near the fourth an officer, and so on. there were six batteries in all in the brigade, and four cannons in each battery. the procession covered half a mile; it ended in a string of wagons near which an extremely attractive creature--the ass, magar, brought by a battery commander from turkey--paced pensively with his long-eared head drooping. ryabovitch looked indifferently before and behind, at the backs of heads and at faces; at any other time he would have been half asleep, but now he was entirely absorbed in his new agreeable thoughts. at first when the brigade was setting off on the march he tried to persuade himself that the incident of the kiss could only be interesting as a mysterious little adventure, that it was in reality trivial, and to think of it seriously, to say the least of it, was stupid; but now he bade farewell to logic and gave himself up to dreams. . . . at one moment he imagined himself in von rabbek's drawing-room beside a girl who was like the young lady in lilac and the fair girl in black; then he would close his eyes and see himself with another, entirely unknown girl, whose features were very vague. in his imagination he talked, caressed her, leaned on her shoulder, pictured war, separation, then meeting again, supper with his wife, children. . . . "brakes on!" the word of command rang out every time they went downhill. he, too, shouted "brakes on!" and was afraid this shout would disturb his reverie and bring him back to reality. . . . as they passed by some landowner's estate ryabovitch looked over the fence into the garden. a long avenue, straight as a ruler, strewn with yellow sand and bordered with young birch-trees, met his eyes. . . . with the eagerness of a man given up to dreaming, he pictured to himself little feminine feet tripping along yellow sand, and quite unexpectedly had a clear vision in his imagination of the girl who had kissed him and whom he had succeeded in picturing to himself the evening before at supper. this image remained in his brain and did not desert him again. at midday there was a shout in the rear near the string of wagons: "easy! eyes to the left! officers!" the general of the brigade drove by in a carriage with a pair of white horses. he stopped near the second battery, and shouted something which no one understood. several officers, among them ryabovitch, galloped up to them. "well?" asked the general, blinking his red eyes. "are there any sick?" receiving an answer, the general, a little skinny man, chewed, thought for a moment and said, addressing one of the officers: "one of your drivers of the third cannon has taken off his leg-guard and hung it on the fore part of the cannon, the rascal. reprimand him." he raised his eyes to ryabovitch and went on: "it seems to me your front strap is too long." making a few other tedious remarks, the general looked at lobytko and grinned. "you look very melancholy today, lieutenant lobytko," he said. "are you pining for madame lopuhov? eh? gentlemen, he is pining for madame lopuhov." the lady in question was a very stout and tall person who had long passed her fortieth year. the general, who had a predilection for solid ladies, whatever their ages, suspected a similar taste in his officers. the officers smiled respectfully. the general, delighted at having said something very amusing and biting, laughed loudly, touched his coachman's back, and saluted. the carriage rolled on. . . . "all i am dreaming about now which seems to me so impossible and unearthly is really quite an ordinary thing," thought ryabovitch, looking at the clouds of dust racing after the general's carriage. "it's all very ordinary, and every one goes through it. . . . that general, for instance, has once been in love; now he is married and has children. captain vahter, too, is married and beloved, though the nape of his neck is very red and ugly and he has no waist. . . . salrnanov is coarse and very tatar, but he has had a love affair that has ended in marriage. . . . i am the same as every one else, and i, too, shall have the same experience as every one else, sooner or later. . . ." and the thought that he was an ordinary person, and that his life was ordinary, delighted him and gave him courage. he pictured her and his happiness as he pleased, and put no rein on his imagination. when the brigade reached their halting-place in the evening, and the officers were resting in their tents, ryabovitch, merzlyakov, and lobytko were sitting round a box having supper. merzlyakov ate without haste, and, as he munched deliberately, read the "vyestnik evropi," which he held on his knees. lobytko talked incessantly and kept filling up his glass with beer, and ryabovitch, whose head was confused from dreaming all day long, drank and said nothing. after three glasses he got a little drunk, felt weak, and had an irresistible desire to impart his new sensations to his comrades. "a strange thing happened to me at those von rabbeks'," he began, trying to put an indifferent and ironical tone into his voice. "you know i went into the billiard-room. . . ." he began describing very minutely the incident of the kiss, and a moment later relapsed into silence. . . . in the course of that moment he had told everything, and it surprised him dreadfully to find how short a time it took him to tell it. he had imagined that he could have been telling the story of the kiss till next morning. listening to him, lobytko, who was a great liar and consequently believed no one, looked at him sceptically and laughed. merzlyakov twitched his eyebrows and, without removing his eyes from the "vyestnik evropi," said: "that's an odd thing! how strange! . . . throws herself on a man's neck, without addressing him by name. .. . she must be some sort of hysterical neurotic." "yes, she must," ryabovitch agreed. "a similar thing once happened to me," said lobytko, assuming a scared expression. "i was going last year to kovno. . . . i took a second-class ticket. the train was crammed, and it was impossible to sleep. i gave the guard half a rouble; he took my luggage and led me to another compartment. . . . i lay down and covered myself with a rug. . . . it was dark, you understand. suddenly i felt some one touch me on the shoulder and breathe in my face. i made a movement with my hand and felt somebody's elbow. . . . i opened my eyes and only imagine--a woman. black eyes, lips red as a prime salmon, nostrils breathing passionately--a bosom like a buffer. . . ." "excuse me," merzlyakov interrupted calmly, "i understand about the bosom, but how could you see the lips if it was dark?" lobytko began trying to put himself right and laughing at merzlyakov's unimaginativeness. it made ryabovitch wince. he walked away from the box, got into bed, and vowed never to confide again. camp life began. . . . the days flowed by, one very much like another. all those days ryabovitch felt, thought, and behaved as though he were in love. every morning when his orderly handed him water to wash with, and he sluiced his head with cold water, he thought there was something warm and delightful in his life. in the evenings when his comrades began talking of love and women, he would listen, and draw up closer; and he wore the expression of a soldier when he hears the description of a battle in which he has taken part. and on the evenings when the officers, out on the spree with the setter--lobytko--at their head, made don juan excursions to the "suburb," and ryabovitch took part in such excursions, he always was sad, felt profoundly guilty, and inwardly begged _her_ forgiveness. . . . in hours of leisure or on sleepless nights, when he felt moved to recall his childhood, his father and mother-- everything near and dear, in fact, he invariably thought of myestetchki, the strange horse, von rabbek, his wife who was like the empress eugénie, the dark room, the crack of light at the door. . . . on the thirty-first of august he went back from the camp, not with the whole brigade, but with only two batteries of it. he was dreaming and excited all the way, as though he were going back to his native place. he had an intense longing to see again the strange horse, the church, the insincere family of the von rabbeks, the dark room. the "inner voice," which so often deceives lovers, whispered to him for some reason that he would be sure to see her . . . and he was tortured by the questions, how he should meet her? what he would talk to her about? whether she had forgotten the kiss? if the worst came to the worst, he thought, even if he did not meet her, it would be a pleasure to him merely to go through the dark room and recall the past. . . . towards evening there appeared on the horizon the familiar church and white granaries. ryabovitch's heart beat. . . . he did not hear the officer who was riding beside him and saying something to him, he forgot everything, and looked eagerly at the river shining in the distance, at the roof of the house, at the dovecote round which the pigeons were circling in the light of the setting sun. when they reached the church and were listening to the billeting orders, he expected every second that a man on horseback would come round the church enclosure and invite the officers to tea, but . . . the billeting orders were read, the officers were in haste to go on to the village, and the man on horseback did not appear. "von rabbek will hear at once from the peasants that we have come and will send for us," thought ryabovitch, as he went into the hut, unable to understand why a comrade was lighting a candle and why the orderlies were hurriedly setting samovars. . . . a painful uneasiness took possession of him. he lay down, then got up and looked out of the window to see whether the messenger were coming. but there was no sign of him. he lay down again, but half an hour later he got up, and, unable to restrain his uneasiness, went into the street and strode towards the church. it was dark and deserted in the square near the church . . . . three soldiers were standing silent in a row where the road began to go downhill. seeing ryabovitch, they roused themselves and saluted. he returned the salute and began to go down the familiar path. on the further side of the river the whole sky was flooded with crimson: the moon was rising; two peasant women, talking loudly, were picking cabbage in the kitchen garden; behind the kitchen garden there were some dark huts. . . . and everything on the near side of the river was just as it had been in may: the path, the bushes, the willows overhanging the water . . . but there was no sound of the brave nightingale, and no scent of poplar and fresh grass. reaching the garden, ryabovitch looked in at the gate. the garden was dark and still. . . . he could see nothing but the white stems of the nearest birch-trees and a little bit of the avenue; all the rest melted together into a dark blur. ryabovitch looked and listened eagerly, but after waiting for a quarter of an hour without hearing a sound or catching a glimpse of a light, he trudged back. . . . he went down to the river. the general's bath-house and the bath-sheets on the rail of the little bridge showed white before him. . . . he went on to the bridge, stood a little, and, quite unnecessarily, touched the sheets. they felt rough and cold. he looked down at the water. . . . the river ran rapidly and with a faintly audible gurgle round the piles of the bath-house. the red moon was reflected near the left bank; little ripples ran over the reflection, stretching it out, breaking it into bits, and seemed trying to carry it away. "how stupid, how stupid!" thought ryabovitch, looking at the running water. "how unintelligent it all is!" now that he expected nothing, the incident of the kiss, his impatience, his vague hopes and disappointment, presented themselves in a clear light. it no longer seemed to him strange that he had not seen the general's messenger, and that he would never see the girl who had accidentally kissed him instead of some one else; on the contrary, it would have been strange if he had seen her. . . . the water was running, he knew not where or why, just as it did in may. in may it had flowed into the great river, from the great river into the sea; then it had risen in vapour, turned into rain, and perhaps the very same water was running now before ryabovitch's eyes again. . . . what for? why? and the whole world, the whole of life, seemed to ryabovitch an unintelligible, aimless jest. . . . and turning his eyes from the water and looking at the sky, he remembered again how fate in the person of an unknown woman had by chance caressed him, he remembered his summer dreams and fancies, and his life struck him as extraordinarily meagre, poverty-stricken, and colourless. . . . when he went back to his hut he did not find one of his comrades. the orderly informed him that they had all gone to "general von rabbek's, who had sent a messenger on horseback to invite them. . . ." for an instant there was a flash of joy in ryabovitch's heart, but he quenched it at once, got into bed, and in his wrath with his fate, as though to spite it, did not go to the general's. 'anna on the neck' i after the wedding they had not even light refreshments; the happy pair simply drank a glass of champagne, changed into their travelling things, and drove to the station. instead of a gay wedding ball and supper, instead of music and dancing, they went on a journey to pray at a shrine a hundred and fifty miles away. many people commended this, saying that modest alexeitch was a man high up in the service and no longer young, and that a noisy wedding might not have seemed quite suitable; and music is apt to sound dreary when a government official of fifty-two marries a girl who is only just eighteen. people said, too, that modest alexeitch, being a man of principle, had arranged this visit to the monastery expressly in order to make his young bride realize that even in marriage he put religion and morality above everything. the happy pair were seen off at the station. the crowd of relations and colleagues in the service stood, with glasses in their hands, waiting for the train to start to shout "hurrah!" and the bride's father, pyotr leontyitch, wearing a top-hat and the uniform of a teacher, already drunk and very pale, kept craning towards the window, glass in hand and saying in an imploring voice: "anyuta! anya, anya! one word!" anna bent out of the window to him, and he whispered something to her, enveloping her in a stale smell of alcohol, blew into her ear --she could make out nothing--and made the sign of the cross over her face, her bosom, and her hands; meanwhile he was breathing in gasps and tears were shining in his eyes. and the schoolboys, anna's brothers, petya and andrusha, pulled at his coat from behind, whispering in confusion: "father, hush! . . . father, that's enough. . . ." when the train started, anna saw her father run a little way after the train, staggering and spilling his wine, and what a kind, guilty, pitiful face he had: "hurra--ah!" he shouted. the happy pair were left alone. modest alexeitch looked about the compartment, arranged their things on the shelves, and sat down, smiling, opposite his young wife. he was an official of medium height, rather stout and puffy, who looked exceedingly well nourished, with long whiskers and no moustache. his clean-shaven, round, sharply defined chin looked like the heel of a foot. the most characteristic point in his face was the absence of moustache, the bare, freshly shaven place, which gradually passed into the fat cheeks, quivering like jelly. his deportment was dignified, his movements were deliberate, his manner was soft. "i cannot help remembering now one circumstance," he said, smiling. "when, five years ago, kosorotov received the order of st. anna of the second grade, and went to thank his excellency, his excellency expressed himself as follows: 'so now you have three annas: one in your buttonhole and two on your neck.' and it must be explained that at that time kosorotov's wife, a quarrelsome and frivolous person, had just returned to him, and that her name was anna. i trust that when i receive the anna of the second grade his excellency will not have occasion to say the same thing to me." he smiled with his little eyes. and she, too, smiled, troubled at the thought that at any moment this man might kiss her with his thick damp lips, and that she had no right to prevent his doing so. the soft movements of his fat person frightened her; she felt both fear and disgust. he got up, without haste took off the order from his neck, took off his coat and waistcoat, and put on his dressing-gown. "that's better," he said, sitting down beside anna. anna remembered what agony the wedding had been, when it had seemed to her that the priest, and the guests, and every one in church had been looking at her sorrowfully and asking why, why was she, such a sweet, nice girl, marrying such an elderly, uninteresting gentleman. only that morning she was delighted that everything had been satisfactorily arranged, but at the time of the wedding, and now in the railway carriage, she felt cheated, guilty, and ridiculous. here she had married a rich man and yet she had no money, her wedding-dress had been bought on credit, and when her father and brothers had been saying good-bye, she could see from their faces that they had not a farthing. would they have any supper that day? and tomorrow? and for some reason it seemed to her that her father and the boys were sitting tonight hungry without her, and feeling the same misery as they had the day after their mother's funeral. "oh, how unhappy i am!" she thought. "why am i so unhappy?" with the awkwardness of a man with settled habits, unaccustomed to deal with women, modest alexeitch touched her on the waist and patted her on the shoulder, while she went on thinking about money, about her mother and her mother's death. when her mother died, her father, pyotr leontyitch, a teacher of drawing and writing in the high school, had taken to drink, impoverishment had followed, the boys had not had boots or goloshes, their father had been hauled up before the magistrate, the warrant officer had come and made an inventory of the furniture. . . . what a disgrace! anna had had to look after her drunken father, darn her brothers' stockings, go to market, and when she was complimented on her youth, her beauty, and her elegant manners, it seemed to her that every one was looking at her cheap hat and the holes in her boots that were inked over. and at night there had been tears and a haunting dread that her father would soon, very soon, be dismissed from the school for his weakness, and that he would not survive it, but would die, too, like their mother. but ladies of their acquaintance had taken the matter in hand and looked about for a good match for anna. this modest alexevitch, who was neither young nor good-looking but had money, was soon found. he had a hundred thousand in the bank and the family estate, which he had let on lease. he was a man of principle and stood well with his excellency; it would be nothing to him, so they told anna, to get a note from his excellency to the directors of the high school, or even to the education commissioner, to prevent pyotr leontyitch from being dismissed. while she was recalling these details, she suddenly heard strains of music which floated in at the window, together with the sound of voices. the train was stopping at a station. in the crowd beyond the platform an accordion and a cheap squeaky fiddle were being briskly played, and the sound of a military band came from beyond the villas and the tall birches and poplars that lay bathed in the moonlight; there must have been a dance in the place. summer visitors and townspeople, who used to come out here by train in fine weather for a breath of fresh air, were parading up and down on the platform. among them was the wealthy owner of all the summer villas--a tall, stout, dark man called artynov. he had prominent eyes and looked like an armenian. he wore a strange costume; his shirt was unbuttoned, showing his chest; he wore high boots with spurs, and a black cloak hung from his shoulders and dragged on the ground like a train. two boar-hounds followed him with their sharp noses to the ground. tears were still shining in anna's eyes, but she was not thinking now of her mother, nor of money, nor of her marriage; but shaking hands with schoolboys and officers she knew, she laughed gaily and said quickly: "how do you do? how are you?" she went out on to the platform between the carriages into the moonlight, and stood so that they could all see her in her new splendid dress and hat. "why are we stopping here?" she asked. "this is a junction. they are waiting for the mail train to pass." seeing that artynov was looking at her, she screwed up her eyes coquettishly and began talking aloud in french; and because her voice sounded so pleasant, and because she heard music and the moon was reflected in the pond, and because artynov, the notorious don juan and spoiled child of fortune, was looking at her eagerly and with curiosity, and because every one was in good spirits--she suddenly felt joyful, and when the train started and the officers of her acquaintance saluted her, she was humming the polka the strains of which reached her from the military band playing beyond the trees; and she returned to her compartment feeling as though it had been proved to her at the station that she would certainly be happy in spite of everything. the happy pair spent two days at the monastery, then went back to town. they lived in a rent-free flat. when modest alexevitch had gone to the office, anna played the piano, or shed tears of depression, or lay down on a couch and read novels or looked through fashion papers. at dinner modest alexevitch ate a great deal and talked about politics, about appointments, transfers, and promotions in the service, about the necessity of hard work, and said that, family life not being a pleasure but a duty, if you took care of the kopecks the roubles would take care of themselves, and that he put religion and morality before everything else in the world. and holding his knife in his fist as though it were a sword, he would say: "every one ought to have his duties!" and anna listened to him, was frightened, and could not eat, and she usually got up from the table hungry. after dinner her husband lay down for a nap and snored loudly, while anna went to see her own people. her father and the boys looked at her in a peculiar way, as though just before she came in they had been blaming her for having married for money a tedious, wearisome man she did not love; her rustling skirts, her bracelets, and her general air of a married lady, offended them and made them uncomfortable. in her presence they felt a little embarrassed and did not know what to talk to her about; but yet they still loved her as before, and were not used to having dinner without her. she sat down with them to cabbage soup, porridge, and fried potatoes, smelling of mutton dripping. pyotr leontyitch filled his glass from the decanter with a trembling hand and drank it off hurriedly, greedily, with repulsion, then poured out a second glass and then a third. petya and andrusha, thin, pale boys with big eyes, would take the decanter and say desperately: "you mustn't, father. . . . enough, father. . . ." and anna, too, was troubled and entreated him to drink no more; and he would suddenly fly into a rage and beat the table with his fists: "i won't allow any one to dictate to me!" he would shout. "wretched boys! wretched girl! i'll turn you all out!" but there was a note of weakness, of good-nature in his voice, and no one was afraid of him. after dinner he usually dressed in his best. pale, with a cut on his chin from shaving, craning his thin neck, he would stand for half an hour before the glass, prinking, combing his hair, twisting his black moustache, sprinkling himself with scent, tying his cravat in a bow; then he would put on his gloves and his top-hat, and go off to give his private lessons. or if it was a holiday he would stay at home and paint, or play the harmonium, which wheezed and growled; he would try to wrest from it pure harmonious sounds and would sing to it; or would storm at the boys: "wretches! good-for-nothing boys! you have spoiled the instrument!" in the evening anna's husband played cards with his colleagues, who lived under the same roof in the government quarters. the wives of these gentlemen would come in--ugly, tastelessly dressed women, as coarse as cooks--and gossip would begin in the flat as tasteless and unattractive as the ladies themselves. sometimes modest alexevitch would take anna to the theatre. in the intervals he would never let her stir a step from his side, but walked about arm in arm with her through the corridors and the foyer. when he bowed to some one, he immediately whispered to anna: "a civil councillor . . . visits at his excellency's"; or, "a man of means . . . has a house of his own." when they passed the buffet anna had a great longing for something sweet; she was fond of chocolate and apple cakes, but she had no money, and she did not like to ask her husband. he would take a pear, pinch it with his fingers, and ask uncertainly: "how much?" "twenty-five kopecks!" "i say!" he would reply, and put it down; but as it was awkward to leave the buffet without buying anything, he would order some seltzer-water and drink the whole bottle himself, and tears would come into his eyes. and anna hated him at such times. and suddenly flushing crimson, he would say to her rapidly: "bow to that old lady!" "but i don't know her." "no matter. that's the wife of the director of the local treasury! bow, i tell you," he would grumble insistently. "your head won't drop off." anna bowed and her head certainly did not drop off, but it was agonizing. she did everything her husband wanted her to, and was furious with herself for having let him deceive her like the veriest idiot. she had only married him for his money, and yet she had less money now than before her marriage. in old days her father would sometimes give her twenty kopecks, but now she had not a farthing. to take money by stealth or ask for it, she could not; she was afraid of her husband, she trembled before him. she felt as though she had been afraid of him for years. in her childhood the director of the high school had always seemed the most impressive and terrifying force in the world, sweeping down like a thunderstorm or a steam-engine ready to crush her; another similar force of which the whole family talked, and of which they were for some reason afraid, was his excellency; then there were a dozen others, less formidable, and among them the teachers at the high school, with shaven upper lips, stern, implacable; and now finally, there was modest alexeitch, a man of principle, who even resembled the director in the face. and in anna's imagination all these forces blended together into one, and, in the form of a terrible, huge white bear, menaced the weak and erring such as her father. and she was afraid to say anything in opposition to her husband, and gave a forced smile, and tried to make a show of pleasure when she was coarsely caressed and defiled by embraces that excited her terror. only once pyotr leontyitch had the temerity to ask for a loan of fifty roubles in order to pay some very irksome debt, but what an agony it had been! "very good; i'll give it to you," said modest alexeitch after a moment's thought; "but i warn you i won't help you again till you give up drinking. such a failing is disgraceful in a man in the government service! i must remind you of the well-known fact that many capable people have been ruined by that passion, though they might possibly, with temperance, have risen in time to a very high position." and long-winded phrases followed: "inasmuch as . . .", "following upon which proposition . . .", "in view of the aforesaid contention . . ."; and pyotr leontyitch was in agonies of humiliation and felt an intense craving for alcohol. and when the boys came to visit anna, generally in broken boots and threadbare trousers, they, too, had to listen to sermons. "every man ought to have his duties!" modest alexeitch would say to them. and he did not give them money. but he did give anna bracelets, rings, and brooches, saying that these things would come in useful for a rainy day. and he often unlocked her drawer and made an inspection to see whether they were all safe. ii meanwhile winter came on. long before christmas there was an announcement in the local papers that the usual winter ball would take place on the twenty-ninth of december in the hall of nobility. every evening after cards modest alexeitch was excitedly whispering with his colleagues' wives and glancing at anna, and then paced up and down the room for a long while, thinking. at last, late one evening, he stood still, facing anna, and said: "you ought to get yourself a ball dress. do you understand? only please consult marya grigoryevna and natalya kuzminishna." and he gave her a hundred roubles. she took the money, but she did not consult any one when she ordered the ball dress; she spoke to no one but her father, and tried to imagine how her mother would have dressed for a ball. her mother had always dressed in the latest fashion and had always taken trouble over anna, dressing her elegantly like a doll, and had taught her to speak french and dance the mazurka superbly (she had been a governess for five years before her marriage). like her mother, anna could make a new dress out of an old one, clean gloves with benzine, hire jewels; and, like her mother, she knew how to screw up her eyes, lisp, assume graceful attitudes, fly into raptures when necessary, and throw a mournful and enigmatic look into her eyes. and from her father she had inherited the dark colour of her hair and eyes, her highly-strung nerves, and the habit of always making herself look her best. when, half an hour before setting off for the ball, modest alexeitch went into her room without his coat on, to put his order round his neck before her pier-glass, dazzled by her beauty and the splendour of her fresh, ethereal dress, he combed his whiskers complacently and said: "so that's what my wife can look like . . . so that's what you can look like! anyuta!" he went on, dropping into a tone of solemnity, "i have made your fortune, and now i beg you to do something for mine. i beg you to get introduced to the wife of his excellency! for god's sake, do! through her i may get the post of senior reporting clerk!" they went to the ball. they reached the hall of nobility, the entrance with the hall porter. they came to the vestibule with the hat-stands, the fur coats; footmen scurrying about, and ladies with low necks putting up their fans to screen themselves from the draughts. there was a smell of gas and of soldiers. when anna, walking upstairs on her husband's arm, heard the music and saw herself full length in the looking-glass in the full glow of the lights, there was a rush of joy in her heart, and she felt the same presentiment of happiness as in the moonlight at the station. she walked in proudly, confidently, for the first time feeling herself not a girl but a lady, and unconsciously imitating her mother in her walk and in her manner. and for the first time in her life she felt rich and free. even her husband's presence did not oppress her, for as she crossed the threshold of the hall she had guessed instinctively that the proximity of an old husband did not detract from her in the least, but, on the contrary, gave her that shade of piquant mystery that is so attractive to men. the orchestra was already playing and the dances had begun. after their flat anna was overwhelmed by the lights, the bright colours, the music, the noise, and looking round the room, thought, "oh, how lovely!" she at once distinguished in the crowd all her acquaintances, every one she had met before at parties or on picnics--all the officers, the teachers, the lawyers, the officials, the landowners, his excellency, artynov, and the ladies of the highest standing, dressed up and very _décollettées_, handsome and ugly, who had already taken up their positions in the stalls and pavilions of the charity bazaar, to begin selling things for the benefit of the poor. a huge officer in epaulettes--she had been introduced to him in staro-kievsky street when she was a schoolgirl, but now she could not remember his name--seemed to spring from out of the ground, begging her for a waltz, and she flew away from her husband, feeling as though she were floating away in a sailing-boat in a violent storm, while her husband was left far away on the shore. she danced passionately, with fervour, a waltz, then a polka and a quadrille, being snatched by one partner as soon as she was left by another, dizzy with music and the noise, mixing russian with french, lisping, laughing, and with no thought of her husband or anything else. she excited great admiration among the men--that was evident, and indeed it could not have been otherwise; she was breathless with excitement, felt thirsty, and convulsively clutched her fan. pyotr leontyitch, her father, in a crumpled dress-coat that smelt of benzine, came up to her, offering her a plate of pink ice. "you are enchanting this evening," he said, looking at her rapturously, "and i have never so much regretted that you were in such a hurry to get married. . . . what was it for? i know you did it for our sake, but . . ." with a shaking hand he drew out a roll of notes and said: "i got the money for my lessons today, and can pay your husband what i owe him." she put the plate back into his hand, and was pounced upon by some one and borne off to a distance. she caught a glimpse over her partner's shoulder of her father gliding over the floor, putting his arm round a lady and whirling down the ball-room with her. "how sweet he is when he is sober!" she thought. she danced the mazurka with the same huge officer; he moved gravely, as heavily as a dead carcase in a uniform, twitched his shoulders and his chest, stamped his feet very languidly--he felt fearfully disinclined to dance. she fluttered round him, provoking him by her beauty, her bare neck; her eyes glowed defiantly, her movements were passionate, while he became more and more indifferent, and held out his hands to her as graciously as a king. "bravo, bravo!" said people watching them. but little by little the huge officer, too, broke out; he grew lively, excited, and, overcome by her fascination, was carried away and danced lightly, youthfully, while she merely moved her shoulders and looked slyly at him as though she were now the queen and he were her slave; and at that moment it seemed to her that the whole room was looking at them, and that everybody was thrilled and envied them. the huge officer had hardly had time to thank her for the dance, when the crowd suddenly parted and the men drew themselves up in a strange way, with their hands at their sides. his excellency, with two stars on his dress-coat, was walking up to her. yes, his excellency was walking straight towards her, for he was staring directly at her with a sugary smile, while he licked his lips as he always did when he saw a pretty woman. "delighted, delighted . . ." he began. "i shall order your husband to be clapped in a lock-up for keeping such a treasure hidden from us till now. i've come to you with a message from my wife," he went on, offering her his arm. "you must help us. . . . m-m-yes. . . . we ought to give you the prize for beauty as they do in america . . . . m-m-yes. . . . the americans. . . . my wife is expecting you impatiently." he led her to a stall and presented her to a middle-aged lady, the lower part of whose face was disproportionately large, so that she looked as though she were holding a big stone in her mouth. "you must help us," she said through her nose in a sing-song voice. "all the pretty women are working for our charity bazaar, and you are the only one enjoying yourself. why won't you help us?" she went away, and anna took her place by the cups and the silver samovar. she was soon doing a lively trade. anna asked no less than a rouble for a cup of tea, and made the huge officer drink three cups. artynov, the rich man with prominent eyes, who suffered from asthma, came up, too; he was not dressed in the strange costume in which anna had seen him in the summer at the station, but wore a dress-coat like every one else. keeping his eyes fixed on anna, he drank a glass of champagne and paid a hundred roubles for it, then drank some tea and gave another hundred--all this without saying a word, as he was short of breath through asthma. . . . anna invited purchasers and got money out of them, firmly convinced by now that her smiles and glances could not fail to afford these people great pleasure. she realized now that she was created exclusively for this noisy, brilliant, laughing life, with its music, its dancers, its adorers, and her old terror of a force that was sweeping down upon her and menacing to crush her seemed to her ridiculous: she was afraid of no one now, and only regretted that her mother could not be there to rejoice at her success. pyotr leontyitch, pale by now but still steady on his legs, came up to the stall and asked for a glass of brandy. anna turned crimson, expecting him to say something inappropriate (she was already ashamed of having such a poor and ordinary father); but he emptied his glass, took ten roubles out of his roll of notes, flung it down, and walked away with dignity without uttering a word. a little later she saw him dancing in the grand chain, and by now he was staggering and kept shouting something, to the great confusion of his partner; and anna remembered how at the ball three years before he had staggered and shouted in the same way, and it had ended in the police-sergeant's taking him home to bed, and next day the director had threatened to dismiss him from his post. how inappropriate that memory was! when the samovars were put out in the stalls and the exhausted ladies handed over their takings to the middle-aged lady with the stone in her mouth, artynov took anna on his arm to the hall where supper was served to all who had assisted at the bazaar. there were some twenty people at supper, not more, but it was very noisy. his excellency proposed a toast: "in this magnificent dining-room it will be appropriate to drink to the success of the cheap dining-rooms, which are the object of today's bazaar." the brigadier-general proposed the toast: "to the power by which even the artillery is vanquished," and all the company clinked glasses with the ladies. it was very, very gay. when anna was escorted home it was daylight and the cooks were going to market. joyful, intoxicated, full of new sensations, exhausted, she undressed, dropped into bed, and at once fell asleep. . . . it was past one in the afternoon when the servant waked her and announced that m. artynov had called. she dressed quickly and went down into the drawing-room. soon after artynov, his excellency called to thank her for her assistance in the bazaar. with a sugary smile, chewing his lips, he kissed her hand, and asking her permission to come again, took his leave, while she remained standing in the middle of the drawing-room, amazed, enchanted, unable to believe that this change in her life, this marvellous change, had taken place so quickly; and at that moment modest alexeitch walked in . . . and he, too, stood before her now with the same ingratiating, sugary, cringingly respectful expression which she was accustomed to see on his face in the presence of the great and powerful; and with rapture, with indignation, with contempt, convinced that no harm would come to her from it, she said, articulating distinctly each word: "be off, you blockhead!" from this time forward anna never had one day free, as she was always taking part in picnics, expeditions, performances. she returned home every day after midnight, and went to bed on the floor in the drawing-room, and afterwards used to tell every one, touchingly, how she slept under flowers. she needed a very great deal of money, but she was no longer afraid of modest alexeitch, and spent his money as though it were her own; and she did not ask, did not demand it, simply sent him in the bills. "give bearer two hundred roubles," or "pay one hundred roubles at once." at easter modest alexeitch received the anna of the second grade. when he went to offer his thanks, his excellency put aside the paper he was reading and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. "so now you have three annas," he said, scrutinizing his white hands and pink nails--"one on your buttonhole and two on your neck." modest alexeitch put two fingers to his lips as a precaution against laughing too loud and said: "now i have only to look forward to the arrival of a little vladimir. i make bold to beg your excellency to stand godfather." he was alluding to vladimir of the fourth grade, and was already imagining how he would tell everywhere the story of this pun, so happy in its readiness and audacity, and he wanted to say something equally happy, but his excellency was buried again in his newspaper, and merely gave him a nod. and anna went on driving about with three horses, going out hunting with artynov, playing in one-act dramas, going out to supper, and was more and more rarely with her own family; they dined now alone. pyotr leontyitch was drinking more heavily than ever; there was no money, and the harmonium had been sold long ago for debt. the boys did not let him go out alone in the street now, but looked after him for fear he might fall down; and whenever they met anna driving in staro-kievsky street with a pair of horses and artynov on the box instead of a coachman, pyotr leontyitch took off his top-hat, and was about to shout to her, but petya and andrusha took him by the arm, and said imploringly: "you mustn't, father. hush, father!" the teacher of literature i there was the thud of horses' hoofs on the wooden floor; they brought out of the stable the black horse, count nulin; then the white, giant; then his sister maika. they were all magnificent, expensive horses. old shelestov saddled giant and said, addressing his daughter masha: "well, marie godefroi, come, get on! hopla!" masha shelestov was the youngest of the family; she was eighteen, but her family could not get used to thinking that she was not a little girl, and so they still called her manya and manyusa; and after there had been a circus in the town which she had eagerly visited, every one began to call her marie godefroi. "hop-la!" she cried, mounting giant. her sister varya got on maika, nikitin on count nulin, the officers on their horses, and the long picturesque cavalcade, with the officers in white tunics and the ladies in their riding habits, moved at a walking pace out of the yard. nikitin noticed that when they were mounting the horses and afterwards riding out into the street, masha for some reason paid attention to no one but himself. she looked anxiously at him and at count nulin and said: "you must hold him all the time on the curb, sergey vassilitch. don't let him shy. he's pretending." and either because her giant was very friendly with count nulin, or perhaps by chance, she rode all the time beside nikitin, as she had done the day before, and the day before that. and he looked at her graceful little figure sitting on the proud white beast, at her delicate profile, at the chimney-pot hat, which did not suit her at all and made her look older than her age--looked at her with joy, with tenderness, with rapture; listened to her, taking in little of what she said, and thought: "i promise on my honour, i swear to god, i won't be afraid and i'll speak to her today." it was seven o'clock in the evening--the time when the scent of white acacia and lilac is so strong that the air and the very trees seem heavy with the fragrance. the band was already playing in the town gardens. the horses made a resounding thud on the pavement, on all sides there were sounds of laughter, talk, and the banging of gates. the soldiers they met saluted the officers, the schoolboys bowed to nikitin, and all the people who were hurrying to the gardens to hear the band were pleased at the sight of the party. and how warm it was! how soft-looking were the clouds scattered carelessly about the sky, how kindly and comforting the shadows of the poplars and the acacias, which stretched across the street and reached as far as the balconies and second stories of the houses on the other side. they rode on out of the town and set off at a trot along the highroad. here there was no scent of lilac and acacia, no music of the band, but there was the fragrance of the fields, there was the green of young rye and wheat, the marmots were squeaking, the rooks were cawing. wherever one looked it was green, with only here and there black patches of bare ground, and far away to the left in the cemetery a white streak of apple-blossom. they passed the slaughter-houses, then the brewery, and overtook a military band hastening to the suburban gardens. "polyansky has a very fine horse, i don't deny that," masha said to nikitin, with a glance towards the officer who was riding beside varya. "but it has blemishes. that white patch on its left leg ought not to be there, and, look, it tosses its head. you can't train it not to now; it will toss its head till the end of its days." masha was as passionate a lover of horses as her father. she felt a pang when she saw other people with fine horses, and was pleased when she saw defects in them. nikitin knew nothing about horses; it made absolutely no difference to him whether he held his horse on the bridle or on the curb, whether he trotted or galloped; he only felt that his position was strained and unnatural, and that consequently the officers who knew how to sit in their saddles must please masha more than he could. and he was jealous of the officers. as they rode by the suburban gardens some one suggested their going in and getting some seltzer-water. they went in. there were no trees but oaks in the gardens; they had only just come into leaf, so that through the young foliage the whole garden could still be seen with its platform, little tables, and swings, and the crows' nests were visible, looking like big hats. the party dismounted near a table and asked for seltzer-water. people they knew, walking about the garden, came up to them. among them the army doctor in high boots, and the conductor of the band, waiting for the musicians. the doctor must have taken nikitin for a student, for he asked: "have you come for the summer holidays?" "no, i am here permanently," answered nikitin. "i am a teacher at the school." "you don't say so?" said the doctor, with surprise. "so young and already a teacher?" "young, indeed! my goodness, i'm twenty-six! "you have a beard and moustache, but yet one would never guess you were more than twenty-two or twenty-three. how young-looking you are!" "what a beast!" thought nikitin. "he, too, takes me for a whipper-snapper!" he disliked it extremely when people referred to his youth, especially in the presence of women or the schoolboys. ever since he had come to the town as a master in the school he had detested his own youthful appearance. the schoolboys were not afraid of him, old people called him "young man," ladies preferred dancing with him to listening to his long arguments, and he would have given a great deal to be ten years older. from the garden they went on to the shelestovs' farm. there they stopped at the gate and asked the bailiff's wife, praskovya, to bring some new milk. nobody drank the milk; they all looked at one another, laughed, and galloped back. as they rode back the band was playing in the suburban garden; the sun was setting behind the cemetery, and half the sky was crimson from the sunset. masha again rode beside nikitin. he wanted to tell her how passionately he loved her, but he was afraid he would be overheard by the officers and varya, and he was silent. masha was silent, too, and he felt why she was silent and why she was riding beside him, and was so happy that the earth, the sky, the lights of the town, the black outline of the brewery--all blended for him into something very pleasant and comforting, and it seemed to him as though count nulin were stepping on air and would climb up into the crimson sky. they arrived home. the samovar was already boiling on the table, old shelestov was sitting with his friends, officials in the circuit court, and as usual he was criticizing something. "it's loutishness!" he said. "loutishness and nothing more. yes!" since nikitin had been in love with masha, everything at the shelestovs' pleased him: the house, the garden, and the evening tea, and the wickerwork chairs, and the old nurse, and even the word "loutishness," which the old man was fond of using. the only thing he did not like was the number of cats and dogs and the egyptian pigeons, who moaned disconsolately in a big cage in the verandah. there were so many house-dogs and yard-dogs that he had only learnt to recognize two of them in the course of his acquaintance with the shelestovs: mushka and som. mushka was a little mangy dog with a shaggy face, spiteful and spoiled. she hated nikitin: when she saw him she put her head on one side, showed her teeth, and began: "rrr . . . nga-nga-nga . . . rrr . . . !" then she would get under his chair, and when he would try to drive her away she would go off into piercing yaps, and the family would say: "don't be frightened. she doesn't bite. she is a good dog." som was a tall black dog with long legs and a tail as hard as a stick. at dinner and tea he usually moved about under the table, and thumped on people's boots and on the legs of the table with his tail. he was a good-natured, stupid dog, but nikitin could not endure him because he had the habit of putting his head on people's knees at dinner and messing their trousers with saliva. nikitin had more than once tried to hit him on his head with a knife-handle, to flip him on the nose, had abused him, had complained of him, but nothing saved his trousers. after their ride the tea, jam, rusks, and butter seemed very nice. they all drank their first glass in silence and with great relish; over the second they began an argument. it was always varya who started the arguments at tea; she was good-looking, handsomer than masha, and was considered the cleverest and most cultured person in the house, and she behaved with dignity and severity, as an eldest daughter should who has taken the place of her dead mother in the house. as the mistress of the house, she felt herself entitled to wear a dressing-gown in the presence of her guests, and to call the officers by their surnames; she looked on masha as a little girl, and talked to her as though she were a schoolmistress. she used to speak of herself as an old maid--so she was certain she would marry. every conversation, even about the weather, she invariably turned into an argument. she had a passion for catching at words, pouncing on contradictions, quibbling over phrases. you would begin talking to her, and she would stare at you and suddenly interrupt: "excuse me, excuse me, petrov, the other day you said the very opposite!" or she would smile ironically and say: "i notice, though, you begin to advocate the principles of the secret police. i congratulate you." if you jested or made a pun, you would hear her voice at once: "that's stale," "that's pointless." if an officer ventured on a joke, she would make a contemptuous grimace and say, "an army joke!" and she rolled the _r_ so impressively that mushka invariably answered from under a chair, "rrr . . . nga-nga-nga . . . !" on this occasion at tea the argument began with nikitin's mentioning the school examinations. "excuse me, sergey vassilitch," varya interrupted him. "you say it's difficult for the boys. and whose fault is that, let me ask you? for instance, you set the boys in the eighth class an essay on 'pushkin as a psychologist.' to begin with, you shouldn't set such a difficult subject; and, secondly, pushkin was not a psychologist. shtchedrin now, or dostoevsky let us say, is a different matter, but pushkin is a great poet and nothing more." "shtchedrin is one thing, and pushkin is another," nikitin answered sulkily. "i know you don't think much of shtchedrin at the high school, but that's not the point. tell me, in what sense is pushkin a psychologist?" "why, do you mean to say he was not a psychologist? if you like, i'll give you examples." and nikitin recited several passages from "onyegin" and then from "boris godunov." "i see no psychology in that." varya sighed. "the psychologist is the man who describes the recesses of the human soul, and that's fine poetry and nothing more." "i know the sort of psychology you want," said nikitin, offended. "you want some one to saw my finger with a blunt saw while i howl at the top of my voice--that's what you mean by psychology." "that's poor! but still you haven't shown me in what sense pushkin is a psychologist?" when nikitin had to argue against anything that seemed to him narrow, conventional, or something of that kind, he usually leaped up from his seat, clutched at his head with both hands, and began with a moan, running from one end of the room to another. and it was the same now: he jumped up, clutched his head in his hands, and with a moan walked round the table, then he sat down a little way off. the officers took his part. captain polyansky began assuring varya that pushkin really was a psychologist, and to prove it quoted two lines from lermontov; lieutenant gernet said that if pushkin had not been a psychologist they would not have erected a monument to him in moscow. "that's loutishness!" was heard from the other end of the table. "i said as much to the governor: 'it's loutishness, your excellency,' i said." "i won't argue any more," cried nikitin. "it's unending. . . . enough! ach, get away, you nasty dog!" he cried to som, who laid his head and paw on his knee. "rrr . . . nga-nga-nga!" came from under the table. "admit that you are wrong!" cried varya. "own up!" but some young ladies came in, and the argument dropped of itself. they all went into the drawing-room. varya sat down at the piano and began playing dances. they danced first a waltz, then a polka, then a quadrille with a grand chain which captain polyansky led through all the rooms, then a waltz again. during the dancing the old men sat in the drawing-room, smoking and looking at the young people. among them was shebaldin, the director of the municipal bank, who was famed for his love of literature and dramatic art. he had founded the local musical and dramatic society, and took part in the performances himself, confining himself, for some reason, to playing comic footmen or to reading in a sing-song voice "the woman who was a sinner." his nickname in the town was "the mummy," as he was tall, very lean and scraggy, and always had a solemn air and a fixed, lustreless eye. he was so devoted to the dramatic art that he even shaved his moustache and beard, and this made him still more like a mummy. after the grand chain, he shuffled up to nikitin sideways, coughed, and said: "i had the pleasure of being present during the argument at tea. i fully share your opinion. we are of one mind, and it would be a great pleasure to me to talk to you. have you read lessing on the dramatic art of hamburg?" "no, i haven't." shebaldin was horrified, and waved his hands as though he had burnt his fingers, and saying nothing more, staggered back from nikitin. shebaldin's appearance, his question, and his surprise, struck nikitin as funny, but he thought none the less: "it really is awkward. i am a teacher of literature, and to this day i've not read lessing. i must read him." before supper the whole company, old and young, sat down to play "fate." they took two packs of cards: one pack was dealt round to the company, the other was laid on the table face downwards. "the one who has this card in his hand," old shelestov began solemnly, lifting the top card of the second pack, "is fated to go into the nursery and kiss nurse." the pleasure of kissing the nurse fell to the lot of shebaldin. they all crowded round him, took him to the nursery, and laughing and clapping their hands, made him kiss the nurse. there was a great uproar and shouting. "not so ardently!" cried shelestov with tears of laughter. "not so ardently!" it was nikitin's "fate" to hear the confessions of all. he sat on a chair in the middle of the drawing-room. a shawl was brought and put over his head. the first who came to confess to him was varya. "i know your sins," nikitin began, looking in the darkness at her stern profile. "tell me, madam, how do you explain your walking with polyansky every day? oh, it's not for nothing she walks with an hussar!" "that's poor," said varya, and walked away. then under the shawl he saw the shine of big motionless eyes, caught the lines of a dear profile in the dark, together with a familiar, precious fragrance which reminded nikitin of masha's room. "marie godefroi," he said, and did not know his own voice, it was so soft and tender, "what are your sins?" masha screwed up her eyes and put out the tip of her tongue at him, then she laughed and went away. and a minute later she was standing in the middle of the room, clapping her hands and crying: "supper, supper, supper!" and they all streamed into the dining-room. at supper varya had another argument, and this time with her father. polyansky ate stolidly, drank red wine, and described to nikitin how once in a winter campaign he had stood all night up to his knees in a bog; the enemy was so near that they were not allowed to speak or smoke, the night was cold and dark, a piercing wind was blowing. nikitin listened and stole side-glances at masha. she was gazing at him immovably, without blinking, as though she was pondering something or was lost in a reverie. . . . it was pleasure and agony to him both at once. "why does she look at me like that?" was the question that fretted him. "it's awkward. people may notice it. oh, how young, how naïve she is!" the party broke up at midnight. when nikitin went out at the gate, a window opened on the first-floor, and masha showed herself at it. "sergey vassilitch!" she called. "what is it?" "i tell you what . . ." said masha, evidently thinking of something to say. "i tell you what. . . polyansky said he would come in a day or two with his camera and take us all. we must meet here." "very well." masha vanished, the window was slammed, and some one immediately began playing the piano in the house. "well, it is a house!" thought nikitin while he crossed the street. "a house in which there is no moaning except from egyptian pigeons, and they only do it because they have no other means of expressing their joy!" but the shelestovs were not the only festive household. nikitin had not gone two hundred paces before he heard the strains of a piano from another house. a little further he met a peasant playing the balalaika at the gate. in the gardens the band struck up a potpourri of russian songs. nikitin lived nearly half a mile from the shelestoys' in a flat of eight rooms at the rent of three hundred roubles a year, which he shared with his colleague ippolit ippolititch, a teacher of geography and history. when nikitin went in this ippolit ippolititch, a snub-nosed, middle-aged man with a reddish beard, with a coarse, good-natured, unintellectual face like a workman's, was sitting at the table correcting his pupils' maps. he considered that the most important and necessary part of the study of geography was the drawing of maps, and of the study of history the learning of dates: he would sit for nights together correcting in blue pencil the maps drawn by the boys and girls he taught, or making chronological tables. "what a lovely day it has been!" said nikitin, going in to him. "i wonder at you--how can you sit indoors?" ippolit ippolititch was not a talkative person; he either remained silent or talked of things which everybody knew already. now what he answered was: "yes, very fine weather. it's may now; we soon shall have real summer. and summer's a very different thing from winter. in the winter you have to heat the stoves, but in summer you can keep warm without. in summer you have your window open at night and still are warm, and in winter you are cold even with the double frames in." nikitin had not sat at the table for more than one minute before he was bored. "good-night!" he said, getting up and yawning. "i wanted to tell you something romantic concerning myself, but you are--geography! if one talks to you of love, you will ask one at once, 'what was the date of the battle of kalka?' confound you, with your battles and your capes in siberia!" "what are you cross about?" "why, it is vexatious!" and vexed that he had not spoken to masha, and that he had no one to talk to of his love, he went to his study and lay down upon the sofa. it was dark and still in the study. lying gazing into the darkness, nikitin for some reason began thinking how in two or three years he would go to petersburg, how masha would see him off at the station and would cry; in petersburg he would get a long letter from her in which she would entreat him to come home as quickly as possible. and he would write to her. . . . he would begin his letter like that: "my dear little rat!" "yes, my dear little rat!" he said, and he laughed. he was lying in an uncomfortable position. he put his arms under his head and put his left leg over the back of the sofa. he felt more comfortable. meanwhile a pale light was more and more perceptible at the windows, sleepy cocks crowed in the yard. nikitin went on thinking how he would come back from petersburg, how masha would meet him at the station, and with a shriek of delight would fling herself on his neck; or, better still, he would cheat her and come home by stealth late at night: the cook would open the door, then he would go on tiptoe to the bedroom, undress noiselessly, and jump into bed! and she would wake up and be overjoyed. it was beginning to get quite light. by now there were no windows, no study. on the steps of the brewery by which they had ridden that day masha was sitting, saying something. then she took nikitin by the arm and went with him to the suburban garden. there he saw the oaks and, the crows' nests like hats. one of the nests rocked; out of it peeped shebaldin, shouting loudly: "you have not read lessing!" nikitin shuddered all over and opened his eyes. ippolit ippolititch was standing before the sofa, and throwing back his head, was putting on his cravat. "get up; it's time for school," he said. "you shouldn't sleep in your clothes; it spoils your clothes. you should sleep in your bed, undressed." and as usual he began slowly and emphatically saying what everybody knew. nikitin's first lesson was on russian language in the second class. when at nine o'clock punctually he went into the classroom, he saw written on the blackboard two large letters--_m. s._ that, no doubt, meant masha shelestov. "they've scented it out already, the rascals . . ." thought nikitin. "how is it they know everything?" the second lesson was in the fifth class. and there two letters, _m. s._, were written on the blackboard; and when he went out of the classroom at the end of the lesson, he heard the shout behind him as though from a theatre gallery: "hurrah for masha shelestov!" his head was heavy from sleeping in his clothes, his limbs were weighted down with inertia. the boys, who were expecting every day to break up before the examinations, did nothing, were restless, and so bored that they got into mischief. nikitin, too, was restless, did not notice their pranks, and was continually going to the window. he could see the street brilliantly lighted up with the sun; above the houses the blue limpid sky, the birds, and far, far away, beyond the gardens and the houses, vast indefinite distance, the forests in the blue haze, the smoke from a passing train. . . . here two officers in white tunics, playing with their whips, passed in the street in the shade of the acacias. here a lot of jews, with grey beards, and caps on, drove past in a waggonette. . . . the governess walked by with the director's granddaughter. som ran by in the company of two other dogs. . . . and then varya, wearing a simple grey dress and red stockings, carrying the "vyestnik evropi" in her hand, passed by. she must have been to the town library. . . . and it would be a long time before lessons were over at three o'clock! and after school he could not go home nor to the shelestovs', but must go to give a lesson at wolf's. this wolf, a wealthy jew who had turned lutheran, did not send his children to the high school, but had them taught at home by the high-school masters, and paid five roubles a lesson. he was bored, bored, bored. at three o'clock he went to wolf's and spent there, as it seemed to him, an eternity. he left there at five o'clock, and before seven he had to be at the high school again to a meeting of the masters --to draw up the plan for the _viva voce_ examination of the fourth and sixth classes. when late in the evening he left the high school and went to the shelestovs', his heart was beating and his face was flushed. a month before, even a week before, he had, every time that he made up his mind to speak to her, prepared a whole speech, with an introduction and a conclusion. now he had not one word ready; everything was in a muddle in his head, and all he knew was that today he would _certainly_ declare himself, and that it was utterly impossible to wait any longer. "i will ask her to come to the garden," he thought; "we'll walk about a little and i'll speak." there was not a soul in the hall; he went into the dining-room and then into the drawing-room. . . . there was no one there either. he could hear varya arguing with some one upstairs and the clink of the dressmaker's scissors in the nursery. there was a little room in the house which had three names: the little room, the passage room, and the dark room. there was a big cupboard in it where they kept medicines, gunpowder, and their hunting gear. leading from this room to the first floor was a narrow wooden staircase where cats were always asleep. there were two doors in it--one leading to the nursery, one to the drawing-room. when nikitin went into this room to go upstairs, the door from the nursery opened and shut with such a bang that it made the stairs and the cupboard tremble; masha, in a dark dress, ran in with a piece of blue material in her hand, and, not noticing nikitin, darted towards the stairs. "stay . . ." said nikitin, stopping her. "good-evening, godefroi . . . . allow me. . . ." he gasped, he did not know what to say; with one hand he held her hand and with the other the blue material. and she was half frightened, half surprised, and looked at him with big eyes. "allow me . . ." nikitin went on, afraid she would go away. "there's something i must say to you. . . . only . . . it's inconvenient here. i cannot, i am incapable. . . . understand, godefroi, i can't --that's all . . . ." the blue material slipped on to the floor, and nikitin took masha by the other hand. she turned pale, moved her lips, then stepped back from nikitin and found herself in the corner between the wall and the cupboard. "on my honour, i assure you . . ." he said softly. "masha, on my honour. . . ." she threw back her head and he kissed her lips, and that the kiss might last longer he put his fingers to her cheeks; and it somehow happened that he found himself in the corner between the cupboard and the wall, and she put her arms round his neck and pressed her head against his chin. then they both ran into the garden. the shelestoys had a garden of nine acres. there were about twenty old maples and lime-trees in it; there was one fir-tree, and all the rest were fruit-trees: cherries, apples, pears, horse-chestnuts, silvery olive-trees. . . . there were heaps of flowers, too. nikitin and masha ran along the avenues in silence, laughed, asked each other from time to time disconnected questions which they did not answer. a crescent moon was shining over the garden, and drowsy tulips and irises were stretching up from the dark grass in its faint light, as though entreating for words of love for them, too. when nikitin and masha went back to the house, the officers and the young ladies were already assembled and dancing the mazurka. again polyansky led the grand chain through all the rooms, again after dancing they played "fate." before supper, when the visitors had gone into the dining-room, masha, left alone with nikitin, pressed close to him and said: "you must speak to papa and varya yourself; i am ashamed." after supper he talked to the old father. after listening to him, shelestov thought a little and said: "i am very grateful for the honour you do me and my daughter, but let me speak to you as a friend. i will speak to you, not as a father, but as one gentleman to another. tell me, why do you want to be married so young? only peasants are married so young, and that, of course, is loutishness. but why should you? where's the satisfaction of putting on the fetters at your age?" "i am not young!" said nikitin, offended. "i am in my twenty-seventh year." "papa, the farrier has come!" cried varya from the other room. and the conversation broke off. varya, masha, and polyansky saw nikitin home. when they reached his gate, varya said: "why is it your mysterious metropolit metropolititch never shows himself anywhere? he might come and see us." the mysterious ippolit ippolititch was sitting on his bed, taking off his trousers, when nikitin went in to him. "don't go to bed, my dear fellow," said nikitin breathlessly. "stop a minute; don't go to bed!" ippolit ippolititch put on his trousers hurriedly and asked in a flutter: "what is it?" "i am going to be married." nikitin sat down beside his companion, and looking at him wonderingly, as though surprised at himself, said: "only fancy, i am going to be married! to masha shelestov! i made an offer today." "well? she seems a good sort of girl. only she is very young." "yes, she is young," sighed nikitin, and shrugged his shoulders with a careworn air. "very, very young!" "she was my pupil at the high school. i know her. she wasn't bad at geography, but she was no good at history. and she was inattentive in class, too." nikitin for some reason felt suddenly sorry for his companion, and longed to say something kind and comforting to him. "my dear fellow, why don't you get married?" he asked. "why don't you marry varya, for instance? she is a splendid, first-rate girl! it's true she is very fond of arguing, but a heart . . . what a heart! she was just asking about you. marry her, my dear boy! eh?" he knew perfectly well that varya would not marry this dull, snub-nosed man, but still persuaded him to marry her--why? "marriage is a serious step," said ippolit ippolititch after a moment's thought. "one has to look at it all round and weigh things thoroughly; it's not to be done rashly. prudence is always a good thing, and especially in marriage, when a man, ceasing to be a bachelor, begins a new life." and he talked of what every one has known for ages. nikitin did not stay to listen, said goodnight, and went to his own room. he undressed quickly and quickly got into bed, in order to be able to think the sooner of his happiness, of masha, of the future; he smiled, then suddenly recalled that he had not read lessing. "i must read him," he thought. "though, after all, why should i? bother him!" and exhausted by his happiness, he fell asleep at once and went on smiling till the morning. he dreamed of the thud of horses' hoofs on a wooden floor; he dreamed of the black horse count nulin, then of the white giant and its sister maika, being led out of the stable. ii "it was very crowded and noisy in the church, and once some one cried out, and the head priest, who was marrying masha and me, looked through his spectacles at the crowd, and said severely: 'don't move about the church, and don't make a noise, but stand quietly and pray. you should have the fear of god in your hearts.' "my best men were two of my colleagues, and masha's best men were captain polyansky and lieutenant gernet. the bishop's choir sang superbly. the sputtering of the candles, the brilliant light, the gorgeous dresses, the officers, the numbers of gay, happy faces, and a special ethereal look in masha, everything together--the surroundings and the words of the wedding prayers--moved me to tears and filled me with triumph. i thought how my life had blossomed, how poetically it was shaping itself! two years ago i was still a student, i was living in cheap furnished rooms, without money, without relations, and, as i fancied then, with nothing to look forward to. now i am a teacher in the high school in one of the best provincial towns, with a secure income, loved, spoiled. it is for my sake, i thought, this crowd is collected, for my sake three candelabra have been lighted, the deacon is booming, the choir is doing its best; and it's for my sake that this young creature, whom i soon shall call my wife, is so young, so elegant, and so joyful. i recalled our first meetings, our rides into the country, my declaration of love and the weather, which, as though expressly, was so exquisitely fine all the summer; and the happiness which at one time in my old rooms seemed to me possible only in novels and stories, i was now experiencing in reality--i was now, as it were, holding it in my hands. "after the ceremony they all crowded in disorder round masha and me, expressed their genuine pleasure, congratulated us and wished us joy. the brigadier-general, an old man of seventy, confined himself to congratulating masha, and said to her in a squeaky, aged voice, so loud that it could be heard all over the church: "'i hope that even after you are married you may remain the rose you are now, my dear.' "the officers, the director, and all the teachers smiled from politeness, and i was conscious of an agreeable artificial smile on my face, too. dear ippolit ippolititch, the teacher of history and geography, who always says what every one has heard before, pressed my hand warmly and said with feeling: "'hitherto you have been unmarried and have lived alone, and now you are married and no longer single.' "from the church we went to a two-storied house which i am receiving as part of the dowry. besides that house masha is bringing me twenty thousand roubles, as well as a piece of waste land with a shanty on it, where i am told there are numbers of hens and ducks which are not looked after and are turning wild. when i got home from the church, i stretched myself at full length on the low sofa in my new study and began to smoke; i felt snug, cosy, and comfortable, as i never had in my life before. and meanwhile the wedding party were shouting 'hurrah!' while a wretched band in the hall played flourishes and all sorts of trash. varya, masha's sister, ran into the study with a wineglass in her hand, and with a queer, strained expression, as though her mouth were full of water; apparently she had meant to go on further, but she suddenly burst out laughing and sobbing, and the wineglass crashed on the floor. we took her by the arms and led her away. "'nobody can understand!' she muttered afterwards, lying on the old nurse's bed in a back room. 'nobody, nobody! my god, nobody can understand!' "but every one understood very well that she was four years older than her sister masha, and still unmarried, and that she was crying, not from envy, but from the melancholy consciousness that her time was passing, and perhaps had passed. when they danced the quadrille, she was back in the drawing-room with a tear-stained and heavily powdered face, and i saw captain polyansky holding a plate of ice before her while she ate it with a spoon. "it is past five o'clock in the morning. i took up my diary to describe my complete and perfect happiness, and thought i would write a good six pages, and read it tomorrow to masha; but, strange to say, everything is muddled in my head and as misty as a dream, and i can remember vividly nothing but that episode with varya, and i want to write, 'poor varya!' i could go on sitting here and writing 'poor varya!' by the way, the trees have begun rustling; it will rain. the crows are cawing, and my masha, who has just gone to sleep, has for some reason a sorrowful face." for a long while afterwards nikitin did not write his diary. at the beginning of august he had the school examinations, and after the fifteenth the classes began. as a rule he set off for school before nine in the morning, and before ten o'clock he was looking at his watch and pining for his masha and his new house. in the lower forms he would set some boy to dictate, and while the boys were writing, would sit in the window with his eyes shut, dreaming; whether he dreamed of the future or recalled the past, everything seemed to him equally delightful, like a fairy tale. in the senior classes they were reading aloud gogol or pushkin's prose works, and that made him sleepy; people, trees, fields, horses, rose before his imagination, and he would say with a sigh, as though fascinated by the author: "how lovely!" at the midday recess masha used to send him lunch in a snow-white napkin, and he would eat it slowly, with pauses, to prolong the enjoyment of it; and ippolit ippolititch, whose lunch as a rule consisted of nothing but bread, looked at him with respect and envy, and gave expression to some familiar fact, such as: "men cannot live without food." after school nikitin went straight to give his private lessons, and when at last by six o'clock he got home, he felt excited and anxious, as though he had been away for a year. he would run upstairs breathless, find masha, throw his arms round her, and kiss her and swear that he loved her, that he could not live without her, declare that he had missed her fearfully, and ask her in trepidation how she was and why she looked so depressed. then they would dine together. after dinner he would lie on the sofa in his study and smoke, while she sat beside him and talked in a low voice. his happiest days now were sundays and holidays, when he was at home from morning till evening. on those days he took part in the naïve but extraordinarily pleasant life which reminded him of a pastoral idyl. he was never weary of watching how his sensible and practical masha was arranging her nest, and anxious to show that he was of some use in the house, he would do something useless-- for instance, bring the chaise out of the stable and look at it from every side. masha had installed a regular dairy with three cows, and in her cellar she had many jugs of milk and pots of sour cream, and she kept it all for butter. sometimes, by way of a joke, nikitin would ask her for a glass of milk, and she would be quite upset because it was against her rules; but he would laugh and throw his arms round her, saying: "there, there; i was joking, my darling! i was joking!" or he would laugh at her strictness when, finding in the cupboard some stale bit of cheese or sausage as hard as a stone, she would say seriously: "they will eat that in the kitchen." he would observe that such a scrap was only fit for a mousetrap, and she would reply warmly that men knew nothing about housekeeping, and that it was just the same to the servants if you were to send down a hundredweight of savouries to the kitchen. he would agree, and embrace her enthusiastically. everything that was just in what she said seemed to him extraordinary and amazing; and what did not fit in with his convictions seemed to him naïve and touching. sometimes he was in a philosophical mood, and he would begin to discuss some abstract subject while she listened and looked at his face with curiosity. "i am immensely happy with you, my joy," he used to say, playing with her fingers or plaiting and unplaiting her hair. "but i don't look upon this happiness of mine as something that has come to me by chance, as though it had dropped from heaven. this happiness is a perfectly natural, consistent, logical consequence. i believe that man is the creator of his own happiness, and now i am enjoying just what i have myself created. yes, i speak without false modesty: i have created this happiness myself and i have a right to it. you know my past. my unhappy childhood, without father or mother; my depressing youth, poverty--all this was a struggle, all this was the path by which i made my way to happiness. . . ." in october the school sustained a heavy loss: ippolit ippolititch was taken ill with erysipelas on the head and died. for two days before his death he was unconscious and delirious, but even in his delirium he said nothing that was not perfectly well known to every one. "the volga flows into the caspian sea. . . . horses eat oats and hay. . . ." there were no lessons at the high school on the day of his funeral. his colleagues and pupils were the coffin-bearers, and the school choir sang all the way to the grave the anthem "holy god." three priests, two deacons, all his pupils and the staff of the boys' high school, and the bishop's choir in their best kaftans, took part in the procession. and passers-by who met the solemn procession, crossed themselves and said: "god grant us all such a death." returning home from the cemetery much moved, nikitin got out his diary from the table and wrote: "we have just consigned to the tomb ippolit ippolititch ryzhitsky. peace to your ashes, modest worker! masha, varya, and all the women at the funeral, wept from genuine feeling, perhaps because they knew this uninteresting, humble man had never been loved by a woman. i wanted to say a warm word at my colleague's grave, but i was warned that this might displease the director, as he did not like our poor friend. i believe that this is the first day since my marriage that my heart has been heavy." there was no other event of note in the scholastic year. the winter was mild, with wet snow and no frost; on epiphany eve, for instance, the wind howled all night as though it were autumn, and water trickled off the roofs; and in the morning, at the ceremony of the blessing of the water, the police allowed no one to go on the river, because they said the ice was swelling up and looked dark. but in spite of bad weather nikitin's life was as happy as in summer. and, indeed, he acquired another source of pleasure; he learned to play _vint_. only one thing troubled him, moved him to anger, and seemed to prevent him from being perfectly happy: the cats and dogs which formed part of his wife's dowry. the rooms, especially in the morning, always smelt like a menagerie, and nothing could destroy the odour; the cats frequently fought with the dogs. the spiteful beast mushka was fed a dozen times a day; she still refused to recognize nikitin and growled at him: "rrr . . . nga-nga-nga!" one night in lent he was returning home from the club where he had been playing cards. it was dark, raining, and muddy. nikitin had an unpleasant feeling at the bottom of his heart and could not account for it. he did not know whether it was because he had lost twelve roubles at cards, or whether because one of the players, when they were settling up, had said that of course nikitin had pots of money, with obvious reference to his wife's portion. he did not regret the twelve roubles, and there was nothing offensive in what had been said; but, still, there was the unpleasant feeling. he did not even feel a desire to go home. "foo, how horrid!" he said, standing still at a lamp-post. it occurred to him that he did not regret the twelve roubles because he got them for nothing. if he had been a working man he would have known the value of every farthing, and would not have been so careless whether he lost or won. and his good-fortune had all, he reflected, come to him by chance, for nothing, and really was as superfluous for him as medicine for the healthy. if, like the vast majority of people, he had been harassed by anxiety for his daily bread, had been struggling for existence, if his back and chest had ached from work, then supper, a warm snug home, and domestic happiness, would have been the necessity, the compensation, the crown of his life; as it was, all this had a strange, indefinite significance for him. "foo, how horrid!" he repeated, knowing perfectly well that these reflections were in themselves a bad sign. when he got home masha was in bed: she was breathing evenly and smiling, and was evidently sleeping with great enjoyment. near her the white cat lay curled up, purring. while nikitin lit the candle and lighted his cigarette, masha woke up and greedily drank a glass of water. "i ate too many sweets," she said, and laughed. "have you been home?" she asked after a pause. "no." nikitin knew already that captain polyansky, on whom varya had been building great hopes of late, was being transferred to one of the western provinces, and was already making his farewell visits in the town, and so it was depressing at his father-in-law's. "varya looked in this evening," said masha, sitting up. "she did not say anything, but one could see from her face how wretched she is, poor darling! i can't bear polyansky. he is fat and bloated, and when he walks or dances his cheeks shake. . . . he is not a man i would choose. but, still, i did think he was a decent person." "i think he is a decent person now," said nikitin. "then why has he treated varya so badly?" "why badly?" asked nikitin, beginning to feel irritation against the white cat, who was stretching and arching its back. "as far as i know, he has made no proposal and has given her no promises." "then why was he so often at the house? if he didn't mean to marry her, he oughtn't to have come." nikitin put out the candle and got into bed. but he felt disinclined to lie down and to sleep. he felt as though his head were immense and empty as a barn, and that new, peculiar thoughts were wandering about in it like tall shadows. he thought that, apart from the soft light of the ikon lamp, that beamed upon their quiet domestic happiness, that apart from this little world in which he and this cat lived so peacefully and happily, there was another world. . . . and he had a passionate, poignant longing to be in that other world, to work himself at some factory or big workshop, to address big audiences, to write, to publish, to raise a stir, to exhaust himself, to suffer. . . . he wanted something that would engross him till he forgot himself, ceased to care for the personal happiness which yielded him only sensations so monotonous. and suddenly there rose vividly before his imagination the figure of shebaldin with his clean-shaven face, saying to him with horror: "you haven't even read lessing! you are quite behind the times! how you have gone to seed!" masha woke up and again drank some water. he glanced at her neck, at her plump shoulders and throat, and remembered the word the brigadier-general had used in church--"rose." "rose," he muttered, and laughed. his laugh was answered by a sleepy growl from mushka under the bed: "rrr . . . nga-nga-nga . . . !" a heavy anger sank like a cold weight on his heart, and he felt tempted to say something rude to masha, and even to jump up and hit her; his heart began throbbing. "so then," he asked, restraining himself, "since i went to your house, i was bound in duty to marry you?" "of course. you know that very well." "that's nice." and a minute later he repeated: "that's nice." to relieve the throbbing of his heart, and to avoid saying too much, nikitin went to his study and lay down on the sofa, without a pillow; then he lay on the floor on the carpet. "what nonsense it is!" he said to reassure himself. "you are a teacher, you are working in the noblest of callings. . . . what need have you of any other world? what rubbish!" but almost immediately he told himself with conviction that he was not a real teacher, but simply a government employé, as commonplace and mediocre as the czech who taught greek. he had never had a vocation for teaching, he knew nothing of the theory of teaching, and never had been interested in the subject; he did not know how to treat children; he did not understand the significance of what he taught, and perhaps did not teach the right things. poor ippolit ippolititch had been frankly stupid, and all the boys, as well as his colleagues, knew what he was and what to expect from him; but he, nikitin, like the czech, knew how to conceal his stupidity and cleverly deceived every one by pretending that, thank god, his teaching was a success. these new ideas frightened nikitin; he rejected them, called them stupid, and believed that all this was due to his nerves, that he would laugh at himself. and he did, in fact, by the morning laugh at himself and call himself an old woman; but it was clear to him that his peace of mind was lost, perhaps, for ever, and that in that little two-story house happiness was henceforth impossible for him. he realized that the illusion had evaporated, and that a new life of unrest and clear sight was beginning which was incompatible with peace and personal happiness. next day, which was sunday, he was at the school chapel, and there met his colleagues and the director. it seemed to him that they were entirely preoccupied with concealing their ignorance and discontent with life, and he, too, to conceal his uneasiness, smiled affably and talked of trivialities. then he went to the station and saw the mail train come in and go out, and it was agreeable to him to be alone and not to have to talk to any one. at home he found varya and his father-in-law, who had come to dinner. varya's eyes were red with crying, and she complained of a headache, while shelestov ate a great deal, saying that young men nowadays were unreliable, and that there was very little gentlemanly feeling among them. "it's loutishness!" he said. "i shall tell him so to his face: 'it's loutishness, sir,' i shall say." nikitin smiled affably and helped masha to look after their guests, but after dinner he went to his study and shut the door. the march sun was shining brightly in at the windows and shedding its warm rays on the table. it was only the twentieth of the month, but already the cabmen were driving with wheels, and the starlings were noisy in the garden. it was just the weather in which masha would come in, put one arm round his neck, tell him the horses were saddled or the chaise was at the door, and ask him what she should put on to keep warm. spring was beginning as exquisitely as last spring, and it promised the same joys. . . . but nikitin was thinking that it would be nice to take a holiday and go to moscow, and stay at his old lodgings there. in the next room they were drinking coffee and talking of captain polyansky, while he tried not to listen and wrote in his diary: "where am i, my god? i am surrounded by vulgarity and vulgarity. wearisome, insignificant people, pots of sour cream, jugs of milk, cockroaches, stupid women. . . . there is nothing more terrible, mortifying, and distressing than vulgarity. i must escape from here, i must escape today, or i shall go out of my mind!" not wanted between six and seven o'clock on a july evening, a crowd of summer visitors--mostly fathers of families--burdened with parcels, portfolios, and ladies' hat-boxes, was trailing along from the little station of helkovo, in the direction of the summer villas. they all looked exhausted, hungry, and ill-humoured, as though the sun were not shining and the grass were not green for them. trudging along among the others was pavel matveyitch zaikin, a member of the circuit court, a tall, stooping man, in a cheap cotton dust-coat and with a cockade on his faded cap. he was perspiring, red in the face, and gloomy. . . . "do you come out to your holiday home every day?" said a summer visitor, in ginger-coloured trousers, addressing him. "no, not every day," zaikin answered sullenly. "my wife and son are staying here all the while, and i come down two or three times a week. i haven't time to come every day; besides, it is expensive." "you're right there; it is expensive," sighed he of the ginger trousers. "in town you can't walk to the station, you have to take a cab; and then, the ticket costs forty-two kopecks; you buy a paper for the journey; one is tempted to drink a glass of vodka. it's all petty expenditure not worth considering, but, mind you, in the course of the summer it will run up to some two hundred roubles. of course, to be in the lap of nature is worth any money--i don't dispute it . . . idyllic and all the rest of it; but of course, with the salary an official gets, as you know yourself, every farthing has to be considered. if you waste a halfpenny you lie awake all night. . . . yes. . . i receive, my dear sir--i haven't the honour of knowing your name--i receive a salary of very nearly two thousand roubles a year. i am a civil councillor, i smoke second-rate tobacco, and i haven't a rouble to spare to buy vichy water, prescribed me by the doctor for gall-stones." "it's altogether abominable," said zaikin after a brief silence. "i maintain, sir, that summer holidays are the invention of the devil and of woman. the devil was actuated in the present instance by malice, woman by excessive frivolity. mercy on us, it is not life at all; it is hard labour, it is hell! it's hot and stifling, you can hardly breathe, and you wander about like a lost soul and can find no refuge. in town there is no furniture, no servants. . . everything has been carried off to the villa: you eat what you can get; you go without your tea because there is no one to heat the samovar; you can't wash yourself; and when you come down here into this 'lap of nature' you have to walk, if you please, through the dust and heat. . . . phew! are you married?" "yes. . . three children," sighs ginger trousers. "it's abominable altogether. . . . it's a wonder we are still alive." at last the summer visitors reached their destination. zaikin said good-bye to ginger trousers and went into his villa. he found a death-like silence in the house. he could hear nothing but the buzzing of the gnats, and the prayer for help of a fly destined for the dinner of a spider. the windows were hung with muslin curtains, through which the faded flowers of the geraniums showed red. on the unpainted wooden walls near the oleographs flies were slumbering. there was not a soul in the passage, the kitchen, or the dining-room. in the room which was called indifferently the parlour or the drawing-room, zaikin found his son petya, a little boy of six. petya was sitting at the table, and breathing loudly with his lower lip stuck out, was engaged in cutting out the figure of a knave of diamonds from a card. "oh, that's you, father!" he said, without turning round. "good-evening." "good-evening. . . . and where is mother?" "mother? she is gone with olga kirillovna to a rehearsal of the play. the day after tomorrow they will have a performance. and they will take me, too. . . . and will you go?" "h'm! . . . when is she coming back?" "she said she would be back in the evening." "and where is natalya?" "mamma took natalya with her to help her dress for the performance, and akulina has gone to the wood to get mushrooms. father, why is it that when gnats bite you their stomachs get red?" "i don't know. . . . because they suck blood. so there is no one in the house, then?" "no one; i am all alone in the house." zaikin sat down in an easy-chair, and for a moment gazed blankly at the window. "who is going to get our dinner?" he asked. "they haven't cooked any dinner today, father. mamma thought you were not coming today, and did not order any dinner. she is going to have dinner with olga kirillovna at the rehearsal." "oh, thank you very much; and you, what have you to eat?" "i've had some milk. they bought me six kopecks' worth of milk. and, father, why do gnats suck blood?" zaikin suddenly felt as though something heavy were rolling down on his liver and beginning to gnaw it. he felt so vexed, so aggrieved, and so bitter, that he was choking and tremulous; he wanted to jump up, to bang something on the floor, and to burst into loud abuse; but then he remembered that his doctor had absolutely forbidden him all excitement, so he got up, and making an effort to control himself, began whistling a tune from "les huguenots." "father, can you act in plays?" he heard petya's voice. "oh, don't worry me with stupid questions!" said zaikin, getting angry. "he sticks to one like a leaf in the bath! here you are, six years old, and just as silly as you were three years ago. . . . stupid, neglected child! why are you spoiling those cards, for instance? how dare you spoil them?" "these cards aren't yours," said petya, turning round. "natalya gave them me." "you are telling fibs, you are telling fibs, you horrid boy!" said zaikin, growing more and more irritated. "you are always telling fibs! you want a whipping, you horrid little pig! i will pull your ears!" petya leapt up, and craning his neck, stared fixedly at his father's red and wrathful face. his big eyes first began blinking, then were dimmed with moisture, and the boy's face began working. "but why are you scolding?" squealed petya. "why do you attack me, you stupid? i am not interfering with anybody; i am not naughty; i do what i am told, and yet . . . you are cross! why are you scolding me?" the boy spoke with conviction, and wept so bitterly that zaikin felt conscience-stricken. "yes, really, why am i falling foul of him?" he thought. "come, come," he said, touching the boy on the shoulder. "i am sorry, petya . . . forgive me. you are my good boy, my nice boy, i love you." petya wiped his eyes with his sleeve, sat down, with a sigh, in the same place and began cutting out the queen. zaikin went off to his own room. he stretched himself on the sofa, and putting his hands behind his head, sank into thought. the boy's tears had softened his anger, and by degrees the oppression on his liver grew less. he felt nothing but exhaustion and hunger. "father," he heard on the other side of the door, "shall i show you my collection of insects?" "yes, show me." petya came into the study and handed his father a long green box. before raising it to his ear zaikin could hear a despairing buzz and the scratching of claws on the sides of the box. opening the lid, he saw a number of butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, and flies fastened to the bottom of the box with pins. all except two or three butterflies were still alive and moving. "why, the grasshopper is still alive!" said petya in surprise. "i caught him yesterday morning, and he is still alive!" "who taught you to pin them in this way?" "olga kirillovna." "olga kirillovna ought to be pinned down like that herself!" said zaikin with repulsion. "take them away! it's shameful to torture animals." "my god! how horribly he is being brought up!" he thought, as petya went out. pavel matveyitch forgot his exhaustion and hunger, and thought of nothing but his boy's future. meanwhile, outside the light was gradually fading. . . . he could hear the summer visitors trooping back from the evening bathe. some one was stopping near the open dining-room window and shouting: "do you want any mushrooms?" and getting no answer, shuffled on with bare feet. . . . but at last, when the dusk was so thick that the outlines of the geraniums behind the muslin curtain were lost, and whiffs of the freshness of evening were coming in at the window, the door of the passage was thrown open noisily, and there came a sound of rapid footsteps, talk, and laughter. . . . "mamma!" shrieked petya. zaikin peeped out of his study and saw his wife, nadyezhda stepanovna, healthy and rosy as ever; with her he saw olga kirillovna, a spare woman with fair hair and heavy freckles, and two unknown men: one a lanky young man with curly red hair and a big adam's apple; the other, a short stubby man with a shaven face like an actor's and a bluish crooked chin. "natalya, set the samovar," cried nadyezhda stepanovna, with a loud rustle of her skirts. "i hear pavel matveyitch is come. pavel, where are you? good-evening, pavel!" she said, running into the study breathlessly. "so you've come. i am so glad. . . . two of our amateurs have come with me. . . . come, i'll introduce you. . . . here, the taller one is koromyslov . . . he sings splendidly; and the other, the little one . . . is called smerkalov: he is a real actor . . . he recites magnificently. oh, how tired i am! we have just had a rehearsal. . . . it goes splendidly. we are acting 'the lodger with the trombone' and 'waiting for him.' . . . the performance is the day after tomorrow. . . ." "why did you bring them?" asked zaikin. "i couldn't help it, poppet; after tea we must rehearse our parts and sing something. . . . i am to sing a duet with koromyslov. . . . oh, yes, i was almost forgetting! darling, send natalya to get some sardines, vodka, cheese, and something else. they will most likely stay to supper. . . . oh, how tired i am!" "h'm! i've no money." "you must, poppet! it would be awkward! don't make me blush." half an hour later natalya was sent for vodka and savouries; zaikin, after drinking tea and eating a whole french loaf, went to his bedroom and lay down on the bed, while nadyezhda stepanovna and her visitors, with much noise and laughter, set to work to rehearse their parts. for a long time pavel matveyitch heard koromyslov's nasal reciting and smerkalov's theatrical exclamations. . . . the rehearsal was followed by a long conversation, interrupted by the shrill laughter of olga kirillovna. smerkalov, as a real actor, explained the parts with aplomb and heat. . . . then followed the duet, and after the duet there was the clatter of crockery. . . . through his drowsiness zaikin heard them persuading smerkalov to read "the woman who was a sinner," and heard him, after affecting to refuse, begin to recite. he hissed, beat himself on the breast, wept, laughed in a husky bass. . . . zaikin scowled and hid his head under the quilt. "it's a long way for you to go, and it's dark," he heard nadyezhda stepanovna's voice an hour later. "why shouldn't you stay the night here? koromyslov can sleep here in the drawing-room on the sofa, and you, smerkalov, in petya's bed. . . . i can put petya in my husband's study. . . . do stay, really!" at last when the clock was striking two, all was hushed, the bedroom door opened, and nadyezhda stepanovna appeared. "pavel, are you asleep?" she whispered. "no; why?" "go into your study, darling, and lie on the sofa. i am going to put olga kirillovna here, in your bed. do go, dear! i would put her to sleep in the study, but she is afraid to sleep alone. . . . do get up!" zaikin got up, threw on his dressing-gown, and taking his pillow, crept wearily to the study. . . . feeling his way to his sofa, he lighted a match, and saw petya lying on the sofa. the boy was not asleep, and, looking at the match with wide-open eyes: "father, why is it gnats don't go to sleep at night?" he asked. "because . . . because . . . you and i are not wanted. . . . we have nowhere to sleep even." "father, and why is it olga kirillovna has freckles on her face?" "oh, shut up! i am tired of you." after a moment's thought, zaikin dressed and went out into the street for a breath of air. . . . he looked at the grey morning sky, at the motionless clouds, heard the lazy call of the drowsy corncrake, and began dreaming of the next day, when he would go to town, and coming back from the court would tumble into bed. . . . suddenly the figure of a man appeared round the corner. "a watchman, no doubt," thought zaikin. but going nearer and looking more closely he recognized in the figure the summer visitor in the ginger trousers. "you're not asleep?" he asked. "no, i can't sleep," sighed ginger trousers. "i am enjoying nature . . . . a welcome visitor, my wife's mother, arrived by the night train, you know. she brought with her our nieces . . . splendid girls! i was delighted to see them, although . . . it's very damp! and you, too, are enjoying nature?" "yes," grunted zaikin, "i am enjoying it, too. . . . do you know whether there is any sort of tavern or restaurant in the neighbourhood?" ginger trousers raised his eyes to heaven and meditated profoundly. typhus a young lieutenant called klimov was travelling from petersburg to moscow in a smoking carriage of the mail train. opposite him was sitting an elderly man with a shaven face like a sea captain's, by all appearances a well-to-do finn or swede. he pulled at his pipe the whole journey and kept talking about the same subject: "ha, you are an officer! i have a brother an officer too, only he is a naval officer. . . . he is a naval officer, and he is stationed at kronstadt. why are you going to moscow?" "i am serving there." "ha! and are you a family man?" "no, i live with my sister and aunt." "my brother's an officer, only he is a naval officer; he has a wife and three children. ha!" the finn seemed continually surprised at something, and gave a broad idiotic grin when he exclaimed "ha!" and continually puffed at his stinking pipe. klimov, who for some reason did not feel well, and found it burdensome to answer questions, hated him with all his heart. he dreamed of how nice it would be to snatch the wheezing pipe out of his hand and fling it under the seat, and drive the finn himself into another compartment. "detestable people these finns and . . . greeks," he thought. "absolutely superfluous, useless, detestable people. they simply fill up space on the earthly globe. what are they for?" and the thought of finns and greeks produced a feeling akin to sickness all over his body. for the sake of comparison he tried to think of the french, of the italians, but his efforts to think of these people evoked in his mind, for some reason, nothing but images of organ-grinders, naked women, and the foreign oleographs which hung over the chest of drawers at home, at his aunt's. altogether the officer felt in an abnormal state. he could not arrange his arms and legs comfortably on the seat, though he had the whole seat to himself. his mouth felt dry and sticky; there was a heavy fog in his brain; his thoughts seemed to be straying, not only within his head, but outside his skull, among the seats and the people that were shrouded in the darkness of night. through the mist in his brain, as through a dream, he heard the murmur of voices, the rumble of wheels, the slamming of doors. the sounds of the bells, the whistles, the guards, the running to and fro of passengers on the platforms, seemed more frequent than usual. the time flew by rapidly, imperceptibly, and so it seemed as though the train were stopping at stations every minute, and metallic voices crying continually: "is the mail ready?" "yes!" was repeatedly coming from outside. it seemed as though the man in charge of the heating came in too often to look at the thermometer, that the noise of trains going in the opposite direction and the rumble of the wheels over the bridges was incessant. the noise, the whistles, the finn, the tobacco smoke--all this mingling with the menace and flickering of the misty images in his brain, the shape and character of which a man in health can never recall, weighed upon klimov like an unbearable nightmare. in horrible misery he lifted his heavy head, looked at the lamp in the rays of which shadows and misty blurs seemed to be dancing. he wanted to ask for water, but his parched tongue would hardly move, and he scarcely had strength to answer the finn's questions. he tried to lie down more comfortably and go to sleep, but he could not succeed. the finn several times fell asleep, woke up again, lighted his pipe, addressed him with his "ha!" and went to sleep again; and still the lieutenant's legs could not get into a comfortable position, and still the menacing images stood facing him. at spirovo he went out into the station for a drink of water. he saw people sitting at the table and hurriedly eating. "and how can they eat!" he thought, trying not to sniff the air, that smelt of roast meat, and not to look at the munching mouths --they both seemed to him sickeningly disgusting. a good-looking lady was conversing loudly with a military man in a red cap, and showing magnificent white teeth as she smiled; and the smile, and the teeth, and the lady herself made on klimov the same revolting impression as the ham and the rissoles. he could not understand how it was the military man in the red cap was not ill at ease, sitting beside her and looking at her healthy, smiling face. when after drinking some water he went back to his carriage, the finn was sitting smoking; his pipe was wheezing and squelching like a golosh with holes in it in wet weather. "ha!" he said, surprised; "what station is this?" "i don't know," answered klimov, lying down and shutting his mouth that he might not breathe the acrid tobacco smoke. "and when shall we reach tver?" "i don't know. excuse me, i . . . i can't answer. i am ill. i caught cold today." the finn knocked his pipe against the window-frame and began talking of his brother, the naval officer. klimov no longer heard him; he was thinking miserably of his soft, comfortable bed, of a bottle of cold water, of his sister katya, who was so good at making one comfortable, soothing, giving one water. he even smiled when the vision of his orderly pavel, taking off his heavy stifling boots and putting water on the little table, flitted through his imagination. he fancied that if he could only get into his bed, have a drink of water, his nightmare would give place to sound healthy sleep. "is the mail ready?" a hollow voice reached him from the distance. "yes," answered a bass voice almost at the window. it was already the second or third station from spirovo. the time was flying rapidly in leaps and bounds, and it seemed as though the bells, whistles, and stoppings would never end. in despair klimov buried his face in the corner of the seat, clutched his head in his hands, and began again thinking of his sister katya and his orderly pavel, but his sister and his orderly were mixed up with the misty images in his brain, whirled round, and disappeared. his burning breath, reflected from the back of the seat, seemed to scald his face; his legs were uncomfortable; there was a draught from the window on his back; but, however wretched he was, he did not want to change his position. . . . a heavy nightmarish lethargy gradually gained possession of him and fettered his limbs. when he brought himself to raise his head, it was already light in the carriage. the passengers were putting on their fur coats and moving about. the train was stopping. porters in white aprons and with discs on their breasts were bustling among the passengers and snatching up their boxes. klimov put on his great-coat, mechanically followed the other passengers out of the carriage, and it seemed to him that not he, but some one else was moving, and he felt that his fever, his thirst, and the menacing images which had not let him sleep all night, came out of the carriage with him. mechanically he took his luggage and engaged a sledge-driver. the man asked him for a rouble and a quarter to drive to povarsky street, but he did not haggle, and without protest got submissively into the sledge. he still understood the difference of numbers, but money had ceased to have any value to him. at home klimov was met by his aunt and his sister katya, a girl of eighteen. when katya greeted him she had a pencil and exercise book in her hand, and he remembered that she was preparing for an examination as a teacher. gasping with fever, he walked aimlessly through all the rooms without answering their questions or greetings, and when he reached his bed he sank down on the pillow. the finn, the red cap, the lady with the white teeth, the smell of roast meat, the flickering blurs, filled his consciousness, and by now he did not know where he was and did not hear the agitated voices. when he recovered consciousness he found himself in bed, undressed, saw a bottle of water and pavel, but it was no cooler, nor softer, nor more comfortable for that. his arms and legs, as before, refused to lie comfortably; his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he heard the wheezing of the finn's pipe. . . . a stalwart, black-bearded doctor was busy doing something beside the bed, brushing against pavel with his broad back. "it's all right, it's all right, young man," he muttered. "excellent, excellent . . . goo-od, goo-od . . . !" the doctor called klimov "young man," said "goo-od" instead of "good" and "so-o" instead of "so." "so-o . . . so-o . . . so-o," he murmured. "goo-od, goo-od . . . ! excellent, young man. you mustn't lose heart!" the doctor's rapid, careless talk, his well-fed countenance, and condescending "young man," irritated klimov. "why do you call me 'young man'?" he moaned. "what familiarity! damn it all!" and he was frightened by his own voice. the voice was so dried up, so weak and peevish, that he would not have known it. "excellent, excellent!" muttered the doctor, not in the least offended. . . . "you mustn't get angry, so-o, so-o, so-s. . . ." and the time flew by at home with the same startling swiftness as in the railway carriage. the daylight was continually being replaced by the dusk of evening. the doctor seemed never to leave his bedside, and he heard at every moment his "so-o, so-o, so-o." a continual succession of people was incessantly crossing the bedroom. among them were: pavel, the finn, captain yaroshevitch, lance-corporal maximenko, the red cap, the lady with the white teeth, the doctor. they were all talking and waving their arms, smoking and eating. once by daylight klimov saw the chaplain of the regiment, father alexandr, who was standing before the bed, wearing a stole and with a prayer-book in his hand. he was muttering something with a grave face such as klimov had never seen in him before. the lieutenant remembered that father alexandr used in a friendly way to call all the catholic officers "poles," and wanting to amuse him, he cried: "father, yaroshevitch the pole has climbed up a pole!" but father alexandr, a light-hearted man who loved a joke, did not smile, but became graver than ever, and made the sign of the cross over klimov. at night-time by turn two shadows came noiselessly in and out; they were his aunt and sister. his sister's shadow knelt down and prayed; she bowed down to the ikon, and her grey shadow on the wall bowed down too, so that two shadows were praying. the whole time there was a smell of roast meat and the finn's pipe, but once klimov smelt the strong smell of incense. he felt so sick he could not lie still, and began shouting: "the incense! take away the incense!" there was no answer. he could only hear the subdued singing of the priest somewhere and some one running upstairs. when klimov came to himself there was not a soul in his bedroom. the morning sun was streaming in at the window through the lower blind, and a quivering sunbeam, bright and keen as the sword's edge, was flashing on the glass bottle. he heard the rattle of wheels-- so there was no snow now in the street. the lieutenant looked at the ray, at the familiar furniture, at the door, and the first thing he did was to laugh. his chest and stomach heaved with delicious, happy, tickling laughter. his whole body from head to foot was overcome by a sensation of infinite happiness and joy in life, such as the first man must have felt when he was created and first saw the world. klimov felt a passionate desire for movement, people, talk. his body lay a motionless block; only his hands stirred, but that he hardly noticed, and his whole attention was concentrated on trifles. he rejoiced in his breathing, in his laughter, rejoiced in the existence of the water-bottle, the ceiling, the sunshine, the tape on the curtains. god's world, even in the narrow space of his bedroom, seemed beautiful, varied, grand. when the doctor made his appearance, the lieutenant was thinking what a delicious thing medicine was, how charming and pleasant the doctor was, and how nice and interesting people were in general. "so-o, so, so. . . excellent, excellent! . . . now we are well again. . . . goo-od, goo-od!" the doctor pattered. the lieutenant listened and laughed joyously; he remembered the finn, the lady with the white teeth, the train, and he longed to smoke, to eat. "doctor," he said, "tell them to give me a crust of rye bread and salt, and . . . and sardines." the doctor refused; pavel did not obey the order, and did not go for the bread. the lieutenant could not bear this and began crying like a naughty child. "baby!" laughed the doctor. "mammy, bye-bye!" klimov laughed, too, and when the doctor went away he fell into a sound sleep. he woke up with the same joyfulness and sensation of happiness. his aunt was sitting near the bed. "well, aunt," he said joyfully. "what has been the matter?" "spotted typhus." "really. but now i am well, quite well! where is katya?" "she is not at home. i suppose she has gone somewhere from her examination." the old lady said this and looked at her stocking; her lips began quivering, she turned away, and suddenly broke into sobs. forgetting the doctor's prohibition in her despair, she said: "ah, katya, katya! our angel is gone! is gone!" she dropped her stocking and bent down to it, and as she did so her cap fell off her head. looking at her grey head and understanding nothing, klimov was frightened for katya, and asked: "where is she, aunt?" the old woman, who had forgotten klimov and was thinking only of her sorrow, said: "she caught typhus from you, and is dead. she was buried the day before yesterday." this terrible, unexpected news was fully grasped by klimov's consciousness; but terrible and startling as it was, it could not overcome the animal joy that filled the convalescent. he cried and laughed, and soon began scolding because they would not let him eat. only a week later when, leaning on pavel, he went in his dressing-gown to the window, looked at the overcast spring sky and listened to the unpleasant clang of the old iron rails which were being carted by, his heart ached, he burst into tears, and leaned his forehead against the window-frame. "how miserable i am!" he muttered. "my god, how miserable!" and joy gave way to the boredom of everyday life and the feeling of his irrevocable loss. a misfortune sofya petrovna, the wife of lubyantsev the notary, a handsome young woman of five-and-twenty, was walking slowly along a track that had been cleared in the wood, with ilyin, a lawyer who was spending the summer in the neighbourhood. it was five o'clock in the evening. feathery-white masses of cloud stood overhead; patches of bright blue sky peeped out between them. the clouds stood motionless, as though they had caught in the tops of the tall old pine-trees. it was still and sultry. farther on, the track was crossed by a low railway embankment on which a sentinel with a gun was for some reason pacing up and down. just beyond the embankment there was a large white church with six domes and a rusty roof. "i did not expect to meet you here," said sofya petrovna, looking at the ground and prodding at the last year's leaves with the tip of her parasol, "and now i am glad we have met. i want to speak to you seriously and once for all. i beg you, ivan mihalovitch, if you really love and respect me, please make an end of this pursuit of me! you follow me about like a shadow, you are continually looking at me not in a nice way, making love to me, writing me strange letters, and . . . and i don't know where it's all going to end! why, what can come of it?" ilyin said nothing. sofya petrovna walked on a few steps and continued: "and this complete transformation in you all came about in the course of two or three weeks, after five years' friendship. i don't know you, ivan mihalovitch!" sofya petrovna stole a glance at her companion. screwing up his eyes, he was looking intently at the fluffy clouds. his face looked angry, ill-humoured, and preoccupied, like that of a man in pain forced to listen to nonsense. "i wonder you don't see it yourself," madame lubyantsev went on, shrugging her shoulders. "you ought to realize that it's not a very nice part you are playing. i am married; i love and respect my husband. . . . i have a daughter . . . . can you think all that means nothing? besides, as an old friend you know my attitude to family life and my views as to the sanctity of marriage." ilyin cleared his throat angrily and heaved a sigh. "sanctity of marriage . . ." he muttered. "oh, lord!" "yes, yes. . . . i love my husband, i respect him; and in any case i value the peace of my home. i would rather let myself be killed than be a cause of unhappiness to andrey and his daughter. . . . and i beg you, ivan mihalovitch, for god's sake, leave me in peace! let us be as good, true friends as we used to be, and give up these sighs and groans, which really don't suit you. it's settled and over! not a word more about it. let us talk of something else." sofya petrovna again stole a glance at ilyin's face. ilyin was looking up; he was pale, and was angrily biting his quivering lips. she could not understand why he was angry and why he was indignant, but his pallor touched her. "don't be angry; let us be friends," she said affectionately. "agreed? here's my hand." ilyin took her plump little hand in both of his, squeezed it, and slowly raised it to his lips. "i am not a schoolboy," he muttered. "i am not in the least tempted by friendship with the woman i love." "enough, enough! it's settled and done with. we have reached the seat; let us sit down." sofya petrovna's soul was filled with a sweet sense of relief: the most difficult and delicate thing had been said, the painful question was settled and done with. now she could breathe freely and look ilyin straight in the face. she looked at him, and the egoistic feeling of the superiority of the woman over the man who loves her, agreeably flattered her. it pleased her to see this huge, strong man, with his manly, angry face and his big black beard--clever, cultivated, and, people said, talented--sit down obediently beside her and bow his head dejectedly. for two or three minutes they sat without speaking. "nothing is settled or done with," began ilyin. "you repeat copy-book maxims to me. 'i love and respect my husband . . . the sanctity of marriage. . . .' i know all that without your help, and i could tell you more, too. i tell you truthfully and honestly that i consider the way i am behaving as criminal and immoral. what more can one say than that? but what's the good of saying what everybody knows? instead of feeding nightingales with paltry words, you had much better tell me what i am to do." "i've told you already--go away." "as you know perfectly well, i have gone away five times, and every time i turned back on the way. i can show you my through tickets --i've kept them all. i have not will enough to run away from you! i am struggling. i am struggling horribly; but what the devil am i good for if i have no backbone, if i am weak, cowardly! i can't struggle with nature! do you understand? i cannot! i run away from here, and she holds on to me and pulls me back. contemptible, loathsome weakness!" ilyin flushed crimson, got up, and walked up and down by the seat. "i feel as cross as a dog," he muttered, clenching his fists. "i hate and despise myself! my god! like some depraved schoolboy, i am making love to another man's wife, writing idiotic letters, degrading myself . . . ugh!" ilyin clutched at his head, grunted, and sat down. "and then your insincerity!" he went on bitterly. "if you do dislike my disgusting behaviour, why have you come here? what drew you here? in my letters i only ask you for a direct, definite answer--yes or no; but instead of a direct answer, you contrive every day these 'chance' meetings with me and regale me with copy-book maxims!" madame lubyantsev was frightened and flushed. she suddenly felt the awkwardness which a decent woman feels when she is accidentally discovered undressed. "you seem to suspect i am playing with you," she muttered. "i have always given you a direct answer, and . . . only today i've begged you . . ." "ough! as though one begged in such cases! if you were to say straight out 'get away,' i should have been gone long ago; but you've never said that. you've never once given me a direct answer. strange indecision! yes, indeed; either you are playing with me, or else . . ." ilyin leaned his head on his fists without finishing. sofya petrovna began going over in her own mind the way she had behaved from beginning to end. she remembered that not only in her actions, but even in her secret thoughts, she had always been opposed to ilyin's love-making; but yet she felt there was a grain of truth in the lawyer's words. but not knowing exactly what the truth was, she could not find answers to make to ilyin's complaint, however hard she thought. it was awkward to be silent, and, shrugging her shoulders, she said: so i am to blame, it appears." "i don't blame you for your insincerity," sighed ilyin. "i did not mean that when i spoke of it. . . . your insincerity is natural and in the order of things. if people agreed together and suddenly became sincere, everything would go to the devil." sofya petrovna was in no mood for philosophical reflections, but she was glad of a chance to change the conversation, and asked: "but why?" "because only savage women and animals are sincere. once civilization has introduced a demand for such comforts as, for instance, feminine virtue, sincerity is out of place. . . ." ilyin jabbed his stick angrily into the sand. madame lubyantsev listened to him and liked his conversation, though a great deal of it she did not understand. what gratified her most was that she, an ordinary woman, was talked to by a talented man on "intellectual" subjects; it afforded her great pleasure, too, to watch the working of his mobile, young face, which was still pale and angry. she failed to understand a great deal that he said, but what was clear to her in his words was the attractive boldness with which the modern man without hesitation or doubt decides great questions and draws conclusive deductions. she suddenly realized that she was admiring him, and was alarmed. "forgive me, but i don't understand," she said hurriedly. "what makes you talk of insincerity? i repeat my request again: be my good, true friend; let me alone! i beg you most earnestly!" "very good; i'll try again," sighed ilyin. "glad to do my best. . . . only i doubt whether anything will come of my efforts. either i shall put a bullet through my brains or take to drink in an idiotic way. i shall come to a bad end! there's a limit to everything-- to struggles with nature, too. tell me, how can one struggle against madness? if you drink wine, how are you to struggle against intoxication? what am i to do if your image has grown into my soul, and day and night stands persistently before my eyes, like that pine there at this moment? come, tell me, what hard and difficult thing can i do to get free from this abominable, miserable condition, in which all my thoughts, desires, and dreams are no longer my own, but belong to some demon who has taken possession of me? i love you, love you so much that i am completely thrown out of gear; i've given up my work and all who are dear to me; i've forgotten my god! i've never been in love like this in my life." sofya petrovna, who had not expected such a turn to their conversation, drew away from ilyin and looked into his face in dismay. tears came into his eyes, his lips were quivering, and there was an imploring, hungry expression in his face. "i love you!" he muttered, bringing his eyes near her big, frightened eyes. "you are so beautiful! i am in agony now, but i swear i would sit here all my life, suffering and looking in your eyes. but . . . be silent, i implore you!" sofya petrovna, feeling utterly disconcerted, tried to think as quickly as possible of something to say to stop him. "i'll go away," she decided, but before she had time to make a movement to get up, ilyin was on his knees before her. . . . he was clasping her knees, gazing into her face and speaking passionately, hotly, eloquently. in her terror and confusion she did not hear his words; for some reason now, at this dangerous moment, while her knees were being agreeably squeezed and felt as though they were in a warm bath, she was trying, with a sort of angry spite, to interpret her own sensations. she was angry that instead of brimming over with protesting virtue, she was entirely overwhelmed with weakness, apathy, and emptiness, like a drunken man utterly reckless; only at the bottom of her soul a remote bit of herself was malignantly taunting her: "why don't you go? is this as it should be? yes?" seeking for some explanation, she could not understand how it was she did not pull away the hand to which ilyin was clinging like a leech, and why, like ilyin, she hastily glanced to right and to left to see whether any one was looking. the clouds and the pines stood motionless, looking at them severely, like old ushers seeing mischief, but bribed not to tell the school authorities. the sentry stood like a post on the embankment and seemed to be looking at the seat. "let him look," thought sofya petrovna. "but . . . but listen," she said at last, with despair in her voice. "what can come of this? what will be the end of this?" "i don't know, i don't know," he whispered, waving off the disagreeable questions. they heard the hoarse, discordant whistle of the train. this cold, irrelevant sound from the everyday world of prose made sofya petrovna rouse herself. "i can't stay . . . it's time i was at home," she said, getting up quickly. "the train is coming in. . . andrey is coming by it! he will want his dinner." sofya petrovna turned towards the embankment with a burning face. the engine slowly crawled by, then came the carriages. it was not the local train, as she had supposed, but a goods train. the trucks filed by against the background of the white church in a long string like the days of a man's life, and it seemed as though it would never end. but at last the train passed, and the last carriage with the guard and a light in it had disappeared behind the trees. sofya petrovna turned round sharply, and without looking at ilyin, walked rapidly back along the track. she had regained her self-possession. crimson with shame, humiliated not by ilyin--no, but by her own cowardice, by the shamelessness with which she, a chaste and high-principled woman, had allowed a man, not her husband, to hug her knees--she had only one thought now: to get home as quickly as possible to her villa, to her family. the lawyer could hardly keep pace with her. turning from the clearing into a narrow path, she turned round and glanced at him so quickly that she saw nothing but the sand on his knees, and waved to him to drop behind. reaching home, sofya petrovna stood in the middle of her room for five minutes without moving, and looked first at the window and then at her writing-table. "you low creature!" she said, upbraiding herself. "you low creature!" to spite herself, she recalled in precise detail, keeping nothing back--she recalled that though all this time she had been opposed to ilyin's lovemaking, something had impelled her to seek an interview with him; and what was more, when he was at her feet she had enjoyed it enormously. she recalled it all without sparing herself, and now, breathless with shame, she would have liked to slap herself in the face. "poor andrey!" she said to herself, trying as she thought of her husband to put into her face as tender an expression as she could. "varya, my poor little girl, doesn't know what a mother she has! forgive me, my dear ones! i love you so much . . . so much!" and anxious to prove to herself that she was still a good wife and mother, and that corruption had not yet touched that "sanctity of marriage" of which she had spoken to ilyin, sofya petrovna ran to the kitchen and abused the cook for not having yet laid the table for andrey ilyitch. she tried to picture her husband's hungry and exhausted appearance, commiserated him aloud, and laid the table for him with her own hands, which she had never done before. then she found her daughter varya, picked her up in her arms and hugged her warmly; the child seemed to her cold and heavy, but she was unwilling to acknowledge this to herself, and she began explaining to the child how good, kind, and honourable her papa was. but when andrey ilyitch arrived soon afterwards she hardly greeted him. the rush of false feeling had already passed off without proving anything to her, only irritating and exasperating her by its falsity. she was sitting by the window, feeling miserable and cross. it is only by being in trouble that people can understand how far from easy it is to be the master of one's feelings and thoughts. sofya petrovna said afterwards that there was a tangle within her which it was as difficult to unravel as to count a flock of sparrows rapidly flying by. from the fact that she was not overjoyed to see her husband, that she did not like his manner at dinner, she concluded all of a sudden that she was beginning to hate her husband. andrey ilyitch, languid with hunger and exhaustion, fell upon the sausage while waiting for the soup to be brought in, and ate it greedily, munching noisily and moving his temples. "my goodness!" thought sofya petrovna. "i love and respect him, but . . . why does he munch so repulsively?" the disorder in her thoughts was no less than the disorder in her feelings. like all persons inexperienced in combating unpleasant ideas, madame lubyantsev did her utmost not to think of her trouble, and the harder she tried the more vividly ilyin, the sand on his knees, the fluffy clouds, the train, stood out in her imagination. "and why did i go there this afternoon like a fool?" she thought, tormenting herself. "and am i really so weak that i cannot depend upon myself?" fear magnifies danger. by the time andrey ilyitch was finishing the last course, she had firmly made up her mind to tell her husband everything and to flee from danger! "i've something serious to say to you, andrey," she began after dinner while her husband was taking off his coat and boots to lie down for a nap. "well?" "let us leave this place!" "h'm! . . . where shall we go? it's too soon to go back to town." "no; for a tour or something of that sort. "for a tour . . ." repeated the notary, stretching. "i dream of that myself, but where are we to get the money, and to whom am i to leave the office?" and thinking a little he added: "of course, you must be bored. go by yourself if you like." sofya petrovna agreed, but at once reflected that ilyin would be delighted with the opportunity, and would go with her in the same train, in the same compartment. . . . she thought and looked at her husband, now satisfied but still languid. for some reason her eyes rested on his feet--miniature, almost feminine feet, clad in striped socks; there was a thread standing out at the tip of each sock. behind the blind a bumble-bee was beating itself against the window-pane and buzzing. sofya petrovna looked at the threads on the socks, listened to the bee, and pictured how she would set off . . . . _vis-à-vis_ ilyin would sit, day and night, never taking his eyes off her, wrathful at his own weakness and pale with spiritual agony. he would call himself an immoral schoolboy, would abuse her, tear his hair, but when darkness came on and the passengers were asleep or got out at a station, he would seize the opportunity to kneel before her and embrace her knees as he had at the seat in the wood. . . . she caught herself indulging in this day-dream. "listen. i won't go alone," she said. "you must come with me." "nonsense, sofotchka!" sighed lubyantsev. "one must be sensible and not want the impossible." "you will come when you know all about it," thought sofya petrovna. making up her mind to go at all costs, she felt that she was out of danger. little by little her ideas grew clearer; her spirits rose and she allowed herself to think about it all, feeling that however much she thought, however much she dreamed, she would go away. while her husband was asleep, the evening gradually came on. she sat in the drawing-room and played the piano. the greater liveliness out of doors, the sound of music, but above all the thought that she was a sensible person, that she had surmounted her difficulties, completely restored her spirits. other women, her appeased conscience told her, would probably have been carried off their feet in her position, and would have lost their balance, while she had almost died of shame, had been miserable, and was now running out of the danger which perhaps did not exist! she was so touched by her own virtue and determination that she even looked at herself two or three times in the looking-glass. when it got dark, visitors arrived. the men sat down in the dining-room to play cards; the ladies remained in the drawing-room and the verandah. the last to arrive was ilyin. he was gloomy, morose, and looked ill. he sat down in the corner of the sofa and did not move the whole evening. usually good-humoured and talkative, this time he remained silent, frowned, and rubbed his eyebrows. when he had to answer some question, he gave a forced smile with his upper lip only, and answered jerkily and irritably. four or five times he made some jest, but his jests sounded harsh and cutting. it seemed to sofya petrovna that he was on the verge of hysterics. only now, sitting at the piano, she recognized fully for the first time that this unhappy man was in deadly earnest, that his soul was sick, and that he could find no rest. for her sake he was wasting the best days of his youth and his career, spending the last of his money on a summer villa, abandoning his mother and sisters, and, worst of all, wearing himself out in an agonizing struggle with himself. from mere common humanity he ought to be treated seriously. she recognized all this clearly till it made her heart ache, and if at that moment she had gone up to him and said to him, "no," there would have been a force in her voice hard to disobey. but she did not go up to him and did not speak--indeed, never thought of doing so. the pettiness and egoism of youth had never been more patent in her than that evening. she realized that ilyin was unhappy, and that he was sitting on the sofa as though he were on hot coals; she felt sorry for him, but at the same time the presence of a man who loved her to distraction, filled her soul with triumph and a sense of her own power. she felt her youth, her beauty, and her unassailable virtue, and, since she had decided to go away, gave herself full licence for that evening. she flirted, laughed incessantly, sang with peculiar feeling and gusto. everything delighted and amused her. she was amused at the memory of what had happened at the seat in the wood, of the sentinel who had looked on. she was amused by her guests, by ilyin's cutting jests, by the pin in his cravat, which she had never noticed before. there was a red snake with diamond eyes on the pin; this snake struck her as so amusing that she could have kissed it on the spot. sofya petrovna sang nervously, with defiant recklessness as though half intoxicated, and she chose sad, mournful songs which dealt with wasted hopes, the past, old age, as though in mockery of another's grief. "'and old age comes nearer and nearer' . . ." she sang. and what was old age to her? "it seems as though there is something going wrong with me," she thought from time to time through her laughter and singing. the party broke up at twelve o'clock. ilyin was the last to leave. sofya petrovna was still reckless enough to accompany him to the bottom step of the verandah. she wanted to tell him that she was going away with her husband, and to watch the effect this news would produce on him. the moon was hidden behind the clouds, but it was light enough for sofya petrovna to see how the wind played with the skirts of his overcoat and with the awning of the verandah. she could see, too, how white ilyin was, and how he twisted his upper lip in the effort to smile. "sonia, sonitchka . . . my darling woman!" he muttered, preventing her from speaking. "my dear! my sweet!" in a rush of tenderness, with tears in his voice, he showered caressing words upon her, that grew tenderer and tenderer, and even called her "thou," as though she were his wife or mistress. quite unexpectedly he put one arm round her waist and with the other hand took hold of her elbow. "my precious! my delight!" he whispered, kissing the nape of her neck; "be sincere; come to me at once!" she slipped out of his arms and raised her head to give vent to her indignation and anger, but the indignation did not come off, and all her vaunted virtue and chastity was only sufficient to enable her to utter the phrase used by all ordinary women on such occasions: "you must be mad." "come, let us go," ilyin continued. "i felt just now, as well as at the seat in the wood, that you are as helpless as i am, sonia . . . . you are in the same plight! you love me and are fruitlessly trying to appease your conscience. . . ." seeing that she was moving away, he caught her by her lace cuff and said rapidly: "if not today, then tomorrow you will have to give in! why, then, this waste of time? my precious, darling sonia, the sentence is passed; why put off the execution? why deceive yourself?" sofya petrovna tore herself from him and darted in at the door. returning to the drawing-room, she mechanically shut the piano, looked for a long time at the music-stand, and sat down. she could not stand up nor think. all that was left of her excitement and recklessness was a fearful weakness, apathy, and dreariness. her conscience whispered to her that she had behaved badly, foolishly, that evening, like some madcap girl--that she had just been embraced on the verandah, and still had an uneasy feeling in her waist and her elbow. there was not a soul in the drawing-room; there was only one candle burning. madame lubyantsev sat on the round stool before the piano, motionless, as though expecting something. and as though taking advantage of the darkness and her extreme lassitude, an oppressive, overpowering desire began to assail her. like a boa-constrictor it gripped her limbs and her soul, and grew stronger every second, and no longer menaced her as it had done, but stood clear before her in all its nakedness. she sat for half an hour without stirring, not restraining herself from thinking of ilyin, then she got up languidly and dragged herself to her bedroom. andrey ilyitch was already in bed. she sat down by the open window and gave herself up to desire. there was no "tangle" now in her head; all her thoughts and feelings were bent with one accord upon a single aim. she tried to struggle against it, but instantly gave it up. . . . she understood now how strong and relentless was the foe. strength and fortitude were needed to combat him, and her birth, her education, and her life had given her nothing to fall back upon. "immoral wretch! low creature!" she nagged at herself for her weakness. "so that's what you're like!" her outraged sense of propriety was moved to such indignation by this weakness that she lavished upon herself every term of abuse she knew, and told herself many offensive and humiliating truths. so, for instance, she told herself that she never had been moral, that she had not come to grief before simply because she had had no opportunity, that her inward conflict during that day had all been a farce. . . . "and even if i have struggled," she thought, "what sort of struggle was it? even the woman who sells herself struggles before she brings herself to it, and yet she sells herself. a fine struggle! like milk, i've turned in a day! in one day!" she convicted herself of being tempted, not by feeling, not by ilyin personally, but by sensations which awaited her . . . an idle lady, having her fling in the summer holidays, like so many! "'like an unfledged bird when the mother has been slain,'" sang a husky tenor outside the window. "if i am to go, it's time," thought sofya petrovna. her heart suddenly began beating violently. "andrey!" she almost shrieked. "listen! we . . . we are going? yes?" "yes, i've told you already: you go alone." "but listen," she began. "if you don't go with me, you are in danger of losing me. i believe i am . . . in love already." "with whom?" asked andrey ilyitch. "it can't make any difference to you who it is!" cried sofya petrovna. andrey ilyitch sat up with his feet out of bed and looked wonderingly at his wife's dark figure. "it's a fancy!" he yawned. he did not believe her, but yet he was frightened. after thinking a little and asking his wife several unimportant questions, he delivered himself of his opinions on the family, on infidelity . . . spoke listlessly for about ten minutes and got into bed again. his moralizing produced no effect. there are a great many opinions in the world, and a good half of them are held by people who have never been in trouble! in spite of the late hour, summer visitors were still walking outside. sofya petrovna put on a light cape, stood a little, thought a little. . . . she still had resolution enough to say to her sleeping husband: "are you asleep? i am going for a walk. . . . will you come with me?" that was her last hope. receiving no answer, she went out. . . . it was fresh and windy. she was conscious neither of the wind nor the darkness, but went on and on. . . . an overmastering force drove her on, and it seemed as though, if she had stopped, it would have pushed her in the back. "immoral creature!" she muttered mechanically. "low wretch!" she was breathless, hot with shame, did not feel her legs under her, but what drove her on was stronger than shame, reason, or fear. a trifle from life a well-fed, red-cheeked young man called nikolay ilyitch belyaev, of thirty-two, who was an owner of house property in petersburg, and a devotee of the race-course, went one evening to see olga ivanovna irnin, with whom he was living, or, to use his own expression, was dragging out a long, wearisome romance. and, indeed, the first interesting and enthusiastic pages of this romance had long been perused; now the pages dragged on, and still dragged on, without presenting anything new or of interest. not finding olga ivanovna at home, my hero lay down on the lounge chair and proceeded to wait for her in the drawing-room. "good-evening, nikolay ilyitch!" he heard a child's voice. "mother will be here directly. she has gone with sonia to the dressmaker's." olga ivanovna's son, alyosha--a boy of eight who looked graceful and very well cared for, who was dressed like a picture, in a black velvet jacket and long black stockings--was lying on the sofa in the same room. he was lying on a satin cushion and, evidently imitating an acrobat he had lately seen at the circus, stuck up in the air first one leg and then the other. when his elegant legs were exhausted, he brought his arms into play or jumped up impulsively and went on all fours, trying to stand with his legs in the air. all this he was doing with the utmost gravity, gasping and groaning painfully as though he regretted that god had given him such a restless body. "ah, good-evening, my boy," said belyaev. "it's you! i did not notice you. is your mother well?" alyosha, taking hold of the tip of his left toe with his right hand and falling into the most unnatural attitude, turned over, jumped up, and peeped at belyaev from behind the big fluffy lampshade. "what shall i say?" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "in reality mother's never well. you see, she is a woman, and women, nikolay ilyitch, have always something the matter with them." belyaev, having nothing better to do, began watching alyosha's face. he had never before during the whole of his intimacy with olga ivanovna paid any attention to the boy, and had completely ignored his existence; the boy had been before his eyes, but he had not cared to think why he was there and what part he was playing. in the twilight of the evening, alyosha's face, with his white forehead and black, unblinking eyes, unexpectedly reminded belyaev of olga ivanovna as she had been during the first pages of their romance. and he felt disposed to be friendly to the boy. "come here, insect," he said; "let me have a closer look at you." the boy jumped off the sofa and skipped up to belyaev. "well," began nikolay ilyitch, putting a hand on the boy's thin shoulder. "how are you getting on?" "how shall i say! we used to get on a great deal better." "why?" "it's very simple. sonia and i used only to learn music and reading, and now they give us french poetry to learn. have you been shaved lately?" "yes." "yes, i see you have. your beard is shorter. let me touch it. . . . does that hurt?" "no." "why is it that if you pull one hair it hurts, but if you pull a lot at once it doesn't hurt a bit? ha, ha! and, you know, it's a pity you don't have whiskers. here ought to be shaved . . . but here at the sides the hair ought to be left. . . ." the boy nestled up to belyaev and began playing with his watch-chain. "when i go to the high-school," he said, "mother is going to buy me a watch. i shall ask her to buy me a watch-chain like this. . . . wh-at a lo-ket! father's got a locket like that, only yours has little bars on it and his has letters. . . . there's mother's portrait in the middle of his. father has a different sort of chain now, not made with rings, but like ribbon. . . ." "how do you know? do you see your father?" "i? m'm . . . no . . . i . . ." alyosha blushed, and in great confusion, feeling caught in a lie, began zealously scratching the locket with his nail. . . . belyaev looked steadily into his face and asked: "do you see your father?" "n-no!" "come, speak frankly, on your honour. . . . i see from your face you are telling a fib. once you've let a thing slip out it's no good wriggling about it. tell me, do you see him? come, as a friend." alyosha hesitated. "you won't tell mother?" he said. "as though i should!" "on your honour?" "on my honour." "do you swear?" "ah, you provoking boy! what do you take me for?" alyosha looked round him, then with wide-open eyes, whispered to him: "only, for goodness' sake, don't tell mother. . . . don't tell any one at all, for it is a secret. i hope to goodness mother won't find out, or we should all catch it--sonia, and i, and pelagea . . . . well, listen. . . sonia and i see father every tuesday and friday. when pelagea takes us for a walk before dinner we go to the apfel restaurant, and there is father waiting for us. . . . he is always sitting in a room apart, where you know there's a marble table and an ash-tray in the shape of a goose without a back. . . ." "what do you do there?" "nothing! first we say how-do-you-do, then we all sit round the table, and father treats us with coffee and pies. you know sonia eats the meat-pies, but i can't endure meat-pies! i like the pies made of cabbage and eggs. we eat such a lot that we have to try hard to eat as much as we can at dinner, for fear mother should notice." "what do you talk about?" "with father? about anything. he kisses us, he hugs us, tells us all sorts of amusing jokes. do you know, he says when we are grown up he is going to take us to live with him. sonia does not want to go, but i agree. of course, i should miss mother; but, then, i should write her letters! it's a queer idea, but we could come and visit her on holidays--couldn't we? father says, too, that he will buy me a horse. he's an awfully kind man! i can't understand why mother does not ask him to come and live with us, and why she forbids us to see him. you know he loves mother very much. he is always asking us how she is and what she is doing. when she was ill he clutched his head like this, and . . . and kept running about. he always tells us to be obedient and respectful to her. listen. is it true that we are unfortunate?" "h'm! . . . why?" "that's what father says. 'you are unhappy children,' he says. it's strange to hear him, really. 'you are unhappy,' he says, 'i am unhappy, and mother's unhappy. you must pray to god,' he says; 'for yourselves and for her.'" alyosha let his eyes rest on a stuffed bird and sank into thought. "so . . ." growled belyaev. "so that's how you are going on. you arrange meetings at restaurants. and mother does not know?" "no-o. . . . how should she know? pelagea would not tell her for anything, you know. the day before yesterday he gave us some pears. as sweet as jam! i ate two." "h'm! . . . well, and i say . . listen. did father say anything about me?" "about you? what shall i say?" alyosha looked searchingly into belyaev's face and shrugged his shoulders. "he didn't say anything particular." "for instance, what did he say?" "you won't be offended?" "what next? why, does he abuse me?" "he doesn't abuse you, but you know he is angry with you. he says mother's unhappy owing to you . . . and that you have ruined mother. you know he is so queer! i explain to him that you are kind, that you never scold mother; but he only shakes his head." "so he says i have ruined her?" "yes; you mustn't be offended, nikolay ilyitch." belyaev got up, stood still a moment, and walked up and down the drawing-room. "that's strange and . . . ridiculous!" he muttered, shrugging his shoulders and smiling sarcastically. "he's entirely to blame, and i have ruined her, eh? an innocent lamb, i must say. so he told you i ruined your mother?" "yes, but . . . you said you would not be offended, you know." "i am not offended, and . . . and it's not your business. why, it's . . . why, it's positively ridiculous! i have been thrust into it like a chicken in the broth, and now it seems i'm to blame!" a ring was heard. the boy sprang up from his place and ran out. a minute later a lady came into the room with a little girl; this was olga ivanovna, alyosha's mother. alyosha followed them in, skipping and jumping, humming aloud and waving his hands. belyaev nodded, and went on walking up and down. "of course, whose fault is it if not mine?" he muttered with a snort. "he is right! he is an injured husband." "what are you talking about?" asked olga ivanovna. "what about? . . . why, just listen to the tales your lawful spouse is spreading now! it appears that i am a scoundrel and a villain, that i have ruined you and the children. all of you are unhappy, and i am the only happy one! wonderfully, wonderfully happy!" "i don't understand, nikolay. what's the matter?" "why, listen to this young gentleman!" said belyaev, pointing to alyosha. alyosha flushed crimson, then turned pale, and his whole face began working with terror. "nikolay ilyitch," he said in a loud whisper. "sh-sh!" olga ivanovna looked in surprise at alyosha, then at belyaev, then at alyosha again. "just ask him," belyaev went on. "your pelagea, like a regular fool, takes them about to restaurants and arranges meetings with their papa. but that's not the point: the point is that their dear papa is a victim, while i'm a wretch who has broken up both your lives. . ." "nikolay ilyitch," moaned alyosha. "why, you promised on your word of honour!" "oh, get away!" said belyaev, waving him off. "this is more important than any word of honour. it's the hypocrisy revolts me, the lying! . . ." "i don't understand it," said olga ivanovna, and tears glistened in her eyes. "tell me, alyosha," she turned to her son. "do you see your father?" alyosha did not hear her; he was looking with horror at belyaev. "it's impossible," said his mother; "i will go and question pelagea." olga ivanovna went out. "i say, you promised on your word of honour!" said alyosha, trembling all over. belyaev dismissed him with a wave of his hand, and went on walking up and down. he was absorbed in his grievance and was oblivious of the boy's presence, as he always had been. he, a grownup, serious person, had no thought to spare for boys. and alyosha sat down in the corner and told sonia with horror how he had been deceived. he was trembling, stammering, and crying. it was the first time in his life that he had been brought into such coarse contact with lying; till then he had not known that there are in the world, besides sweet pears, pies, and expensive watches, a great many things for which the language of children has no expression. the tales of chekhov volume the cook's wedding and other stories by anton tchekhov translated by constance garnett contents the cook's wedding sleepy children the runaway grisha oysters home a classical student vanka an incident a day in the country boys shrove tuesday the old house in passion week whitebrow kashtanka a chameleon the dependents who was to blame? the bird market an adventure the fish art the swedish match the cook's wedding grisha, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. in the kitchen something extraordinary, and in his opinion never seen before, was taking place. a big, thick-set, red-haired peasant, with a beard, and a drop of perspiration on his nose, wearing a cabman's full coat, was sitting at the kitchen table on which they chopped the meat and sliced the onions. he was balancing a saucer on the five fingers of his right hand and drinking tea out of it, and crunching sugar so loudly that it sent a shiver down grisha's back. aksinya stepanovna, the old nurse, was sitting on the dirty stool facing him, and she, too, was drinking tea. her face was grave, though at the same time it beamed with a kind of triumph. pelageya, the cook, was busy at the stove, and was apparently trying to hide her face. and on her face grisha saw a regular illumination: it was burning and shifting through every shade of colour, beginning with a crimson purple and ending with a deathly white. she was continually catching hold of knives, forks, bits of wood, and rags with trembling hands, moving, grumbling to herself, making a clatter, but in reality doing nothing. she did not once glance at the table at which they were drinking tea, and to the questions put to her by the nurse she gave jerky, sullen answers without turning her face. "help yourself, danilo semyonitch," the nurse urged him hospitably. "why do you keep on with tea and nothing but tea? you should have a drop of vodka!" and nurse put before the visitor a bottle of vodka and a wine-glass, while her face wore a very wily expression. "i never touch it. . . . no . . ." said the cabman, declining. "don't press me, aksinya stepanovna." "what a man! . . . a cabman and not drink! . . . a bachelor can't get on without drinking. help yourself!" the cabman looked askance at the bottle, then at nurse's wily face, and his own face assumed an expression no less cunning, as much as to say, "you won't catch me, you old witch!" "i don't drink; please excuse me. such a weakness does not do in our calling. a man who works at a trade may drink, for he sits at home, but we cabmen are always in view of the public. aren't we? if one goes into a pothouse one finds one's horse gone; if one takes a drop too much it is worse still; before you know where you are you will fall asleep or slip off the box. that's where it is." "and how much do you make a day, danilo semyonitch?" "that's according. one day you will have a fare for three roubles, and another day you will come back to the yard without a farthing. the days are very different. nowadays our business is no good. there are lots and lots of cabmen as you know, hay is dear, and folks are paltry nowadays and always contriving to go by tram. and yet, thank god, i have nothing to complain of. i have plenty to eat and good clothes to wear, and . . . we could even provide well for another. . ." (the cabman stole a glance at pelageya) "if it were to their liking. . . ." grisha did not hear what was said further. his mamma came to the door and sent him to the nursery to learn his lessons. "go and learn your lesson. it's not your business to listen here!" when grisha reached the nursery, he put "my own book" in front of him, but he did not get on with his reading. all that he had just seen and heard aroused a multitude of questions in his mind. "the cook's going to be married," he thought. "strange--i don't understand what people get married for. mamma was married to papa, cousin verotchka to pavel andreyitch. but one might be married to papa and pavel andreyitch after all: they have gold watch-chains and nice suits, their boots are always polished; but to marry that dreadful cabman with a red nose and felt boots. . . . fi! and why is it nurse wants poor pelageya to be married?" when the visitor had gone out of the kitchen, pelageya appeared and began clearing away. her agitation still persisted. her face was red and looked scared. she scarcely touched the floor with the broom, and swept every corner five times over. she lingered for a long time in the room where mamma was sitting. she was evidently oppressed by her isolation, and she was longing to express herself, to share her impressions with some one, to open her heart. "he's gone," she muttered, seeing that mamma would not begin the conversation. "one can see he is a good man," said mamma, not taking her eyes off her sewing. "sober and steady." "i declare i won't marry him, mistress!" pelageya cried suddenly, flushing crimson. "i declare i won't!" "don't be silly; you are not a child. it's a serious step; you must think it over thoroughly, it's no use talking nonsense. do you like him?" "what an idea, mistress!" cried pelageya, abashed. "they say such things that . . . my goodness. . . ." "she should say she doesn't like him!" thought grisha. "what an affected creature you are. . . . do you like him?" "but he is old, mistress!" "think of something else," nurse flew out at her from the next room. "he has not reached his fortieth year; and what do you want a young man for? handsome is as handsome does. . . . marry him and that's all about it!" "i swear i won't," squealed pelageya. "you are talking nonsense. what sort of rascal do you want? anyone else would have bowed down to his feet, and you declare you won't marry him. you want to be always winking at the postmen and tutors. that tutor that used to come to grishenka, mistress . . . she was never tired of making eyes at him. o-o, the shameless hussy!" "have you seen this danilo before?" mamma asked pelageya. "how could i have seen him? i set eyes on him to-day for the first time. aksinya picked him up and brought him along . . . the accursed devil. . . . and where has he come from for my undoing!" at dinner, when pelageya was handing the dishes, everyone looked into her face and teased her about the cabman. she turned fearfully red, and went off into a forced giggle. "it must be shameful to get married," thought grisha. "terribly shameful." all the dishes were too salt, and blood oozed from the half-raw chickens, and, to cap it all, plates and knives kept dropping out of pelageya's hands during dinner, as though from a shelf that had given way; but no one said a word of blame to her, as they all understood the state of her feelings. only once papa flicked his table-napkin angrily and said to mamma: "what do you want to be getting them all married for? what business is it of yours? let them get married of themselves if they want to." after dinner, neighbouring cooks and maidservants kept flitting into the kitchen, and there was the sound of whispering till late evening. how they had scented out the matchmaking, god knows. when grisha woke in the night he heard his nurse and the cook whispering together in the nursery. nurse was talking persuasively, while the cook alternately sobbed and giggled. when he fell asleep after this, grisha dreamed of pelageya being carried off by tchernomor and a witch. next day there was a calm. the life of the kitchen went on its accustomed way as though the cabman did not exist. only from time to time nurse put on her new shawl, assumed a solemn and austere air, and went off somewhere for an hour or two, obviously to conduct negotiations. . . . pelageya did not see the cabman, and when his name was mentioned she flushed up and cried: "may he be thrice damned! as though i should be thinking of him! tfoo!" in the evening mamma went into the kitchen, while nurse and pelageya were zealously mincing something, and said: "you can marry him, of course--that's your business--but i must tell you, pelageya, that he cannot live here. . . . you know i don't like to have anyone sitting in the kitchen. mind now, remember . . . . and i can't let you sleep out." "goodness knows! what an idea, mistress!" shrieked the cook. "why do you keep throwing him up at me? plague take him! he's a regular curse, confound him! . . ." glancing one sunday morning into the kitchen, grisha was struck dumb with amazement. the kitchen was crammed full of people. here were cooks from the whole courtyard, the porter, two policemen, a non-commissioned officer with good-conduct stripes, and the boy filka. . . . this filka was generally hanging about the laundry playing with the dogs; now he was combed and washed, and was holding an ikon in a tinfoil setting. pelageya was standing in the middle of the kitchen in a new cotton dress, with a flower on her head. beside her stood the cabman. the happy pair were red in the face and perspiring and blinking with embarrassment. "well . . . i fancy it is time," said the non-commissioned officer, after a prolonged silence. pelageya's face worked all over and she began blubbering. . . . the soldier took a big loaf from the table, stood beside nurse, and began blessing the couple. the cabman went up to the soldier, flopped down on his knees, and gave a smacking kiss on his hand. he did the same before nurse. pelageya followed him mechanically, and she too bowed down to the ground. at last the outer door was opened, there was a whiff of white mist, and the whole party flocked noisily out of the kitchen into the yard. "poor thing, poor thing," thought grisha, hearing the sobs of the cook. "where have they taken her? why don't papa and mamma protect her?" after the wedding there was singing and concertina-playing in the laundry till late evening. mamma was cross all the evening because nurse smelt of vodka, and owing to the wedding there was no one to heat the samovar. pelageya had not come back by the time grisha went to bed. "the poor thing is crying somewhere in the dark!" he thought. "while the cabman is saying to her 'shut up!'" next morning the cook was in the kitchen again. the cabman came in for a minute. he thanked mamma, and glancing sternly at pelageya, said: "will you look after her, madam? be a father and a mother to her. and you, too, aksinya stepanovna, do not forsake her, see that everything is as it should be . . . without any nonsense. . . . and also, madam, if you would kindly advance me five roubles of her wages. i have got to buy a new horse-collar." again a problem for grisha: pelageya was living in freedom, doing as she liked, and not having to account to anyone for her actions, and all at once, for no sort of reason, a stranger turns up, who has somehow acquired rights over her conduct and her property! grisha was distressed. he longed passionately, almost to tears, to comfort this victim, as he supposed, of man's injustice. picking out the very biggest apple in the store-room he stole into the kitchen, slipped it into pelageya's hand, and darted headlong away. sleepy night. varka, the little nurse, a girl of thirteen, is rocking the cradle in which the baby is lying, and humming hardly audibly: "hush-a-bye, my baby wee, while i sing a song for thee." a little green lamp is burning before the ikon; there is a string stretched from one end of the room to the other, on which baby-clothes and a pair of big black trousers are hanging. there is a big patch of green on the ceiling from the ikon lamp, and the baby-clothes and the trousers throw long shadows on the stove, on the cradle, and on varka. . . . when the lamp begins to flicker, the green patch and the shadows come to life, and are set in motion, as though by the wind. it is stuffy. there is a smell of cabbage soup, and of the inside of a boot-shop. the baby's crying. for a long while he has been hoarse and exhausted with crying; but he still goes on screaming, and there is no knowing when he will stop. and varka is sleepy. her eyes are glued together, her head droops, her neck aches. she cannot move her eyelids or her lips, and she feels as though her face is dried and wooden, as though her head has become as small as the head of a pin. "hush-a-bye, my baby wee," she hums, "while i cook the groats for thee. . . ." a cricket is churring in the stove. through the door in the next room the master and the apprentice afanasy are snoring. . . . the cradle creaks plaintively, varka murmurs--and it all blends into that soothing music of the night to which it is so sweet to listen, when one is lying in bed. now that music is merely irritating and oppressive, because it goads her to sleep, and she must not sleep; if varka--god forbid!--should fall asleep, her master and mistress would beat her. the lamp flickers. the patch of green and the shadows are set in motion, forcing themselves on varka's fixed, half-open eyes, and in her half slumbering brain are fashioned into misty visions. she sees dark clouds chasing one another over the sky, and screaming like the baby. but then the wind blows, the clouds are gone, and varka sees a broad high road covered with liquid mud; along the high road stretch files of wagons, while people with wallets on their backs are trudging along and shadows flit backwards and forwards; on both sides she can see forests through the cold harsh mist. all at once the people with their wallets and their shadows fall on the ground in the liquid mud. "what is that for?" varka asks. "to sleep, to sleep!" they answer her. and they fall sound asleep, and sleep sweetly, while crows and magpies sit on the telegraph wires, scream like the baby, and try to wake them. "hush-a-bye, my baby wee, and i will sing a song to thee," murmurs varka, and now she sees herself in a dark stuffy hut. her dead father, yefim stepanov, is tossing from side to side on the floor. she does not see him, but she hears him moaning and rolling on the floor from pain. "his guts have burst," as he says; the pain is so violent that he cannot utter a single word, and can only draw in his breath and clack his teeth like the rattling of a drum: "boo--boo--boo--boo. . . ." her mother, pelageya, has run to the master's house to say that yefim is dying. she has been gone a long time, and ought to be back. varka lies awake on the stove, and hears her father's "boo--boo--boo." and then she hears someone has driven up to the hut. it is a young doctor from the town, who has been sent from the big house where he is staying on a visit. the doctor comes into the hut; he cannot be seen in the darkness, but he can be heard coughing and rattling the door. "light a candle," he says. "boo--boo--boo," answers yefim. pelageya rushes to the stove and begins looking for the broken pot with the matches. a minute passes in silence. the doctor, feeling in his pocket, lights a match. "in a minute, sir, in a minute," says pelageya. she rushes out of the hut, and soon afterwards comes back with a bit of candle. yefim's cheeks are rosy and his eyes are shining, and there is a peculiar keenness in his glance, as though he were seeing right through the hut and the doctor. "come, what is it? what are you thinking about?" says the doctor, bending down to him. "aha! have you had this long?" "what? dying, your honour, my hour has come. . . . i am not to stay among the living." "don't talk nonsense! we will cure you!" "that's as you please, your honour, we humbly thank you, only we understand. . . . since death has come, there it is." the doctor spends a quarter of an hour over yefim, then he gets up and says: "i can do nothing. you must go into the hospital, there they will operate on you. go at once . . . you must go! it's rather late, they will all be asleep in the hospital, but that doesn't matter, i will give you a note. do you hear?" "kind sir, but what can he go in?" says pelageya. "we have no horse." "never mind. i'll ask your master, he'll let you have a horse." the doctor goes away, the candle goes out, and again there is the sound of "boo--boo--boo." half an hour later someone drives up to the hut. a cart has been sent to take yefim to the hospital. he gets ready and goes. . . . but now it is a clear bright morning. pelageya is not at home; she has gone to the hospital to find what is being done to yefim. somewhere there is a baby crying, and varka hears someone singing with her own voice: "hush-a-bye, my baby wee, i will sing a song to thee." pelageya comes back; she crosses herself and whispers: "they put him to rights in the night, but towards morning he gave up his soul to god. . . . the kingdom of heaven be his and peace everlasting. . . . they say he was taken too late. . . . he ought to have gone sooner. . . ." varka goes out into the road and cries there, but all at once someone hits her on the back of her head so hard that her forehead knocks against a birch tree. she raises her eyes, and sees facing her, her master, the shoemaker. "what are you about, you scabby slut?" he says. "the child is crying, and you are asleep!" he gives her a sharp slap behind the ear, and she shakes her head, rocks the cradle, and murmurs her song. the green patch and the shadows from the trousers and the baby-clothes move up and down, nod to her, and soon take possession of her brain again. again she sees the high road covered with liquid mud. the people with wallets on their backs and the shadows have lain down and are fast asleep. looking at them, varka has a passionate longing for sleep; she would lie down with enjoyment, but her mother pelageya is walking beside her, hurrying her on. they are hastening together to the town to find situations. "give alms, for christ's sake!" her mother begs of the people they meet. "show us the divine mercy, kind-hearted gentlefolk!" "give the baby here!" a familiar voice answers. "give the baby here!" the same voice repeats, this time harshly and angrily. "are you asleep, you wretched girl?" varka jumps up, and looking round grasps what is the matter: there is no high road, no pelageya, no people meeting them, there is only her mistress, who has come to feed the baby, and is standing in the middle of the room. while the stout, broad-shouldered woman nurses the child and soothes it, varka stands looking at her and waiting till she has done. and outside the windows the air is already turning blue, the shadows and the green patch on the ceiling are visibly growing pale, it will soon be morning. "take him," says her mistress, buttoning up her chemise over her bosom; "he is crying. he must be bewitched." varka takes the baby, puts him in the cradle and begins rocking it again. the green patch and the shadows gradually disappear, and now there is nothing to force itself on her eyes and cloud her brain. but she is as sleepy as before, fearfully sleepy! varka lays her head on the edge of the cradle, and rocks her whole body to overcome her sleepiness, but yet her eyes are glued together, and her head is heavy. "varka, heat the stove!" she hears the master's voice through the door. so it is time to get up and set to work. varka leaves the cradle, and runs to the shed for firewood. she is glad. when one moves and runs about, one is not so sleepy as when one is sitting down. she brings the wood, heats the stove, and feels that her wooden face is getting supple again, and that her thoughts are growing clearer. "varka, set the samovar!" shouts her mistress. varka splits a piece of wood, but has scarcely time to light the splinters and put them in the samovar, when she hears a fresh order: "varka, clean the master's goloshes!" she sits down on the floor, cleans the goloshes, and thinks how nice it would be to put her head into a big deep golosh, and have a little nap in it. . . . and all at once the golosh grows, swells, fills up the whole room. varka drops the brush, but at once shakes her head, opens her eyes wide, and tries to look at things so that they may not grow big and move before her eyes. "varka, wash the steps outside; i am ashamed for the customers to see them!" varka washes the steps, sweeps and dusts the rooms, then heats another stove and runs to the shop. there is a great deal of work: she hasn't one minute free. but nothing is so hard as standing in the same place at the kitchen table peeling potatoes. her head droops over the table, the potatoes dance before her eyes, the knife tumbles out of her hand while her fat, angry mistress is moving about near her with her sleeves tucked up, talking so loud that it makes a ringing in varka's ears. it is agonising, too, to wait at dinner, to wash, to sew, there are minutes when she longs to flop on to the floor regardless of everything, and to sleep. the day passes. seeing the windows getting dark, varka presses her temples that feel as though they were made of wood, and smiles, though she does not know why. the dusk of evening caresses her eyes that will hardly keep open, and promises her sound sleep soon. in the evening visitors come. "varka, set the samovar!" shouts her mistress. the samovar is a little one, and before the visitors have drunk all the tea they want, she has to heat it five times. after tea varka stands for a whole hour on the same spot, looking at the visitors, and waiting for orders. "varka, run and buy three bottles of beer!" she starts off, and tries to run as quickly as she can, to drive away sleep. "varka, fetch some vodka! varka, where's the corkscrew? varka, clean a herring!" but now, at last, the visitors have gone; the lights are put out, the master and mistress go to bed. "varka, rock the baby!" she hears the last order. the cricket churrs in the stove; the green patch on the ceiling and the shadows from the trousers and the baby-clothes force themselves on varka's half-opened eyes again, wink at her and cloud her mind. "hush-a-bye, my baby wee," she murmurs, "and i will sing a song to thee." and the baby screams, and is worn out with screaming. again varka sees the muddy high road, the people with wallets, her mother pelageya, her father yefim. she understands everything, she recognises everyone, but through her half sleep she cannot understand the force which binds her, hand and foot, weighs upon her, and prevents her from living. she looks round, searches for that force that she may escape from it, but she cannot find it. at last, tired to death, she does her very utmost, strains her eyes, looks up at the flickering green patch, and listening to the screaming, finds the foe who will not let her live. that foe is the baby. she laughs. it seems strange to her that she has failed to grasp such a simple thing before. the green patch, the shadows, and the cricket seem to laugh and wonder too. the hallucination takes possession of varka. she gets up from her stool, and with a broad smile on her face and wide unblinking eyes, she walks up and down the room. she feels pleased and tickled at the thought that she will be rid directly of the baby that binds her hand and foot. . . . kill the baby and then sleep, sleep, sleep. . . . laughing and winking and shaking her fingers at the green patch, varka steals up to the cradle and bends over the baby. when she has strangled him, she quickly lies down on the floor, laughs with delight that she can sleep, and in a minute is sleeping as sound as the dead. children papa and mamma and aunt nadya are not at home. they have gone to a christening party at the house of that old officer who rides on a little grey horse. while waiting for them to come home, grisha, anya, alyosha, sonya, and the cook's son, andrey, are sitting at the table in the dining-room, playing at loto. to tell the truth, it is bedtime, but how can one go to sleep without hearing from mamma what the baby was like at the christening, and what they had for supper? the table, lighted by a hanging lamp, is dotted with numbers, nutshells, scraps of paper, and little bits of glass. two cards lie in front of each player, and a heap of bits of glass for covering the numbers. in the middle of the table is a white saucer with five kopecks in it. beside the saucer, a half-eaten apple, a pair of scissors, and a plate on which they have been told to put their nutshells. the children are playing for money. the stake is a kopeck. the rule is: if anyone cheats, he is turned out at once. there is no one in the dining-room but the players, and nurse, agafya ivanovna, is in the kitchen, showing the cook how to cut a pattern, while their elder brother, vasya, a schoolboy in the fifth class, is lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, feeling bored. they are playing with zest. the greatest excitement is expressed on the face of grisha. he is a small boy of nine, with a head cropped so that the bare skin shows through, chubby cheeks, and thick lips like a negro's. he is already in the preparatory class, and so is regarded as grown up, and the cleverest. he is playing entirely for the sake of the money. if there had been no kopecks in the saucer, he would have been asleep long ago. his brown eyes stray uneasily and jealously over the other players' cards. the fear that he may not win, envy, and the financial combinations of which his cropped head is full, will not let him sit still and concentrate his mind. he fidgets as though he were sitting on thorns. when he wins, he snatches up the money greedily, and instantly puts it in his pocket. his sister, anya, a girl of eight, with a sharp chin and clever shining eyes, is also afraid that someone else may win. she flushes and turns pale, and watches the players keenly. the kopecks do not interest her. success in the game is for her a question of vanity. the other sister, sonya, a child of six with a curly head, and a complexion such as is seen only in very healthy children, expensive dolls, and the faces on bonbon boxes, is playing loto for the process of the game itself. there is bliss all over her face. whoever wins, she laughs and claps her hands. alyosha, a chubby, spherical little figure, gasps, breathes hard through his nose, and stares open-eyed at the cards. he is moved neither by covetousness nor vanity. so long as he is not driven out of the room, or sent to bed, he is thankful. he looks phlegmatic, but at heart he is rather a little beast. he is not there so much for the sake of the loto, as for the sake of the misunderstandings which are inevitable in the game. he is greatly delighted if one hits another, or calls him names. he ought to have run off somewhere long ago, but he won't leave the table for a minute, for fear they should steal his counters or his kopecks. as he can only count the units and numbers which end in nought, anya covers his numbers for him. the fifth player, the cook's son, andrey, a dark-skinned and sickly looking boy in a cotton shirt, with a copper cross on his breast, stands motionless, looking dreamily at the numbers. he takes no interest in winning, or in the success of the others, because he is entirely engrossed by the arithmetic of the game, and its far from complex theory; "how many numbers there are in the world," he is thinking, "and how is it they don't get mixed up?" they all shout out the numbers in turn, except sonya and alyosha. to vary the monotony, they have invented in the course of time a number of synonyms and comic nicknames. seven, for instance, is called the "ovenrake," eleven the "sticks," seventy-seven "semyon semyonitch," ninety "grandfather," and so on. the game is going merrily. "thirty-two," cries grisha, drawing the little yellow cylinders out of his father's cap. "seventeen! ovenrake! twenty-eight! lay them straight. . . ." anya sees that andrey has let twenty-eight slip. at any other time she would have pointed it out to him, but now when her vanity lies in the saucer with the kopecks, she is triumphant. "twenty-three!" grisha goes on, "semyon semyonitch! nine!" "a beetle, a beetle," cries sonya, pointing to a beetle running across the table. "aie!" "don't kill it," says alyosha, in his deep bass, "perhaps it's got children . . . ." sonya follows the black beetle with her eyes and wonders about its children: what tiny little beetles they must be! "forty-three! one!" grisha goes on, unhappy at the thought that anya has already made two fours. "six!" "game! i have got the game!" cries sonya, rolling her eyes coquettishly and giggling. the players' countenances lengthen. "must make sure!" says grisha, looking with hatred at sonya. exercising his rights as a big boy, and the cleverest, grisha takes upon himself to decide. what he wants, that they do. sonya's reckoning is slowly and carefully verified, and to the great regret of her fellow players, it appears that she has not cheated. another game is begun. "i did see something yesterday!" says anya, as though to herself. "filipp filippitch turned his eyelids inside out somehow and his eyes looked red and dreadful, like an evil spirit's." "i saw it too," says grisha. "eight! and a boy at our school can move his ears. twenty-seven!" andrey looks up at grisha, meditates, and says: "i can move my ears too. . . ." "well then, move them." andrey moves his eyes, his lips, and his fingers, and fancies that his ears are moving too. everyone laughs. "he is a horrid man, that filipp filippitch," sighs sonya. "he came into our nursery yesterday, and i had nothing on but my chemise . . . and i felt so improper!" "game!" grisha cries suddenly, snatching the money from the saucer. "i've got the game! you can look and see if you like." the cook's son looks up and turns pale. "then i can't go on playing any more," he whispers. "why not?" "because . . . because i have got no more money." "you can't play without money," says grisha. andrey ransacks his pockets once more to make sure. finding nothing in them but crumbs and a bitten pencil, he drops the corners of his mouth and begins blinking miserably. he is on the point of crying. . . . "i'll put it down for you!" says sonya, unable to endure his look of agony. "only mind you must pay me back afterwards." the money is brought and the game goes on. "i believe they are ringing somewhere," says anya, opening her eyes wide. they all leave off playing and gaze open-mouthed at the dark window. the reflection of the lamp glimmers in the darkness. "it was your fancy." "at night they only ring in the cemetery," says andrey. "and what do they ring there for?" "to prevent robbers from breaking into the church. they are afraid of the bells." "and what do robbers break into the church for?" asks sonya. "everyone knows what for: to kill the watchmen." a minute passes in silence. they all look at one another, shudder, and go on playing. this time andrey wins. "he has cheated," alyosha booms out, apropos of nothing. "what a lie, i haven't cheated." andrey turns pale, his mouth works, and he gives alyosha a slap on the head! alyosha glares angrily, jumps up, and with one knee on the table, slaps andrey on the cheek! each gives the other a second blow, and both howl. sonya, feeling such horrors too much for her, begins crying too, and the dining-room resounds with lamentations on various notes. but do not imagine that that is the end of the game. before five minutes are over, the children are laughing and talking peaceably again. their faces are tear-stained, but that does not prevent them from smiling; alyosha is positively blissful, there has been a squabble! vasya, the fifth form schoolboy, walks into the dining-room. he looks sleepy and disillusioned. "this is revolting!" he thinks, seeing grisha feel in his pockets in which the kopecks are jingling. "how can they give children money? and how can they let them play games of chance? a nice way to bring them up, i must say! it's revolting!" but the children's play is so tempting that he feels an inclination to join them and to try his luck. "wait a minute and i'll sit down to a game," he says. "put down a kopeck!" "in a minute," he says, fumbling in his pockets. "i haven't a kopeck, but here is a rouble. i'll stake a rouble." "no, no, no. . . . you must put down a kopeck." "you stupids. a rouble is worth more than a kopeck anyway," the schoolboy explains. "whoever wins can give me change." "no, please! go away!" the fifth form schoolboy shrugs his shoulders, and goes into the kitchen to get change from the servants. it appears there is not a single kopeck in the kitchen. "in that case, you give me change," he urges grisha, coming back from the kitchen. "i'll pay you for the change. won't you? come, give me ten kopecks for a rouble." grisha looks suspiciously at vasya, wondering whether it isn't some trick, a swindle. "i won't," he says, holding his pockets. vasya begins to get cross, and abuses them, calling them idiots and blockheads. "i'll put down a stake for you, vasya!" says sonya. "sit down." he sits down and lays two cards before him. anya begins counting the numbers. "i've dropped a kopeck!" grisha announces suddenly, in an agitated voice. "wait!" he takes the lamp, and creeps under the table to look for the kopeck. they clutch at nutshells and all sorts of nastiness, knock their heads together, but do not find the kopeck. they begin looking again, and look till vasya takes the lamp out of grisha's hands and puts it in its place. grisha goes on looking in the dark. but at last the kopeck is found. the players sit down at the table and mean to go on playing. "sonya is asleep!" alyosha announces. sonya, with her curly head lying on her arms, is in a sweet, sound, tranquil sleep, as though she had been asleep for an hour. she has fallen asleep by accident, while the others were looking for the kopeck. "come along, lie on mamma's bed!" says anya, leading her away from the table. "come along!" they all troop out with her, and five minutes later mamma's bed presents a curious spectacle. sonya is asleep. alyosha is snoring beside her. with their heads to the others' feet, sleep grisha and anya. the cook's son, andrey too, has managed to snuggle in beside them. near them lie the kopecks, that have lost their power till the next game. good-night! the runaway it had been a long business. at first pashka had walked with his mother in the rain, at one time across a mown field, then by forest paths, where the yellow leaves stuck to his boots; he had walked until it was daylight. then he had stood for two hours in the dark passage, waiting for the door to open. it was not so cold and damp in the passage as in the yard, but with the high wind spurts of rain flew in even there. when the passage gradually became packed with people pashka, squeezed among them, leaned his face against somebody's sheepskin which smelt strongly of salt fish, and sank into a doze. but at last the bolt clicked, the door flew open, and pashka and his mother went into the waiting-room. all the patients sat on benches without stirring or speaking. pashka looked round at them, and he too was silent, though he was seeing a great deal that was strange and funny. only once, when a lad came into the waiting-room hopping on one leg, pashka longed to hop too; he nudged his mother's elbow, giggled in his sleeve, and said: "look, mammy, a sparrow." "hush, child, hush!" said his mother. a sleepy-looking hospital assistant appeared at the little window. "come and be registered!" he boomed out. all of them, including the funny lad who hopped, filed up to the window. the assistant asked each one his name, and his father's name, where he lived, how long he had been ill, and so on. from his mother's answers, pashka learned that his name was not pashka, but pavel galaktionov, that he was seven years old, that he could not read or write, and that he had been ill ever since easter. soon after the registration, he had to stand up for a little while; the doctor in a white apron, with a towel round his waist, walked across the waiting-room. as he passed by the boy who hopped, he shrugged his shoulders, and said in a sing-song tenor: "well, you are an idiot! aren't you an idiot? i told you to come on monday, and you come on friday. it's nothing to me if you don't come at all, but you know, you idiot, your leg will be done for!" the lad made a pitiful face, as though he were going to beg for alms, blinked, and said: "kindly do something for me, ivan mikolaitch!" "it's no use saying 'ivan mikolaitch,'" the doctor mimicked him. "you were told to come on monday, and you ought to obey. you are an idiot, and that is all about it." the doctor began seeing the patients. he sat in his little room, and called up the patients in turn. sounds were continually coming from the little room, piercing wails, a child's crying, or the doctor's angry words: "come, why are you bawling? am i murdering you, or what? sit quiet!" pashka's turn came. "pavel galaktionov!" shouted the doctor. his mother was aghast, as though she had not expected this summons, and taking pashka by the hand, she led him into the room. the doctor was sitting at the table, mechanically tapping on a thick book with a little hammer. "what's wrong?" he asked, without looking at them. "the little lad has an ulcer on his elbow, sir," answered his mother, and her face assumed an expression as though she really were terribly grieved at pashka's ulcer. "undress him!" pashka, panting, unwound the kerchief from his neck, then wiped his nose on his sleeve, and began deliberately pulling off his sheepskin. "woman, you have not come here on a visit!" said the doctor angrily. "why are you dawdling? you are not the only one here." pashka hurriedly flung the sheepskin on the floor, and with his mother's help took off his shirt. . . the doctor looked at him lazily, and patted him on his bare stomach. "you have grown quite a respectable corporation, brother pashka," he said, and heaved a sigh. "come, show me your elbow." pashka looked sideways at the basin full of bloodstained slops, looked at the doctor's apron, and began to cry. "may-ay!" the doctor mimicked him. "nearly old enough to be married, spoilt boy, and here he is blubbering! for shame!" pashka, trying not to cry, looked at his mother, and in that look could be read the entreaty: "don't tell them at home that i cried at the hospital." the doctor examined his elbow, pressed it, heaved a sigh, clicked with his lips, then pressed it again. "you ought to be beaten, woman, but there is no one to do it," he said. "why didn't you bring him before? why, the whole arm is done for. look, foolish woman. you see, the joint is diseased!" "you know best, kind sir . . ." sighed the woman. "kind sir. . . . she's let the boy's arm rot, and now it is 'kind sir.' what kind of workman will he be without an arm? you'll be nursing him and looking after him for ages. i bet if you had had a pimple on your nose, you'd have run to the hospital quick enough, but you have left your boy to rot for six months. you are all like that." the doctor lighted a cigarette. while the cigarette smoked, he scolded the woman, and shook his head in time to the song he was humming inwardly, while he thought of something else. pashka stood naked before him, listening and looking at the smoke. when the cigarette went out, the doctor started, and said in a lower tone: "well, listen, woman. you can do nothing with ointments and drops in this case. you must leave him in the hospital." "if necessary, sir, why not? "we must operate on him. you stop with me, pashka," said the doctor, slapping pashka on the shoulder. "let mother go home, and you and i will stop here, old man. it's nice with me, old boy, it's first-rate here. i'll tell you what we'll do, pashka, we will go catching finches together. i will show you a fox! we will go visiting together! shall we? and mother will come for you tomorrow! eh?" pashka looked inquiringly at his mother. "you stay, child!" she said. "he'll stay, he'll stay!" cried the doctor gleefully. "and there is no need to discuss it. i'll show him a live fox! we will go to the fair together to buy candy! marya denisovna, take him upstairs!" the doctor, apparently a light-hearted and friendly fellow, seemed glad to have company; pashka wanted to oblige him, especially as he had never in his life been to a fair, and would have been glad to have a look at a live fox, but how could he do without his mother? after a little reflection he decided to ask the doctor to let his mother stay in the hospital too, but before he had time to open his mouth the lady assistant was already taking him upstairs. he walked up and looked about him with his mouth open. the staircase, the floors, and the doorposts--everything huge, straight, and bright-were painted a splendid yellow colour, and had a delicious smell of lenten oil. on all sides lamps were hanging, strips of carpet stretched along the floor, copper taps stuck out on the walls. but best of all pashka liked the bedstead upon which he was made to sit down, and the grey woollen coverlet. he touched the pillows and the coverlet with his hands, looked round the ward, and made up his mind that it was very nice at the doctor's. the ward was not a large one, it consisted of only three beds. one bed stood empty, the second was occupied by pashka, and on the third sat an old man with sour eyes, who kept coughing and spitting into a mug. from pashka's bed part of another ward could be seen with two beds; on one a very pale wasted-looking man with an india-rubber bottle on his head was asleep; on the other a peasant with his head tied up, looking very like a woman, was sitting with his arms spread out. after making pashka sit down, the assistant went out and came back a little later with a bundle of clothes under her arm. "these are for you," she said, "put them on." pashka undressed and, not without satisfaction began attiring himself in his new array. when he had put on the shirt, the drawers, and the little grey dressing-gown, he looked at himself complacently, and thought that it would not be bad to walk through the village in that costume. his imagination pictured his mother's sending him to the kitchen garden by the river to gather cabbage leaves for the little pig; he saw himself walking along, while the boys and girls surrounded him and looked with envy at his little dressing-gown. a nurse came into the ward, bringing two tin bowls, two spoons, and two pieces of bread. one bowl she set before the old man, the other before pashka. "eat!" she said. looking into his bowl, pashka saw some rich cabbage soup, and in the soup a piece of meat, and thought again that it was very nice at the doctor's, and that the doctor was not nearly so cross as he had seemed at first. he spent a long time swallowing the soup, licking the spoon after each mouthful, then when there was nothing left in the bowl but the meat he stole a look at the old man, and felt envious that he was still eating the soup. with a sigh pashka attacked the meat, trying to make it last as long as possible, but his efforts were fruitless; the meat, too, quickly vanished. there was nothing left but the piece of bread. plain bread without anything on it was not appetising, but there was no help for it. pashka thought a little, and ate the bread. at that moment the nurse came in with another bowl. this time there was roast meat with potatoes in the bowl. "and where is the bread?" asked the nurse. instead of answering, pashka puffed out his cheeks, and blew out the air. "why did you gobble it all up?" said the nurse reproachfully. "what are you going to eat your meat with?" she went and fetched another piece of bread. pashka had never eaten roast meat in his life, and trying it now found it very nice. it vanished quickly, and then he had a piece of bread left bigger than the first. when the old man had finished his dinner, he put away the remains of his bread in a little table. pashka meant to do the same, but on second thoughts ate his piece. when he had finished he went for a walk. in the next ward, besides the two he had seen from the door, there were four other people. of these only one drew his attention. this was a tall, extremely emaciated peasant with a morose-looking, hairy face. he was sitting on the bed, nodding his head and swinging his right arm all the time like a pendulum. pashka could not take his eyes off him for a long time. at first the man's regular pendulum-like movements seemed to him curious, and he thought they were done for the general amusement, but when he looked into the man's face he felt frightened, and realised that he was terribly ill. going into a third ward he saw two peasants with dark red faces as though they were smeared with clay. they were sitting motionless on their beds, and with their strange faces, in which it was hard to distinguish their features, they looked like heathen idols. "auntie, why do they look like that?" pashka asked the nurse. "they have got smallpox, little lad." going back to his own ward, pashka sat down on his bed and began waiting for the doctor to come and take him to catch finches, or to go to the fair. but the doctor did not come. he got a passing glimpse of a hospital assistant at the door of the next ward. he bent over the patient on whose head lay a bag of ice, and cried: "mihailo!" but the sleeping man did not stir. the assistant made a gesture and went away. pashka scrutinised the old man, his next neighbour. the old man coughed without ceasing and spat into a mug. his cough had a long-drawn-out, creaking sound. pashka liked one peculiarity about him; when he drew the air in as he coughed, something in his chest whistled and sang on different notes. "grandfather, what is it whistles in you?" pashka asked. the old man made no answer. pashka waited a little and asked: "grandfather, where is the fox?" "what fox?" "the live one." "where should it be? in the forest!" a long time passed, but the doctor still did not appear. the nurse brought in tea, and scolded pashka for not having saved any bread for his tea; the assistant came once more and set to work to wake mihailo. it turned blue outside the windows, the wards were lighted up, but the doctor did not appear. it was too late now to go to the fair and catch finches; pashka stretched himself on his bed and began thinking. he remembered the candy promised him by the doctor, the face and voice of his mother, the darkness in his hut at home, the stove, peevish granny yegorovna . . . and he suddenly felt sad and dreary. he remembered that his mother was coming for him next day, smiled, and shut his eyes. he was awakened by a rustling. in the next ward someone was stepping about and speaking in a whisper. three figures were moving about mihailo's bed in the dim light of the night-light and the ikon lamp. "shall we take him, bed and all, or without?" asked one of them. "without. you won't get through the door with the bed." "he's died at the wrong time, the kingdom of heaven be his!" one took mihailo by his shoulders, another by his legs and lifted him up: mihailo's arms and the skirt of his dressing-gown hung limply to the ground. a third--it was the peasant who looked like a woman--crossed himself, and all three tramping clumsily with their feet and stepping on mihailo's skirts, went out of the ward. there came the whistle and humming on different notes from the chest of the old man who was asleep. pashka listened, peeped at the dark windows, and jumped out of bed in terror. "ma-a-mka!" he moaned in a deep bass. and without waiting for an answer, he rushed into the next ward. there the darkness was dimly lighted up by a night-light and the ikon lamp; the patients, upset by the death of mihailo, were sitting on their bedsteads: their dishevelled figures, mixed up with the shadows, looked broader, taller, and seemed to be growing bigger and bigger; on the furthest bedstead in the corner, where it was darkest, there sat the peasant moving his head and his hand. pashka, without noticing the doors, rushed into the smallpox ward, from there into the corridor, from the corridor he flew into a big room where monsters, with long hair and the faces of old women, were lying and sitting on the beds. running through the women's wing he found himself again in the corridor, saw the banisters of the staircase he knew already, and ran downstairs. there he recognised the waiting-room in which he had sat that morning, and began looking for the door into the open air. the latch creaked, there was a whiff of cold wind, and pashka, stumbling, ran out into the yard. he had only one thought--to run, to run! he did not know the way, but felt convinced that if he ran he would be sure to find himself at home with his mother. the sky was overcast, but there was a moon behind the clouds. pashka ran from the steps straight forward, went round the barn and stumbled into some thick bushes; after stopping for a minute and thinking, he dashed back again to the hospital, ran round it, and stopped again undecided; behind the hospital there were white crosses. "ma-a-mka!" he cried, and dashed back. running by the dark sinister buildings, he saw one lighted window. the bright red patch looked dreadful in the darkness, but pashka, frantic with terror, not knowing where to run, turned towards it. beside the window was a porch with steps, and a front door with a white board on it; pashka ran up the steps, looked in at the window, and was at once possessed by intense overwhelming joy. through the window he saw the merry affable doctor sitting at the table reading a book. laughing with happiness, pashka stretched out his hands to the person he knew and tried to call out, but some unseen force choked him and struck at his legs; he staggered and fell down on the steps unconscious. when he came to himself it was daylight, and a voice he knew very well, that had promised him a fair, finches, and a fox, was saying beside him: "well, you are an idiot, pashka! aren't you an idiot? you ought to be beaten, but there's no one to do it." grisha grisha, a chubby little boy, born two years and eight months ago, is walking on the boulevard with his nurse. he is wearing a long, wadded pelisse, a scarf, a big cap with a fluffy pom-pom, and warm over-boots. he feels hot and stifled, and now, too, the rollicking april sunshine is beating straight in his face, and making his eyelids tingle. the whole of his clumsy, timidly and uncertainly stepping little figure expresses the utmost bewilderment. hitherto grisha has known only a rectangular world, where in one corner stands his bed, in the other nurse's trunk, in the third a chair, while in the fourth there is a little lamp burning. if one looks under the bed, one sees a doll with a broken arm and a drum; and behind nurse's trunk, there are a great many things of all sorts: cotton reels, boxes without lids, and a broken jack-a-dandy. in that world, besides nurse and grisha, there are often mamma and the cat. mamma is like a doll, and puss is like papa's fur-coat, only the coat hasn't got eyes and a tail. from the world which is called the nursery a door leads to a great expanse where they have dinner and tea. there stands grisha's chair on high legs, and on the wall hangs a clock which exists to swing its pendulum and chime. from the dining-room, one can go into a room where there are red arm-chairs. here, there is a dark patch on the carpet, concerning which fingers are still shaken at grisha. beyond that room is still another, to which one is not admitted, and where one sees glimpses of papa--an extremely enigmatical person! nurse and mamma are comprehensible: they dress grisha, feed him, and put him to bed, but what papa exists for is unknown. there is another enigmatical person, auntie, who presented grisha with a drum. she appears and disappears. where does she disappear to? grisha has more than once looked under the bed, behind the trunk, and under the sofa, but she was not there. in this new world, where the sun hurts one's eyes, there are so many papas and mammas and aunties, that there is no knowing to whom to run. but what is stranger and more absurd than anything is the horses. grisha gazes at their moving legs, and can make nothing of it. he looks at his nurse for her to solve the mystery, but she does not speak. all at once he hears a fearful tramping. . . . a crowd of soldiers, with red faces and bath brooms under their arms, move in step along the boulevard straight upon him. grisha turns cold all over with terror, and looks inquiringly at nurse to know whether it is dangerous. but nurse neither weeps nor runs away, so there is no danger. grisha looks after the soldiers, and begins to move his feet in step with them himself. two big cats with long faces run after each other across the boulevard, with their tongues out, and their tails in the air. grisha thinks that he must run too, and runs after the cats. "stop!" cries nurse, seizing him roughly by the shoulder. "where are you off to? haven't you been told not to be naughty?" here there is a nurse sitting holding a tray of oranges. grisha passes by her, and, without saying anything, takes an orange. "what are you doing that for?" cries the companion of his travels, slapping his hand and snatching away the orange. "silly!" now grisha would have liked to pick up a bit of glass that was lying at his feet and gleaming like a lamp, but he is afraid that his hand will be slapped again. "my respects to you!" grisha hears suddenly, almost above his ear, a loud thick voice, and he sees a tall man with bright buttons. to his great delight, this man gives nurse his hand, stops, and begins talking to her. the brightness of the sun, the noise of the carriages, the horses, the bright buttons are all so impressively new and not dreadful, that grisha's soul is filled with a feeling of enjoyment and he begins to laugh. "come along! come along!" he cries to the man with the bright buttons, tugging at his coattails. "come along where?" asks the man. "come along!" grisha insists. he wants to say that it would be just as well to take with them papa, mamma, and the cat, but his tongue does not say what he wants to. a little later, nurse turns out of the boulevard, and leads grisha into a big courtyard where there is still snow; and the man with the bright buttons comes with them too. they carefully avoid the lumps of snow and the puddles, then, by a dark and dirty staircase, they go into a room. here there is a great deal of smoke, there is a smell of roast meat, and a woman is standing by the stove frying cutlets. the cook and the nurse kiss each other, and sit down on the bench together with the man, and begin talking in a low voice. grisha, wrapped up as he is, feels insufferably hot and stifled. "why is this?" he wonders, looking about him. he sees the dark ceiling, the oven fork with two horns, the stove which looks like a great black hole. "mam-ma," he drawls. "come, come, come!" cries the nurse. "wait a bit!" the cook puts a bottle on the table, two wine-glasses, and a pie. the two women and the man with the bright buttons clink glasses and empty them several times, and, the man puts his arm round first the cook and then the nurse. and then all three begin singing in an undertone. grisha stretches out his hand towards the pie, and they give him a piece of it. he eats it and watches nurse drinking. . . . he wants to drink too. "give me some, nurse!" he begs. the cook gives him a sip out of her glass. he rolls his eyes, blinks, coughs, and waves his hands for a long time afterwards, while the cook looks at him and laughs. when he gets home grisha begins to tell mamma, the walls, and the bed where he has been, and what he has seen. he talks not so much with his tongue, as with his face and his hands. he shows how the sun shines, how the horses run, how the terrible stove looks, and how the cook drinks. . . . in the evening he cannot get to sleep. the soldiers with the brooms, the big cats, the horses, the bit of glass, the tray of oranges, the bright buttons, all gathered together, weigh on his brain. he tosses from side to side, babbles, and, at last, unable to endure his excitement, begins crying. "you are feverish," says mamma, putting her open hand on his forehead. "what can have caused it? "stove!" wails grisha. "go away, stove!" "he must have eaten too much . . ." mamma decides. and grisha, shattered by the impressions of the new life he has just experienced, receives a spoonful of castor-oil from mamma. oysters i need no great effort of memory to recall, in every detail, the rainy autumn evening when i stood with my father in one of the more frequented streets of moscow, and felt that i was gradually being overcome by a strange illness. i had no pain at all, but my legs were giving way under me, the words stuck in my throat, my head slipped weakly on one side . . . it seemed as though, in a moment, i must fall down and lose consciousness. if i had been taken into a hospital at that minute, the doctors would have had to write over my bed: _fames_, a disease which is not in the manuals of medicine. beside me on the pavement stood my father in a shabby summer overcoat and a serge cap, from which a bit of white wadding was sticking out. on his feet he had big heavy goloshes. afraid, vain man, that people would see that his feet were bare under his goloshes, he had drawn the tops of some old boots up round the calves of his legs. this poor, foolish, queer creature, whom i loved the more warmly the more ragged and dirty his smart summer overcoat became, had come to moscow, five months before, to look for a job as copying-clerk. for those five months he had been trudging about moscow looking for work, and it was only on that day that he had brought himself to go into the street to beg for alms. before us was a big house of three storeys, adorned with a blue signboard with the word "restaurant" on it. my head was drooping feebly backwards and on one side, and i could not help looking upwards at the lighted windows of the restaurant. human figures were flitting about at the windows. i could see the right side of the orchestrion, two oleographs, hanging lamps . . . . staring into one window, i saw a patch of white. the patch was motionless, and its rectangular outlines stood out sharply against the dark, brown background. i looked intently and made out of the patch a white placard on the wall. something was written on it, but what it was, i could not see. . . for half an hour i kept my eyes on the placard. its white attracted my eyes, and, as it were, hypnotised my brain. i tried to read it, but my efforts were in vain. at last the strange disease got the upper hand. the rumble of the carriages began to seem like thunder, in the stench of the street i distinguished a thousand smells. the restaurant lights and the lamps dazzled my eyes like lightning. my five senses were overstrained and sensitive beyond the normal. i began to see what i had not seen before. "oysters . . ." i made out on the placard. a strange word! i had lived in the world eight years and three months, but had never come across that word. what did it mean? surely it was not the name of the restaurant-keeper? but signboards with names on them always hang outside, not on the walls indoors! "papa, what does 'oysters' mean?" i asked in a husky voice, making an effort to turn my face towards my father. my father did not hear. he was keeping a watch on the movements of the crowd, and following every passer-by with his eyes. . . . from his eyes i saw that he wanted to say something to the passers-by, but the fatal word hung like a heavy weight on his trembling lips and could not be flung off. he even took a step after one passer-by and touched him on the sleeve, but when he turned round, he said, "i beg your pardon," was overcome with confusion, and staggered back. "papa, what does 'oysters' mean?" i repeated. "it is an animal . . . that lives in the sea." i instantly pictured to myself this unknown marine animal. . . . i thought it must be something midway between a fish and a crab. as it was from the sea they made of it, of course, a very nice hot fish soup with savoury pepper and laurel leaves, or broth with vinegar and fricassee of fish and cabbage, or crayfish sauce, or served it cold with horse-radish. . . . i vividly imagined it being brought from the market, quickly cleaned, quickly put in the pot, quickly, quickly, for everyone was hungry . . . awfully hungry! from the kitchen rose the smell of hot fish and crayfish soup. i felt that this smell was tickling my palate and nostrils, that it was gradually taking possession of my whole body. . . . the restaurant, my father, the white placard, my sleeves were all smelling of it, smelling so strongly that i began to chew. i moved my jaws and swallowed as though i really had a piece of this marine animal in my mouth . . . my legs gave way from the blissful sensation i was feeling, and i clutched at my father's arm to keep myself from falling, and leant against his wet summer overcoat. my father was trembling and shivering. he was cold . . . "papa, are oysters a lenten dish?" i asked. "they are eaten alive . . ." said my father. "they are in shells like tortoises, but . . . in two halves." the delicious smell instantly left off affecting me, and the illusion vanished. . . . now i understood it all! "how nasty," i whispered, "how nasty!" so that's what "oysters" meant! i imagined to myself a creature like a frog. a frog sitting in a shell, peeping out from it with big, glittering eyes, and moving its revolting jaws. i imagined this creature in a shell with claws, glittering eyes, and a slimy skin, being brought from the market. . . . the children would all hide while the cook, frowning with an air of disgust, would take the creature by its claw, put it on a plate, and carry it into the dining-room. the grown-ups would take it and eat it, eat it alive with its eyes, its teeth, its legs! while it squeaked and tried to bite their lips. . . . i frowned, but . . . but why did my teeth move as though i were munching? the creature was loathsome, disgusting, terrible, but i ate it, ate it greedily, afraid of distinguishing its taste or smell. as soon as i had eaten one, i saw the glittering eyes of a second, a third . . . i ate them too. . . . at last i ate the table-napkin, the plate, my father's goloshes, the white placard . . . i ate everything that caught my eye, because i felt that nothing but eating would take away my illness. the oysters had a terrible look in their eyes and were loathsome. i shuddered at the thought of them, but i wanted to eat! to eat! "oysters! give me some oysters!" was the cry that broke from me and i stretched out my hand. "help us, gentlemen!" i heard at that moment my father say, in a hollow and shaking voice. "i am ashamed to ask but--my god!--i can bear no more!" "oysters!" i cried, pulling my father by the skirts of his coat. "do you mean to say you eat oysters? a little chap like you!" i heard laughter close to me. two gentlemen in top hats were standing before us, looking into my face and laughing. "do you really eat oysters, youngster? that's interesting! how do you eat them?" i remember that a strong hand dragged me into the lighted restaurant. a minute later there was a crowd round me, watching me with curiosity and amusement. i sat at a table and ate something slimy, salt with a flavour of dampness and mouldiness. i ate greedily without chewing, without looking and trying to discover what i was eating. i fancied that if i opened my eyes i should see glittering eyes, claws, and sharp teeth. all at once i began biting something hard, there was a sound of a scrunching. "ha, ha! he is eating the shells," laughed the crowd. "little silly, do you suppose you can eat that?" after that i remember a terrible thirst. i was lying in my bed, and could not sleep for heartburn and the strange taste in my parched mouth. my father was walking up and down, gesticulating with his hands. "i believe i have caught cold," he was muttering. "i've a feeling in my head as though someone were sitting on it. . . . perhaps it is because i have not . . . er . . . eaten anything to-day. . . . i really am a queer, stupid creature. . . . i saw those gentlemen pay ten roubles for the oysters. why didn't i go up to them and ask them . . . to lend me something? they would have given something." towards morning, i fell asleep and dreamt of a frog sitting in a shell, moving its eyes. at midday i was awakened by thirst, and looked for my father: he was still walking up and down and gesticulating. home "someone came from the grigoryevs' to fetch a book, but i said you were not at home. the postman brought the newspaper and two letters. by the way, yevgeny petrovitch, i should like to ask you to speak to seryozha. to-day, and the day before yesterday, i have noticed that he is smoking. when i began to expostulate with him, he put his fingers in his ears as usual, and sang loudly to drown my voice." yevgeny petrovitch bykovsky, the prosecutor of the circuit court, who had just come back from a session and was taking off his gloves in his study, looked at the governess as she made her report, and laughed. "seryozha smoking . . ." he said, shrugging his shoulders. "i can picture the little cherub with a cigarette in his mouth! why, how old is he?" "seven. you think it is not important, but at his age smoking is a bad and pernicious habit, and bad habits ought to be eradicated in the beginning." "perfectly true. and where does he get the tobacco?" "he takes it from the drawer in your table." "yes? in that case, send him to me." when the governess had gone out, bykovsky sat down in an arm-chair before his writing-table, shut his eyes, and fell to thinking. he pictured his seryozha with a huge cigar, a yard long, in the midst of clouds of tobacco smoke, and this caricature made him smile; at the same time, the grave, troubled face of the governess called up memories of the long past, half-forgotten time when smoking aroused in his teachers and parents a strange, not quite intelligible horror. it really was horror. children were mercilessly flogged and expelled from school, and their lives were made a misery on account of smoking, though not a single teacher or father knew exactly what was the harm or sinfulness of smoking. even very intelligent people did not scruple to wage war on a vice which they did not understand. yevgeny petrovitch remembered the head-master of the high school, a very cultured and good-natured old man, who was so appalled when he found a high-school boy with a cigarette in his mouth that he turned pale, immediately summoned an emergency committee of the teachers, and sentenced the sinner to expulsion. this was probably a law of social life: the less an evil was understood, the more fiercely and coarsely it was attacked. the prosecutor remembered two or three boys who had been expelled and their subsequent life, and could not help thinking that very often the punishment did a great deal more harm than the crime itself. the living organism has the power of rapidly adapting itself, growing accustomed and inured to any atmosphere whatever, otherwise man would be bound to feel at every moment what an irrational basis there often is underlying his rational activity, and how little of established truth and certainty there is even in work so responsible and so terrible in its effects as that of the teacher, of the lawyer, of the writer. . . . and such light and discursive thoughts as visit the brain only when it is weary and resting began straying through yevgeny petrovitch's head; there is no telling whence and why they come, they do not remain long in the mind, but seem to glide over its surface without sinking deeply into it. for people who are forced for whole hours, and even days, to think by routine in one direction, such free private thinking affords a kind of comfort, an agreeable solace. it was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening. overhead, on the second storey, someone was walking up and down, and on the floor above that four hands were playing scales. the pacing of the man overhead who, to judge from his nervous step, was thinking of something harassing, or was suffering from toothache, and the monotonous scales gave the stillness of the evening a drowsiness that disposed to lazy reveries. in the nursery, two rooms away, the governess and seryozha were talking. "pa-pa has come!" carolled the child. "papa has co-ome. pa! pa! pa!" "_votre père vous appelle, allez vite!_" cried the governess, shrill as a frightened bird. "i am speaking to you!" "what am i to say to him, though?" yevgeny petrovitch wondered. but before he had time to think of anything whatever his son seryozha, a boy of seven, walked into the study. he was a child whose sex could only have been guessed from his dress: weakly, white-faced, and fragile. he was limp like a hot-house plant, and everything about him seemed extraordinarily soft and tender: his movements, his curly hair, the look in his eyes, his velvet jacket. "good evening, papa!" he said, in a soft voice, clambering on to his father's knee and giving him a rapid kiss on his neck. "did you send for me?" "excuse me, sergey yevgenitch," answered the prosecutor, removing him from his knee. "before kissing we must have a talk, and a serious talk . . . i am angry with you, and don't love you any more. i tell you, my boy, i don't love you, and you are no son of mine. . . ." seryozha looked intently at his father, then shifted his eyes to the table, and shrugged his shoulders. "what have i done to you?" he asked in perplexity, blinking. "i haven't been in your study all day, and i haven't touched anything." "natalya semyonovna has just been complaining to me that you have been smoking. . . . is it true? have you been smoking?" "yes, i did smoke once. . . . that's true. . . ." "now you see you are lying as well," said the prosecutor, frowning to disguise a smile. "natalya semyonovna has seen you smoking twice. so you see you have been detected in three misdeeds: smoking, taking someone else's tobacco, and lying. three faults." "oh yes," seryozha recollected, and his eyes smiled. "that's true, that's true; i smoked twice: to-day and before." "so you see it was not once, but twice. . . . i am very, very much displeased with you! you used to be a good boy, but now i see you are spoilt and have become a bad one." yevgeny petrovitch smoothed down seryozha's collar and thought: "what more am i to say to him!" "yes, it's not right," he continued. "i did not expect it of you. in the first place, you ought not to take tobacco that does not belong to you. every person has only the right to make use of his own property; if he takes anyone else's . . . he is a bad man!" ("i am not saying the right thing!" thought yevgeny petrovitch.) "for instance, natalya semyonovna has a box with her clothes in it. that's her box, and we--that is, you and i--dare not touch it, as it is not ours. that's right, isn't it? you've got toy horses and pictures. . . . i don't take them, do i? perhaps i might like to take them, but . . . they are not mine, but yours!" "take them if you like!" said seryozha, raising his eyebrows. "please don't hesitate, papa, take them! that yellow dog on your table is mine, but i don't mind. . . . let it stay." "you don't understand me," said bykovsky. "you have given me the dog, it is mine now and i can do what i like with it; but i didn't give you the tobacco! the tobacco is mine." ("i am not explaining properly!" thought the prosecutor. "it's wrong! quite wrong!") "if i want to smoke someone else's tobacco, i must first of all ask his permission. . . ." languidly linking one phrase on to another and imitating the language of the nursery, bykovsky tried to explain to his son the meaning of property. seryozha gazed at his chest and listened attentively (he liked talking to his father in the evening), then he leaned his elbow on the edge of the table and began screwing up his short-sighted eyes at the papers and the inkstand. his eyes strayed over the table and rested on the gum-bottle. "papa, what is gum made of?" he asked suddenly, putting the bottle to his eyes. bykovsky took the bottle out of his hands and set it in its place and went on: "secondly, you smoke. . . . that's very bad. though i smoke it does not follow that you may. i smoke and know that it is stupid, i blame myself and don't like myself for it." ("a clever teacher, i am!" he thought.) "tobacco is very bad for the health, and anyone who smokes dies earlier than he should. it's particularly bad for boys like you to smoke. your chest is weak, you haven't reached your full strength yet, and smoking leads to consumption and other illness in weak people. uncle ignat died of consumption, you know. if he hadn't smoked, perhaps he would have lived till now." seryozha looked pensively at the lamp, touched the lamp-shade with his finger, and heaved a sigh. "uncle ignat played the violin splendidly!" he said. "his violin is at the grigoryevs' now." seryozha leaned his elbows on the edge of the table again, and sank into thought. his white face wore a fixed expression, as though he were listening or following a train of thought of his own; distress and something like fear came into his big staring eyes. he was most likely thinking now of death, which had so lately carried off his mother and uncle ignat. death carries mothers and uncles off to the other world, while their children and violins remain upon the earth. the dead live somewhere in the sky beside the stars, and look down from there upon the earth. can they endure the parting? "what am i to say to him?" thought yevgeny petrovitch. "he's not listening to me. obviously he does not regard either his misdoings or my arguments as serious. how am i to drive it home?" the prosecutor got up and walked about the study. "formerly, in my time, these questions were very simply settled," he reflected. "every urchin who was caught smoking was thrashed. the cowardly and faint-hearted did actually give up smoking, any who were somewhat more plucky and intelligent, after the thrashing took to carrying tobacco in the legs of their boots, and smoking in the barn. when they were caught in the barn and thrashed again, they would go away to smoke by the river . . . and so on, till the boy grew up. my mother used to give me money and sweets not to smoke. now that method is looked upon as worthless and immoral. the modern teacher, taking his stand on logic, tries to make the child form good principles, not from fear, nor from desire for distinction or reward, but consciously." while he was walking about, thinking, seryozha climbed up with his legs on a chair sideways to the table, and began drawing. that he might not spoil official paper nor touch the ink, a heap of half-sheets, cut on purpose for him, lay on the table together with a blue pencil. "cook was chopping up cabbage to-day and she cut her finger," he said, drawing a little house and moving his eyebrows. "she gave such a scream that we were all frightened and ran into the kitchen. stupid thing! natalya semyonovna told her to dip her finger in cold water, but she sucked it . . . and how could she put a dirty finger in her mouth! that's not proper, you know, papa!" then he went on to describe how, while they were having dinner, a man with a hurdy-gurdy had come into the yard with a little girl, who had danced and sung to the music. "he has his own train of thought!" thought the prosecutor. "he has a little world of his own in his head, and he has his own ideas of what is important and unimportant. to gain possession of his attention, it's not enough to imitate his language, one must also be able to think in the way he does. he would understand me perfectly if i really were sorry for the loss of the tobacco, if i felt injured and cried. . . . that's why no one can take the place of a mother in bringing up a child, because she can feel, cry, and laugh together with the child. one can do nothing by logic and morality. what more shall i say to him? what?" and it struck yevgeny petrovitch as strange and absurd that he, an experienced advocate, who spent half his life in the practice of reducing people to silence, forestalling what they had to say, and punishing them, was completely at a loss and did not know what to say to the boy. "i say, give me your word of honour that you won't smoke again," he said. "word of hon-nour!" carolled seryozha, pressing hard on the pencil and bending over the drawing. "word of hon-nour!" "does he know what is meant by word of honour?" bykovsky asked himself. "no, i am a poor teacher of morality! if some schoolmaster or one of our legal fellows could peep into my brain at this moment he would call me a poor stick, and would very likely suspect me of unnecessary subtlety. . . . but in school and in court, of course, all these wretched questions are far more simply settled than at home; here one has to do with people whom one loves beyond everything, and love is exacting and complicates the question. if this boy were not my son, but my pupil, or a prisoner on his trial, i should not be so cowardly, and my thoughts would not be racing all over the place!" yevgeny petrovitch sat down to the table and pulled one of seryozha's drawings to him. in it there was a house with a crooked roof, and smoke which came out of the chimney like a flash of lightning in zigzags up to the very edge of the paper; beside the house stood a soldier with dots for eyes and a bayonet that looked like the figure . "a man can't be taller than a house," said the prosecutor. seryozha got on his knee, and moved about for some time to get comfortably settled there. "no, papa!" he said, looking at his drawing. "if you were to draw the soldier small you would not see his eyes." ought he to argue with him? from daily observation of his son the prosecutor had become convinced that children, like savages, have their own artistic standpoints and requirements peculiar to them, beyond the grasp of grown-up people. had he been attentively observed, seryozha might have struck a grown-up person as abnormal. he thought it possible and reasonable to draw men taller than houses, and to represent in pencil, not only objects, but even his sensations. thus he would depict the sounds of an orchestra in the form of smoke like spherical blurs, a whistle in the form of a spiral thread. . . . to his mind sound was closely connected with form and colour, so that when he painted letters he invariably painted the letter l yellow, m red, a black, and so on. abandoning his drawing, seryozha shifted about once more, got into a comfortable attitude, and busied himself with his father's beard. first he carefully smoothed it, then he parted it and began combing it into the shape of whiskers. "now you are like ivan stepanovitch," he said, "and in a minute you will be like our porter. papa, why is it porters stand by doors? is it to prevent thieves getting in?" the prosecutor felt the child's breathing on his face, he was continually touching his hair with his cheek, and there was a warm soft feeling in his soul, as soft as though not only his hands but his whole soul were lying on the velvet of seryozha's jacket. he looked at the boy's big dark eyes, and it seemed to him as though from those wide pupils there looked out at him his mother and his wife and everything that he had ever loved. "to think of thrashing him . . ." he mused. "a nice task to devise a punishment for him! how can we undertake to bring up the young? in old days people were simpler and thought less, and so settled problems boldly. but we think too much, we are eaten up by logic . . . . the more developed a man is, the more he reflects and gives himself up to subtleties, the more undecided and scrupulous he becomes, and the more timidity he shows in taking action. how much courage and self-confidence it needs, when one comes to look into it closely, to undertake to teach, to judge, to write a thick book. . . ." it struck ten. "come, boy, it's bedtime," said the prosecutor. "say good-night and go." "no, papa," said seryozha, "i will stay a little longer. tell me something! tell me a story. . . ." "very well, only after the story you must go to bed at once." yevgeny petrovitch on his free evenings was in the habit of telling seryozha stories. like most people engaged in practical affairs, he did not know a single poem by heart, and could not remember a single fairy tale, so he had to improvise. as a rule he began with the stereotyped: "in a certain country, in a certain kingdom," then he heaped up all kinds of innocent nonsense and had no notion as he told the beginning how the story would go on, and how it would end. scenes, characters, and situations were taken at random, impromptu, and the plot and the moral came of itself as it were, with no plan on the part of the story-teller. seryozha was very fond of this improvisation, and the prosecutor noticed that the simpler and the less ingenious the plot, the stronger the impression it made on the child. "listen," he said, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "once upon a time, in a certain country, in a certain kingdom, there lived an old, very old emperor with a long grey beard, and . . . and with great grey moustaches like this. well, he lived in a glass palace which sparkled and glittered in the sun, like a great piece of clear ice. the palace, my boy, stood in a huge garden, in which there grew oranges, you know . . . bergamots, cherries . . . tulips, roses, and lilies-of-the-valley were in flower in it, and birds of different colours sang there. . . . yes. . . . on the trees there hung little glass bells, and, when the wind blew, they rang so sweetly that one was never tired of hearing them. glass gives a softer, tenderer note than metals. . . . well, what next? there were fountains in the garden. . . . do you remember you saw a fountain at auntie sonya's summer villa? well, there were fountains just like that in the emperor's garden, only ever so much bigger, and the jets of water reached to the top of the highest poplar." yevgeny petrovitch thought a moment, and went on: "the old emperor had an only son and heir of his kingdom--a boy as little as you. he was a good boy. he was never naughty, he went to bed early, he never touched anything on the table, and altogether he was a sensible boy. he had only one fault, he used to smoke. . . ." seryozha listened attentively, and looked into his father's eyes without blinking. the prosecutor went on, thinking: "what next?" he spun out a long rigmarole, and ended like this: "the emperor's son fell ill with consumption through smoking, and died when he was twenty. his infirm and sick old father was left without anyone to help him. there was no one to govern the kingdom and defend the palace. enemies came, killed the old man, and destroyed the palace, and now there are neither cherries, nor birds, nor little bells in the garden. . . . that's what happened." this ending struck yevgeny petrovitch as absurd and naïve, but the whole story made an intense impression on seryozha. again his eyes were clouded by mournfulness and something like fear; for a minute he looked pensively at the dark window, shuddered, and said, in a sinking voice: "i am not going to smoke any more. . . ." when he had said good-night and gone away his father walked up and down the room and smiled to himself. "they would tell me it was the influence of beauty, artistic form," he meditated. "it may be so, but that's no comfort. it's not the right way, all the same. . . . why must morality and truth never be offered in their crude form, but only with embellishments, sweetened and gilded like pills? it's not normal. . . . it's falsification . . . deception . . . tricks . . . ." he thought of the jurymen to whom it was absolutely necessary to make a "speech," of the general public who absorb history only from legends and historical novels, and of himself and how he had gathered an understanding of life not from sermons and laws, but from fables, novels, poems. "medicine should be sweet, truth beautiful, and man has had this foolish habit since the days of adam . . . though, indeed, perhaps it is all natural, and ought to be so. . . . there are many deceptions and delusions in nature that serve a purpose." he set to work, but lazy, intimate thoughts still strayed through his mind for a good while. overhead the scales could no longer be heard, but the inhabitant of the second storey was still pacing from one end of the room to another. a classical student before setting off for his examination in greek, vanya kissed all the holy images. his stomach felt as though it were upside down; there was a chill at his heart, while the heart itself throbbed and stood still with terror before the unknown. what would he get that day? a three or a two? six times he went to his mother for her blessing, and, as he went out, asked his aunt to pray for him. on the way to school he gave a beggar two kopecks, in the hope that those two kopecks would atone for his ignorance, and that, please god, he would not get the numerals with those awful forties and eighties. he came back from the high school late, between four and five. he came in, and noiselessly lay down on his bed. his thin face was pale. there were dark rings round his red eyes. "well, how did you get on? how were you marked?" asked his mother, going to his bedside. vanya blinked, twisted his mouth, and burst into tears. his mother turned pale, let her mouth fall open, and clasped her hands. the breeches she was mending dropped out of her hands. "what are you crying for? you've failed, then?" she asked. "i am plucked. . . . i got a two." "i knew it would be so! i had a presentiment of it," said his mother. "merciful god! how is it you have not passed? what is the reason of it? what subject have you failed in?" "in greek. . . . mother, i . . . they asked me the future of _phero_, and i . . . instead of saying _oisomai_ said _opsomai_. then . . . then there isn't an accent, if the last syllable is long, and i . . . i got flustered. . . . i forgot that the alpha was long in it . . . . i went and put in the accent. then artaxerxov told me to give the list of the enclitic particles. . . . i did, and i accidentally mixed in a pronoun . . . and made a mistake . . . and so he gave me a two. . . . i am a miserable person. . . . i was working all night. . . i've been getting up at four o'clock all this week . . . ." "no, it's not you but i who am miserable, you wretched boy! it's i that am miserable! you've worn me to a threadpaper, you herod, you torment, you bane of my life! i pay for you, you good-for-nothing rubbish; i've bent my back toiling for you, i'm worried to death, and, i may say, i am unhappy, and what do you care? how do you work?" "i . . . i do work. all night. . . . you've seen it yourself." "i prayed to god to take me, but he won't take me, a sinful woman . . . . you torment! other people have children like everyone else, and i've one only and no sense, no comfort out of him. beat you? i'd beat you, but where am i to find the strength? mother of god, where am i to find the strength?" the mamma hid her face in the folds of her blouse and broke into sobs. vanya wriggled with anguish and pressed his forehead against the wall. the aunt came in. "so that's how it is. . . . just what i expected," she said, at once guessing what was wrong, turning pale and clasping her hands. "i've been depressed all the morning. . . . there's trouble coming, i thought . . . and here it's come. . . ." "the villain, the torment!" "why are you swearing at him?" cried the aunt, nervously pulling her coffee-coloured kerchief off her head and turning upon the mother. "it's not his fault! it's your fault! you are to blame! why did you send him to that high school? you are a fine lady! you want to be a lady? a-a-ah! i dare say, as though you'll turn into gentry! but if you had sent him, as i told you, into business . . . to an office, like my kuzya . . . here is kuzya getting five hundred a year. . . . five hundred roubles is worth having, isn't it? and you are wearing yourself out, and wearing the boy out with this studying, plague take it! he is thin, he coughs . . . just look at him! he's thirteen, and he looks no more than ten." "no, nastenka, no, my dear! i haven't thrashed him enough, the torment! he ought to have been thrashed, that's what it is! ugh . . . jesuit, mahomet, torment!" she shook her fist at her son. "you want a flogging, but i haven't the strength. they told me years ago when he was little, 'whip him, whip him!' i didn't heed them, sinful woman as i am. and now i am suffering for it. you wait a bit! i'll flay you! wait a bit . . . ." the mamma shook her wet fist, and went weeping into her lodger's room. the lodger, yevtihy kuzmitch kuporossov, was sitting at his table, reading "dancing self-taught." yevtihy kuzmitch was a man of intelligence and education. he spoke through his nose, washed with a soap the smell of which made everyone in the house sneeze, ate meat on fast days, and was on the look-out for a bride of refined education, and so was considered the cleverest of the lodgers. he sang tenor. "my good friend," began the mamma, dissolving into tears. "if you would have the generosity--thrash my boy for me. . . . do me the favour! he's failed in his examination, the nuisance of a boy! would you believe it, he's failed! i can't punish him, through the weakness of my ill-health. . . . thrash him for me, if you would be so obliging and considerate, yevtihy kuzmitch! have regard for a sick woman!" kuporossov frowned and heaved a deep sigh through his nose. he thought a little, drummed on the table with his fingers, and sighing once more, went to vanya. "you are being taught, so to say," he began, "being educated, being given a chance, you revolting young person! why have you done it?" he talked for a long time, made a regular speech. he alluded to science, to light, and to darkness. "yes, young person." when he had finished his speech, he took off his belt and took vanya by the hand. "it's the only way to deal with you," he said. vanya knelt down submissively and thrust his head between the lodger's knees. his prominent pink ears moved up and down against the lodger's new serge trousers, with brown stripes on the outer seams. vanya did not utter a single sound. at the family council in the evening, it was decided to send him into business. vanka vanka zhukov, a boy of nine, who had been for three months apprenticed to alyahin the shoemaker, was sitting up on christmas eve. waiting till his master and mistress and their workmen had gone to the midnight service, he took out of his master's cupboard a bottle of ink and a pen with a rusty nib, and, spreading out a crumpled sheet of paper in front of him, began writing. before forming the first letter he several times looked round fearfully at the door and the windows, stole a glance at the dark ikon, on both sides of which stretched shelves full of lasts, and heaved a broken sigh. the paper lay on the bench while he knelt before it. "dear grandfather, konstantin makaritch," he wrote, "i am writing you a letter. i wish you a happy christmas, and all blessings from god almighty. i have neither father nor mother, you are the only one left me." vanka raised his eyes to the dark ikon on which the light of his candle was reflected, and vividly recalled his grandfather, konstantin makaritch, who was night watchman to a family called zhivarev. he was a thin but extraordinarily nimble and lively little old man of sixty-five, with an everlastingly laughing face and drunken eyes. by day he slept in the servants' kitchen, or made jokes with the cooks; at night, wrapped in an ample sheepskin, he walked round the grounds and tapped with his little mallet. old kashtanka and eel, so-called on account of his dark colour and his long body like a weasel's, followed him with hanging heads. this eel was exceptionally polite and affectionate, and looked with equal kindness on strangers and his own masters, but had not a very good reputation. under his politeness and meekness was hidden the most jesuitical cunning. no one knew better how to creep up on occasion and snap at one's legs, to slip into the store-room, or steal a hen from a peasant. his hind legs had been nearly pulled off more than once, twice he had been hanged, every week he was thrashed till he was half dead, but he always revived. at this moment grandfather was, no doubt, standing at the gate, screwing up his eyes at the red windows of the church, stamping with his high felt boots, and joking with the servants. his little mallet was hanging on his belt. he was clasping his hands, shrugging with the cold, and, with an aged chuckle, pinching first the housemaid, then the cook. "how about a pinch of snuff?" he was saying, offering the women his snuff-box. the women would take a sniff and sneeze. grandfather would be indescribably delighted, go off into a merry chuckle, and cry: "tear it off, it has frozen on!" they give the dogs a sniff of snuff too. kashtanka sneezes, wriggles her head, and walks away offended. eel does not sneeze, from politeness, but wags his tail. and the weather is glorious. the air is still, fresh, and transparent. the night is dark, but one can see the whole village with its white roofs and coils of smoke coming from the chimneys, the trees silvered with hoar frost, the snowdrifts. the whole sky spangled with gay twinkling stars, and the milky way is as distinct as though it had been washed and rubbed with snow for a holiday. . . . vanka sighed, dipped his pen, and went on writing: "and yesterday i had a wigging. the master pulled me out into the yard by my hair, and whacked me with a boot-stretcher because i accidentally fell asleep while i was rocking their brat in the cradle. and a week ago the mistress told me to clean a herring, and i began from the tail end, and she took the herring and thrust its head in my face. the workmen laugh at me and send me to the tavern for vodka, and tell me to steal the master's cucumbers for them, and the master beats me with anything that comes to hand. and there is nothing to eat. in the morning they give me bread, for dinner, porridge, and in the evening, bread again; but as for tea, or soup, the master and mistress gobble it all up themselves. and i am put to sleep in the passage, and when their wretched brat cries i get no sleep at all, but have to rock the cradle. dear grandfather, show the divine mercy, take me away from here, home to the village. it's more than i can bear. i bow down to your feet, and will pray to god for you for ever, take me away from here or i shall die." vanka's mouth worked, he rubbed his eyes with his black fist, and gave a sob. "i will powder your snuff for you," he went on. "i will pray for you, and if i do anything you can thrash me like sidor's goat. and if you think i've no job, then i will beg the steward for christ's sake to let me clean his boots, or i'll go for a shepherd-boy instead of fedka. dear grandfather, it is more than i can bear, it's simply no life at all. i wanted to run away to the village, but i have no boots, and i am afraid of the frost. when i grow up big i will take care of you for this, and not let anyone annoy you, and when you die i will pray for the rest of your soul, just as for my mammy's." "moscow is a big town. it's all gentlemen's houses, and there are lots of horses, but there are no sheep, and the dogs are not spiteful. the lads here don't go out with the star, and they don't let anyone go into the choir, and once i saw in a shop window fishing-hooks for sale, fitted ready with the line and for all sorts of fish, awfully good ones, there was even one hook that would hold a forty-pound sheat-fish. and i have seen shops where there are guns of all sorts, after the pattern of the master's guns at home, so that i shouldn't wonder if they are a hundred roubles each. . . . and in the butchers' shops there are grouse and woodcocks and fish and hares, but the shopmen don't say where they shoot them." "dear grandfather, when they have the christmas tree at the big house, get me a gilt walnut, and put it away in the green trunk. ask the young lady olga ignatyevna, say it's for vanka." vanka gave a tremulous sigh, and again stared at the window. he remembered how his grandfather always went into the forest to get the christmas tree for his master's family, and took his grandson with him. it was a merry time! grandfather made a noise in his throat, the forest crackled with the frost, and looking at them vanka chortled too. before chopping down the christmas tree, grandfather would smoke a pipe, slowly take a pinch of snuff, and laugh at frozen vanka. . . . the young fir trees, covered with hoar frost, stood motionless, waiting to see which of them was to die. wherever one looked, a hare flew like an arrow over the snowdrifts . . . . grandfather could not refrain from shouting: "hold him, hold him . . . hold him! ah, the bob-tailed devil!" when he had cut down the christmas tree, grandfather used to drag it to the big house, and there set to work to decorate it. . . . the young lady, who was vanka's favourite, olga ignatyevna, was the busiest of all. when vanka's mother pelageya was alive, and a servant in the big house, olga ignatyevna used to give him goodies, and having nothing better to do, taught him to read and write, to count up to a hundred, and even to dance a quadrille. when pelageya died, vanka had been transferred to the servants' kitchen to be with his grandfather, and from the kitchen to the shoemaker's in moscow. "do come, dear grandfather," vanka went on with his letter. "for christ's sake, i beg you, take me away. have pity on an unhappy orphan like me; here everyone knocks me about, and i am fearfully hungry; i can't tell you what misery it is, i am always crying. and the other day the master hit me on the head with a last, so that i fell down. my life is wretched, worse than any dog's. . . . i send greetings to alyona, one-eyed yegorka, and the coachman, and don't give my concertina to anyone. i remain, your grandson, ivan zhukov. dear grandfather, do come." vanka folded the sheet of writing-paper twice, and put it into an envelope he had bought the day before for a kopeck. . . . after thinking a little, he dipped the pen and wrote the address: _to grandfather in the village._ then he scratched his head, thought a little, and added: _konstantin makaritch._ glad that he had not been prevented from writing, he put on his cap and, without putting on his little greatcoat, ran out into the street as he was in his shirt. . . . the shopmen at the butcher's, whom he had questioned the day before, told him that letters were put in post-boxes, and from the boxes were carried about all over the earth in mailcarts with drunken drivers and ringing bells. vanka ran to the nearest post-box, and thrust the precious letter in the slit. . . . an hour later, lulled by sweet hopes, he was sound asleep. . . . he dreamed of the stove. on the stove was sitting his grandfather, swinging his bare legs, and reading the letter to the cooks. . . . by the stove was eel, wagging his tail. an incident morning. brilliant sunshine is piercing through the frozen lacework on the window-panes into the nursery. vanya, a boy of six, with a cropped head and a nose like a button, and his sister nina, a short, chubby, curly-headed girl of four, wake up and look crossly at each other through the bars of their cots. "oo-oo-oo! naughty children!" grumbles their nurse. "good people have had their breakfast already, while you can't get your eyes open." the sunbeams frolic over the rugs, the walls, and nurse's skirts, and seem inviting the children to join in their play, but they take no notice. they have woken up in a bad humour. nina pouts, makes a grimace, and begins to whine: "brea-eakfast, nurse, breakfast!" vanya knits his brows and ponders what to pitch upon to howl over. he has already begun screwing up his eyes and opening his mouth, but at that instant the voice of mamma reaches them from the drawing-room, saying: "don't forget to give the cat her milk, she has a family now!" the children's puckered countenances grow smooth again as they look at each other in astonishment. then both at once begin shouting, jump out of their cots, and filling the air with piercing shrieks, run barefoot, in their nightgowns, to the kitchen. "the cat has puppies!" they cry. "the cat has got puppies!" under the bench in the kitchen there stands a small box, the one in which stepan brings coal when he lights the fire. the cat is peeping out of the box. there is an expression of extreme exhaustion on her grey face; her green eyes, with their narrow black pupils, have a languid, sentimental look. from her face it is clear that the only thing lacking to complete her happiness is the presence in the box of "him," the father of her children, to whom she had abandoned herself so recklessly! she wants to mew, and opens her mouth wide, but nothing but a hiss comes from her throat; the squealing of the kittens is audible. the children squat on their heels before the box, and, motionless, holding their breath, gaze at the cat. . . . they are surprised, impressed, and do not hear nurse grumbling as she pursues them. the most genuine delight shines in the eyes of both. domestic animals play a scarcely noticed but undoubtedly beneficial part in the education and life of children. which of us does not remember powerful but magnanimous dogs, lazy lapdogs, birds dying in captivity, dull-witted but haughty turkeys, mild old tabby cats, who forgave us when we trod on their tails for fun and caused them agonising pain? i even fancy, sometimes, that the patience, the fidelity, the readiness to forgive, and the sincerity which are characteristic of our domestic animals have a far stronger and more definite effect on the mind of a child than the long exhortations of some dry, pale karl karlovitch, or the misty expositions of a governess, trying to prove to children that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen. "what little things!" says nina, opening her eyes wide and going off into a joyous laugh. "they are like mice!" "one, two, three," vanya counts. "three kittens. so there is one for you, one for me, and one for somebody else, too." "murrm . . . murrm . . ." purrs the mother, flattered by their attention. "murrm." after gazing at the kittens, the children take them from under the cat, and begin squeezing them in their hands, then, not satisfied with this, they put them in the skirts of their nightgowns, and run into the other rooms. "mamma, the cat has got pups!" they shout. mamma is sitting in the drawing-room with some unknown gentleman. seeing the children unwashed, undressed, with their nightgowns held up high, she is embarrassed, and looks at them severely. "let your nightgowns down, disgraceful children," she says. "go out of the room, or i will punish you." but the children do not notice either mamma's threats or the presence of a stranger. they put the kittens down on the carpet, and go off into deafening squeals. the mother walks round them, mewing imploringly. when, a little afterwards, the children are dragged off to the nursery, dressed, made to say their prayers, and given their breakfast, they are full of a passionate desire to get away from these prosaic duties as quickly as possible, and to run to the kitchen again. their habitual pursuits and games are thrown completely into the background. the kittens throw everything into the shade by making their appearance in the world, and supply the great sensation of the day. if nina or vanya had been offered forty pounds of sweets or ten thousand kopecks for each kitten, they would have rejected such a barter without the slightest hesitation. in spite of the heated protests of the nurse and the cook, the children persist in sitting by the cat's box in the kitchen, busy with the kittens till dinner-time. their faces are earnest and concentrated and express anxiety. they are worried not so much by the present as by the future of the kittens. they decide that one kitten shall remain at home with the old cat to be a comfort to her mother, while the second shall go to their summer villa, and the third shall live in the cellar, where there are ever so many rats. "but why don't they look at us?" nina wondered. "their eyes are blind like the beggars'." vanya, too, is perturbed by this question. he tries to open one kitten's eyes, and spends a long time puffing and breathing hard over it, but his operation is unsuccessful. they are a good deal troubled, too, by the circumstance that the kittens obstinately refuse the milk and the meat that is offered to them. everything that is put before their little noses is eaten by their grey mamma. "let's build the kittens little houses," vanya suggests. "they shall live in different houses, and the cat shall come and pay them visits. . . ." cardboard hat-boxes are put in the different corners of the kitchen and the kittens are installed in them. but this division turns out to be premature; the cat, still wearing an imploring and sentimental expression on her face, goes the round of all the hat-boxes, and carries off her children to their original position. "the cat's their mother," observed vanya, "but who is their father?" "yes, who is their father?" repeats nina. "they must have a father." vanya and nina are a long time deciding who is to be the kittens' father, and, in the end, their choice falls on a big dark-red horse without a tail, which is lying in the store-cupboard under the stairs, together with other relics of toys that have outlived their day. they drag him up out of the store-cupboard and stand him by the box. "mind now!" they admonish him, "stand here and see they behave themselves properly." all this is said and done in the gravest way, with an expression of anxiety on their faces. vanya and nina refuse to recognise the existence of any world but the box of kittens. their joy knows no bounds. but they have to pass through bitter, agonising moments, too. just before dinner, vanya is sitting in his father's study, gazing dreamily at the table. a kitten is moving about by the lamp, on stamped note paper. vanya is watching its movements, and thrusting first a pencil, then a match into its little mouth. . . . all at once, as though he has sprung out of the floor, his father is beside the table. "what's this?" vanya hears, in an angry voice. "it's . . . it's the kitty, papa. . . ." "i'll give it you; look what you have done, you naughty boy! you've dirtied all my paper!" to vanya's great surprise his papa does not share his partiality for the kittens, and, instead of being moved to enthusiasm and delight, he pulls vanya's ear and shouts: "stepan, take away this horrid thing." at dinner, too, there is a scene. . . . during the second course there is suddenly the sound of a shrill mew. they begin to investigate its origin, and discover a kitten under nina's pinafore. "nina, leave the table!" cries her father angrily. "throw the kittens in the cesspool! i won't have the nasty things in the house! . . ." vanya and nina are horrified. death in the cesspool, apart from its cruelty, threatens to rob the cat and the wooden horse of their children, to lay waste the cat's box, to destroy their plans for the future, that fair future in which one cat will be a comfort to its old mother, another will live in the country, while the third will catch rats in the cellar. the children begin to cry and entreat that the kittens may be spared. their father consents, but on the condition that the children do not go into the kitchen and touch the kittens. after dinner, vanya and nina slouch about the rooms, feeling depressed. the prohibition of visits to the kitchen has reduced them to dejection. they refuse sweets, are naughty, and are rude to their mother. when their uncle petrusha comes in the evening, they draw him aside, and complain to him of their father, who wanted to throw the kittens into the cesspool. "uncle petrusha, tell mamma to have the kittens taken to the nursery," the children beg their uncle, "do-o tell her." "there, there . . . very well," says their uncle, waving them off. "all right." uncle petrusha does not usually come alone. he is accompanied by nero, a big black dog of danish breed, with drooping ears, and a tail as hard as a stick. the dog is silent, morose, and full of a sense of his own dignity. he takes not the slightest notice of the children, and when he passes them hits them with his tail as though they were chairs. the children hate him from the bottom of their hearts, but on this occasion, practical considerations override sentiment. "i say, nina," says vanya, opening his eyes wide. "let nero be their father, instead of the horse! the horse is dead and he is alive, you see." they are waiting the whole evening for the moment when papa will sit down to his cards and it will be possible to take nero to the kitchen without being observed. . . . at last, papa sits down to cards, mamma is busy with the samovar and not noticing the children. . . . the happy moment arrives. "come along!" vanya whispers to his sister. but, at that moment, stepan comes in and, with a snigger, announces: "nero has eaten the kittens, madam." nina and vanya turn pale and look at stepan with horror. "he really has . . ." laughs the footman, "he went to the box and gobbled them up." the children expect that all the people in the house will be aghast and fall upon the miscreant nero. but they all sit calmly in their seats, and only express surprise at the appetite of the huge dog. papa and mamma laugh. nero walks about by the table, wags his tail, and licks his lips complacently . . . the cat is the only one who is uneasy. with her tail in the air she walks about the rooms, looking suspiciously at people and mewing plaintively. "children, it's past nine," cries mamma, "it's bedtime." vanya and nina go to bed, shed tears, and spend a long time thinking about the injured cat, and the cruel, insolent, and unpunished nero. a day in the country between eight and nine o'clock in the morning. a dark leaden-coloured mass is creeping over the sky towards the sun. red zigzags of lightning gleam here and there across it. there is a sound of far-away rumbling. a warm wind frolics over the grass, bends the trees, and stirs up the dust. in a minute there will be a spurt of may rain and a real storm will begin. fyokla, a little beggar-girl of six, is running through the village, looking for terenty the cobbler. the white-haired, barefoot child is pale. her eyes are wide-open, her lips are trembling. "uncle, where is terenty?" she asks every one she meets. no one answers. they are all preoccupied with the approaching storm and take refuge in their huts. at last she meets silanty silitch, the sacristan, terenty's bosom friend. he is coming along, staggering from the wind. "uncle, where is terenty?" "at the kitchen-gardens," answers silanty. the beggar-girl runs behind the huts to the kitchen-gardens and there finds terenty; the tall old man with a thin, pock-marked face, very long legs, and bare feet, dressed in a woman's tattered jacket, is standing near the vegetable plots, looking with drowsy, drunken eyes at the dark storm-cloud. on his long crane-like legs he sways in the wind like a starling-cote. "uncle terenty!" the white-headed beggar-girl addresses him. "uncle, darling!" terenty bends down to fyokla, and his grim, drunken face is overspread with a smile, such as come into people's faces when they look at something little, foolish, and absurd, but warmly loved. "ah! servant of god, fyokia," he says, lisping tenderly, "where have you come from?" "uncle terenty," says fyokia, with a sob, tugging at the lapel of the cobbler's coat. "brother danilka has had an accident! come along!" "what sort of accident? ough, what thunder! holy, holy, holy. . . . what sort of accident?" "in the count's copse danilka stuck his hand into a hole in a tree, and he can't get it out. come along, uncle, do be kind and pull his hand out!" "how was it he put his hand in? what for?" "he wanted to get a cuckoo's egg out of the hole for me." "the day has hardly begun and already you are in trouble. . . ." terenty shook his head and spat deliberately. "well, what am i to do with you now? i must come . . . i must, may the wolf gobble you up, you naughty children! come, little orphan!" terenty comes out of the kitchen-garden and, lifting high his long legs, begins striding down the village street. he walks quickly without stopping or looking from side to side, as though he were shoved from behind or afraid of pursuit. fyokla can hardly keep up with him. they come out of the village and turn along the dusty road towards the count's copse that lies dark blue in the distance. it is about a mile and a half away. the clouds have by now covered the sun, and soon afterwards there is not a speck of blue left in the sky. it grows dark. "holy, holy, holy . . ." whispers fyokla, hurrying after terenty. the first rain-drops, big and heavy, lie, dark dots on the dusty road. a big drop falls on fyokla's cheek and glides like a tear down her chin. "the rain has begun," mutters the cobbler, kicking up the dust with his bare, bony feet. "that's fine, fyokla, old girl. the grass and the trees are fed by the rain, as we are by bread. and as for the thunder, don't you be frightened, little orphan. why should it kill a little thing like you?" as soon as the rain begins, the wind drops. the only sound is the patter of rain dropping like fine shot on the young rye and the parched road. "we shall get soaked, fyolka," mutters terenty. "there won't be a dry spot left on us. . . . ho-ho, my girl! it's run down my neck! but don't be frightened, silly. . . . the grass will be dry again, the earth will be dry again, and we shall be dry again. there is the same sun for us all." a flash of lightning, some fourteen feet long, gleams above their heads. there is a loud peal of thunder, and it seems to fyokla that something big, heavy, and round is rolling over the sky and tearing it open, exactly over her head. "holy, holy, holy . . ." says terenty, crossing himself. "don't be afraid, little orphan! it is not from spite that it thunders." terenty's and fyokla's feet are covered with lumps of heavy, wet clay. it is slippery and difficult to walk, but terenty strides on more and more rapidly. the weak little beggar-girl is breathless and ready to drop. but at last they go into the count's copse. the washed trees, stirred by a gust of wind, drop a perfect waterfall upon them. terenty stumbles over stumps and begins to slacken his pace. "whereabouts is danilka?" he asks. "lead me to him." fyokla leads him into a thicket, and, after going a quarter of a mile, points to danilka. her brother, a little fellow of eight, with hair as red as ochre and a pale sickly face, stands leaning against a tree, and, with his head on one side, looking sideways at the sky. in one hand he holds his shabby old cap, the other is hidden in an old lime tree. the boy is gazing at the stormy sky, and apparently not thinking of his trouble. hearing footsteps and seeing the cobbler he gives a sickly smile and says: "a terrible lot of thunder, terenty. . . . i've never heard so much thunder in all my life." "and where is your hand?" "in the hole. . . . pull it out, please, terenty!" the wood had broken at the edge of the hole and jammed danilka's hand: he could push it farther in, but could not pull it out. terenty snaps off the broken piece, and the boy's hand, red and crushed, is released. "it's terrible how it's thundering," the boy says again, rubbing his hand. "what makes it thunder, terenty?" "one cloud runs against the other," answers the cobbler. the party come out of the copse, and walk along the edge of it towards the darkened road. the thunder gradually abates, and its rumbling is heard far away beyond the village. "the ducks flew by here the other day, terenty," says danilka, still rubbing his hand. "they must be nesting in the gniliya zaimishtcha marshes. . . . fyolka, would you like me to show you a nightingale's nest?" "don't touch it, you might disturb them," says terenty, wringing the water out of his cap. "the nightingale is a singing-bird, without sin. he has had a voice given him in his throat, to praise god and gladden the heart of man. it's a sin to disturb him." "what about the sparrow?" "the sparrow doesn't matter, he's a bad, spiteful bird. he is like a pickpocket in his ways. he doesn't like man to be happy. when christ was crucified it was the sparrow brought nails to the jews, and called 'alive! alive!'" a bright patch of blue appears in the sky. "look!" says terenty. "an ant-heap burst open by the rain! they've been flooded, the rogues!" they bend over the ant-heap. the downpour has damaged it; the insects are scurrying to and fro in the mud, agitated, and busily trying to carry away their drowned companions. "you needn't be in such a taking, you won't die of it!" says terenty, grinning. "as soon as the sun warms you, you'll come to your senses again. . . . it's a lesson to you, you stupids. you won't settle on low ground another time." they go on. "and here are some bees," cries danilka, pointing to the branch of a young oak tree. the drenched and chilled bees are huddled together on the branch. there are so many of them that neither bark nor leaf can be seen. many of them are settled on one another. "that's a swarm of bees," terenty informs them. "they were flying looking for a home, and when the rain came down upon them they settled. if a swarm is flying, you need only sprinkle water on them to make them settle. now if, say, you wanted to take the swarm, you would bend the branch with them into a sack and shake it, and they all fall in." little fyokla suddenly frowns and rubs her neck vigorously. her brother looks at her neck, and sees a big swelling on it. "hey-hey!" laughs the cobbler. "do you know where you got that from, fyokia, old girl? there are spanish flies on some tree in the wood. the rain has trickled off them, and a drop has fallen on your neck --that's what has made the swelling." the sun appears from behind the clouds and floods the wood, the fields, and the three friends with its warm light. the dark menacing cloud has gone far away and taken the storm with it. the air is warm and fragrant. there is a scent of bird-cherry, meadowsweet, and lilies-of-the-valley. "that herb is given when your nose bleeds," says terenty, pointing to a woolly-looking flower. "it does good." they hear a whistle and a rumble, but not such a rumble as the storm-clouds carried away. a goods train races by before the eyes of terenty, danilka, and fyokla. the engine, panting and puffing out black smoke, drags more than twenty vans after it. its power is tremendous. the children are interested to know how an engine, not alive and without the help of horses, can move and drag such weights, and terenty undertakes to explain it to them: "it's all the steam's doing, children. . . . the steam does the work. . . . you see, it shoves under that thing near the wheels, and it . . . you see . . . it works. . . ." they cross the railway line, and, going down from the embankment, walk towards the river. they walk not with any object, but just at random, and talk all the way. . . . danilka asks questions, terenty answers them. . . . terenty answers all his questions, and there is no secret in nature which baffles him. he knows everything. thus, for example, he knows the names of all the wild flowers, animals, and stones. he knows what herbs cure diseases, he has no difficulty in telling the age of a horse or a cow. looking at the sunset, at the moon, or the birds, he can tell what sort of weather it will be next day. and indeed, it is not only terenty who is so wise. silanty silitch, the innkeeper, the market-gardener, the shepherd, and all the villagers, generally speaking, know as much as he does. these people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs. danilka looks at terenty and greedily drinks in every word. in spring, before one is weary of the warmth and the monotonous green of the fields, when everything is fresh and full of fragrance, who would not want to hear about the golden may-beetles, about the cranes, about the gurgling streams, and the corn mounting into ear? the two of them, the cobbler and the orphan, walk about the fields, talk unceasingly, and are not weary. they could wander about the world endlessly. they walk, and in their talk of the beauty of the earth do not notice the frail little beggar-girl tripping after them. she is breathless and moves with a lagging step. there are tears in her eyes; she would be glad to stop these inexhaustible wanderers, but to whom and where can she go? she has no home or people of her own; whether she likes it or not, she must walk and listen to their talk. towards midday, all three sit down on the river bank. danilka takes out of his bag a piece of bread, soaked and reduced to a mash, and they begin to eat. terenty says a prayer when he has eaten the bread, then stretches himself on the sandy bank and falls asleep. while he is asleep, the boy gazes at the water, pondering. he has many different things to think of. he has just seen the storm, the bees, the ants, the train. now, before his eyes, fishes are whisking about. some are two inches long and more, others are no bigger than one's nail. a viper, with its head held high, is swimming from one bank to the other. only towards the evening our wanderers return to the village. the children go for the night to a deserted barn, where the corn of the commune used to be kept, while terenty, leaving them, goes to the tavern. the children lie huddled together on the straw, dozing. the boy does not sleep. he gazes into the darkness, and it seems to him that he is seeing all that he has seen in the day: the storm-clouds, the bright sunshine, the birds, the fish, lanky terenty. the number of his impressions, together with exhaustion and hunger, are too much for him; he is as hot as though he were on fire, and tosses from, side to side. he longs to tell someone all that is haunting him now in the darkness and agitating his soul, but there is no one to tell. fyokla is too little and could not understand. "i'll tell terenty to-morrow," thinks the boy. the children fall asleep thinking of the homeless cobbler, and, in the night, terenty comes to them, makes the sign of the cross over them, and puts bread under their heads. and no one sees his love. it is seen only by the moon which floats in the sky and peeps caressingly through the holes in the wall of the deserted barn. boys "volodya's come!" someone shouted in the yard. "master volodya's here!" bawled natalya the cook, running into the dining-room. "oh, my goodness!" the whole korolyov family, who had been expecting their volodya from hour to hour, rushed to the windows. at the front door stood a wide sledge, with three white horses in a cloud of steam. the sledge was empty, for volodya was already in the hall, untying his hood with red and chilly fingers. his school overcoat, his cap, his snowboots, and the hair on his temples were all white with frost, and his whole figure from head to foot diffused such a pleasant, fresh smell of the snow that the very sight of him made one want to shiver and say "brrr!" his mother and aunt ran to kiss and hug him. natalya plumped down at his feet and began pulling off his snowboots, his sisters shrieked with delight, the doors creaked and banged, and volodya's father, in his waistcoat and shirt-sleeves, ran out into the hall with scissors in his hand, and cried out in alarm: "we were expecting you all yesterday? did you come all right? had a good journey? mercy on us! you might let him say 'how do you do' to his father! i am his father after all!" "bow-wow!" barked the huge black dog, milord, in a deep bass, tapping with his tail on the walls and furniture. for two minutes there was nothing but a general hubbub of joy. after the first outburst of delight was over the korolyovs noticed that there was, besides their volodya, another small person in the hall, wrapped up in scarves and shawls and white with frost. he was standing perfectly still in a corner, in the shadow of a big fox-lined overcoat. "volodya darling, who is it?" asked his mother, in a whisper. "oh!" cried volodya. "this is--let me introduce my friend lentilov, a schoolfellow in the second class. . . . i have brought him to stay with us." "delighted to hear it! you are very welcome," the father said cordially. "excuse me, i've been at work without my coat. . . . please come in! natalya, help mr. lentilov off with his things. mercy on us, do turn that dog out! he is unendurable!" a few minutes later, volodya and his friend lentilov, somewhat dazed by their noisy welcome, and still red from the outside cold, were sitting down to tea. the winter sun, making its way through the snow and the frozen tracery on the window-panes, gleamed on the samovar, and plunged its pure rays in the tea-basin. the room was warm, and the boys felt as though the warmth and the frost were struggling together with a tingling sensation in their bodies. "well, christmas will soon be here," the father said in a pleasant sing-song voice, rolling a cigarette of dark reddish tobacco. "it doesn't seem long since the summer, when mamma was crying at your going . . . and here you are back again. . . . time flies, my boy. before you have time to cry out, old age is upon you. mr. lentilov, take some more, please help yourself! we don't stand on ceremony!" volodya's three sisters, katya, sonya, and masha (the eldest was eleven), sat at the table and never took their eyes off the newcomer. lentilov was of the same height and age as volodya, but not as round-faced and fair-skinned. he was thin, dark, and freckled; his hair stood up like a brush, his eyes were small, and his lips were thick. he was, in fact, distinctly ugly, and if he had not been wearing the school uniform, he might have been taken for the son of a cook. he seemed morose, did not speak, and never once smiled. the little girls, staring at him, immediately came to the conclusion that he must be a very clever and learned person. he seemed to be thinking about something all the time, and was so absorbed in his own thoughts, that, whenever he was spoken to, he started, threw his head back, and asked to have the question repeated. the little girls noticed that volodya, who had always been so merry and talkative, also said very little, did not smile at all, and hardly seemed to be glad to be home. all the time they were at tea he only once addressed his sisters, and then he said something so strange. he pointed to the samovar and said: "in california they don't drink tea, but gin." he, too, seemed absorbed in his own thoughts, and, to judge by the looks that passed between him and his friend lentilov, their thoughts were the same. after tea, they all went into the nursery. the girls and their father took up the work that had been interrupted by the arrival of the boys. they were making flowers and frills for the christmas tree out of paper of different colours. it was an attractive and noisy occupation. every fresh flower was greeted by the little girls with shrieks of delight, even of awe, as though the flower had dropped straight from heaven; their father was in ecstasies too, and every now and then he threw the scissors on the floor, in vexation at their bluntness. their mother kept running into the nursery with an anxious face, asking: "who has taken my scissors? ivan nikolaitch, have you taken my scissors again?" "mercy on us! i'm not even allowed a pair of scissors!" their father would respond in a lachrymose voice, and, flinging himself back in his chair, he would pretend to be a deeply injured man; but a minute later, he would be in ecstasies again. on his former holidays volodya, too, had taken part in the preparations for the christmas tree, or had been running in the yard to look at the snow mountain that the watchman and the shepherd were building. but this time volodya and lentilov took no notice whatever of the coloured paper, and did not once go into the stable. they sat in the window and began whispering to one another; then they opened an atlas and looked carefully at a map. "first to perm . . ." lentilov said, in an undertone, "from there to tiumen, then tomsk . . . then . . . then . . . kamchatka. there the samoyedes take one over behring's straits in boats . . . . and then we are in america. . . . there are lots of furry animals there. . . ." "and california?" asked volodya. "california is lower down. . . . we've only to get to america and california is not far off. . . . and one can get a living by hunting and plunder." all day long lentilov avoided the little girls, and seemed to look at them with suspicion. in the evening he happened to be left alone with them for five minutes or so. it was awkward to be silent. he cleared his throat morosely, rubbed his left hand against his right, looked sullenly at katya and asked: "have you read mayne reid?" "no, i haven't. . . . i say, can you skate?" absorbed in his own reflections, lentilov made no reply to this question; he simply puffed out his cheeks, and gave a long sigh as though he were very hot. he looked up at katya once more and said: "when a herd of bisons stampedes across the prairie the earth trembles, and the frightened mustangs kick and neigh." he smiled impressively and added: "and the indians attack the trains, too. but worst of all are the mosquitoes and the termites." "why, what's that?" "they're something like ants, but with wings. they bite fearfully. do you know who i am?" "mr. lentilov." "no, i am montehomo, the hawk's claw, chief of the ever victorious." masha, the youngest, looked at him, then into the darkness out of window and said, wondering: "and we had lentils for supper yesterday." lentilov's incomprehensible utterances, and the way he was always whispering with volodya, and the way volodya seemed now to be always thinking about something instead of playing . . . all this was strange and mysterious. and the two elder girls, katya and sonya, began to keep a sharp look-out on the boys. at night, when the boys had gone to bed, the girls crept to their bedroom door, and listened to what they were saying. ah, what they discovered! the boys were planning to run away to america to dig for gold: they had everything ready for the journey, a pistol, two knives, biscuits, a burning glass to serve instead of matches, a compass, and four roubles in cash. they learned that the boys would have to walk some thousands of miles, and would have to fight tigers and savages on the road: then they would get gold and ivory, slay their enemies, become pirates, drink gin, and finally marry beautiful maidens, and make a plantation. the boys interrupted each other in their excitement. throughout the conversation, lentilov called himself "montehomo, the hawk's claw," and volodya was "my pale-face brother!" "mind you don't tell mamma," said katya, as they went back to bed. "volodya will bring us gold and ivory from america, but if you tell mamma he won't be allowed to go." the day before christmas eve, lentilov spent the whole day poring over the map of asia and making notes, while volodya, with a languid and swollen face that looked as though it had been stung by a bee, walked about the rooms and ate nothing. and once he stood still before the holy image in the nursery, crossed himself, and said: "lord, forgive me a sinner; lord, have pity on my poor unhappy mamma!" in the evening he burst out crying. on saying good-night he gave his father a long hug, and then hugged his mother and sisters. katya and sonya knew what was the matter, but little masha was puzzled, completely puzzled. every time she looked at lentilov she grew thoughtful and said with a sigh: "when lent comes, nurse says we shall have to eat peas and lentils." early in the morning of christmas eve, katya and sonya slipped quietly out of bed, and went to find out how the boys meant to run away to america. they crept to their door. "then you don't mean to go?" lentilov was saying angrily. "speak out: aren't you going?" "oh dear," volodya wept softly. "how can i go? i feel so unhappy about mamma." "my pale-face brother, i pray you, let us set off. you declared you were going, you egged me on, and now the time comes, you funk it!" "i . . . i . . . i'm not funking it, but i . . . i . . . i'm sorry for mamma." "say once and for all, are you going or are you not?" "i am going, only . . . wait a little . . . i want to be at home a little." "in that case i will go by myself," lentilov declared. "i can get on without you. and you wanted to hunt tigers and fight! since that's how it is, give me back my cartridges!" at this volodya cried so bitterly that his sisters could not help crying too. silence followed. "so you are not coming?" lentilov began again. "i . . . i . . . i am coming!" "well, put on your things, then." and lentilov tried to cheer volodya up by singing the praises of america, growling like a tiger, pretending to be a steamer, scolding him, and promising to give him all the ivory and lions' and tigers' skins. and this thin, dark boy, with his freckles and his bristling shock of hair, impressed the little girls as an extraordinary remarkable person. he was a hero, a determined character, who knew no fear, and he growled so ferociously, that, standing at the door, they really might imagine there was a tiger or lion inside. when the little girls went back to their room and dressed, katya's eyes were full of tears, and she said: "oh, i feel so frightened!" everything was as usual till two o'clock, when they sat down to dinner. then it appeared that the boys were not in the house. they sent to the servants' quarters, to the stables, to the bailiff's cottage. they were not to be found. they sent into the village-- they were not there. at tea, too, the boys were still absent, and by supper-time volodya's mother was dreadfully uneasy, and even shed tears. late in the evening they sent again to the village, they searched everywhere, and walked along the river bank with lanterns. heavens! what a fuss there was! next day the police officer came, and a paper of some sort was written out in the dining-room. their mother cried. . . . all of a sudden a sledge stopped at the door, with three white horses in a cloud of steam. "volodya's come," someone shouted in the yard. "master volodya's here!" bawled natalya, running into the dining-room. and milord barked his deep bass, "bow-wow." it seemed that the boys had been stopped in the arcade, where they had gone from shop to shop asking where they could get gunpowder. volodya burst into sobs as soon as he came into the hall, and flung himself on his mother's neck. the little girls, trembling, wondered with terror what would happen next. they saw their father take volodya and lentilov into his study, and there he talked to them a long while. "is this a proper thing to do?" their father said to them. "i only pray they won't hear of it at school, you would both be expelled. you ought to be ashamed, mr. lentilov, really. it's not at all the thing to do! you began it, and i hope you will be punished by your parents. how could you? where did you spend the night?" "at the station," lentilov answered proudly. then volodya went to bed, and had a compress, steeped in vinegar, on his forehead. a telegram was sent off, and next day a lady, lentilov's mother, made her appearance and bore off her son. lentilov looked morose and haughty to the end, and he did not utter a single word at taking leave of the little girls. but he took katya's book and wrote in it as a souvenir: "montehomo, the hawk's claw, chief of the ever victorious." shrove tuesday "pavel vassilitch!" cries pelageya ivanovna, waking her husband. "pavel vassilitch! you might go and help styopa with his lessons, he is sitting crying over his book. he can't understand something again!" pavel vassilitch gets up, makes the sign of the cross over his mouth as he yawns, and says softly: "in a minute, my love!" the cat who has been asleep beside him gets up too, straightens out its tail, arches its spine, and half-shuts its eyes. there is stillness. . . . mice can be heard scurrying behind the wall-paper. putting on his boots and his dressing-gown, pavel vassilitch, crumpled and frowning from sleepiness, comes out of his bedroom into the dining-room; on his entrance another cat, engaged in sniffing a marinade of fish in the window, jumps down to the floor, and hides behind the cupboard. "who asked you to sniff that!" he says angrily, covering the fish with a sheet of newspaper. "you are a pig to do that, not a cat. . . ." from the dining-room there is a door leading into the nursery. there, at a table covered with stains and deep scratches, sits styopa, a high-school boy in the second class, with a peevish expression of face and tear-stained eyes. with his knees raised almost to his chin, and his hands clasped round them, he is swaying to and fro like a chinese idol and looking crossly at a sum book. "are you working?" asks pavel vassilitch, sitting down to the table and yawning. "yes, my boy. . . . we have enjoyed ourselves, slept, and eaten pancakes, and to-morrow comes lenten fare, repentance, and going to work. every period of time has its limits. why are your eyes so red? are you sick of learning your lessons? to be sure, after pancakes, lessons are nasty to swallow. that's about it." "what are you laughing at the child for?" pelageya ivanovna calls from the next room. "you had better show him instead of laughing at him. he'll get a one again to-morrow, and make me miserable." "what is it you don't understand?" pavel vassilitch asks styopa. "why this . . . division of fractions," the boy answers crossly. "the division of fractions by fractions. . . ." "h'm . . . queer boy! what is there in it? there's nothing to understand in it. learn the rules, and that's all. . . . to divide a fraction by a fraction you must multiply the numerator of the first fraction by the denominator of the second, and that will be the numerator of the quotient. . . . in this case, the numerator of the first fraction. . . ." "i know that without your telling me," styopa interrupts him, flicking a walnut shell off the table. "show me the proof." "the proof? very well, give me a pencil. listen. . . . suppose we want to divide seven eighths by two fifths. well, the point of it is, my boy, that it's required to divide these fractions by each other. . . . have they set the samovar?" "i don't know." "it's time for tea. . . . it's past seven. well, now listen. we will look at it like this. . . . suppose we want to divide seven eighths not by two fifths but by two, that is, by the numerator only. we divide it, what do we get? "seven sixteenths." "right. bravo! well, the trick of it is, my boy, that if we . . . so if we have divided it by two then. . . . wait a bit, i am getting muddled. i remember when i was at school, the teacher of arithmetic was called sigismund urbanitch, a pole. he used to get into a muddle over every lesson. he would begin explaining some theory, get in a tangle, and turn crimson all over and race up and down the class-room as though someone were sticking an awl in his back, then he would blow his nose half a dozen times and begin to cry. but you know we were magnanimous to him, we pretended not to see it. 'what is it, sigismund urbanitch?' we used to ask him. 'have you got toothache?' and what a set of young ruffians, regular cut-throats, we were, but yet we were magnanimous, you know! there weren't any boys like you in my day, they were all great hulking fellows, great strapping louts, one taller than another. for instance, in our third class, there was mamahin. my goodness, he was a solid chap! you know, a regular maypole, seven feet high. when he moved, the floor shook; when he brought his great fist down on your back, he would knock the breath out of your body! not only we boys, but even the teachers were afraid of him. so this mamahin used to . . ." pelageya ivanovna's footsteps are heard through the door. pavel vassilitch winks towards the door and says: "there's mother coming. let's get to work. well, so you see, my boy," he says, raising his voice. "this fraction has to be multiplied by that one. well, and to do that you have to take the numerator of the first fraction. . ." "come to tea!" cries pelageya ivanovna. pavel vassilitch and his son abandon arithmetic and go in to tea. pelageya ivanovna is already sitting at the table with an aunt who never speaks, another aunt who is deaf and dumb, and granny markovna, a midwife who had helped styopa into the world. the samovar is hissing and puffing out steam which throws flickering shadows on the ceiling. the cats come in from the entry sleepy and melancholy with their tails in the air. . . . "have some jam with your tea, markovna," says pelageya ivanovna, addressing the midwife. "to-morrow the great fast begins. eat well to-day." markovna takes a heaped spoonful of jam hesitatingly as though it were a powder, raises it to her lips, and with a sidelong look at pavel vassilitch, eats it; at once her face is overspread with a sweet smile, as sweet as the jam itself. "the jam is particularly good," she says. "did you make it yourself, pelageya ivanovna, ma'am?" "yes. who else is there to do it? i do everything myself. styopotchka, have i given you your tea too weak? ah, you have drunk it already. pass your cup, my angel; let me give you some more." "so this mamahin, my boy, could not bear the french master," pavel vassilitch goes on, addressing his son. "'i am a nobleman,' he used to shout, 'and i won't allow a frenchman to lord it over me! we beat the french in !' well, of course they used to thrash him for it . . . thrash him dre-ead-fully, and sometimes when he saw they were meaning to thrash him, he would jump out of window, and off he would go! then for five or six days afterwards he would not show himself at the school. his mother would come to the head-master and beg him for god's sake: 'be so kind, sir, as to find my mishka, and flog him, the rascal!' and the head-master would say to her: 'upon my word, madam, our five porters aren't a match for him!'" "good heavens, to think of such ruffians being born," whispers pelageya ivanovna, looking at her husband in horror. "what a trial for the poor mother!" a silence follows. styopa yawns loudly, and scrutinises the chinaman on the tea-caddy whom he has seen a thousand times already. markovna and the two aunts sip tea carefully out of their saucers. the air is still and stifling from the stove. . . . faces and gestures betray the sloth and repletion that comes when the stomach is full, and yet one must go on eating. the samovar, the cups, and the table-cloth are cleared away, but still the family sits on at the table. . . . pelageya ivanovna is continually jumping up and, with an expression of alarm on her face, running off into the kitchen, to talk to the cook about the supper. the two aunts go on sitting in the same position immovably, with their arms folded across their bosoms and doze, staring with their pewtery little eyes at the lamp. markovna hiccups every minute and asks: "why is it i have the hiccups? i don't think i have eaten anything to account for it . . . nor drunk anything either. . . . hic!" pavel vassilitch and styopa sit side by side, with their heads touching, and, bending over the table, examine a volume of the "neva" for . "'the monument of leonardo da vinci, facing the gallery of victor emmanuel at milan.' i say! . . . after the style of a triumphal arch. . . . a cavalier with his lady. . . . and there are little men in the distance. . . ." "that little man is like a schoolfellow of mine called niskubin," says styopa. "turn over. . . . 'the proboscis of the common house-fly seen under the microscope.' so that's a proboscis! i say--a fly. whatever would a bug look like under a microscope, my boy? wouldn't it be horrid!" the old-fashioned clock in the drawing-room does not strike, but coughs ten times huskily as though it had a cold. the cook, anna, comes into the dining-room, and plumps down at the master's feet. "forgive me, for christ's sake, pavel vassilitch!" she says, getting up, flushed all over. "you forgive me, too, for christ's sake," pavel vassilitch responds unconcernedly. in the same manner, anna goes up to the other members of the family, plumps down at their feet, and begs forgiveness. she only misses out markovna to whom, not being one of the gentry, she does not feel it necessary to bow down. another half-hour passes in stillness and tranquillity. the "neva" is by now lying on the sofa, and pavel vassilitch, holding up his finger, repeats by heart some latin verses he has learned in his childhood. styopa stares at the finger with the wedding ring, listens to the unintelligible words, and dozes; he rubs his eyelids with his fists, and they shut all the tighter. "i am going to bed . . ." he says, stretching and yawning. "what, to bed?" says pelageya ivanovna. "what about supper before the fast?" "i don't want any." "are you crazy?" says his mother in alarm. "how can you go without your supper before the fast? you'll have nothing but lenten food all through the fast!" pavel vassilitch is scared too. "yes, yes, my boy," he says. "for seven weeks mother will give you nothing but lenten food. you can't miss the last supper before the fast." "oh dear, i am sleepy," says styopa peevishly. "since that is how it is, lay the supper quickly," pavel vassilitch cries in a fluster. "anna, why are you sitting there, silly? make haste and lay the table." pelageya ivanovna clasps her hands and runs into the kitchen with an expression as though the house were on fire. "make haste, make haste," is heard all over the house. "styopotchka is sleepy. anna! oh dear me, what is one to do? make haste." five minutes later the table is laid. again the cats, arching their spines, and stretching themselves with their tails in the air, come into the dining-room. . . . the family begin supper. . . . no one is hungry, everyone's stomach is overfull, but yet they must eat. the old house _(a story told by a houseowner)_ the old house had to be pulled down that a new one might be built in its place. i led the architect through the empty rooms, and between our business talk told him various stories. the tattered wallpapers, the dingy windows, the dark stoves, all bore the traces of recent habitation and evoked memories. on that staircase, for instance, drunken men were once carrying down a dead body when they stumbled and flew headlong downstairs together with the coffin; the living were badly bruised, while the dead man looked very serious, as though nothing had happened, and shook his head when they lifted him up from the ground and put him back in the coffin. you see those three doors in a row: in there lived young ladies who were always receiving visitors, and so were better dressed than any other lodgers, and could pay their rent regularly. the door at the end of the corridor leads to the wash-house, where by day they washed clothes and at night made an uproar and drank beer. and in that flat of three rooms everything is saturated with bacteria and bacilli. it's not nice there. many lodgers have died there, and i can positively assert that that flat was at some time cursed by someone, and that together with its human lodgers there was always another lodger, unseen, living in it. i remember particularly the fate of one family. picture to yourself an ordinary man, not remarkable in any way, with a wife, a mother, and four children. his name was putohin; he was a copying clerk at a notary's, and received thirty-five roubles a month. he was a sober, religious, serious man. when he brought me his rent for the flat he always apologised for being badly dressed; apologised for being five days late, and when i gave him a receipt he would smile good-humouredly and say: "oh yes, there's that too, i don't like those receipts." he lived poorly but decently. in that middle room, the grandmother used to be with the four children; there they used to cook, sleep, receive their visitors, and even dance. this was putohin's own room; he had a table in it, at which he used to work doing private jobs, copying parts for the theatre, advertisements, and so on. this room on the right was let to his lodger, yegoritch, a locksmith--a steady fellow, but given to drink; he was always too hot, and so used to go about in his waistcoat and barefoot. yegoritch used to mend locks, pistols, children's bicycles, would not refuse to mend cheap clocks and make skates for a quarter-rouble, but he despised that work, and looked on himself as a specialist in musical instruments. amongst the litter of steel and iron on his table there was always to be seen a concertina with a broken key, or a trumpet with its sides bent in. he paid putohin two and a half roubles for his room; he was always at his work-table, and only came out to thrust some piece of iron into the stove. on the rare occasions when i went into that flat in the evening, this was always the picture i came upon: putohin would be sitting at his little table, copying something; his mother and his wife, a thin woman with an exhausted-looking face, were sitting near the lamp, sewing; yegoritch would be making a rasping sound with his file. and the hot, still smouldering embers in the stove filled the room with heat and fumes; the heavy air smelt of cabbage soup, swaddling-clothes, and yegoritch. it was poor and stuffy, but the working-class faces, the children's little drawers hung up along by the stove, yegoritch's bits of iron had yet an air of peace, friendliness, content. . . . in the corridor outside the children raced about with well-combed heads, merry and profoundly convinced that everything was satisfactory in this world, and would be so endlessly, that one had only to say one's prayers every morning and at bedtime. now imagine in the midst of that same room, two paces from the stove, the coffin in which putohin's wife is lying. there is no husband whose wife will live for ever, but there was something special about this death. when, during the requiem service, i glanced at the husband's grave face, at his stern eyes, i thought: "oho, brother!" it seemed to me that he himself, his children, the grandmother and yegoritch, were already marked down by that unseen being which lived with them in that flat. i am a thoroughly superstitious man, perhaps, because i am a houseowner and for forty years have had to do with lodgers. i believe if you don't win at cards from the beginning you will go on losing to the end; when fate wants to wipe you and your family off the face of the earth, it remains inexorable in its persecution, and the first misfortune is commonly only the first of a long series. . . . misfortunes are like stones. one stone has only to drop from a high cliff for others to be set rolling after it. in short, as i came away from the requiem service at putohin's, i believed that he and his family were in a bad way. and, in fact, a week afterwards the notary quite unexpectedly dismissed putohin, and engaged a young lady in his place. and would you believe it, putohin was not so much put out at the loss of his job as at being superseded by a young lady and not by a man. why a young lady? he so resented this that on his return home he thrashed his children, swore at his mother, and got drunk. yegoritch got drunk, too, to keep him company. putohin brought me the rent, but did not apologise this time, though it was eighteen days overdue, and said nothing when he took the receipt from me. the following month the rent was brought by his mother; she only brought me half, and promised to bring the remainder a week later. the third month, i did not get a farthing, and the porter complained to me that the lodgers in no. were "not behaving like gentlemen." these were ominous symptoms. picture this scene. a sombre petersburg morning looks in at the dingy windows. by the stove, the granny is pouring out the children's tea. only the eldest, vassya, drinks out of a glass, for the others the tea is poured out into saucers. yegoritch is squatting on his heels before the stove, thrusting a bit of iron into the fire. his head is heavy and his eyes are lustreless from yesterday's drinking-bout; he sighs and groans, trembles and coughs. "he has quite put me off the right way, the devil," he grumbles; "he drinks himself and leads others into sin." putohin sits in his room, on the bedstead from which the bedclothes and the pillows have long ago disappeared, and with his hands straying in his hair looks blankly at the floor at his feet. he is tattered, unkempt, and ill. "drink it up, make haste or you will be late for school," the old woman urges on vassya, "and it's time for me, too, to go and scrub the floors for the jews. . . ." the old woman is the only one in the flat who does not lose heart. she thinks of old times, and goes out to hard dirty work. on fridays she scrubs the floors for the jews at the crockery shop, on saturdays she goes out washing for shopkeepers, and on sundays she is racing about the town from morning to night, trying to find ladies who will help her. every day she has work of some sort; she washes and scrubs, and is by turns a midwife, a matchmaker, or a beggar. it is true she, too, is not disinclined to drown her sorrows, but even when she has had a drop she does not forget her duties. in russia there are many such tough old women, and how much of its welfare rests upon them! when he has finished his tea, vassya packs up his books in a satchel and goes behind the stove; his greatcoat ought to be hanging there beside his granny's clothes. a minute later he comes out from behind the stove and asks: "where is my greatcoat?" the grandmother and the other children look for the greatcoat together, they waste a long time in looking for it, but the greatcoat has utterly vanished. where is it? the grandmother and vassya are pale and frightened. even yegoritch is surprised. putohin is the only one who does not move. though he is quick to notice anything irregular or disorderly, this time he makes a pretence of hearing and seeing nothing. that is suspicious. "he's sold it for drink," yegoritch declares. putohin says nothing, so it is the truth. vassya is overcome with horror. his greatcoat, his splendid greatcoat, made of his dead mother's cloth dress, with a splendid calico lining, gone for drink at the tavern! and with the greatcoat is gone too, of course, the blue pencil that lay in the pocket, and the note-book with "_nota bene_" in gold letters on it! there's another pencil with india-rubber stuck into the note-book, and, besides that, there are transfer pictures lying in it. vassya would like to cry, but to cry is impossible. if his father, who has a headache, heard crying he would shout, stamp with his feet, and begin fighting, and after drinking he fights horribly. granny would stand up for vassya, and his father would strike granny too; it would end in yegoritch getting mixed up in it too, clutching at his father and falling on the floor with him. the two would roll on the floor, struggling together and gasping with drunken animal fury, and granny would cry, the children would scream, the neighbours would send for the porter. no, better not cry. because he mustn't cry, or give vent to his indignation aloud, vassya moans, wrings his hands and moves his legs convulsively, or biting his sleeve shakes it with his teeth as a dog does a hare. his eyes are frantic, and his face is distorted with despair. looking at him, his granny all at once takes the shawl off her head, and she too makes queer movements with her arms and legs in silence, with her eyes fixed on a point in the distance. and at that moment i believe there is a definite certainty in the minds of the boy and the old woman that their life is ruined, that there is no hope. . . . putohin hears no crying, but he can see it all from his room. when, half an hour later, vassya sets off to school, wrapped in his grandmother's shawl, he goes out with a face i will not undertake to describe, and walks after him. he longs to call the boy, to comfort him, to beg his forgiveness, to promise him on his word of honour, to call his dead mother to witness, but instead of words, sobs break from him. it is a grey, cold morning. when he reaches the town school vassya untwists his granny's shawl, and goes into the school with nothing over his jacket for fear the boys should say he looks like a woman. and when he gets home putohin sobs, mutters some incoherent words, bows down to the ground before his mother and yegoritch, and the locksmith's table. then, recovering himself a little, he runs to me and begs me breathlessly, for god's sake, to find him some job. i give him hopes, of course. "at last i am myself again," he said. "it's high time, indeed, to come to my senses. i've made a beast of myself, and now it's over." he is delighted and thanks me, while i, who have studied these gentry thoroughly during the years i have owned the house, look at him, and am tempted to say: "it's too late, dear fellow! you are a dead man already." from me, putohin runs to the town school. there he paces up and down, waiting till his boy comes out. "i say, vassya," he says joyfully, when the boy at last comes out, "i have just been promised a job. wait a bit, i will buy you a splendid fur-coat. . . . i'll send you to the high school! do you understand? to the high school! i'll make a gentleman of you! and i won't drink any more. on my honour i won't." and he has intense faith in the bright future. but the evening comes on. the old woman, coming back from the jews with twenty kopecks, exhausted and aching all over, sets to work to wash the children's clothes. vassya is sitting doing a sum. yegoritch is not working. thanks to putohin he has got into the way of drinking, and is feeling at the moment an overwhelming desire for drink. it's hot and stuffy in the room. steam rises in clouds from the tub where the old woman is washing. "are we going?" yegoritch asks surlily. my lodger does not answer. after his excitement he feels insufferably dreary. he struggles with the desire to drink, with acute depression and . . . and, of course, depression gets the best of it. it is a familiar story. towards night, yegoritch and putohin go out, and in the morning vassya cannot find granny's shawl. that is the drama that took place in that flat. after selling the shawl for drink, putohin did not come home again. where he disappeared to i don't know. after he disappeared, the old woman first got drunk, then took to her bed. she was taken to the hospital, the younger children were fetched by relations of some sort, and vassya went into the wash-house here. in the day-time he handed the irons, and at night fetched the beer. when he was turned out of the wash-house he went into the service of one of the young ladies, used to run about at night on errands of some sort, and began to be spoken of as "a dangerous customer." what has happened to him since i don't know. and in this room here a street musician lived for ten years. when he died they found twenty thousand roubles in his feather bed. in passion week "go along, they are ringing already; and mind, don't be naughty in church or god will punish you." my mother thrusts a few copper coins upon me, and, instantly forgetting about me, runs into the kitchen with an iron that needs reheating. i know well that after confession i shall not be allowed to eat or drink, and so, before leaving the house, i force myself to eat a crust of white bread, and to drink two glasses of water. it is quite spring in the street. the roads are all covered with brownish slush, in which future paths are already beginning to show; the roofs and side-walks are dry; the fresh young green is piercing through the rotting grass of last year, under the fences. in the gutters there is the merry gurgling and foaming of dirty water, in which the sunbeams do not disdain to bathe. chips, straws, the husks of sunflower seeds are carried rapidly along in the water, whirling round and sticking in the dirty foam. where, where are those chips swimming to? it may well be that from the gutter they may pass into the river, from the river into the sea, and from the sea into the ocean. i try to imagine to myself that long terrible journey, but my fancy stops short before reaching the sea. a cabman drives by. he clicks to his horse, tugs at the reins, and does not see that two street urchins are hanging on the back of his cab. i should like to join them, but think of confession, and the street urchins begin to seem to me great sinners. "they will be asked on the day of judgment: 'why did you play pranks and deceive the poor cabman?'" i think. "they will begin to defend themselves, but evil spirits will seize them, and drag them to fire everlasting. but if they obey their parents, and give the beggars a kopeck each, or a roll, god will have pity on them, and will let them into paradise." the church porch is dry and bathed in sunshine. there is not a soul in it. i open the door irresolutely and go into the church. here, in the twilight which seems to me thick and gloomy as at no other time, i am overcome by the sense of sinfulness and insignificance. what strikes the eye first of all is a huge crucifix, and on one side of it the mother of god, and on the other, st. john the divine. the candelabra and the candlestands are draped in black mourning covers, the lamps glimmer dimly and faintly, and the sun seems intentionally to pass by the church windows. the mother of god and the beloved disciple of jesus christ, depicted in profile, gaze in silence at the insufferable agony and do not observe my presence; i feel that to them i am alien, superfluous, unnoticed, that i can be no help to them by word or deed, that i am a loathsome, dishonest boy, only capable of mischief, rudeness, and tale-bearing. i think of all the people i know, and they all seem to me petty, stupid, and wicked, and incapable of bringing one drop of relief to that intolerable sorrow which i now behold. the twilight of the church grows darker and more gloomy. and the mother of god and st. john look lonely and forlorn to me. prokofy ignatitch, a veteran soldier, the church verger's assistant, is standing behind the candle cupboard. raising his eyebrows and stroking his beard he explains in a half-whisper to an old woman: "matins will be in the evening to-day, directly after vespers. and they will ring for the 'hours' to-morrow between seven and eight. do you understand? between seven and eight." between the two broad columns on the right, where the chapel of varvara the martyr begins, those who are going to confess stand beside the screen, awaiting their turn. and mitka is there too-- a ragged boy with his head hideously cropped, with ears that jut out, and little spiteful eyes. he is the son of nastasya the charwoman, and is a bully and a ruffian who snatches apples from the women's baskets, and has more than once carried off my knuckle-bones. he looks at me angrily, and i fancy takes a spiteful pleasure in the fact that he, not i, will first go behind the screen. i feel boiling over with resentment, i try not to look at him, and, at the bottom of my heart, i am vexed that this wretched boy's sins will soon be forgiven. in front of him stands a grandly dressed, beautiful lady, wearing a hat with a white feather. she is noticeably agitated, is waiting in strained suspense, and one of her cheeks is flushed red with excitement. i wait for five minutes, for ten. . . . a well-dressed young man with a long thin neck, and rubber goloshes, comes out from behind the screen. i begin dreaming how, when i am grown up, i will buy goloshes exactly like them. i certainly will! the lady shudders and goes behind the screen. it is her turn. in the crack, between the two panels of the screen, i can see the lady go up to the lectern and bow down to the ground, then get up, and, without looking at the priest, bow her head in anticipation. the priest stands with his back to the screen, and so i can only see his grey curly head, the chain of the cross on his chest, and his broad back. his face is not visible. heaving a sigh, and not looking at the lady, he begins speaking rapidly, shaking his head, alternately raising and dropping his whispering voice. the lady listens meekly as though conscious of guilt, answers meekly, and looks at the floor. "in what way can she be sinful?" i wonder, looking reverently at her gentle, beautiful face. "god forgive her sins, god send her happiness." but now the priest covers her head with the stole. "and i, unworthy priest . . ." i hear his voice, ". . . by his power given unto me, do forgive and absolve thee from all thy sins. . . ." the lady bows down to the ground, kisses the cross, and comes back. both her cheeks are flushed now, but her face is calm and serene and cheerful. "she is happy now," i think to myself, looking first at her and then at the priest who had forgiven her sins. "but how happy the man must be who has the right to forgive sins!" now it is mitka's turn, but a feeling of hatred for that young ruffian suddenly boils up in me. i want to go behind the screen before him, i want to be the first. noticing my movement he hits me on the head with his candle, i respond by doing the same, and, for half a minute, there is a sound of panting, and, as it were, of someone breaking candles. . . . we are separated. my foe goes timidly up to the lectern, and bows down to the floor without bending his knees, but i do not see what happens after that; the thought that my turn is coming after mitka's makes everything grow blurred and confused before my eyes; mitka's protruding ears grow large, and melt into his dark head, the priest sways, the floor seems to be undulating. . . . the priest's voice is audible: "and i, unworthy priest . . ." now i too move behind the screen. i do not feel the ground under my feet, it is as though i were walking on air. . . . i go up to the lectern which is taller than i am. for a minute i have a glimpse of the indifferent, exhausted face of the priest. but after that i see nothing but his sleeve with its blue lining, the cross, and the edge of the lectern. i am conscious of the close proximity of the priest, the smell of his cassock; i hear his stern voice, and my cheek turned towards him begins to burn. . . . i am so troubled that i miss a great deal that he says, but i answer his questions sincerely in an unnatural voice, not my own. i think of the forlorn figures of the holy mother and st. john the divine, the crucifix, my mother, and i want to cry and beg forgiveness. "what is your name?" the priest asks me, covering my head with the soft stole. how light-hearted i am now, with joy in my soul! i have no sins now, i am holy, i have the right to enter paradise! i fancy that i already smell like the cassock. i go from behind the screen to the deacon to enter my name, and sniff at my sleeves. the dusk of the church no longer seems gloomy, and i look indifferently, without malice, at mitka. "what is your name?" the deacon asks. "fedya." "and your name from your father?" "i don't know." "what is your papa's name?" "ivan petrovitch." "and your surname?" i make no answer. "how old are you?" "nearly nine." when i get home i go to bed quickly, that i may not see them eating supper; and, shutting my eyes, dream of how fine it would be to endure martyrdom at the hands of some herod or dioskorus, to live in the desert, and, like st. serafim, feed the bears, live in a cell, and eat nothing but holy bread, give my property to the poor, go on a pilgrimage to kiev. i hear them laying the table in the dining-room--they are going to have supper, they will eat salad, cabbage pies, fried and baked fish. how hungry i am! i would consent to endure any martyrdom, to live in the desert without my mother, to feed bears out of my own hands, if only i might first eat just one cabbage pie! "lord, purify me a sinner," i pray, covering my head over. "guardian angel, save me from the unclean spirit." the next day, thursday, i wake up with my heart as pure and clean as a fine spring day. i go gaily and boldly into the church, feeling that i am a communicant, that i have a splendid and expensive shirt on, made out of a silk dress left by my grandmother. in the church everything has an air of joy, happiness, and spring. the faces of the mother of god and st. john the divine are not so sorrowful as yesterday. the faces of the communicants are radiant with hope, and it seems as though all the past is forgotten, all is forgiven. mitka, too, has combed his hair, and is dressed in his best. i look gaily at his protruding ears, and to show that i have nothing against him, i say: "you look nice to-day, and if your hair did not stand up so, and you weren't so poorly dressed, everybody would think that your mother was not a washerwoman but a lady. come to me at easter, we will play knuckle-bones." mitka looks at me mistrustfully, and shakes his fist at me on the sly. and the lady i saw yesterday looks lovely. she is wearing a light blue dress, and a big sparkling brooch in the shape of a horse-shoe. i admire her, and think that, when i am grown-up, i will certainly marry a woman like that, but remembering that getting married is shameful, i leave off thinking about it, and go into the choir where the deacon is already reading the "hours." whitebrow a hungry she-wolf got up to go hunting. her cubs, all three of them, were sound asleep, huddled in a heap and keeping each other warm. she licked them and went off. it was already march, a month of spring, but at night the trees snapped with the cold, as they do in december, and one could hardly put one's tongue out without its being nipped. the wolf-mother was in delicate health and nervous; she started at the slightest sound, and kept hoping that no one would hurt the little ones at home while she was away. the smell of the tracks of men and horses, logs, piles of faggots, and the dark road with horse-dung on it frightened her; it seemed to her that men were standing behind the trees in the darkness, and that dogs were howling somewhere beyond the forest. she was no longer young and her scent had grown feebler, so that it sometimes happened that she took the track of a fox for that of a dog, and even at times lost her way, a thing that had never been in her youth. owing to the weakness of her health she no longer hunted calves and big sheep as she had in old days, and kept her distance now from mares with colts; she fed on nothing but carrion; fresh meat she tasted very rarely, only in the spring when she would come upon a hare and take away her young, or make her way into a peasant's stall where there were lambs. some three miles from her lair there stood a winter hut on the posting road. there lived the keeper ignat, an old man of seventy, who was always coughing and talking to himself; at night he was usually asleep, and by day he wandered about the forest with a single-barrelled gun, whistling to the hares. he must have worked among machinery in early days, for before he stood still he always shouted to himself: "stop the machine!" and before going on: "full speed!" he had a huge black dog of indeterminate breed, called arapka. when it ran too far ahead he used to shout to it: "reverse action!" sometimes he used to sing, and as he did so staggered violently, and often fell down (the wolf thought the wind blew him over), and shouted: "run off the rails!" the wolf remembered that, in the summer and autumn, a ram and two ewes were pasturing near the winter hut, and when she had run by not so long ago she fancied that she had heard bleating in the stall. and now, as she got near the place, she reflected that it was already march, and, by that time, there would certainly be lambs in the stall. she was tormented by hunger, she thought with what greediness she would eat a lamb, and these thoughts made her teeth snap, and her eyes glitter in the darkness like two sparks of light. ignat's hut, his barn, cattle-stall, and well were surrounded by high snowdrifts. all was still. arapka was, most likely, asleep in the barn. the wolf clambered over a snowdrift on to the stall, and began scratching away the thatched roof with her paws and her nose. the straw was rotten and decaying, so that the wolf almost fell through; all at once a smell of warm steam, of manure, and of sheep's milk floated straight to her nostrils. down below, a lamb, feeling the cold, bleated softly. leaping through the hole, the wolf fell with her four paws and chest on something soft and warm, probably a sheep, and at the same moment, something in the stall suddenly began whining, barking, and going off into a shrill little yap; the sheep huddled against the wall, and the wolf, frightened, snatched the first thing her teeth fastened on, and dashed away. . . . she ran at her utmost speed, while arapka, who by now had scented the wolf, howled furiously, the frightened hens cackled, and ignat, coming out into the porch, shouted: "full speed! blow the whistle!" and he whistled like a steam-engine, and then shouted: "ho-ho-ho-ho!" and all this noise was repeated by the forest echo. when, little by little, it all died away, the wolf somewhat recovered herself, and began to notice that the prey she held in her teeth and dragged along the snow was heavier and, as it were, harder than lambs usually were at that season; and it smelt somehow different, and uttered strange sounds. . . . the wolf stopped and laid her burden on the snow, to rest and begin eating it, then all at once she leapt back in disgust. it was not a lamb, but a black puppy, with a big head and long legs, of a large breed, with a white patch on his brow, like arapka's. judging from his manners he was a simple, ignorant, yard-dog. he licked his crushed and wounded back, and, as though nothing was the matter, wagged his tail and barked at the wolf. she growled like a dog, and ran away from him. he ran after her. she looked round and snapped her teeth. he stopped in perplexity, and, probably deciding that she was playing with him, craned his head in the direction he had come from, and went off into a shrill, gleeful bark, as though inviting his mother arapka to play with him and the wolf. it was already getting light, and when the wolf reached her home in the thick aspen wood, each aspen tree could be seen distinctly, and the woodcocks were already awake, and the beautiful male birds often flew up, disturbed by the incautious gambols and barking of the puppy. "why does he run after me?" thought the wolf with annoyance. "i suppose he wants me to eat him." she lived with her cubs in a shallow hole; three years before, a tall old pine tree had been torn up by the roots in a violent storm, and the hole had been formed by it. now there were dead leaves and moss at the bottom, and around it lay bones and bullocks' horns, with which the little ones played. they were by now awake, and all three of them, very much alike, were standing in a row at the edge of their hole, looking at their returning mother, and wagging their tails. seeing them, the puppy stopped a little way off, and stared at them for a very long time; seeing that they, too, were looking very attentively at him, he began barking angrily, as at strangers. by now it was daylight and the sun had risen, the snow sparkled all around, but still the puppy stood a little way off and barked. the cubs sucked their mother, pressing her thin belly with their paws, while she gnawed a horse's bone, dry and white; she was tormented by hunger, her head ached from the dog's barking, and she felt inclined to fall on the uninvited guest and tear him to pieces. at last the puppy was hoarse and exhausted; seeing they were not afraid of him, and not even attending to him, he began somewhat timidly approaching the cubs, alternately squatting down and bounding a few steps forward. now, by daylight, it was easy to have a good look at him. . . . his white forehead was big, and on it was a hump such as is only seen on very stupid dogs; he had little, blue, dingy-looking eyes, and the expression of his whole face was extremely stupid. when he reached the cubs he stretched out his broad paws, laid his head upon them, and began: "mnya, myna . . . nga--nga--nga . . . !" the cubs did not understand what he meant, but they wagged their tails. then the puppy gave one of the cubs a smack on its big head with his paw. the cub, too, gave him a smack on the head. the puppy stood sideways to him, and looked at him askance, wagging his tail, then dashed off, and ran round several times on the frozen snow. the cubs ran after him, he fell on his back and kicked up his legs, and all three of them fell upon him, squealing with delight, and began biting him, not to hurt but in play. the crows sat on the high pine tree, and looked down on their struggle, and were much troubled by it. they grew noisy and merry. the sun was hot, as though it were spring; and the woodcocks, continually flitting through the pine tree that had been blown down by the storm, looked as though made of emerald in the brilliant sunshine. as a rule, wolf-mothers train their children to hunt by giving them prey to play with; and now watching the cubs chasing the puppy over the frozen snow and struggling with him, the mother thought: "let them learn." when they had played long enough, the cubs went into the hole and lay down to sleep. the puppy howled a little from hunger, then he, too, stretched out in the sunshine. and when they woke up they began playing again. all day long, and in the evening, the wolf-mother was thinking how the lamb had bleated in the cattle-shed the night before, and how it had smelt of sheep's milk, and she kept snapping her teeth from hunger, and never left off greedily gnawing the old bone, pretending to herself that it was the lamb. the cubs sucked their mother, and the puppy, who was hungry, ran round them and sniffed at the snow. "i'll eat him . . ." the mother-wolf decided. she went up to him, and he licked her nose and yapped at her, thinking that she wanted to play with him. in the past she had eaten dogs, but the dog smelt very doggy, and in the delicate state of her health she could not endure the smell; she felt disgusted and walked away. . . . towards night it grew cold. the puppy felt depressed and went home. when the wolf-cubs were fast asleep, their mother went out hunting again. as on the previous night she was alarmed at every sound, and she was frightened by the stumps, the logs, the dark juniper bushes, which stood out singly, and in the distance were like human beings. she ran on the ice-covered snow, keeping away from the road. . . . all at once she caught a glimpse of something dark, far away on the road. she strained her eyes and ears: yes, something really was walking on in front, she could even hear the regular thud of footsteps. surely not a badger? cautiously holding her breath, and keeping always to one side, she overtook the dark patch, looked round, and recognised it. it was the puppy with the white brow, going with a slow, lingering step homewards. "if only he doesn't hinder me again," thought the wolf, and ran quickly on ahead. but the homestead was by now near. again she clambered on to the cattle-shed by the snowdrift. the gap she had made yesterday had been already mended with straw, and two new rafters stretched across the roof. the wolf began rapidly working with her legs and nose, looking round to see whether the puppy were coming, but the smell of the warm steam and manure had hardly reached her nose before she heard a gleeful burst of barking behind her. it was the puppy. he leapt up to the wolf on the roof, then into the hole, and, feeling himself at home in the warmth, recognising his sheep, he barked louder than ever. . . . arapka woke up in the barn, and, scenting a wolf, howled, the hens began cackling, and by the time ignat appeared in the porch with his single-barrelled gun the frightened wolf was already far away. "fuite!" whistled ignat. "fuite! full steam ahead!" he pulled the trigger--the gun missed fire; he pulled the trigger again--again it missed fire; he tried a third time--and a great blaze of flame flew out of the barrel and there was a deafening boom, boom. it kicked him violently on the shoulder, and, taking his gun in one hand and his axe in the other, he went to see what the noise was about. a little later he went back to the hut. "what was it?" a pilgrim, who was staying the night at the hut and had been awakened by the noise, asked in a husky voice. "it's all right," answered ignat. "nothing of consequence. our whitebrow has taken to sleeping with the sheep in the warm. only he hasn't the sense to go in at the door, but always tries to wriggle in by the roof. the other night he tore a hole in the roof and went off on the spree, the rascal, and now he has come back and scratched away the roof again." "stupid dog." "yes, there is a spring snapped in his brain. i do detest fools," sighed ignat, clambering on to the stove. "come, man of god, it's early yet to get up. let us sleep full steam! . . ." in the morning he called whitebrow, smacked him hard about the ears, and then showing him a stick, kept repeating to him: "go in at the door! go in at the door! go in at the door!" kashtanka _(a story)_ i _misbehaviour_ a young dog, a reddish mongrel, between a dachshund and a "yard-dog," very like a fox in face, was running up and down the pavement looking uneasily from side to side. from time to time she stopped and, whining and lifting first one chilled paw and then another, tried to make up her mind how it could have happened that she was lost. she remembered very well how she had passed the day, and how, in the end, she had found herself on this unfamiliar pavement. the day had begun by her master luka alexandritch's putting on his hat, taking something wooden under his arm wrapped up in a red handkerchief, and calling: "kashtanka, come along!" hearing her name the mongrel had come out from under the work-table, where she slept on the shavings, stretched herself voluptuously and run after her master. the people luka alexandritch worked for lived a very long way off, so that, before he could get to any one of them, the carpenter had several times to step into a tavern to fortify himself. kashtanka remembered that on the way she had behaved extremely improperly. in her delight that she was being taken for a walk she jumped about, dashed barking after the trains, ran into yards, and chased other dogs. the carpenter was continually losing sight of her, stopping, and angrily shouting at her. once he had even, with an expression of fury in his face, taken her fox-like ear in his fist, smacked her, and said emphatically: "pla-a-ague take you, you pest!" after having left the work where it had been bespoken, luka alexandritch went into his sister's and there had something to eat and drink; from his sister's he had gone to see a bookbinder he knew; from the bookbinder's to a tavern, from the tavern to another crony's, and so on. in short, by the time kashtanka found herself on the unfamiliar pavement, it was getting dusk, and the carpenter was as drunk as a cobbler. he was waving his arms and, breathing heavily, muttered: "in sin my mother bore me! ah, sins, sins! here now we are walking along the street and looking at the street lamps, but when we die, we shall burn in a fiery gehenna. . . ." or he fell into a good-natured tone, called kashtanka to him, and said to her: "you, kashtanka, are an insect of a creature, and nothing else. beside a man, you are much the same as a joiner beside a cabinet-maker. . . ." while he talked to her in that way, there was suddenly a burst of music. kashtanka looked round and saw that a regiment of soldiers was coming straight towards her. unable to endure the music, which unhinged her nerves, she turned round and round and wailed. to her great surprise, the carpenter, instead of being frightened, whining and barking, gave a broad grin, drew himself up to attention, and saluted with all his five fingers. seeing that her master did not protest, kashtanka whined louder than ever, and dashed across the road to the opposite pavement. when she recovered herself, the band was not playing and the regiment was no longer there. she ran across the road to the spot where she had left her master, but alas, the carpenter was no longer there. she dashed forward, then back again and ran across the road once more, but the carpenter seemed to have vanished into the earth. kashtanka began sniffing the pavement, hoping to find her master by the scent of his tracks, but some wretch had been that way just before in new rubber goloshes, and now all delicate scents were mixed with an acute stench of india-rubber, so that it was impossible to make out anything. kashtanka ran up and down and did not find her master, and meanwhile it had got dark. the street lamps were lighted on both sides of the road, and lights appeared in the windows. big, fluffy snowflakes were falling and painting white the pavement, the horses' backs and the cabmen's caps, and the darker the evening grew the whiter were all these objects. unknown customers kept walking incessantly to and fro, obstructing her field of vision and shoving against her with their feet. (all mankind kashtanka divided into two uneven parts: masters and customers; between them there was an essential difference: the first had the right to beat her, and the second she had the right to nip by the calves of their legs.) these customers were hurrying off somewhere and paid no attention to her. when it got quite dark, kashtanka was overcome by despair and horror. she huddled up in an entrance and began whining piteously. the long day's journeying with luka alexandritch had exhausted her, her ears and her paws were freezing, and, what was more, she was terribly hungry. only twice in the whole day had she tasted a morsel: she had eaten a little paste at the bookbinder's, and in one of the taverns she had found a sausage skin on the floor, near the counter --that was all. if she had been a human being she would have certainly thought: "no, it is impossible to live like this! i must shoot myself!" ii _a mysterious stranger_ but she thought of nothing, she simply whined. when her head and back were entirely plastered over with the soft feathery snow, and she had sunk into a painful doze of exhaustion, all at once the door of the entrance clicked, creaked, and struck her on the side. she jumped up. a man belonging to the class of customers came out. as kashtanka whined and got under his feet, he could not help noticing her. he bent down to her and asked: "doggy, where do you come from? have i hurt you? o, poor thing, poor thing. . . . come, don't be cross, don't be cross. . . . i am sorry." kashtanka looked at the stranger through the snow-flakes that hung on her eyelashes, and saw before her a short, fat little man, with a plump, shaven face wearing a top hat and a fur coat that swung open. "what are you whining for?" he went on, knocking the snow off her back with his fingers. "where is your master? i suppose you are lost? ah, poor doggy! what are we going to do now?" catching in the stranger's voice a warm, cordial note, kashtanka licked his hand, and whined still more pitifully. "oh, you nice funny thing!" said the stranger. "a regular fox! well, there's nothing for it, you must come along with me! perhaps you will be of use for something. . . . well!" he clicked with his lips, and made a sign to kashtanka with his hand, which could only mean one thing: "come along!" kashtanka went. not more than half an hour later she was sitting on the floor in a big, light room, and, leaning her head against her side, was looking with tenderness and curiosity at the stranger who was sitting at the table, dining. he ate and threw pieces to her. . . . at first he gave her bread and the green rind of cheese, then a piece of meat, half a pie and chicken bones, while through hunger she ate so quickly that she had not time to distinguish the taste, and the more she ate the more acute was the feeling of hunger. "your masters don't feed you properly," said the stranger, seeing with what ferocious greediness she swallowed the morsels without munching them. "and how thin you are! nothing but skin and bones. . . ." kashtanka ate a great deal and yet did not satisfy her hunger, but was simply stupefied with eating. after dinner she lay down in the middle of the room, stretched her legs and, conscious of an agreeable weariness all over her body, wagged her tail. while her new master, lounging in an easy-chair, smoked a cigar, she wagged her tail and considered the question, whether it was better at the stranger's or at the carpenter's. the stranger's surroundings were poor and ugly; besides the easy-chairs, the sofa, the lamps and the rugs, there was nothing, and the room seemed empty. at the carpenter's the whole place was stuffed full of things: he had a table, a bench, a heap of shavings, planes, chisels, saws, a cage with a goldfinch, a basin. . . . the stranger's room smelt of nothing, while there was always a thick fog in the carpenter's room, and a glorious smell of glue, varnish, and shavings. on the other hand, the stranger had one great superiority--he gave her a great deal to eat and, to do him full justice, when kashtanka sat facing the table and looking wistfully at him, he did not once hit or kick her, and did not once shout: "go away, damned brute!" when he had finished his cigar her new master went out, and a minute later came back holding a little mattress in his hands. "hey, you dog, come here!" he said, laying the mattress in the corner near the dog. "lie down here, go to sleep!" then he put out the lamp and went away. kashtanka lay down on the mattress and shut her eyes; the sound of a bark rose from the street, and she would have liked to answer it, but all at once she was overcome with unexpected melancholy. she thought of luka alexandritch, of his son fedyushka, and her snug little place under the bench. . . . she remembered on the long winter evenings, when the carpenter was planing or reading the paper aloud, fedyushka usually played with her. . . . he used to pull her from under the bench by her hind legs, and play such tricks with her, that she saw green before her eyes, and ached in every joint. he would make her walk on her hind legs, use her as a bell, that is, shake her violently by the tail so that she squealed and barked, and give her tobacco to sniff . . . . the following trick was particularly agonising: fedyushka would tie a piece of meat to a thread and give it to kashtanka, and then, when she had swallowed it he would, with a loud laugh, pull it back again from her stomach, and the more lurid were her memories the more loudly and miserably kashtanka whined. but soon exhaustion and warmth prevailed over melancholy. she began to fall asleep. dogs ran by in her imagination: among them a shaggy old poodle, whom she had seen that day in the street with a white patch on his eye and tufts of wool by his nose. fedyushka ran after the poodle with a chisel in his hand, then all at once he too was covered with shaggy wool, and began merrily barking beside kashtanka. kashtanka and he goodnaturedly sniffed each other's noses and merrily ran down the street. . . . iii _new and very agreeable acquaintances_ when kashtanka woke up it was already light, and a sound rose from the street, such as only comes in the day-time. there was not a soul in the room. kashtanka stretched, yawned and, cross and ill-humoured, walked about the room. she sniffed the corners and the furniture, looked into the passage and found nothing of interest there. besides the door that led into the passage there was another door. after thinking a little kashtanka scratched on it with both paws, opened it, and went into the adjoining room. here on the bed, covered with a rug, a customer, in whom she recognised the stranger of yesterday, lay asleep. "rrrrr . . ." she growled, but recollecting yesterday's dinner, wagged her tail, and began sniffing. she sniffed the stranger's clothes and boots and thought they smelt of horses. in the bedroom was another door, also closed. kashtanka scratched at the door, leaned her chest against it, opened it, and was instantly aware of a strange and very suspicious smell. foreseeing an unpleasant encounter, growling and looking about her, kashtanka walked into a little room with a dirty wall-paper and drew back in alarm. she saw something surprising and terrible. a grey gander came straight towards her, hissing, with its neck bowed down to the floor and its wings outspread. not far from him, on a little mattress, lay a white tom-cat; seeing kashtanka, he jumped up, arched his back, wagged his tail with his hair standing on end and he, too, hissed at her. the dog was frightened in earnest, but not caring to betray her alarm, began barking loudly and dashed at the cat . . . . the cat arched his back more than ever, mewed and gave kashtanka a smack on the head with his paw. kashtanka jumped back, squatted on all four paws, and craning her nose towards the cat, went off into loud, shrill barks; meanwhile the gander came up behind and gave her a painful peck in the back. kashtanka leapt up and dashed at the gander. "what's this?" they heard a loud angry voice, and the stranger came into the room in his dressing-gown, with a cigar between his teeth. "what's the meaning of this? to your places!" he went up to the cat, flicked him on his arched back, and said: "fyodor timofeyitch, what's the meaning of this? have you got up a fight? ah, you old rascal! lie down!" and turning to the gander he shouted: "ivan ivanitch, go home!" the cat obediently lay down on his mattress and closed his eyes. judging from the expression of his face and whiskers, he was displeased with himself for having lost his temper and got into a fight. kashtanka began whining resentfully, while the gander craned his neck and began saying something rapidly, excitedly, distinctly, but quite unintelligibly. "all right, all right," said his master, yawning. "you must live in peace and friendship." he stroked kashtanka and went on: "and you, redhair, don't be frightened. . . . they are capital company, they won't annoy you. stay, what are we to call you? you can't go on without a name, my dear." the stranger thought a moment and said: "i tell you what . . . you shall be auntie. . . . do you understand? auntie!" and repeating the word "auntie" several times he went out. kashtanka sat down and began watching. the cat sat motionless on his little mattress, and pretended to be asleep. the gander, craning his neck and stamping, went on talking rapidly and excitedly about something. apparently it was a very clever gander; after every long tirade, he always stepped back with an air of wonder and made a show of being highly delighted with his own speech. . . . listening to him and answering "r-r-r-r," kashtanka fell to sniffing the corners. in one of the corners she found a little trough in which she saw some soaked peas and a sop of rye crusts. she tried the peas; they were not nice; she tried the sopped bread and began eating it. the gander was not at all offended that the strange dog was eating his food, but, on the contrary, talked even more excitedly, and to show his confidence went to the trough and ate a few peas himself. iv _marvels on a hurdle_ a little while afterwards the stranger came in again, and brought a strange thing with him like a hurdle, or like the figure ii. on the crosspiece on the top of this roughly made wooden frame hung a bell, and a pistol was also tied to it; there were strings from the tongue of the bell, and the trigger of the pistol. the stranger put the frame in the middle of the room, spent a long time tying and untying something, then looked at the gander and said: "ivan ivanitch, if you please!" the gander went up to him and stood in an expectant attitude. "now then," said the stranger, "let us begin at the very beginning. first of all, bow and make a curtsey! look sharp!" ivan ivanitch craned his neck, nodded in all directions, and scraped with his foot. "right. bravo. . . . now die!" the gander lay on his back and stuck his legs in the air. after performing a few more similar, unimportant tricks, the stranger suddenly clutched at his head, and assuming an expression of horror, shouted: "help! fire! we are burning!" ivan ivanitch ran to the frame, took the string in his beak, and set the bell ringing. the stranger was very much pleased. he stroked the gander's neck and said: "bravo, ivan ivanitch! now pretend that you are a jeweller selling gold and diamonds. imagine now that you go to your shop and find thieves there. what would you do in that case?" the gander took the other string in his beak and pulled it, and at once a deafening report was heard. kashtanka was highly delighted with the bell ringing, and the shot threw her into so much ecstasy that she ran round the frame barking. "auntie, lie down!" cried the stranger; "be quiet!" ivan ivanitch's task was not ended with the shooting. for a whole hour afterwards the stranger drove the gander round him on a cord, cracking a whip, and the gander had to jump over barriers and through hoops; he had to rear, that is, sit on his tail and wave his legs in the air. kashtanka could not take her eyes off ivan ivanitch, wriggled with delight, and several times fell to running after him with shrill barks. after exhausting the gander and himself, the stranger wiped the sweat from his brow and cried: "marya, fetch havronya ivanovna here!" a minute later there was the sound of grunting. kashtanka growled, assumed a very valiant air, and to be on the safe side, went nearer to the stranger. the door opened, an old woman looked in, and, saying something, led in a black and very ugly sow. paying no attention to kashtanka's growls, the sow lifted up her little hoof and grunted good-humouredly. apparently it was very agreeable to her to see her master, the cat, and ivan ivanitch. when she went up to the cat and gave him a light tap on the stomach with her hoof, and then made some remark to the gander, a great deal of good-nature was expressed in her movements, and the quivering of her tail. kashtanka realised at once that to growl and bark at such a character was useless. the master took away the frame and cried. "fyodor timofeyitch, if you please!" the cat stretched lazily, and reluctantly, as though performing a duty, went up to the sow. "come, let us begin with the egyptian pyramid," began the master. he spent a long time explaining something, then gave the word of command, "one . . . two . . . three!" at the word "three" ivan ivanitch flapped his wings and jumped on to the sow's back. . . . when, balancing himself with his wings and his neck, he got a firm foothold on the bristly back, fyodor timofeyitch listlessly and lazily, with manifest disdain, and with an air of scorning his art and not caring a pin for it, climbed on to the sow's back, then reluctantly mounted on to the gander, and stood on his hind legs. the result was what the stranger called the egyptian pyramid. kashtanka yapped with delight, but at that moment the old cat yawned and, losing his balance, rolled off the gander. ivan ivanitch lurched and fell off too. the stranger shouted, waved his hands, and began explaining something again. after spending an hour over the pyramid their indefatigable master proceeded to teach ivan ivanitch to ride on the cat, then began to teach the cat to smoke, and so on. the lesson ended in the stranger's wiping the sweat off his brow and going away. fyodor timofeyitch gave a disdainful sniff, lay down on his mattress, and closed his eyes; ivan ivanitch went to the trough, and the pig was taken away by the old woman. thanks to the number of her new impressions, kashranka hardly noticed how the day passed, and in the evening she was installed with her mattress in the room with the dirty wall-paper, and spent the night in the society of fyodor timofeyitch and the gander. v _talent! talent!_ a month passed. kashtanka had grown used to having a nice dinner every evening, and being called auntie. she had grown used to the stranger too, and to her new companions. life was comfortable and easy. every day began in the same way. as a rule, ivan ivanitch was the first to wake up, and at once went up to auntie or to the cat, twisting his neck, and beginning to talk excitedly and persuasively, but, as before, unintelligibly. sometimes he would crane up his head in the air and utter a long monologue. at first kashtanka thought he talked so much because he was very clever, but after a little time had passed, she lost all her respect for him; when he went up to her with his long speeches she no longer wagged her tail, but treated him as a tiresome chatterbox, who would not let anyone sleep and, without the slightest ceremony, answered him with "r-r-r-r!" fyodor timofeyitch was a gentleman of a very different sort. when he woke he did not utter a sound, did not stir, and did not even open his eyes. he would have been glad not to wake, for, as was evident, he was not greatly in love with life. nothing interested him, he showed an apathetic and nonchalant attitude to everything, he disdained everything and, even while eating his delicious dinner, sniffed contemptuously. when she woke kashtanka began walking about the room and sniffing the corners. she and the cat were the only ones allowed to go all over the flat; the gander had not the right to cross the threshold of the room with the dirty wall-paper, and hayronya ivanovna lived somewhere in a little outhouse in the yard and made her appearance only during the lessons. their master got up late, and immediately after drinking his tea began teaching them their tricks. every day the frame, the whip, and the hoop were brought in, and every day almost the same performance took place. the lesson lasted three or four hours, so that sometimes fyodor timofeyitch was so tired that he staggered about like a drunken man, and ivan ivanitch opened his beak and breathed heavily, while their master became red in the face and could not mop the sweat from his brow fast enough. the lesson and the dinner made the day very interesting, but the evenings were tedious. as a rule, their master went off somewhere in the evening and took the cat and the gander with him. left alone, auntie lay down on her little mattress and began to feel sad. melancholy crept on her imperceptibly and took possession of her by degrees, as darkness does of a room. it began with the dog's losing every inclination to bark, to eat, to run about the rooms, and even to look at things; then vague figures, half dogs, half human beings, with countenances attractive, pleasant, but incomprehensible, would appear in her imagination; when they came auntie wagged her tail, and it seemed to her that she had somewhere, at some time, seen them and loved them. and as she dropped asleep, she always felt that those figures smelt of glue, shavings, and varnish. when she had grown quite used to her new life, and from a thin, long mongrel, had changed into a sleek, well-groomed dog, her master looked at her one day before the lesson and said: "it's high time, auntie, to get to business. you have kicked up your heels in idleness long enough. i want to make an artiste of you. . . . do you want to be an artiste?" and he began teaching her various accomplishments. at the first lesson he taught her to stand and walk on her hind legs, which she liked extremely. at the second lesson she had to jump on her hind legs and catch some sugar, which her teacher held high above her head. after that, in the following lessons she danced, ran tied to a cord, howled to music, rang the bell, and fired the pistol, and in a month could successfully replace fyodor timofeyitch in the "egyptian pyramid." she learned very eagerly and was pleased with her own success; running with her tongue out on the cord, leaping through the hoop, and riding on old fyodor timofeyitch, gave her the greatest enjoyment. she accompanied every successful trick with a shrill, delighted bark, while her teacher wondered, was also delighted, and rubbed his hands. "it's talent! it's talent!" he said. "unquestionable talent! you will certainly be successful!" and auntie grew so used to the word talent, that every time her master pronounced it, she jumped up as if it had been her name. vi _an uneasy night_ auntie had a doggy dream that a porter ran after her with a broom, and she woke up in a fright. it was quite dark and very stuffy in the room. the fleas were biting. auntie had never been afraid of darkness before, but now, for some reason, she felt frightened and inclined to bark. her master heaved a loud sigh in the next room, then soon afterwards the sow grunted in her sty, and then all was still again. when one thinks about eating one's heart grows lighter, and auntie began thinking how that day she had stolen the leg of a chicken from fyodor timofeyitch, and had hidden it in the drawing-room, between the cupboard and the wall, where there were a great many spiders' webs and a great deal of dust. would it not be as well to go now and look whether the chicken leg were still there or not? it was very possible that her master had found it and eaten it. but she must not go out of the room before morning, that was the rule. auntie shut her eyes to go to sleep as quickly as possible, for she knew by experience that the sooner you go to sleep the sooner the morning comes. but all at once there was a strange scream not far from her which made her start and jump up on all four legs. it was ivan ivanitch, and his cry was not babbling and persuasive as usual, but a wild, shrill, unnatural scream like the squeak of a door opening. unable to distinguish anything in the darkness, and not understanding what was wrong, auntie felt still more frightened and growled: "r-r-r-r. . . ." some time passed, as long as it takes to eat a good bone; the scream was not repeated. little by little auntie's uneasiness passed off and she began to doze. she dreamed of two big black dogs with tufts of last year's coat left on their haunches and sides; they were eating out of a big basin some swill, from which there came a white steam and a most appetising smell; from time to time they looked round at auntie, showed their teeth and growled: "we are not going to give you any!" but a peasant in a fur-coat ran out of the house and drove them away with a whip; then auntie went up to the basin and began eating, but as soon as the peasant went out of the gate, the two black dogs rushed at her growling, and all at once there was again a shrill scream. "k-gee! k-gee-gee!" cried ivan ivanitch. auntie woke, jumped up and, without leaving her mattress, went off into a yelping bark. it seemed to her that it was not ivan ivanitch that was screaming but someone else, and for some reason the sow again grunted in her sty. then there was the sound of shuffling slippers, and the master came into the room in his dressing-gown with a candle in his hand. the flickering light danced over the dirty wall-paper and the ceiling, and chased away the darkness. auntie saw that there was no stranger in the room. ivan ivanitch was sitting on the floor and was not asleep. his wings were spread out and his beak was open, and altogether he looked as though he were very tired and thirsty. old fyodor timofeyitch was not asleep either. he, too, must have been awakened by the scream. "ivan ivanitch, what's the matter with you?" the master asked the gander. "why are you screaming? are you ill?" the gander did not answer. the master touched him on the neck, stroked his back, and said: "you are a queer chap. you don't sleep yourself, and you don't let other people. . . ." when the master went out, carrying the candle with him, there was darkness again. auntie felt frightened. the gander did not scream, but again she fancied that there was some stranger in the room. what was most dreadful was that this stranger could not be bitten, as he was unseen and had no shape. and for some reason she thought that something very bad would certainly happen that night. fyodor timofeyitch was uneasy too. auntie could hear him shifting on his mattress, yawning and shaking his head. somewhere in the street there was a knocking at a gate and the sow grunted in her sty. auntie began to whine, stretched out her front-paws and laid her head down upon them. she fancied that in the knocking at the gate, in the grunting of the sow, who was for some reason awake, in the darkness and the stillness, there was something as miserable and dreadful as in ivan ivanitch's scream. everything was in agitation and anxiety, but why? who was the stranger who could not be seen? then two dim flashes of green gleamed for a minute near auntie. it was fyodor timofeyitch, for the first time of their whole acquaintance coming up to her. what did he want? auntie licked his paw, and not asking why he had come, howled softly and on various notes. "k-gee!" cried ivan ivanitch, "k-g-ee!" the door opened again and the master came in with a candle. the gander was sitting in the same attitude as before, with his beak open, and his wings spread out, his eyes were closed. "ivan ivanitch!" his master called him. the gander did not stir. his master sat down before him on the floor, looked at him in silence for a minute, and said: "ivan ivanitch, what is it? are you dying? oh, i remember now, i remember!" he cried out, and clutched at his head. "i know why it is! it's because the horse stepped on you to-day! my god! my god!" auntie did not understand what her master was saying, but she saw from his face that he, too, was expecting something dreadful. she stretched out her head towards the dark window, where it seemed to her some stranger was looking in, and howled. "he is dying, auntie!" said her master, and wrung his hands. "yes, yes, he is dying! death has come into your room. what are we to do?" pale and agitated, the master went back into his room, sighing and shaking his head. auntie was afraid to remain in the darkness, and followed her master into his bedroom. he sat down on the bed and repeated several times: "my god, what's to be done?" auntie walked about round his feet, and not understanding why she was wretched and why they were all so uneasy, and trying to understand, watched every movement he made. fyodor timofeyitch, who rarely left his little mattress, came into the master's bedroom too, and began rubbing himself against his feet. he shook his head as though he wanted to shake painful thoughts out of it, and kept peeping suspiciously under the bed. the master took a saucer, poured some water from his wash-stand into it, and went to the gander again. "drink, ivan ivanitch!" he said tenderly, setting the saucer before him; "drink, darling." but ivan ivanitch did not stir and did not open his eyes. his master bent his head down to the saucer and dipped his beak into the water, but the gander did not drink, he spread his wings wider than ever, and his head remained lying in the saucer. "no, there's nothing to be done now," sighed his master. "it's all over. ivan ivanitch is gone!" and shining drops, such as one sees on the window-pane when it rains, trickled down his cheeks. not understanding what was the matter, auntie and fyodor timofeyitch snuggled up to him and looked with horror at the gander. "poor ivan ivanitch!" said the master, sighing mournfully. "and i was dreaming i would take you in the spring into the country, and would walk with you on the green grass. dear creature, my good comrade, you are no more! how shall i do without you now?" it seemed to auntie that the same thing would happen to her, that is, that she too, there was no knowing why, would close her eyes, stretch out her paws, open her mouth, and everyone would look at her with horror. apparently the same reflections were passing through the brain of fyodor timofeyitch. never before had the old cat been so morose and gloomy. it began to get light, and the unseen stranger who had so frightened auntie was no longer in the room. when it was quite daylight, the porter came in, took the gander, and carried him away. and soon afterwards the old woman came in and took away the trough. auntie went into the drawing-room and looked behind the cupboard: her master had not eaten the chicken bone, it was lying in its place among the dust and spiders' webs. but auntie felt sad and dreary and wanted to cry. she did not even sniff at the bone, but went under the sofa, sat down there, and began softly whining in a thin voice. vii _an unsuccessful début_ one fine evening the master came into the room with the dirty wall-paper, and, rubbing his hands, said: "well. . . ." he meant to say something more, but went away without saying it. auntie, who during her lessons had thoroughly studied his face and intonations, divined that he was agitated, anxious and, she fancied, angry. soon afterwards he came back and said: "to-day i shall take with me auntie and f'yodor timofeyitch. to-day, auntie, you will take the place of poor ivan ivanitch in the 'egyptian pyramid.' goodness knows how it will be! nothing is ready, nothing has been thoroughly studied, there have been few rehearsals! we shall be disgraced, we shall come to grief!" then he went out again, and a minute later, came back in his fur-coat and top hat. going up to the cat he took him by the fore-paws and put him inside the front of his coat, while fyodor timofeyitch appeared completely unconcerned, and did not even trouble to open his eyes. to him it was apparently a matter of absolute indifference whether he remained lying down, or were lifted up by his paws, whether he rested on his mattress or under his master's fur-coat. "come along, auntie," said her master. wagging her tail, and understanding nothing, auntie followed him. a minute later she was sitting in a sledge by her master's feet and heard him, shrinking with cold and anxiety, mutter to himself: "we shall be disgraced! we shall come to grief!" the sledge stopped at a big strange-looking house, like a soup-ladle turned upside down. the long entrance to this house, with its three glass doors, was lighted up with a dozen brilliant lamps. the doors opened with a resounding noise and, like jaws, swallowed up the people who were moving to and fro at the entrance. there were a great many people, horses, too, often ran up to the entrance, but no dogs were to be seen. the master took auntie in his arms and thrust her in his coat, where fyodor timofeyirch already was. it was dark and stuffy there, but warm. for an instant two green sparks flashed at her; it was the cat, who opened his eyes on being disturbed by his neighbour's cold rough paws. auntie licked his ear, and, trying to settle herself as comfortably as possible, moved uneasily, crushed him under her cold paws, and casually poked her head out from under the coat, but at once growled angrily, and tucked it in again. it seemed to her that she had seen a huge, badly lighted room, full of monsters; from behind screens and gratings, which stretched on both sides of the room, horrible faces looked out: faces of horses with horns, with long ears, and one fat, huge countenance with a tail instead of a nose, and two long gnawed bones sticking out of his mouth. the cat mewed huskily under auntie's paws, but at that moment the coat was flung open, the master said, "hop!" and fyodor timofeyitch and auntie jumped to the floor. they were now in a little room with grey plank walls; there was no other furniture in it but a little table with a looking-glass on it, a stool, and some rags hung about the corners, and instead of a lamp or candles, there was a bright fan-shaped light attached to a little pipe fixed in the wall. fyodor timofeyitch licked his coat which had been ruffled by auntie, went under the stool, and lay down. their master, still agitated and rubbing his hands, began undressing. . . . he undressed as he usually did at home when he was preparing to get under the rug, that is, took off everything but his underlinen, then he sat down on the stool, and, looking in the looking-glass, began playing the most surprising tricks with himself. . . . first of all he put on his head a wig, with a parting and with two tufts of hair standing up like horns, then he smeared his face thickly with something white, and over the white colour painted his eyebrows, his moustaches, and red on his cheeks. his antics did not end with that. after smearing his face and neck, he began putting himself into an extraordinary and incongruous costume, such as auntie had never seen before, either in houses or in the street. imagine very full trousers, made of chintz covered with big flowers, such as is used in working-class houses for curtains and covering furniture, trousers which buttoned up just under his armpits. one trouser leg was made of brown chintz, the other of bright yellow. almost lost in these, he then put on a short chintz jacket, with a big scalloped collar, and a gold star on the back, stockings of different colours, and green slippers. everything seemed going round before auntie's eyes and in her soul. the white-faced, sack-like figure smelt like her master, its voice, too, was the familiar master's voice, but there were moments when auntie was tortured by doubts, and then she was ready to run away from the parti-coloured figure and to bark. the new place, the fan-shaped light, the smell, the transformation that had taken place in her master--all this aroused in her a vague dread and a foreboding that she would certainly meet with some horror such as the big face with the tail instead of a nose. and then, somewhere through the wall, some hateful band was playing, and from time to time she heard an incomprehensible roar. only one thing reassured her--that was the imperturbability of fyodor timofeyitch. he dozed with the utmost tranquillity under the stool, and did not open his eyes even when it was moved. a man in a dress coat and a white waistcoat peeped into the little room and said: "miss arabella has just gone on. after her--you." their master made no answer. he drew a small box from under the table, sat down, and waited. from his lips and his hands it could be seen that he was agitated, and auntie could hear how his breathing came in gasps. "monsieur george, come on!" someone shouted behind the door. their master got up and crossed himself three times, then took the cat from under the stool and put him in the box. "come, auntie," he said softly. auntie, who could make nothing out of it, went up to his hands, he kissed her on the head, and put her beside fyodor timofeyitch. then followed darkness. . . . auntie trampled on the cat, scratched at the walls of the box, and was so frightened that she could not utter a sound, while the box swayed and quivered, as though it were on the waves. . . . "here we are again!" her master shouted aloud: "here we are again!" auntie felt that after that shout the box struck against something hard and left off swaying. there was a loud deep roar, someone was being slapped, and that someone, probably the monster with the tail instead of a nose, roared and laughed so loud that the locks of the box trembled. in response to the roar, there came a shrill, squeaky laugh from her master, such as he never laughed at home. "ha!" he shouted, trying to shout above the roar. "honoured friends! i have only just come from the station! my granny's kicked the bucket and left me a fortune! there is something very heavy in the box, it must be gold, ha! ha! i bet there's a million here! we'll open it and look. . . ." the lock of the box clicked. the bright light dazzled auntie's eyes, she jumped out of the box, and, deafened by the roar, ran quickly round her master, and broke into a shrill bark. "ha!" exclaimed her master. "uncle fyodor timofeyitch! beloved aunt, dear relations! the devil take you!" he fell on his stomach on the sand, seized the cat and auntie, and fell to embracing them. while he held auntie tight in his arms, she glanced round into the world into which fate had brought her and, impressed by its immensity, was for a minute dumbfounded with amazement and delight, then jumped out of her master's arms, and to express the intensity of her emotions, whirled round and round on one spot like a top. this new world was big and full of bright light; wherever she looked, on all sides, from floor to ceiling there were faces, faces, faces, and nothing else. "auntie, i beg you to sit down!" shouted her master. remembering what that meant, auntie jumped on to a chair, and sat down. she looked at her master. his eyes looked at her gravely and kindly as always, but his face, especially his mouth and teeth, were made grotesque by a broad immovable grin. he laughed, skipped about, twitched his shoulders, and made a show of being very merry in the presence of the thousands of faces. auntie believed in his merriment, all at once felt all over her that those thousands of faces were looking at her, lifted up her fox-like head, and howled joyously. "you sit there, auntie," her master said to her, "while uncle and i will dance the kamarinsky." fyodor timofeyitch stood looking about him indifferently, waiting to be made to do something silly. he danced listlessly, carelessly, sullenly, and one could see from his movements, his tail and his ears, that he had a profound contempt for the crowd, the bright light, his master and himself. when he had performed his allotted task, he gave a yawn and sat down. "now, auntie!" said her master, "we'll have first a song, and then a dance, shall we?" he took a pipe out of his pocket, and began playing. auntie, who could not endure music, began moving uneasily in her chair and howled. a roar of applause rose from all sides. her master bowed, and when all was still again, went on playing. . . . just as he took one very high note, someone high up among the audience uttered a loud exclamation: "auntie!" cried a child's voice, "why it's kashtanka!" "kashtanka it is!" declared a cracked drunken tenor. "kashtanka! strike me dead, fedyushka, it is kashtanka. kashtanka! here!" someone in the gallery gave a whistle, and two voices, one a boy's and one a man's, called loudly: "kashtanka! kashtanka!" auntie started, and looked where the shouting came from. two faces, one hairy, drunken and grinning, the other chubby, rosy-cheeked and frightened-looking, dazed her eyes as the bright light had dazed them before. . . . she remembered, fell off the chair, struggled on the sand, then jumped up, and with a delighted yap dashed towards those faces. there was a deafening roar, interspersed with whistles and a shrill childish shout: "kashtanka! kashtanka!" auntie leaped over the barrier, then across someone's shoulders. she found herself in a box: to get into the next tier she had to leap over a high wall. auntie jumped, but did not jump high enough, and slipped back down the wall. then she was passed from hand to hand, licked hands and faces, kept mounting higher and higher, and at last got into the gallery. . . . ---- half an hour afterwards, kashtanka was in the street, following the people who smelt of glue and varnish. luka alexandritch staggered and instinctively, taught by experience, tried to keep as far from the gutter as possible. "in sin my mother bore me," he muttered. "and you, kashtanka, are a thing of little understanding. beside a man, you are like a joiner beside a cabinetmaker." fedyushka walked beside him, wearing his father's cap. kashtanka looked at their backs, and it seemed to her that she had been following them for ages, and was glad that there had not been a break for a minute in her life. she remembered the little room with dirty wall-paper, the gander, fyodor timofeyitch, the delicious dinners, the lessons, the circus, but all that seemed to her now like a long, tangled, oppressive dream. a chameleon the police superintendent otchumyelov is walking across the market square wearing a new overcoat and carrying a parcel under his arm. a red-haired policeman strides after him with a sieve full of confiscated gooseberries in his hands. there is silence all around. not a soul in the square. . . . the open doors of the shops and taverns look out upon god's world disconsolately, like hungry mouths; there is not even a beggar near them. "so you bite, you damned brute?" otchumyelov hears suddenly. "lads, don't let him go! biting is prohibited nowadays! hold him! ah . . . ah!" there is the sound of a dog yelping. otchumyelov looks in the direction of the sound and sees a dog, hopping on three legs and looking about her, run out of pitchugin's timber-yard. a man in a starched cotton shirt, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, is chasing her. he runs after her, and throwing his body forward falls down and seizes the dog by her hind legs. once more there is a yelping and a shout of "don't let go!" sleepy countenances are protruded from the shops, and soon a crowd, which seems to have sprung out of the earth, is gathered round the timber-yard. "it looks like a row, your honour . . ." says the policeman. otchumyelov makes a half turn to the left and strides towards the crowd. he sees the aforementioned man in the unbuttoned waistcoat standing close by the gate of the timber-yard, holding his right hand in the air and displaying a bleeding finger to the crowd. on his half-drunken face there is plainly written: "i'll pay you out, you rogue!" and indeed the very finger has the look of a flag of victory. in this man otchumyelov recognises hryukin, the goldsmith. the culprit who has caused the sensation, a white borzoy puppy with a sharp muzzle and a yellow patch on her back, is sitting on the ground with her fore-paws outstretched in the middle of the crowd, trembling all over. there is an expression of misery and terror in her tearful eyes. "what's it all about?" otchumyelov inquires, pushing his way through the crowd. "what are you here for? why are you waving your finger . . . ? who was it shouted?" "i was walking along here, not interfering with anyone, your honour," hryukin begins, coughing into his fist. "i was talking about firewood to mitry mitritch, when this low brute for no rhyme or reason bit my finger. . . . you must excuse me, i am a working man. . . . mine is fine work. i must have damages, for i shan't be able to use this finger for a week, may be. . . . it's not even the law, your honour, that one should put up with it from a beast. . . . if everyone is going to be bitten, life won't be worth living. . . ." "h'm. very good," says otchumyelov sternly, coughing and raising his eyebrows. "very good. whose dog is it? i won't let this pass! i'll teach them to let their dogs run all over the place! it's time these gentry were looked after, if they won't obey the regulations! when he's fined, the blackguard, i'll teach him what it means to keep dogs and such stray cattle! i'll give him a lesson! . . . yeldyrin," cries the superintendent, addressing the policeman, "find out whose dog this is and draw up a report! and the dog must be strangled. without delay! it's sure to be mad. . . . whose dog is it, i ask?" "i fancy it's general zhigalov's," says someone in the crowd. "general zhigalov's, h'm. . . . help me off with my coat, yeldyrin . . . it's frightfully hot! it must be a sign of rain. . . . there's one thing i can't make out, how it came to bite you?" otchumyelov turns to hryukin. "surely it couldn't reach your finger. it's a little dog, and you are a great hulking fellow! you must have scratched your finger with a nail, and then the idea struck you to get damages for it. we all know . . . your sort! i know you devils!" "he put a cigarette in her face, your honour, for a joke, and she had the sense to snap at him. . . . he is a nonsensical fellow, your honour!" "that's a lie, squinteye! you didn't see, so why tell lies about it? his honour is a wise gentleman, and will see who is telling lies and who is telling the truth, as in god's sight. . . . and if i am lying let the court decide. it's written in the law. . . . we are all equal nowadays. my own brother is in the gendarmes . . . let me tell you. . . ." "don't argue!" "no, that's not the general's dog," says the policeman, with profound conviction, "the general hasn't got one like that. his are mostly setters." "do you know that for a fact?" "yes, your honour." "i know it, too. the general has valuable dogs, thoroughbred, and this is goodness knows what! no coat, no shape. . . . a low creature. and to keep a dog like that! . . . where's the sense of it. if a dog like that were to turn up in petersburg or moscow, do you know what would happen? they would not worry about the law, they would strangle it in a twinkling! you've been injured, hryukin, and we can't let the matter drop. . . . we must give them a lesson! it is high time . . . . !" "yet maybe it is the general's," says the policeman, thinking aloud. "it's not written on its face. . . . i saw one like it the other day in his yard." "it is the general's, that's certain!" says a voice in the crowd. "h'm, help me on with my overcoat, yeldyrin, my lad . . . the wind's getting up. . . . i am cold. . . . you take it to the general's, and inquire there. say i found it and sent it. and tell them not to let it out into the street. . . . it may be a valuable dog, and if every swine goes sticking a cigar in its mouth, it will soon be ruined. a dog is a delicate animal. . . . and you put your hand down, you blockhead. it's no use your displaying your fool of a finger. it's your own fault. . . ." "here comes the general's cook, ask him. . . hi, prohor! come here, my dear man! look at this dog. . . . is it one of yours?" "what an idea! we have never had one like that!" "there's no need to waste time asking," says otchumyelov. "it's a stray dog! there's no need to waste time talking about it. . . . since he says it's a stray dog, a stray dog it is. . . . it must be destroyed, that's all about it." "it is not our dog," prohor goes on. "it belongs to the general's brother, who arrived the other day. our master does not care for hounds. but his honour is fond of them. . . ." "you don't say his excellency's brother is here? vladimir ivanitch?" inquires otchumyelov, and his whole face beams with an ecstatic smile. "'well, i never! and i didn't know! has he come on a visit? "yes." "well, i never. . . . he couldn't stay away from his brother. . . . and there i didn't know! so this is his honour's dog? delighted to hear it. . . . take it. it's not a bad pup. . . . a lively creature. . . . snapped at this fellow's finger! ha-ha-ha. . . . come, why are you shivering? rrr . . . rrrr. . . . the rogue's angry . . . a nice little pup." prohor calls the dog, and walks away from the timber-yard with her. the crowd laughs at hryukin. "i'll make you smart yet!" otchumyelov threatens him, and wrapping himself in his greatcoat, goes on his way across the square. the dependents mihail petrovitch zotov, a decrepit and solitary old man of seventy, belonging to the artisan class, was awakened by the cold and the aching in his old limbs. it was dark in his room, but the little lamp before the ikon was no longer burning. zotov raised the curtain and looked out of the window. the clouds that shrouded the sky were beginning to show white here and there, and the air was becoming transparent, so it must have been nearly five, not more. zotov cleared his throat, coughed, and shrinking from the cold, got out of bed. in accordance with years of habit, he stood for a long time before the ikon, saying his prayers. he repeated "our father," "hail mary," the creed, and mentioned a long string of names. to whom those names belonged he had forgotten years ago, and he only repeated them from habit. from habit, too, he swept his room and entry, and set his fat little four-legged copper samovar. if zotov had not had these habits he would not have known how to occupy his old age. the little samovar slowly began to get hot, and all at once, unexpectedly, broke into a tremulous bass hum. "oh, you've started humming!" grumbled zotov. "hum away then, and bad luck to you!" at that point the old man appropriately recalled that, in the preceding night, he had dreamed of a stove, and to dream of a stove is a sign of sorrow. dreams and omens were the only things left that could rouse him to reflection; and on this occasion he plunged with a special zest into the considerations of the questions: what the samovar was humming for? and what sorrow was foretold by the stove? the dream seemed to come true from the first. zotov rinsed out his teapot and was about to make his tea, when he found there was not one teaspoonful left in the box. "what an existence!" he grumbled, rolling crumbs of black bread round in his mouth. "it's a dog's life. no tea! and it isn't as though i were a simple peasant: i'm an artisan and a house-owner. the disgrace!" grumbling and talking to himself, zotov put on his overcoat, which was like a crinoline, and, thrusting his feet into huge clumsy golosh-boots (made in the year by a bootmaker called prohoritch), went out into the yard. the air was grey, cold, and sullenly still. the big yard, full of tufts of burdock and strewn with yellow leaves, was faintly silvered with autumn frost. not a breath of wind nor a sound. the old man sat down on the steps of his slanting porch, and at once there happened what happened regularly every morning: his dog lyska, a big, mangy, decrepit-looking, white yard-dog, with black patches, came up to him with its right eye shut. lyska came up timidly, wriggling in a frightened way, as though her paws were not touching the earth but a hot stove, and the whole of her wretched figure was expressive of abjectness. zotov pretended not to notice her, but when she faintly wagged her tail, and, wriggling as before, licked his golosh, he stamped his foot angrily. "be off! the plague take you!" he cried. "con-found-ed bea-east!" lyska moved aside, sat down, and fixed her solitary eye upon her master. "you devils!" he went on. "you are the last straw on my back, you herods." and he looked with hatred at his shed with its crooked, overgrown roof; there from the door of the shed a big horse's head was looking out at him. probably flattered by its master's attention, the head moved, pushed forward, and there emerged from the shed the whole horse, as decrepit as lyska, as timid and as crushed, with spindly legs, grey hair, a pinched stomach, and a bony spine. he came out of the shed and stood still, hesitating as though overcome with embarrassment. "plague take you," zotov went on. "shall i ever see the last of you, you jail-bird pharaohs! . . . i wager you want your breakfast!" he jeered, twisting his angry face into a contemptuous smile. "by all means, this minute! a priceless steed like you must have your fill of the best oats! pray begin! this minute! and i have something to give to the magnificent, valuable dog! if a precious dog like you does not care for bread, you can have meat." zotov grumbled for half an hour, growing more and more irritated. in the end, unable to control the anger that boiled up in him, he jumped up, stamped with his goloshes, and growled out to be heard all over the yard: "i am not obliged to feed you, you loafers! i am not some millionaire for you to eat me out of house and home! i have nothing to eat myself, you cursed carcases, the cholera take you! i get no pleasure or profit out of you; nothing but trouble and ruin, why don't you give up the ghost? are you such personages that even death won't take you? you can live, damn you! but i don't want to feed you! i have had enough of you! i don't want to!" zotov grew wrathful and indignant, and the horse and the dog listened. whether these two dependents understood that they were being reproached for living at his expense, i don't know, but their stomachs looked more pinched than ever, and their whole figures shrivelled up, grew gloomier and more abject than before. . . . their submissive air exasperated zotov more than ever. "get away!" he shouted, overcome by a sort of inspiration. "out of my house! don't let me set eyes on you again! i am not obliged to keep all sorts of rubbish in my yard! get away!" the old man moved with little hurried steps to the gate, opened it, and picking up a stick from the ground, began driving out his dependents. the horse shook its head, moved its shoulder-blades, and limped to the gate; the dog followed him. both of them went out into the street, and, after walking some twenty paces, stopped at the fence. "i'll give it you!" zotov threatened them. when he had driven out his dependents he felt calmer, and began sweeping the yard. from time to time he peeped out into the street: the horse and the dog were standing like posts by the fence, looking dejectedly towards the gate. "try how you can do without me," muttered the old man, feeling as though a weight of anger were being lifted from his heart. "let somebody else look after you now! i am stingy and ill-tempered. . . . it's nasty living with me, so you try living with other people . . . . yes. . . ." after enjoying the crushed expression of his dependents, and grumbling to his heart's content, zotov went out of the yard, and, assuming a ferocious air, shouted: "well, why are you standing there? whom are you waiting for? standing right across the middle of the road and preventing the public from passing! go into the yard!" the horse and the dog with drooping heads and a guilty air turned towards the gate. lyska, probably feeling she did not deserve forgiveness, whined piteously. "stay you can, but as for food, you'll get nothing from me! you may die, for all i care!" meanwhile the sun began to break through the morning mist; its slanting rays gilded over the autumn frost. there was a sound of steps and voices. zotov put back the broom in its place, and went out of the yard to see his crony and neighbour, mark ivanitch, who kept a little general shop. on reaching his friend's shop, he sat down on a folding-stool, sighed sedately, stroked his beard, and began about the weather. from the weather the friends passed to the new deacon, from the deacon to the choristers; and the conversation lengthened out. they did not notice as they talked how time was passing, and when the shop-boy brought in a big teapot of boiling water, and the friends proceeded to drink tea, the time flew as quickly as a bird. zotov got warm and felt more cheerful. "i have a favour to ask of you, mark ivanitch," he began, after the sixth glass, drumming on the counter with his fingers. "if you would just be so kind as to give me a gallon of oats again to-day. . . ." from behind the big tea-chest behind which mark ivanitch was sitting came the sound of a deep sigh. "do be so good," zotov went on; "never mind tea--don't give it me to-day, but let me have some oats. . . . i am ashamed to ask you, i have wearied you with my poverty, but the horse is hungry." "i can give it you," sighed the friend--"why not? but why the devil do you keep those carcases?--tfoo!--tell me that, please. it would be all right if it were a useful horse, but--tfoo!-- one is ashamed to look at it. . . . and the dog's nothing but a skeleton! why the devil do you keep them?" "what am i to do with them?" "you know. take them to ignat the slaughterer--that is all there is to do. they ought to have been there long ago. it's the proper place for them." "to be sure, that is so! . . . i dare say! . . ." "you live like a beggar and keep animals," the friend went on. "i don't grudge the oats. . . . god bless you. but as to the future, brother . . . i can't afford to give regularly every day! there is no end to your poverty! one gives and gives, and one doesn't know when there will be an end to it all." the friend sighed and stroked his red face. "if you were dead that would settle it," he said. "you go on living, and you don't know what for. . . . yes, indeed! but if it is not the lord's will for you to die, you had better go somewhere into an almshouse or a refuge." "what for? i have relations. i have a great-niece. . . ." and zotov began telling at great length of his great-niece glasha, daughter of his niece katerina, who lived somewhere on a farm. "she is bound to keep me!" he said. "my house will be left to her, so let her keep me; i'll go to her. it's glasha, you know . . . katya's daughter; and katya, you know, was my brother panteley's stepdaughter. . . . you understand? the house will come to her . . . . let her keep me!" "to be sure; rather than live, as you do, a beggar, i should have gone to her long ago." "i will go! as god's above, i will go. it's her duty." when an hour later the old friends were drinking a glass of vodka, zotov stood in the middle of the shop and said with enthusiasm: "i have been meaning to go to her for a long time; i will go this very day." "to be sure; rather than hanging about and dying of hunger, you ought to have gone to the farm long ago." "i'll go at once! when i get there, i shall say: take my house, but keep me and treat me with respect. it's your duty! if you don't care to, then there is neither my house, nor my blessing for you! good-bye, ivanitch!" zotov drank another glass, and, inspired by the new idea, hurried home. the vodka had upset him and his head was reeling, but instead of lying down, he put all his clothes together in a bundle, said a prayer, took his stick, and went out. muttering and tapping on the stones with his stick, he walked the whole length of the street without looking back, and found himself in the open country. it was eight or nine miles to the farm. he walked along the dry road, looked at the town herd lazily munching the yellow grass, and pondered on the abrupt change in his life which he had only just brought about so resolutely. he thought, too, about his dependents. when he went out of the house, he had not locked the gate, and so had left them free to go whither they would. he had not gone a mile into the country when he heard steps behind him. he looked round and angrily clasped his hands. the horse and lyska, with their heads drooping and their tails between their legs, were quietly walking after him. "go back!" he waved to them. they stopped, looked at one another, looked at him. he went on, they followed him. then he stopped and began ruminating. it was impossible to go to his great-niece glasha, whom he hardly knew, with these creatures; he did not want to go back and shut them up, and, indeed, he could not shut them up, because the gate was no use. "to die of hunger in the shed," thought zotov. "hadn't i really better take them to ignat?" ignat's hut stood on the town pasture-ground, a hundred paces from the flagstaff. though he had not quite made up his mind, and did not know what to do, he turned towards it. his head was giddy and there was a darkness before his eyes. . . . he remembers little of what happened in the slaughterer's yard. he has a memory of a sickening, heavy smell of hides and the savoury steam of the cabbage-soup ignat was sipping when he went in to him. as in a dream he saw ignat, who made him wait two hours, slowly preparing something, changing his clothes, talking to some women about corrosive sublimate; he remembered the horse was put into a stand, after which there was the sound of two dull thuds, one of a blow on the skull, the other of the fall of a heavy body. when lyska, seeing the death of her friend, flew at ignat, barking shrilly, there was the sound of a third blow that cut short the bark abruptly. further, zotov remembers that in his drunken foolishness, seeing the two corpses, he went up to the stand, and put his own forehead ready for a blow. and all that day his eyes were dimmed by a haze, and he could not even see his own fingers. who was to blame? as my uncle pyotr demyanitch, a lean, bilious collegiate councillor, exceedingly like a stale smoked fish with a stick through it, was getting ready to go to the high school, where he taught latin, he noticed that the corner of his grammar was nibbled by mice. "i say, praskovya," he said, going into the kitchen and addressing the cook, "how is it we have got mice here? upon my word! yesterday my top hat was nibbled, to-day they have disfigured my latin grammar . . . . at this rate they will soon begin eating my clothes! "what can i do? i did not bring them in!" answered praskovya. "we must do something! you had better get a cat, hadn't you?" "i've got a cat, but what good is it?" and praskovya pointed to the corner where a white kitten, thin as a match, lay curled up asleep beside a broom. "why is it no good?" asked pyotr demyanitch. "it's young yet, and foolish. it's not two months old yet." "h'm. . . . then it must be trained. it had much better be learning instead of lying there." saying this, pyotr demyanitch sighed with a careworn air and went out of the kitchen. the kitten raised his head, looked lazily after him, and shut his eyes again. the kitten lay awake thinking. of what? unacquainted with real life, having no store of accumulated impressions, his mental processes could only be instinctive, and he could but picture life in accordance with the conceptions that he had inherited, together with his flesh and blood, from his ancestors, the tigers (_vide_ darwin). his thoughts were of the nature of day-dreams. his feline imagination pictured something like the arabian desert, over which flitted shadows closely resembling praskovya, the stove, the broom. in the midst of the shadows there suddenly appeared a saucer of milk; the saucer began to grow paws, it began moving and displayed a tendency to run; the kitten made a bound, and with a thrill of blood-thirsty sensuality thrust his claws into it. when the saucer had vanished into obscurity a piece of meat appeared, dropped by praskovya; the meat ran away with a cowardly squeak, but the kitten made a bound and got his claws into it. . . . everything that rose before the imagination of the young dreamer had for its starting-point leaps, claws, and teeth. . . the soul of another is darkness, and a cat's soul more than most, but how near the visions just described are to the truth may be seen from the following fact: under the influence of his day-dreams the kitten suddenly leaped up, looked with flashing eyes at praskovya, ruffled up his coat, and making one bound, thrust his claws into the cook's skirt. obviously he was born a mouse catcher, a worthy son of his bloodthirsty ancestors. fate had destined him to be the terror of cellars, store-rooms and cornbins, and had it not been for education . . . we will not anticipate, however. on his way home from the high school, pyotr demyanitch went into a general shop and bought a mouse-trap for fifteen kopecks. at dinner he fixed a little bit of his rissole on the hook, and set the trap under the sofa, where there were heaps of the pupils' old exercise-books, which praskovya used for various domestic purposes. at six o'clock in the evening, when the worthy latin master was sitting at the table correcting his pupils' exercises, there was a sudden "klop!" so loud that my uncle started and dropped his pen. he went at once to the sofa and took out the trap. a neat little mouse, the size of a thimble, was sniffing the wires and trembling with fear. "aha," muttered pyotr demyanitch, and he looked at the mouse malignantly, as though he were about to give him a bad mark. "you are cau--aught, wretch! wait a bit! i'll teach you to eat my grammar!" having gloated over his victim, poytr demyanitch put the mouse-trap on the floor and called: "praskovya, there's a mouse caught! bring the kitten here! "i'm coming," responded praskovya, and a minute later she came in with the descendant of tigers in her arms. "capital!" said pyotr demyanitch, rubbing his hands. "we will give him a lesson. . . . put him down opposite the mouse-trap . . . that's it. . . . let him sniff it and look at it. . . . that's it. . . ." the kitten looked wonderingly at my uncle, at his arm-chair, sniffed the mouse-trap in bewilderment, then, frightened probably by the glaring lamplight and the attention directed to him, made a dash and ran in terror to the door. "stop!" shouted my uncle, seizing him by the tail, "stop, you rascal! he's afraid of a mouse, the idiot! look! it's a mouse! look! well? look, i tell you!" pyotr demyanitch took the kitten by the scruff of the neck and pushed him with his nose against the mouse-trap. "look, you carrion! take him and hold him, praskovya. . . . hold him opposite the door of the trap. . . . when i let the mouse out, you let him go instantly. . . . do you hear? . . . instantly let go! now!" my uncle assumed a mysterious expression and lifted the door of the trap. . . . the mouse came out irresolutely, sniffed the air, and flew like an arrow under the sofa. . . . the kitten on being released darted under the table with his tail in the air. "it has got away! got away!" cried pyotr demyanitch, looking ferocious. "where is he, the scoundrel? under the table? you wait. . ." my uncle dragged the kitten from under the table and shook him in the air. "wretched little beast," he muttered, smacking him on the ear. "take that, take that! will you shirk it next time? wr-r-r-etch. . . ." next day praskovya heard again the summons. "praskovya, there is a mouse caught! bring the kitten here!" after the outrage of the previous day the kitten had taken refuge under the stove and had not come out all night. when praskovya pulled him out and, carrying him by the scruff of the neck into the study, set him down before the mouse-trap, he trembled all over and mewed piteously. "come, let him feel at home first," pyotr demyanitch commanded. "let him look and sniff. look and learn! stop, plague take you!" he shouted, noticing that the kitten was backing away from the mouse-trap. "i'll thrash you! hold him by the ear! that's it. . . . well now, set him down before the trap. . . ." my uncle slowly lifted the door of the trap . . . the mouse whisked under the very nose of the kitten, flung itself against praskovya's hand and fled under the cupboard; the kitten, feeling himself free, took a desperate bound and retreated under the sofa. "he's let another mouse go!" bawled pyotr demyanitch. "do you call that a cat? nasty little beast! thrash him! thrash him by the mousetrap!" when the third mouse had been caught, the kitten shivered all over at the sight of the mousetrap and its inmate, and scratched praskovya's hand. . . . after the fourth mouse my uncle flew into a rage, kicked the kitten, and said: "take the nasty thing away! get rid of it! chuck it away! it's no earthly use!" a year passed, the thin, frail kitten had turned into a solid and sagacious tom-cat. one day he was on his way by the back yards to an amatory interview. he had just reached his destination when he suddenly heard a rustle, and thereupon caught sight of a mouse which ran from a water-trough towards a stable; my hero's hair stood on end, he arched his back, hissed, and trembling all over, took to ignominious flight. alas! sometimes i feel myself in the ludicrous position of the flying cat. like the kitten, i had in my day the honour of being taught latin by my uncle. now, whenever i chance to see some work of classical antiquity, instead of being moved to eager enthusiasm, i begin recalling, _ut consecutivum_, the irregular verbs, the sallow grey face of my uncle, the ablative absolute. . . . i turn pale, my hair stands up on my head, and, like the cat, i take to ignominious flight. the bird market there is a small square near the monastery of the holy birth which is called trubnoy, or simply truboy; there is a market there on sundays. hundreds of sheepskins, wadded coats, fur caps, and chimneypot hats swarm there, like crabs in a sieve. there is the sound of the twitter of birds in all sorts of keys, recalling the spring. if the sun is shining, and there are no clouds in the sky, the singing of the birds and the smell of hay make a more vivid impression, and this reminder of spring sets one thinking and carries one's fancy far, far away. along one side of the square there stands a string of waggons. the waggons are loaded, not with hay, not with cabbages, nor with beans, but with goldfinches, siskins, larks, blackbirds and thrushes, bluetits, bullfinches. all of them are hopping about in rough, home-made cages, twittering and looking with envy at the free sparrows. the goldfinches cost five kopecks, the siskins are rather more expensive, while the value of the other birds is quite indeterminate. "how much is a lark?" the seller himself does not know the value of a lark. he scratches his head and asks whatever comes into it, a rouble, or three kopecks, according to the purchaser. there are expensive birds too. a faded old blackbird, with most of its feathers plucked out of its tail, sits on a dirty perch. he is dignified, grave, and motionless as a retired general. he has waved his claw in resignation to his captivity long ago, and looks at the blue sky with indifference. probably, owing to this indifference, he is considered a sagacious bird. he is not to be bought for less than forty kopecks. schoolboys, workmen, young men in stylish greatcoats, and bird-fanciers in incredibly shabby caps, in ragged trousers that are turned up at the ankles, and look as though they had been gnawed by mice, crowd round the birds, splashing through the mud. the young people and the workmen are sold hens for cocks, young birds for old ones. . . . they know very little about birds. but there is no deceiving the bird-fancier. he sees and understands his bird from a distance. "there is no relying on that bird," a fancier will say, looking into a siskin's beak, and counting the feathers on its tail. "he sings now, it's true, but what of that? i sing in company too. no, my boy, shout, sing to me without company; sing in solitude, if you can. . . . you give me that one yonder that sits and holds its tongue! give me the quiet one! that one says nothing, so he thinks the more. . . ." among the waggons of birds there are some full of other live creatures. here you see hares, rabbits, hedgehogs, guinea-pigs, polecats. a hare sits sorrowfully nibbling the straw. the guinea-pigs shiver with cold, while the hedgehogs look out with curiosity from under their prickles at the public. "i have read somewhere," says a post-office official in a faded overcoat, looking lovingly at the hare, and addressing no one in particular, "i have read that some learned man had a cat and a mouse and a falcon and a sparrow, who all ate out of one bowl." "that's very possible, sir. the cat must have been beaten, and the falcon, i dare say, had all its tail pulled out. there's no great cleverness in that, sir. a friend of mine had a cat who, saving your presence, used to eat his cucumbers. he thrashed her with a big whip for a fortnight, till he taught her not to. a hare can learn to light matches if you beat it. does that surprise you? it's very simple! it takes the match in its mouth and strikes it. an animal is like a man. a man's made wiser by beating, and it's the same with a beast." men in long, full-skirted coats move backwards and forwards in the crowd with cocks and ducks under their arms. the fowls are all lean and hungry. chickens poke their ugly, mangy-looking heads out of their cages and peck at something in the mud. boys with pigeons stare into your face and try to detect in you a pigeon-fancier. "yes, indeed! it's no use talking to you," someone shouts angrily. "you should look before you speak! do you call this a pigeon? it is an eagle, not a pigeon!" a tall thin man, with a shaven upper lip and side whiskers, who looks like a sick and drunken footman, is selling a snow-white lap-dog. the old lap-dog whines. "she told me to sell the nasty thing," says the footman, with a contemptuous snigger. "she is bankrupt in her old age, has nothing to eat, and here now is selling her dogs and cats. she cries, and kisses them on their filthy snouts. and then she is so hard up that she sells them. 'pon my soul, it is a fact! buy it, gentlemen! the money is wanted for coffee." but no one laughs. a boy who is standing by screws up one eye and looks at him gravely with compassion. the most interesting of all is the fish section. some dozen peasants are sitting in a row. before each of them is a pail, and in each pail there is a veritable little hell. there, in the thick, greenish water are swarms of little carp, eels, small fry, water-snails, frogs, and newts. big water-beetles with broken legs scurry over the small surface, clambering on the carp, and jumping over the frogs. the creatures have a strong hold on life. the frogs climb on the beetles, the newts on the frogs. the dark green tench, as more expensive fish, enjoy an exceptional position; they are kept in a special jar where they can't swim, but still they are not so cramped. . . . "the carp is a grand fish! the carp's the fish to keep, your honour, plague take him! you can keep him for a year in a pail and he'll live! it's a week since i caught these very fish. i caught them, sir, in pererva, and have come from there on foot. the carp are two kopecks each, the eels are three, and the minnows are ten kopecks the dozen, plague take them! five kopecks' worth of minnows, sir? won't you take some worms?" the seller thrusts his coarse rough fingers into the pail and pulls out of it a soft minnow, or a little carp, the size of a nail. fishing lines, hooks, and tackle are laid out near the pails, and pond-worms glow with a crimson light in the sun. an old fancier in a fur cap, iron-rimmed spectacles, and goloshes that look like two dread-noughts, walks about by the waggons of birds and pails of fish. he is, as they call him here, "a type." he hasn't a farthing to bless himself with, but in spite of that he haggles, gets excited, and pesters purchasers with advice. he has thoroughly examined all the hares, pigeons, and fish; examined them in every detail, fixed the kind, the age, and the price of each one of them a good hour ago. he is as interested as a child in the goldfinches, the carp, and the minnows. talk to him, for instance, about thrushes, and the queer old fellow will tell you things you could not find in any book. he will tell you them with enthusiasm, with passion, and will scold you too for your ignorance. of goldfinches and bullfinches he is ready to talk endlessly, opening his eyes wide and gesticulating violently with his hands. he is only to be met here at the market in the cold weather; in the summer he is somewhere in the country, catching quails with a bird-call and angling for fish. and here is another "type," a very tall, very thin, close-shaven gentleman in dark spectacles, wearing a cap with a cockade, and looking like a scrivener of by-gone days. he is a fancier; he is a man of decent position, a teacher in a high school, and that is well known to the _habitués_ of the market, and they treat him with respect, greet him with bows, and have even invented for him a special title: "your scholarship." at suharev market he rummages among the books, and at trubnoy looks out for good pigeons. "please, sir!" the pigeon-sellers shout to him, "mr. schoolmaster, your scholarship, take notice of my tumblers! your scholarship!" "your scholarship!" is shouted at him from every side. "your scholarship!" an urchin repeats somewhere on the boulevard. and his "scholarship," apparently quite accustomed to his title, grave and severe, takes a pigeon in both hands, and lifting it above his head, begins examining it, and as he does so frowns and looks graver than ever, like a conspirator. and trubnoy square, that little bit of moscow where animals are so tenderly loved, and where they are so tortured, lives its little life, grows noisy and excited, and the business-like or pious people who pass by along the boulevard cannot make out what has brought this crowd of people, this medley of caps, fur hats, and chimneypots together; what they are talking about there, what they are buying and selling. an adventure _(a driver's story)_ it was in that wood yonder, behind the creek, that it happened, sir. my father, the kingdom of heaven be his, was taking five hundred roubles to the master; in those days our fellows and the shepelevsky peasants used to rent land from the master, so father was taking money for the half-year. he was a god-fearing man, he used to read the scriptures, and as for cheating or wronging anyone, or defrauding --god forbid, and the peasants honoured him greatly, and when someone had to be sent to the town about taxes or such-like, or with money, they used to send him. he was a man above the ordinary, but, not that i'd speak ill of him, he had a weakness. he was fond of a drop. there was no getting him past a tavern: he would go in, drink a glass, and be completely done for! he was aware of this weakness in himself, and when he was carrying public money, that he might not fall asleep or lose it by some chance, he always took me or my sister anyutka with him. to tell the truth, all our family have a great taste for vodka. i can read and write, i served for six years at a tobacconist's in the town, and i can talk to any educated gentleman, and can use very fine language, but, it is perfectly true, sir, as i read in a book, that vodka is the blood of satan. through vodka my face has darkened. and there is nothing seemly about me, and here, as you may see, sir, i am a cab-driver like an ignorant, uneducated peasant. and so, as i was telling you, father was taking the money to the master, anyutka was going with him, and at that time anyutka was seven or maybe eight--a silly chit, not that high. he got as far as kalantchiko successfully, he was sober, but when he reached kalantchiko and went into moiseika's tavern, this same weakness of his came upon him. he drank three glasses and set to bragging before people: "i am a plain humble man," he says, "but i have five hundred roubles in my pocket; if i like," says he, "i could buy up the tavern and all the crockery and moiseika and his jewess and his little jews. i can buy it all out and out," he said. that was his way of joking, to be sure, but then he began complaining: "it's a worry, good christian people," said he, "to be a rich man, a merchant, or anything of that kind. if you have no money you have no care, if you have money you must watch over your pocket the whole time that wicked men may not rob you. it's a terror to live in the world for a man who has a lot of money." the drunken people listened of course, took it in, and made a note of it. and in those days they were making a railway line at kalantchiko, and there were swarms and swarms of tramps and vagabonds of all sorts like locusts. father pulled himself up afterwards, but it was too late. a word is not a sparrow, if it flies out you can't catch it. they drove, sir, by the wood, and all at once there was someone galloping on horseback behind them. father was not of the chicken-hearted brigade--that i couldn't say--but he felt uneasy; there was no regular road through the wood, nothing went that way but hay and timber, and there was no cause for anyone to be galloping there, particularly in working hours. one wouldn't be galloping after any good. "it seems as though they are after someone," said father to anyutka, "they are galloping so furiously. i ought to have kept quiet in the tavern, a plague on my tongue. oy, little daughter, my heart misgives me, there is something wrong!" he did not spend long in hesitation about his dangerous position, and he said to my sister anyutka: "things don't look very bright, they really are in pursuit. anyway, anyutka dear, you take the money, put it away in your skirts, and go and hide behind a bush. if by ill-luck they attack me, you run back to mother, and give her the money. let her take it to the village elder. only mind you don't let anyone see you; keep to the wood and by the creek, that no one may see you. run your best and call on the merciful god. christ be with you!" father thrust the parcel of notes on anyutka, and she looked out the thickest of the bushes and hid herself. soon after, three men on horseback galloped up to father. one a stalwart, big-jawed fellow, in a crimson shirt and high boots, and the other two, ragged, shabby fellows, navvies from the line. as my father feared, so it really turned out, sir. the one in the crimson shirt, the sturdy, strong fellow, a man above the ordinary, left his horse, and all three made for my father. "halt you, so-and-so! where's the money!" "what money? go to the devil!" "oh, the money you are taking the master for the rent. hand it over, you bald devil, or we will throttle you, and you'll die in your sins." and they began to practise their villainy on father, and, instead of beseeching them, weeping, or anything of the sort, father got angry and began to reprove them with the greatest severity. "what are you pestering me for?" said he. "you are a dirty lot. there is no fear of god in you, plague take you! it's not money you want, but a beating, to make your backs smart for three years after. be off, blockheads, or i shall defend myself. i have a revolver that takes six bullets, it's in my bosom!" but his words did not deter the robbers, and they began beating him with anything they could lay their hands on. they looked through everything in the cart, searched my father thoroughly, even taking off his boots; when they found that beating father only made him swear at them the more, they began torturing him in all sorts of ways. all the time anyutka was sitting behind the bush, and she saw it all, poor dear. when she saw father lying on the ground and gasping, she started off and ran her hardest through the thicket and the creek towards home. she was only a little girl, with no understanding; she did not know the way, just ran on not knowing where she was going. it was some six miles to our home. anyone else might have run there in an hour, but a little child, as we all know, takes two steps back for one forwards, and indeed it is not everyone who can run barefoot through the prickly bushes; you want to be used to it, too, and our girls used always to be crowding together on the stove or in the yard, and were afraid to run in the forest. towards evening anyutka somehow reached a habitation, she looked, it was a hut. it was the forester's hut, in the crown forest; some merchants were renting it at the time and burning charcoal. she knocked. a woman, the forester's wife, came out to her. anyutka, first of all, burst out crying, and told her everything just as it was, and even told her about the money. the forester's wife was full of pity for her. "my poor little dear! poor mite, god has preserved you, poor little one! my precious! come into the hut, and i will give you something to eat." she began to make up to anyutka, gave her food and drink, and even wept with her, and was so attentive to her that the girl, only think, gave her the parcel of notes. "i will put it away, darling, and to-morrow morning i will give it you back and take you home, dearie." the woman took the money, and put anyutka to sleep on the stove where at the time the brooms were drying. and on the same stove, on the brooms, the forester's daughter, a girl as small as our anyutka, was asleep. and anyutka used to tell us afterwards that there was such a scent from the brooms, they smelt of honey! anyutka lay down, but she could not get to sleep, she kept crying quietly; she was sorry for father, and terrified. but, sir, an hour or two passed, and she saw those very three robbers who had tortured father walk into the hut; and the one in the crimson shirt, with big jaws, their leader, went up to the woman and said: "well, wife, we have simply murdered a man for nothing. to-day we killed a man at dinner-time, we killed him all right, but not a farthing did we find." so this fellow in the crimson shirt turned out to be the forester, the woman's husband. "the man's dead for nothing," said his ragged companions. "in vain we have taken a sin on our souls." the forester's wife looked at all three and laughed. "what are you laughing at, silly?" "i am laughing because i haven't murdered anyone, and i have not taken any sin on my soul, but i have found the money." "what money? what nonsense are you talking!" "here, look whether i am talking nonsense." the forester's wife untied the parcel and, wicked woman, showed them the money. then she described how anyutka had come, what she had said, and so on. the murderers were delighted and began to divide the money between them, they almost quarrelled, then they sat down to the table, you know, to drink. and anyutka lay there, poor child, hearing every word and shaking like a jew in a frying-pan. what was she to do? and from their words she learned that father was dead and lying across the road, and she fancied, in her foolishness, that the wolves and the dogs would eat father, and that our horse had gone far away into the forest, and would be eaten by wolves too, and that she, anyutka herself, would be put in prison and beaten, because she had not taken care of the money. the robbers got drunk and sent the woman for vodka. they gave her five roubles for vodka and sweet wine. they set to singing and drinking on other people's money. they drank and drank, the dogs, and sent the woman off again that they might drink beyond all bounds. "we will keep it up till morning," they cried. "we have plenty of money now, there is no need to spare! drink, and don't drink away your wits." and so at midnight, when they were all fairly fuddled, the woman ran off for vodka the third time, and the forester strode twice up and down the cottage, and he was staggering. "look here, lads," he said, "we must make away with the girl, too! if we leave her, she will be the first to bear witness against us." they talked it over and discussed it, and decided that anyutka must not be left alive, that she must be killed. of course, to murder an innocent child's a fearful thing, even a man drunken or crazy would not take such a job on himself. they were quarrelling for maybe an hour which was to kill her, one tried to put it on the other, they almost fought again, and no one would agree to do it; then they cast lots. it fell to the forester. he drank another full glass, cleared his throat, and went to the outer room for an axe. but anyutka was a sharp wench. for all she was so simple, she thought of something that, i must say, not many an educated man would have thought of. maybe the lord had compassion on her, and gave her sense for the moment, or perhaps it was the fright sharpened her wits, anyway when it came to the test it turned out that she was cleverer than anyone. she got up stealthily, prayed to god, took the little sheepskin, the one the forester's wife had put over her, and, you understand, the forester's little daughter, a girl of the same age as herself, was lying on the stove beside her. she covered this girl with the sheepskin, and took the woman's jacket off her and threw it over herself. disguised herself, in fact. she put it over her head, and so walked across the hut by the drunken men, and they thought it was the forester's daughter, and did not even look at her. luckily for her the woman was not in the hut, she had gone for vodka, or maybe she would not have escaped the axe, for a woman's eyes are as far-seeing as a buzzard's. a woman's eyes are sharp. anyutka came out of the hut, and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. all night she was lost in the forest, but towards morning she came out to the edge and ran along the road. by the mercy of god she met the clerk yegor danilitch, the kingdom of heaven be his. he was going along with his hooks to catch fish. anyutka told him all about it. he went back quicker than he came--thought no more of the fish--gathered the peasants together in the village, and off they went to the forester's. they got there, and all the murderers were lying side by side, dead drunk, each where he had fallen; the woman, too, was drunk. first thing they searched them; they took the money and then looked on the stove--the holy cross be with us! the forester's child was lying on the brooms, under the sheepskin, and her head was in a pool of blood, chopped off by the axe. they roused the peasants and the woman, tied their hands behind them, and took them to the district court; the woman howled, but the forester only shook his head and asked: "you might give me a drop, lads! my head aches!" afterwards they were tried in the town in due course, and punished with the utmost rigour of the law. so that's what happened, sir, beyond the forest there, that lies behind the creek. now you can scarcely see it, the sun is setting red behind it. i have been talking to you, and the horses have stopped, as though they were listening too. hey there, my beauties! move more briskly, the good gentleman will give us something extra. hey, you darlings! the fish a summer morning. the air is still; there is no sound but the churring of a grasshopper on the river bank, and somewhere the timid cooing of a turtle-dove. feathery clouds stand motionless in the sky, looking like snow scattered about. . . . gerassim, the carpenter, a tall gaunt peasant, with a curly red head and a face overgrown with hair, is floundering about in the water under the green willow branches near an unfinished bathing shed. . . . he puffs and pants and, blinking furiously, is trying to get hold of something under the roots of the willows. his face is covered with perspiration. a couple of yards from him, lubim, the carpenter, a young hunchback with a triangular face and narrow chinese-looking eyes, is standing up to his neck in water. both gerassim and lubim are in shirts and linen breeches. both are blue with cold, for they have been more than an hour already in the water. "but why do you keep poking with your hand?" cries the hunchback lubim, shivering as though in a fever. "you blockhead! hold him, hold him, or else he'll get away, the anathema! hold him, i tell you!" "he won't get away. . . . where can he get to? he's under a root," says gerassim in a hoarse, hollow bass, which seems to come not from his throat, but from the depths of his stomach. "he's slippery, the beggar, and there's nothing to catch hold of." "get him by the gills, by the gills!" "there's no seeing his gills. . . . stay, i've got hold of something . . . . i've got him by the lip. . . he's biting, the brute!" "don't pull him out by the lip, don't--or you'll let him go! take him by the gills, take him by the gills. . . . you've begun poking with your hand again! you are a senseless man, the queen of heaven forgive me! catch hold!" "catch hold!" gerassim mimics him. "you're a fine one to give orders . . . . you'd better come and catch hold of him yourself, you hunchback devil. . . . what are you standing there for?" "i would catch hold of him if it were possible. but can i stand by the bank, and me as short as i am? it's deep there." "it doesn't matter if it is deep. . . . you must swim." the hunchback waves his arms, swims up to gerassim, and catches hold of the twigs. at the first attempt to stand up, he goes into the water over his head and begins blowing up bubbles. "i told you it was deep," he says, rolling his eyes angrily. "am i to sit on your neck or what?" "stand on a root . . . there are a lot of roots like a ladder." the hunchback gropes for a root with his heel, and tightly gripping several twigs, stands on it. . . . having got his balance, and established himself in his new position, he bends down, and trying not to get the water into his mouth, begins fumbling with his right hand among the roots. getting entangled among the weeds and slipping on the mossy roots he finds his hand in contact with the sharp pincers of a crayfish. "as though we wanted to see you, you demon!" says lubim, and he angrily flings the crayfish on the bank. at last his hand feels gerassim' s arm, and groping its way along it comes to something cold and slimy. "here he is!" says lubim with a grin. "a fine fellow! move your fingers, i'll get him directly . . . by the gills. stop, don't prod me with your elbow. . . . i'll have him in a minute, in a minute, only let me get hold of him. . . . the beggar has got a long way under the roots, there is nothing to get hold of. . . . one can't get to the head . . . one can only feel its belly . . . . kill that gnat on my neck--it's stinging! i'll get him by the gills, directly . . . . come to one side and give him a push! poke him with your finger!" the hunchback puffs out his cheeks, holds his breath, opens his eyes wide, and apparently has already got his fingers in the gills, but at that moment the twigs to which he is holding on with his left hand break, and losing his balance he plops into the water! eddies race away from the bank as though frightened, and little bubbles come up from the spot where he has fallen in. the hunchback swims out and, snorting, clutches at the twigs. "you'll be drowned next, you stupid, and i shall have to answer for you," wheezes gerassim. "clamber out, the devil take you! i'll get him out myself." high words follow. . . . the sun is baking hot. the shadows begin to grow shorter and to draw in on themselves, like the horns of a snail. . . . the high grass warmed by the sun begins to give out a strong, heavy smell of honey. it will soon be midday, and gerassim and lubim are still floundering under the willow tree. the husky bass and the shrill, frozen tenor persistently disturb the stillness of the summer day. "pull him out by the gills, pull him out! stay, i'll push him out! where are you shoving your great ugly fist? poke him with your finger--you pig's face! get round by the side! get to the left, to the left, there's a big hole on the right! you'll be a supper for the water-devil! pull it by the lip!" there is the sound of the flick of a whip. . . . a herd of cattle, driven by yefim, the shepherd, saunter lazily down the sloping bank to drink. the shepherd, a decrepit old man, with one eye and a crooked mouth, walks with his head bowed, looking at his feet. the first to reach the water are the sheep, then come the horses, and last of all the cows. "push him from below!" he hears lubim's voice. "stick your finger in! are you deaf, fellow, or what? tfoo!" "what are you after, lads?" shouts yefim. "an eel-pout! we can't get him out! he's hidden under the roots. get round to the side! to the side!" for a minute yefim screws up his eye at the fishermen, then he takes off his bark shoes, throws his sack off his shoulders, and takes off his shirt. he has not the patience to take off his breeches, but, making the sign of the cross, he steps into the water, holding out his thin dark arms to balance himself. . . . for fifty paces he walks along the slimy bottom, then he takes to swimming. "wait a minute, lads!" he shouts. "wait! don't be in a hurry to pull him out, you'll lose him. you must do it properly!" yefim joins the carpenters and all three, shoving each other with their knees and their elbows, puffing and swearing at one another, bustle about the same spot. lubim, the hunchback, gets a mouthful of water, and the air rings with his hard spasmodic coughing. "where's the shepherd?" comes a shout from the bank. "yefim! shepherd! where are you? the cattle are in the garden! drive them out, drive them out of the garden! where is he, the old brigand?" first men's voices are heard, then a woman's. the master himself, andrey andreitch, wearing a dressing-gown made of a persian shawl and carrying a newspaper in his hand, appears from behind the garden fence. he looks inquiringly towards the shouts which come from the river, and then trips rapidly towards the bathing shed. "what's this? who's shouting?" he asks sternly, seeing through the branches of the willow the three wet heads of the fishermen. "what are you so busy about there?" "catching a fish," mutters yefim, without raising his head. "i'll give it to you! the beasts are in the garden and he is fishing! . . . when will that bathing shed be done, you devils? you've been at work two days, and what is there to show for it?" "it . . . will soon be done," grunts gerassim; summer is long, you'll have plenty of time to wash, your honour. . . . pfrrr! . . . we can't manage this eel-pout here anyhow. . . . he's got under a root and sits there as if he were in a hole and won't budge one way or another . . . ." "an eel-pout?" says the master, and his eyes begin to glisten. "get him out quickly then." "you'll give us half a rouble for it presently if we oblige you . . . . a huge eel-pout, as fat as a merchant's wife. . . . it's worth half a rouble, your honour, for the trouble. . . . don't squeeze him, lubim, don't squeeze him, you'll spoil him! push him up from below! pull the root upwards, my good man . . . what's your name? upwards, not downwards, you brute! don't swing your legs!" five minutes pass, ten. . . . the master loses all patience. "vassily!" he shouts, turning towards the garden. "vaska! call vassily to me!" the coachman vassily runs up. he is chewing something and breathing hard. "go into the water," the master orders him. "help them to pull out that eel-pout. they can't get him out." vassily rapidly undresses and gets into the water. "in a minute. . . . i'll get him in a minute," he mutters. "where's the eel-pout? we'll have him out in a trice! you'd better go, yefim. an old man like you ought to be minding his own business instead of being here. where's that eel-pout? i'll have him in a minute . . . . here he is! let go." "what's the good of saying that? we know all about that! you get it out!" but there is no getting it out like this! one must get hold of it by the head." "and the head is under the root! we know that, you fool!" "now then, don't talk or you'll catch it! you dirty cur!" "before the master to use such language," mutters yefim. "you won't get him out, lads! he's fixed himself much too cleverly!" "wait a minute, i'll come directly," says the master, and he begins hurriedly undressing. "four fools, and can't get an eel-pout!" when he is undressed, andrey andreitch gives himself time to cool and gets into the water. but even his interference leads to nothing. "we must chop the root off," lubim decides at last. "gerassim, go and get an axe! give me an axe!" "don't chop your fingers off," says the master, when the blows of the axe on the root under water are heard. "yefim, get out of this! stay, i'll get the eel-pout. . . . you'll never do it." the root is hacked a little. they partly break it off, and andrey andreitch, to his immense satisfaction, feels his fingers under the gills of the fish. "i'm pulling him out, lads! don't crowd round . . . stand still . . . . i am pulling him out!" the head of a big eel-pout, and behind it its long black body, nearly a yard long, appears on the surface of the water. the fish flaps its tail heavily and tries to tear itself away. "none of your nonsense, my boy! fiddlesticks! i've got you! aha!" a honied smile overspreads all the faces. a minute passes in silent contemplation. "a famous eel-pout," mutters yefim, scratching under his shoulder-blades. "i'll be bound it weighs ten pounds." "mm! . . . yes," the master assents. "the liver is fairly swollen! it seems to stand out! a-ach!" the fish makes a sudden, unexpected upward movement with its tail and the fishermen hear a loud splash . . . they all put out their hands, but it is too late; they have seen the last of the eel-pout. art a gloomy winter morning. on the smooth and glittering surface of the river bystryanka, sprinkled here and there with snow, stand two peasants, scrubby little seryozhka and the church beadle, matvey. seryozhka, a short-legged, ragged, mangy-looking fellow of thirty, stares angrily at the ice. tufts of wool hang from his shaggy sheepskin like a mangy dog. in his hands he holds a compass made of two pointed sticks. matvey, a fine-looking old man in a new sheepskin and high felt boots, looks with mild blue eyes upwards where on the high sloping bank a village nestles picturesquely. in his hands there is a heavy crowbar. "well, are we going to stand like this till evening with our arms folded?" says seryozhka, breaking the silence and turning his angry eyes on matvey. "have you come here to stand about, old fool, or to work?" "well, you . . . er . . . show me . . ." matvey mutters, blinking mildly. "show you. . . . it's always me: me to show you, and me to do it. they have no sense of their own! mark it out with the compasses, that's what's wanted! you can't break the ice without marking it out. mark it! take the compass." matvey takes the compasses from seryozhka's hands, and, shuffling heavily on the same spot and jerking with his elbows in all directions, he begins awkwardly trying to describe a circle on the ice. seryozhka screws up his eyes contemptuously and obviously enjoys his awkwardness and incompetence. "eh-eh-eh!" he mutters angrily. "even that you can't do! the fact is you are a stupid peasant, a wooden-head! you ought to be grazing geese and not making a jordan! give the compasses here! give them here, i say!" seryozhka snatches the compasses out of the hands of the perspiring matvey, and in an instant, jauntily twirling round on one heel, he describes a circle on the ice. the outline of the new jordan is ready now, all that is left to do is to break the ice. . . but before proceeding to the work seryozhka spends a long time in airs and graces, whims and reproaches. . . "i am not obliged to work for you! you are employed in the church, you do it!" he obviously enjoys the peculiar position in which he has been placed by the fate that has bestowed on him the rare talent of surprising the whole parish once a year by his art. poor mild matvey has to listen to many venomous and contemptuous words from him. seryozhka sets to work with vexation, with anger. he is lazy. he has hardly described the circle when he is already itching to go up to the village to drink tea, lounge about, and babble. . . "i'll be back directly," he says, lighting his cigarette, "and meanwhile you had better bring something to sit on and sweep up, instead of standing there counting the crows." matvey is left alone. the air is grey and harsh but still. the white church peeps out genially from behind the huts scattered on the river bank. jackdaws are incessantly circling round its golden crosses. on one side of the village where the river bank breaks off and is steep a hobbled horse is standing at the very edge, motionless as a stone, probably asleep or deep in thought. matvey, too, stands motionless as a statue, waiting patiently. the dreamily brooding look of the river, the circling of the jackdaws, and the sight of the horse make him drowsy. one hour passes, a second, and still seryozhka does not come. the river has long been swept and a box brought to sit on, but the drunken fellow does not appear. matvey waits and merely yawns. the feeling of boredom is one of which he knows nothing. if he were told to stand on the river for a day, a month, or a year he would stand there. at last seryozhka comes into sight from behind the huts. he walks with a lurching gait, scarcely moving. he is too lazy to go the long way round, and he comes not by the road, but prefers a short cut in a straight line down the bank, and sticks in the snow, hangs on to the bushes, slides on his back as he comes--and all this slowly, with pauses. "what are you about?" he cries, falling on matvey at once. "why are you standing there doing nothing! when are you going to break the ice?" matvey crosses himself, takes the crowbar in both hands, and begins breaking the ice, carefully keeping to the circle that has been drawn. seryozhka sits down on the box and watches the heavy clumsy movements of his assistant. "easy at the edges! easy there!" he commands. "if you can't do it properly, you shouldn't undertake it, once you have undertaken it you should do it. you!" a crowd collects on the top of the bank. at the sight of the spectators seryozhka becomes even more excited. "i declare i am not going to do it . . ." he says, lighting a stinking cigarette and spitting on the ground. "i should like to see how you get on without me. last year at kostyukovo, styopka gulkov undertook to make a jordan as i do. and what did it amount to--it was a laughing-stock. the kostyukovo folks came to ours --crowds and crowds of them! the people flocked from all the villages." "because except for ours there is nowhere a proper jordan . . ." "work, there is no time for talking. . . . yes, old man . . . you won't find another jordan like it in the whole province. the soldiers say you would look in vain, they are not so good even in the towns. easy, easy!" matvey puffs and groans. the work is not easy. the ice is firm and thick; and he has to break it and at once take the pieces away that the open space may not be blocked up. but, hard as the work is and senseless as seryozhka's commands are, by three o'clock there is a large circle of dark water in the bystryanka. "it was better last year," says seryozhka angrily. "you can't do even that! ah, dummy! to keep such fools in the temple of god! go and bring a board to make the pegs! bring the ring, you crow! and er . . . get some bread somewhere . . . and some cucumbers, or something." matvey goes off and soon afterwards comes back, carrying on his shoulders an immense wooden ring which had been painted in previous years in patterns of various colours. in the centre of the ring is a red cross, at the circumference holes for the pegs. seryozhka takes the ring and covers the hole in the ice with it. "just right . . . it fits. . . . we have only to renew the paint and it will be first-rate. . . . come, why are you standing still? make the lectern. or--er--go and get logs to make the cross . . ." matvey, who has not tasted food or drink all day, trudges up the hill again. lazy as seryozhka is, he makes the pegs with his own hands. he knows that those pegs have a miraculous power: whoever gets hold of a peg after the blessing of the water will be lucky for the whole year. such work is really worth doing. but the real work begins the following day. then seryozhka displays himself before the ignorant matvey in all the greatness of his talent. there is no end to his babble, his fault-finding, his whims and fancies. if matvey nails two big pieces of wood to make a cross, he is dissatisfied and tells him to do it again. if matvey stands still, seryozhka asks him angrily why he does not go; if he moves, seryozhka shouts to him not to go away but to do his work. he is not satisfied with his tools, with the weather, or with his own talent; nothing pleases him. matvey saws out a great piece of ice for a lectern. "why have you broken off the corner?" cries seryozhka, and glares at him furiously. "why have you broken off the corner? i ask you." "forgive me, for christ's sake." "do it over again!" matvey saws again . . . and there is no end to his sufferings. a lectern is to stand by the hole in the ice that is covered by the painted ring; on the lectern is to be carved the cross and the open gospel. but that is not all. behind the lectern there is to be a high cross to be seen by all the crowd and to glitter in the sun as though sprinkled with diamonds and rubies. on the cross is to be a dove carved out of ice. the path from the church to the jordan is to be strewn with branches of fir and juniper. all this is their task. first of all seryozhka sets to work on the lectern. he works with a file, a chisel, and an awl. he is perfectly successful in the cross on the lectern, the gospel, and the drapery that hangs down from the lectern. then he begins on the dove. while he is trying to carve an expression of meekness and humility on the face of the dove, matvey, lumbering about like a bear, is coating with ice the cross he has made of wood. he takes the cross and dips it in the hole. waiting till the water has frozen on the cross he dips it in a second time, and so on till the cross is covered with a thick layer of ice. it is a difficult job, calling for a great deal of strength and patience. but now the delicate work is finished. seryozhka races about the village like one possessed. he swears and vows he will go at once to the river and smash all his work. he is looking for suitable paints. his pockets are full of ochre, dark blue, red lead, and verdigris; without paying a farthing he rushes headlong from one shop to another. the shop is next door to the tavern. here he has a drink; with a wave of his hand he darts off without paying. at one hut he gets beetroot leaves, at another an onion skin, out of which he makes a yellow colour. he swears, shoves, threatens, and not a soul murmurs! they all smile at him, they sympathise with him, call him sergey nikititch; they all feel that his art is not his personal affair but something that concerns them all, the whole people. one creates, the others help him. seryozhka in himself is a nonentity, a sluggard, a drunkard, and a wastrel, but when he has his red lead or compasses in his hand he is at once something higher, a servant of god. epiphany morning comes. the precincts of the church and both banks of the river for a long distance are swarming with people. everything that makes up the jordan is scrupulously concealed under new mats. seryozhka is meekly moving about near the mats, trying to control his emotion. he sees thousands of people. there are many here from other parishes; these people have come many a mile on foot through the frost and the snow merely to see his celebrated jordan. matvey, who had finished his coarse, rough work, is by now back in the church, there is no sight, no sound of him; he is already forgotten . . . . the weather is lovely. . . . there is not a cloud in the sky. the sunshine is dazzling. the church bells ring out on the hill . . . thousands of heads are bared, thousands of hands are moving, there are thousands of signs of the cross! and seryozhka does not know what to do with himself for impatience. but now they are ringing the bells for the sacrament; then half an hour later a certain agitation is perceptible in the belfry and among the people. banners are borne out of the church one after the other, while the bells peal in joyous haste. seryozhka, trembling, pulls away the mat . . . and the people behold something extraordinary. the lectern, the wooden ring, the pegs, and the cross in the ice are iridescent with thousands of colors. the cross and the dove glitter so dazzlingly that it hurts the eyes to look at them. merciful god, how fine it is! a murmur of wonder and delight runs through the crowd; the bells peal more loudly still, the day grows brighter; the banners oscillate and move over the crowd as over the waves. the procession, glittering with the settings of the ikons and the vestments of the clergy, comes slowly down the road and turns towards the jordan. hands are waved to the belfry for the ringing to cease, and the blessing of the water begins. the priests conduct the service slowly, deliberately, evidently trying to prolong the ceremony and the joy of praying all gathered together. there is perfect stillness. but now they plunge the cross in, and the air echoes with an extraordinary din. guns are fired, the bells peal furiously, loud exclamations of delight, shouts, and a rush to get the pegs. seryozhka listens to this uproar, sees thousands of eyes fixed upon him, and the lazy fellow's soul is filled with a sense of glory and triumph. the swedish match _(the story of a crime)_ i on the morning of october , , a well-dressed young man presented himself at the office of the police superintendent of the nd division of the s. district, and announced that his employer, a retired cornet of the guards, called mark ivanovitch klyauzov, had been murdered. the young man was pale and extremely agitated as he made this announcement. his hands trembled and there was a look of horror in his eyes. "to whom have i the honour of speaking?" the superintendent asked him. "psyekov, klyauzov's steward. agricultural and engineering expert." the police superintendent, on reaching the spot with psyekov and the necessary witnesses, found the position as follows. masses of people were crowding about the lodge in which klyauzov lived. the news of the event had flown round the neighbourhood with the rapidity of lightning, and, thanks to its being a holiday, the people were flocking to the lodge from all the neighbouring villages. there was a regular hubbub of talk. pale and tearful faces were to be seen here and there. the door into klyauzov's bedroom was found to be locked. the key was in the lock on the inside. "evidently the criminals made their way in by the window" psyekov observed, as they examined the door. they went into the garden into which the bedroom window looked. the window had a gloomy, ominous air. it was covered by a faded green curtain. one corner of the curtain was slightly turned back, which made it possible to peep into the bedroom. "has anyone of you looked in at the window?" inquired the superintendent. "no, your honour," said yefrem, the gardener, a little, grey-haired old man with the face of a veteran non-commissioned officer. "no one feels like looking when they are shaking in every limb!" "ech, mark ivanitch! mark ivanitch!" sighed the superintendent, as he looked at the window. "i told you that you would come to a bad end! i told you, poor dear--you wouldn't listen! dissipation leads to no good!" "it's thanks to yefrem," said psyekov. "we should never have guessed it but for him. it was he who first thought that something was wrong. he came to me this morning and said: 'why is it our master hasn't waked up for so long? he hasn't been out of his bedroom for a whole week! when he said that to me i was struck all of a heap . . . . the thought flashed through my mind at once. he hasn't made an appearance since saturday of last week, and to-day's sunday. seven days is no joke!" "yes, poor man," the superintendent sighed again. "a clever fellow, well-educated, and so good-hearted. there was no one like him, one may say, in company. but a rake; the kingdom of heaven be his! i'm not surprised at anything with him! stepan," he said, addressing one of the witnesses, "ride off this minute to my house and send andryushka to the police captain's, let him report to him. say mark ivanitch has been murdered! yes, and run to the inspector--why should he sit in comfort doing nothing? let him come here. and you go yourself as fast as you can to the examining magistrate, nikolay yermolaitch, and tell him to come here. wait a bit, i will write him a note." the police superintendent stationed watchmen round the lodge, and went off to the steward's to have tea. ten minutes later he was sitting on a stool, carefully nibbling lumps of sugar, and sipping tea as hot as a red-hot coal. "there it is! . . ." he said to psyekov, "there it is! . . . a gentleman, and a well-to-do one, too . . . a favourite of the gods, one may say, to use pushkin's expression, and what has he made of it? nothing! he gave himself up to drinking and debauchery, and . . . here now . . . he has been murdered!" two hours later the examining magistrate drove up. nikolay yermolaitch tchubikov (that was the magistrate's name), a tall, thick-set old man of sixty, had been hard at work for a quarter of a century. he was known to the whole district as an honest, intelligent, energetic man, devoted to his work. his invariable companion, assistant, and secretary, a tall young man of six and twenty, called dyukovsky, arrived on the scene of action with him. "is it possible, gentlemen?" tchubikov began, going into psyekov's room and rapidly shaking hands with everyone. "is it possible? mark ivanitch? murdered? no, it's impossible! imposs-i-ble!" "there it is," sighed the superintendent "merciful heavens! why i saw him only last friday. at the fair at tarabankovo! saving your presence, i drank a glass of vodka with him!" "there it is," the superintendent sighed once more. they heaved sighs, expressed their horror, drank a glass of tea each, and went to the lodge. "make way!" the police inspector shouted to the crowd. on going into the lodge the examining magistrate first of all set to work to inspect the door into the bedroom. the door turned out to be made of deal, painted yellow, and not to have been tampered with. no special traces that might have served as evidence could be found. they proceeded to break open the door. "i beg you, gentlemen, who are not concerned, to retire," said the examining magistrate, when, after long banging and cracking, the door yielded to the axe and the chisel. "i ask this in the interests of the investigation. . . . inspector, admit no one!" tchubikov, his assistant, and the police superintendent opened the door and hesitatingly, one after the other, walked into the room. the following spectacle met their eyes. in the solitary window stood a big wooden bedstead with an immense feather bed on it. on the rumpled feather bed lay a creased and crumpled quilt. a pillow, in a cotton pillow case--also much creased, was on the floor. on a little table beside the bed lay a silver watch, and silver coins to the value of twenty kopecks. some sulphur matches lay there too. except the bed, the table, and a solitary chair, there was no furniture in the room. looking under the bed, the superintendent saw two dozen empty bottles, an old straw hat, and a jar of vodka. under the table lay one boot, covered with dust. taking a look round the room, tchubikov frowned and flushed crimson. "the blackguards!" he muttered, clenching his fists. "and where is mark ivanitch?" dyukovsky asked quietly. "i beg you not to put your spoke in," tchubikov answered roughly. "kindly examine the floor. this is the second case in my experience, yevgraf kuzmitch," he added to the police superintendent, dropping his voice. "in i had a similar case. but no doubt you remember it. . . . the murder of the merchant portretov. it was just the same. the blackguards murdered him, and dragged the dead body out of the window." tchubikov went to the window, drew the curtain aside, and cautiously pushed the window. the window opened. "it opens, so it was not fastened. . . . h'm there are traces on the window-sill. do you see? here is the trace of a knee. . . . some one climbed out. . . . we shall have to inspect the window thoroughly." "there is nothing special to be observed on the floor," said dyukovsky. "no stains, nor scratches. the only thing i have found is a used swedish match. here it is. as far as i remember, mark ivanitch didn't smoke; in a general way he used sulphur ones, never swedish matches. this match may serve as a clue. . . ." "oh, hold your tongue, please!" cried tchubikov, with a wave of his hand. "he keeps on about his match! i can't stand these excitable people! instead of looking for matches, you had better examine the bed!" on inspecting the bed, dyukovsky reported: "there are no stains of blood or of anything else. . . . nor are there any fresh rents. on the pillow there are traces of teeth. a liquid, having the smell of beer and also the taste of it, has been spilt on the quilt. . . . the general appearance of the bed gives grounds for supposing there has been a struggle." "i know there was a struggle without your telling me! no one asked you whether there was a struggle. instead of looking out for a struggle you had better be . . ." "one boot is here, the other one is not on the scene." "well, what of that?" "why, they must have strangled him while he was taking off his boots. he hadn't time to take the second boot off when . . . ." "he's off again! . . . and how do you know that he was strangled?" "there are marks of teeth on the pillow. the pillow itself is very much crumpled, and has been flung to a distance of six feet from the bed." "he argues, the chatterbox! we had better go into the garden. you had better look in the garden instead of rummaging about here. . . . i can do that without your help." when they went out into the garden their first task was the inspection of the grass. the grass had been trampled down under the windows. the clump of burdock against the wall under the window turned out to have been trodden on too. dyukovsky succeeded in finding on it some broken shoots, and a little bit of wadding. on the topmost burrs, some fine threads of dark blue wool were found. "what was the colour of his last suit? dyukovsky asked psyekov. "it was yellow, made of canvas." "capital! then it was they who were in dark blue. . . ." some of the burrs were cut off and carefully wrapped up in paper. at that moment artsybashev-svistakovsky, the police captain, and tyutyuev, the doctor, arrived. the police captain greeted the others, and at once proceeded to satisfy his curiosity; the doctor, a tall and extremely lean man with sunken eyes, a long nose, and a sharp chin, greeting no one and asking no questions, sat down on a stump, heaved a sigh and said: "the serbians are in a turmoil again! i can't make out what they want! ah, austria, austria! it's your doing!" the inspection of the window from outside yielded absolutely no result; the inspection of the grass and surrounding bushes furnished many valuable clues. dyukovsky succeeded, for instance, in detecting a long, dark streak in the grass, consisting of stains, and stretching from the window for a good many yards into the garden. the streak ended under one of the lilac bushes in a big, brownish stain. under the same bush was found a boot, which turned out to be the fellow to the one found in the bedroom. "this is an old stain of blood," said dyukovsky, examining the stain. at the word "blood," the doctor got up and lazily took a cursory glance at the stain. "yes, it's blood," he muttered. "then he wasn't strangled since there's blood," said tchubikov, looking malignantly at dyukovsky. "he was strangled in the bedroom, and here, afraid he would come to, they stabbed him with something sharp. the stain under the bush shows that he lay there for a comparatively long time, while they were trying to find some way of carrying him, or something to carry him on out of the garden." "well, and the boot?" "that boot bears out my contention that he was murdered while he was taking off his boots before going to bed. he had taken off one boot, the other, that is, this boot he had only managed to get half off. while he was being dragged and shaken the boot that was only half on came off of itself. . . ." "what powers of deduction! just look at him!" tchubikov jeered. "he brings it all out so pat! and when will you learn not to put your theories forward? you had better take a little of the grass for analysis instead of arguing!" after making the inspection and taking a plan of the locality they went off to the steward's to write a report and have lunch. at lunch they talked. "watch, money, and everything else . . . are untouched," tchubikov began the conversation. "it is as clear as twice two makes four that the murder was committed not for mercenary motives." "it was committed by a man of the educated class," dyukovsky put in. "from what do you draw that conclusion?" "i base it on the swedish match which the peasants about here have not learned to use yet. such matches are only used by landowners and not by all of them. he was murdered, by the way, not by one but by three, at least: two held him while the third strangled him. klyauzov was strong and the murderers must have known that." "what use would his strength be to him, supposing he were asleep?" "the murderers came upon him as he was taking off his boots. he was taking off his boots, so he was not asleep." "it's no good making things up! you had better eat your lunch!" "to my thinking, your honour," said yefrem, the gardener, as he set the samovar on the table, "this vile deed was the work of no other than nikolashka." "quite possible," said psyekov. "who's this nikolashka?" "the master's valet, your honour," answered yefrem. "who else should it be if not he? he's a ruffian, your honour! a drunkard, and such a dissipated fellow! may the queen of heaven never bring the like again! he always used to fetch vodka for the master, he always used to put the master to bed. . . . who should it be if not he? and what's more, i venture to bring to your notice, your honour, he boasted once in a tavern, the rascal, that he would murder his master. it's all on account of akulka, on account of a woman. . . . he had a soldier's wife. . . . the master took a fancy to her and got intimate with her, and he . . . was angered by it, to be sure. he's lolling about in the kitchen now, drunk. he's crying . . . making out he is grieving over the master . . . ." "and anyone might be angry over akulka, certainly," said psyekov. "she is a soldier's wife, a peasant woman, but . . . mark ivanitch might well call her nana. there is something in her that does suggest nana . . . fascinating . . ." "i have seen her . . . i know . . ." said the examining magistrate, blowing his nose in a red handkerchief. dyukovsky blushed and dropped his eyes. the police superintendent drummed on his saucer with his fingers. the police captain coughed and rummaged in his portfolio for something. on the doctor alone the mention of akulka and nana appeared to produce no impression. tchubikov ordered nikolashka to be fetched. nikolashka, a lanky young man with a long pock-marked nose and a hollow chest, wearing a reefer jacket that had been his master's, came into psyekov's room and bowed down to the ground before tchubikov. his face looked sleepy and showed traces of tears. he was drunk and could hardly stand up. "where is your master?" tchubikov asked him. "he's murdered, your honour." as he said this nikolashka blinked and began to cry. "we know that he is murdered. but where is he now? where is his body?" "they say it was dragged out of window and buried in the garden." "h'm . . . the results of the investigation are already known in the kitchen then. . . . that's bad. my good fellow, where were you on the night when your master was killed? on saturday, that is?" nikolashka raised his head, craned his neck, and pondered. "i can't say, your honour," he said. "i was drunk and i don't remember." "an alibi!" whispered dyukovsky, grinning and rubbing his hands. "ah! and why is it there's blood under your master's window!" nikolashka flung up his head and pondered. "think a little quicker," said the police captain. "in a minute. that blood's from a trifling matter, your honour. i killed a hen; i cut her throat very simply in the usual way, and she fluttered out of my hands and took and ran off. . . .that's what the blood's from." yefrem testified that nikolashka really did kill a hen every evening and killed it in all sorts of places, and no one had seen the half-killed hen running about the garden, though of course it could not be positively denied that it had done so. "an alibi," laughed dyukovsky, "and what an idiotic alibi." "have you had relations with akulka?" "yes, i have sinned." "and your master carried her off from you?" "no, not at all. it was this gentleman here, mr. psyekov, ivan mihalitch, who enticed her from me, and the master took her from ivan mihalitch. that's how it was." psyekov looked confused and began rubbing his left eye. dyukovsky fastened his eyes upon him, detected his confusion, and started. he saw on the steward's legs dark blue trousers which he had not previously noticed. the trousers reminded him of the blue threads found on the burdock. tchubikov in his turn glanced suspiciously at psyekov. "you can go!" he said to nikolashka. "and now allow me to put one question to you, mr. psyekov. you were here, of course, on the saturday of last week? "yes, at ten o'clock i had supper with mark ivanitch." "and afterwards?" psyekov was confused, and got up from the table. "afterwards . . . afterwards . . . i really don't remember," he muttered. "i had drunk a good deal on that occasion. . . . i can't remember where and when i went to bed. . . . why do you all look at me like that? as though i had murdered him!" "where did you wake up?" "i woke up in the servants' kitchen on the stove . . . . they can all confirm that. how i got on to the stove i can't say. . . ." "don't disturb yourself . . . do you know akulina?" "oh well, not particularly." "did she leave you for klyauzov?" "yes. . . . yefrem, bring some more mushrooms! will you have some tea, yevgraf kuzmitch?" there followed an oppressive, painful silence that lasted for some five minutes. dyukovsky held his tongue, and kept his piercing eyes on psyekov's face, which gradually turned pale. the silence was broken by tchubikov. "we must go to the big house," he said, "and speak to the deceased's sister, marya ivanovna. she may give us some evidence." tchubikov and his assistant thanked psyekov for the lunch, then went off to the big house. they found klyauzov's sister, a maiden lady of five and forty, on her knees before a high family shrine of ikons. when she saw portfolios and caps adorned with cockades in her visitors' hands, she turned pale. "first of all, i must offer an apology for disturbing your devotions, so to say," the gallant tchubikov began with a scrape. "we have come to you with a request. you have heard, of course, already. . . . there is a suspicion that your brother has somehow been murdered. god's will, you know. . . . death no one can escape, neither tsar nor ploughman. can you not assist us with some fact, something that will throw light?" "oh, do not ask me!" said marya ivanovna, turning whiter still, and hiding her face in her hands. "i can tell you nothing! nothing! i implore you! i can say nothing . . . what can i do? oh, no, no . . . not a word . . . of my brother! i would rather die than speak!" marya ivanovna burst into tears and went away into another room. the officials looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and beat a retreat. "a devil of a woman!" said dyukovsky, swearing as they went out of the big house. "apparently she knows something and is concealing it. and there is something peculiar in the maid-servant's expression too. . . . you wait a bit, you devils! we will get to the bottom of it all!" in the evening, tchubikov and his assistant were driving home by the light of a pale-faced moon; they sat in their waggonette, summing up in their minds the incidents of the day. both were exhausted and sat silent. tchubikov never liked talking on the road. in spite of his talkativeness, dyukovsky held his tongue in deference to the old man. towards the end of the journey, however, the young man could endure the silence no longer, and began: "that nikolashka has had a hand in the business," he said, "_non dubitandum est_. one can see from his mug too what sort of a chap he is. . . . his alibi gives him away hand and foot. there is no doubt either that he was not the instigator of the crime. he was only the stupid hired tool. do you agree? the discreet psyekov plays a not unimportant part in the affair too. his blue trousers, his embarrassment, his lying on the stove from fright after the murder, his alibi, and akulka." "keep it up, you're in your glory! according to you, if a man knows akulka he is the murderer. ah, you hot-head! you ought to be sucking your bottle instead of investigating cases! you used to be running after akulka too, does that mean that you had a hand in this business?" "akulka was a cook in your house for a month, too, but . . . i don't say anything. on that saturday night i was playing cards with you, i saw you, or i should be after you too. the woman is not the point, my good sir. the point is the nasty, disgusting, mean feeling. . . . the discreet young man did not like to be cut out, do you see. vanity, do you see. . . . he longed to be revenged. then . . . his thick lips are a strong indication of sensuality. do you remember how he smacked his lips when he compared akulka to nana? that he is burning with passion, the scoundrel, is beyond doubt! and so you have wounded vanity and unsatisfied passion. that's enough to lead to murder. two of them are in our hands, but who is the third? nikolashka and psyekov held him. who was it smothered him? psyekov is timid, easily embarrassed, altogether a coward. people like nikolashka are not equal to smothering with a pillow, they set to work with an axe or a mallet. . . . some third person must have smothered him, but who?" dyukovsky pulled his cap over his eyes, and pondered. he was silent till the waggonette had driven up to the examining magistrate's house. "eureka!" he said, as he went into the house, and took off his overcoat. "eureka, nikolay yermolaitch! i can't understand how it is it didn't occur to me before. do you know who the third is?" "do leave off, please! there's supper ready. sit down to supper!" tchubikov and dyukovsky sat down to supper. dyukovsky poured himself out a wine-glassful of vodka, got up, stretched, and with sparkling eyes, said: "let me tell you then that the third person who collaborated with the scoundrel psyekov and smothered him was a woman! yes! i am speaking of the murdered man's sister, marya ivanovna!" tchubikov coughed over his vodka and fastened his eyes on dyukovsky. "are you . . . not quite right? is your head . . . not quite right? does it ache?" "i am quite well. very good, suppose i have gone out of my mind, but how do you explain her confusion on our arrival? how do you explain her refusal to give information? admitting that that is trivial--very good! all right!--but think of the terms they were on! she detested her brother! she is an old believer, he was a profligate, a godless fellow . . . that is what has bred hatred between them! they say he succeeded in persuading her that he was an angel of satan! he used to practise spiritualism in her presence!" "well, what then?" "don't you understand? she's an old believer, she murdered him through fanaticism! she has not merely slain a wicked man, a profligate, she has freed the world from antichrist--and that she fancies is her merit, her religious achievement! ah, you don't know these old maids, these old believers! you should read dostoevsky! and what does lyeskov say . . . and petchersky! it's she, it's she, i'll stake my life on it. she smothered him! oh, the fiendish woman! wasn't she, perhaps, standing before the ikons when we went in to put us off the scent? 'i'll stand up and say my prayers,' she said to herself, 'they will think i am calm and don't expect them.' that's the method of all novices in crime. dear nikolay yermolaitch! my dear man! do hand this case over to me! let me go through with it to the end! my dear fellow! i have begun it, and i will carry it through to the end." tchubikov shook his head and frowned. "i am equal to sifting difficult cases myself," he said. "and it's your place not to put yourself forward. write what is dictated to you, that is your business!" dyukovsky flushed crimson, walked out, and slammed the door. "a clever fellow, the rogue," tchubikov muttered, looking after him. "ve-ery clever! only inappropriately hasty. i shall have to buy him a cigar-case at the fair for a present." next morning a lad with a big head and a hare lip came from klyauzovka. he gave his name as the shepherd danilko, and furnished a very interesting piece of information. "i had had a drop," said he. "i stayed on till midnight at my crony's. as i was going home, being drunk, i got into the river for a bathe. i was bathing and what do i see! two men coming along the dam carrying something black. 'tyoo!' i shouted at them. they were scared, and cut along as fast as they could go into the makarev kitchen-gardens. strike me dead, if it wasn't the master they were carrying!" towards evening of the same day psyekov and nikolashka were arrested and taken under guard to the district town. in the town they were put in the prison tower. ii twelve days passed. it was morning. the examining magistrate, nikolay yermolaitch, was sitting at a green table at home, looking through the papers, relating to the "klyauzov case"; dyukovsky was pacing up and down the room restlessly, like a wolf in a cage. "you are convinced of the guilt of nikolashka and psyekov," he said, nervously pulling at his youthful beard. "why is it you refuse to be convinced of the guilt of marya ivanovna? haven't you evidence enough?" "i don't say that i don't believe in it. i am convinced of it, but somehow i can't believe it. . . . there is no real evidence. it's all theoretical, as it were. . . . fanaticism and one thing and another. . . ." "and you must have an axe and bloodstained sheets! . . . you lawyers! well, i will prove it to you then! do give up your slip-shod attitude to the psychological aspect of the case. your marya ivanovna ought to be in siberia! i'll prove it. if theoretical proof is not enough for you, i have something material. . . . it will show you how right my theory is! only let me go about a little!" "what are you talking about?" "the swedish match! have you forgotten? i haven't forgotten it! i'll find out who struck it in the murdered man's room! it was not struck by nikolashka, nor by psyekov, neither of whom turned out to have matches when searched, but a third person, that is marya ivanovna. and i will prove it! . . . only let me drive about the district, make some inquiries. . . ." "oh, very well, sit down. . . . let us proceed to the examination." dyukovsky sat down to the table, and thrust his long nose into the papers. "bring in nikolay tetchov!" cried the examining magistrate. nikolashka was brought in. he was pale and thin as a chip. he was trembling. "tetchov!" began tchubikov. "in you were convicted of theft and condemned to a term of imprisonment. in you were condemned for theft a second time, and a second time sent to prison . . . we know all about it. . . ." a look of surprise came up into nikolashka's face. the examining magistrate's omniscience amazed him, but soon wonder was replaced by an expression of extreme distress. he broke into sobs, and asked leave to go to wash, and calm himself. he was led out. "bring in psyekov!" said the examining magistrate. psyekov was led in. the young man's face had greatly changed during those twelve days. he was thin, pale, and wasted. there was a look of apathy in his eyes. "sit down, psyekov," said tchubikov. "i hope that to-day you will be sensible and not persist in lying as on other occasions. all this time you have denied your participation in the murder of klyauzov, in spite of the mass of evidence against you. it is senseless. confession is some mitigation of guilt. to-day i am talking to you for the last time. if you don't confess to-day, to-morrow it will be too late. come, tell us. . . ." "i know nothing, and i don't know your evidence," whispered psyekov. "that's useless! well then, allow me to tell you how it happened. on saturday evening, you were sitting in klyauzov's bedroom drinking vodka and beer with him." (dyukovsky riveted his eyes on psyekov's face, and did not remove them during the whole monologue.) "nikolay was waiting upon you. between twelve and one mark ivanitch told you he wanted to go to bed. he always did go to bed at that time. while he was taking off his boots and giving you some instructions regarding the estate, nikolay and you at a given signal seized your intoxicated master and flung him back upon the bed. one of you sat on his feet, the other on his head. at that moment the lady, you know who, in a black dress, who had arranged with you beforehand the part she would take in the crime, came in from the passage. she picked up the pillow, and proceeded to smother him with it. during the struggle, the light went out. the woman took a box of swedish matches out of her pocket and lighted the candle. isn't that right? i see from your face that what i say is true. well, to proceed. . . . having smothered him, and being convinced that he had ceased to breathe, nikolay and you dragged him out of window and put him down near the burdocks. afraid that he might regain consciousness, you struck him with something sharp. then you carried him, and laid him for some time under a lilac bush. after resting and considering a little, you carried him . . . lifted him over the hurdle. . . . then went along the road. . . then comes the dam; near the dam you were frightened by a peasant. but what is the matter with you?" psyekov, white as a sheet, got up, staggering. "i am suffocating!" he said. "very well. . . . so be it. . . . only i must go. . . . please." psyekov was led out. "at last he has admitted it!" said tchubikov, stretching at his ease. "he has given himself away! how neatly i caught him there." "and he didn't deny the woman in black!" said dyukovsky, laughing. "i am awfully worried over that swedish match, though! i can't endure it any longer. good-bye! i am going!" dyukovsky put on his cap and went off. tchubikov began interrogating akulka. akulka declared that she knew nothing about it. . . . "i have lived with you and with nobody else!" she said. at six o'clock in the evening dyukovsky returned. he was more excited than ever. his hands trembled so much that he could not unbutton his overcoat. his cheeks were burning. it was evident that he had not come back without news. "_veni, vidi, vici!_" he cried, dashing into tchubikov's room and sinking into an arm-chair. "i vow on my honour, i begin to believe in my own genius. listen, damnation take us! listen and wonder, old friend! it's comic and it's sad. you have three in your grasp already . . . haven't you? i have found a fourth murderer, or rather murderess, for it is a woman! and what a woman! i would have given ten years of my life merely to touch her shoulders. but . . . listen. i drove to klyauzovka and proceeded to describe a spiral round it. on the way i visited all the shopkeepers and innkeepers, asking for swedish matches. everywhere i was told 'no.' i have been on my round up to now. twenty times i lost hope, and as many times regained it. i have been on the go all day long, and only an hour ago came upon what i was looking for. a couple of miles from here they gave me a packet of a dozen boxes of matches. one box was missing . . . i asked at once: 'who bought that box?' 'so-and-so. she took a fancy to them. . . they crackle.' my dear fellow! nikolay yermolaitch! what can sometimes be done by a man who has been expelled from a seminary and studied gaboriau is beyond all conception! from to-day i shall began to respect myself! . . . ough. . . . well, let us go!" "go where?" "to her, to the fourth. . . . we must make haste, or . . . i shall explode with impatience! do you know who she is? you will never guess. the young wife of our old police superintendent, yevgraf kuzmitch, olga petrovna; that's who it is! she bought that box of matches!" "you . . . you. . . . are you out of your mind?" "it's very natural! in the first place she smokes, and in the second she was head over ears in love with klyauzov. he rejected her love for the sake of an akulka. revenge. i remember now, i once came upon them behind the screen in the kitchen. she was cursing him, while he was smoking her cigarette and puffing the smoke into her face. but do come along; make haste, for it is getting dark already . . . . let us go!" "i have not gone so completely crazy yet as to disturb a respectable, honourable woman at night for the sake of a wretched boy!" "honourable, respectable. . . . you are a rag then, not an examining magistrate! i have never ventured to abuse you, but now you force me to it! you rag! you old fogey! come, dear nikolay yermolaitch, i entreat you!" the examining magistrate waved his hand in refusal and spat in disgust. "i beg you! i beg you, not for my own sake, but in the interests of justice! i beseech you, indeed! do me a favour, if only for once in your life!" dyukovsky fell on his knees. "nikolay yermolaitch, do be so good! call me a scoundrel, a worthless wretch if i am in error about that woman! it is such a case, you know! it is a case! more like a novel than a case. the fame of it will be all over russia. they will make you examining magistrate for particularly important cases! do understand, you unreasonable old man!" the examining magistrate frowned and irresolutely put out his hand towards his hat. "well, the devil take you!" he said, "let us go." it was already dark when the examining magistrate's waggonette rolled up to the police superintendent's door. "what brutes we are!" said tchubikov, as he reached for the bell. "we are disturbing people." "never mind, never mind, don't be frightened. we will say that one of the springs has broken." tchubikov and dyukovsky were met in the doorway by a tall, plump woman of three and twenty, with eyebrows as black as pitch and full red lips. it was olga petrovna herself. "ah, how very nice," she said, smiling all over her face. "you are just in time for supper. my yevgraf kuzmitch is not at home. . . . he is staying at the priest's. but we can get on without him. sit down. have you come from an inquiry?" "yes. . . . we have broken one of our springs, you know," began tchubikov, going into the drawing-room and sitting down in an easy-chair. "take her by surprise at once and overwhelm her," dyukovsky whispered to him. "a spring .. . er . . . yes. . . . we just drove up. . . ." "overwhelm her, i tell you! she will guess if you go drawing it out." "oh, do as you like, but spare me," muttered tchubikov, getting up and walking to the window. "i can't! you cooked the mess, you eat it!" "yes, the spring," dyukovsky began, going up to the superintendent's wife and wrinkling his long nose. "we have not come in to . . . er-er-er . . . supper, nor to see yevgraf kuzmitch. we have come to ask you, madam, where is mark ivanovitch whom you have murdered?" "what? what mark ivanovitch?" faltered the superintendent's wife, and her full face was suddenly in one instant suffused with crimson. "i . . . don't understand." "i ask you in the name of the law! where is klyauzov? we know all about it!" "through whom?" the superintendent's wife asked slowly, unable to face dyukovsky's eyes. "kindly inform us where he is!" "but how did you find out? who told you?" "we know all about it. i insist in the name of the law." the examining magistrate, encouraged by the lady's confusion, went up to her. "tell us and we will go away. otherwise we . . ." "what do you want with him?" "what is the object of such questions, madam? we ask you for information. you are trembling, confused. . . . yes, he has been murdered, and if you will have it, murdered by you! your accomplices have betrayed you!" the police superintendent's wife turned pale. "come along," she said quietly, wringing her hands. "he is hidden in the bath-house. only for god's sake, don't tell my husband! i implore you! it would be too much for him." the superintendent's wife took a big key from the wall, and led her visitors through the kitchen and the passage into the yard. it was dark in the yard. there was a drizzle of fine rain. the superintendent's wife went on ahead. tchubikov and dyukovsky strode after her through the long grass, breathing in the smell of wild hemp and slops, which made a squelching sound under their feet. it was a big yard. soon there were no more pools of slops, and their feet felt ploughed land. in the darkness they saw the silhouette of trees, and among the trees a little house with a crooked chimney. "this is the bath-house," said the superintendent's wife, "but, i implore you, do not tell anyone." going up to the bath-house, tchubikov and dyukovsky saw a large padlock on the door. "get ready your candle-end and matches," tchubikov whispered to his assistant. the superintendent's wife unlocked the padlock and let the visitors into the bath-house. dyukovsky struck a match and lighted up the entry. in the middle of it stood a table. on the table, beside a podgy little samovar, was a soup tureen with some cold cabbage-soup in it, and a dish with traces of some sauce on it. "go on!" they went into the next room, the bath-room. there, too, was a table. on the table there stood a big dish of ham, a bottle of vodka, plates, knives and forks. "but where is he . . . where's the murdered man?" "he is on the top shelf," whispered the superintendent's wife, turning paler than ever and trembling. dyukovsky took the candle-end in his hand and climbed up to the upper shelf. there he saw a long, human body, lying motionless on a big feather bed. the body emitted a faint snore. . . . "they have made fools of us, damn it all!" dyukovsky cried. "this is not he! it is some living blockhead lying here. hi! who are you, damnation take you!" the body drew in its breath with a whistling sound and moved. dyukovsky prodded it with his elbow. it lifted up its arms, stretched, and raised its head. "who is that poking?" a hoarse, ponderous bass voice inquired. "what do you want?" dyukovsky held the candle-end to the face of the unknown and uttered a shriek. in the crimson nose, in the ruffled, uncombed hair, in the pitch-black moustaches of which one was jauntily twisted and pointed insolently towards the ceiling, he recognised cornet klyauzov. "you. . . . mark . . . ivanitch! impossible!" the examining magistrate looked up and was dumbfoundered. "it is i, yes. . . . and it's you, dyukovsky! what the devil do you want here? and whose ugly mug is that down there? holy saints, it's the examining magistrate! how in the world did you come here?" klyauzov hurriedly got down and embraced tchubikov. olga petrovna whisked out of the door. "however did you come? let's have a drink!--dash it all! tra-ta-ti-to-tom . . . . let's have a drink! who brought you here, though? how did you get to know i was here? it doesn't matter, though! have a drink!" klyauzov lighted the lamp and poured out three glasses of vodka. "the fact is, i don't understand you," said the examining magistrate, throwing out his hands. "is it you, or not you?" "stop that. . . . do you want to give me a sermon? don't trouble yourself! dyukovsky boy, drink up your vodka! friends, let us pass the . . . what are you staring at . . . ? drink!" "all the same, i can't understand," said the examining magistrate, mechanically drinking his vodka. "why are you here?" "why shouldn't i be here, if i am comfortable here?" klyauzov sipped his vodka and ate some ham. "i am staying with the superintendent's wife, as you see. in the wilds among the ruins, like some house goblin. drink! i felt sorry for her, you know, old man! i took pity on her, and, well, i am living here in the deserted bath-house, like a hermit. . . . i am well fed. next week i am thinking of moving on. . . . i've had enough of it. . . ." "inconceivable!" said dyukovsky. "what is there inconceivable in it?" "inconceivable! for god's sake, how did your boot get into the garden?" "what boot?" "we found one of your boots in the bedroom and the other in the garden." "and what do you want to know that for? it is not your business. but do drink, dash it all. since you have waked me up, you may as well drink! there's an interesting tale about that boot, my boy. i didn't want to come to olga's. i didn't feel inclined, you know, i'd had a drop too much. . . . she came under the window and began scolding me. . . . you know how women . . . as a rule. being drunk, i up and flung my boot at her. ha-ha! . . . 'don't scold,' i said. she clambered in at the window, lighted the lamp, and gave me a good drubbing, as i was drunk. i have plenty to eat here. . . . love, vodka, and good things! but where are you off to? tchubikov, where are you off to?" the examining magistrate spat on the floor and walked out of the bath-house. dyukovsky followed him with his head hanging. both got into the waggonette in silence and drove off. never had the road seemed so long and dreary. both were silent. tchubikov was shaking with anger all the way. dyukovsky hid his face in his collar as though he were afraid the darkness and the drizzling rain might read his shame on his face. on getting home the examining magistrate found the doctor, tyutyuev, there. the doctor was sitting at the table and heaving deep sighs as he turned over the pages of the _neva_. "the things that are going on in the world," he said, greeting the examining magistrate with a melancholy smile. "austria is at it again . . . and gladstone, too, in a way. . . ." tchubikov flung his hat under the table and began to tremble. "you devil of a skeleton! don't bother me! i've told you a thousand times over, don't bother me with your politics! it's not the time for politics! and as for you," he turned upon dyukovsky and shook his fist at him, "as for you. . . . i'll never forget it, as long as i live!" "but the swedish match, you know! how could i tell. . . ." "choke yourself with your match! go away and don't irritate me, or goodness knows what i shall do to you. don't let me set eyes on you." dyukovsky heaved a sigh, took his hat, and went out. "i'll go and get drunk!" he decided, as he went out of the gate, and he sauntered dejectedly towards the tavern. when the superintendent's wife got home from the bath-house she found her husband in the drawing-room. "what did the examining magistrate come about?" asked her husband. "he came to say that they had found klyauzov. only fancy, they found him staying with another man's wife." "ah, mark ivanitch, mark ivanitch!" sighed the police superintendent, turning up his eyes. "i told you that dissipation would lead to no good! i told you so--you wouldn't heed me!" the duel and other stories by anton tchekhov translated by constance garnett contents the duel excellent people mire neighbours at home expensive lessons the princess the chemist's wife the duel i it was eight o'clock in the morning--the time when the officers, the local officials, and the visitors usually took their morning dip in the sea after the hot, stifling night, and then went into the pavilion to drink tea or coffee. ivan andreitch laevsky, a thin, fair young man of twenty-eight, wearing the cap of a clerk in the ministry of finance and with slippers on his feet, coming down to bathe, found a number of acquaintances on the beach, and among them his friend samoylenko, the army doctor. with his big cropped head, short neck, his red face, his big nose, his shaggy black eyebrows and grey whiskers, his stout puffy figure and his hoarse military bass, this samoylenko made on every newcomer the unpleasant impression of a gruff bully; but two or three days after making his acquaintance, one began to think his face extraordinarily good-natured, kind, and even handsome. in spite of his clumsiness and rough manner, he was a peaceable man, of infinite kindliness and goodness of heart, always ready to be of use. he was on familiar terms with every one in the town, lent every one money, doctored every one, made matches, patched up quarrels, arranged picnics at which he cooked _shashlik_ and an awfully good soup of grey mullets. he was always looking after other people's affairs and trying to interest some one on their behalf, and was always delighted about something. the general opinion about him was that he was without faults of character. he had only two weaknesses: he was ashamed of his own good nature, and tried to disguise it by a surly expression and an assumed gruffness; and he liked his assistants and his soldiers to call him "your excellency," although he was only a civil councillor. "answer one question for me, alexandr daviditch," laevsky began, when both he and samoylenko were in the water up to their shoulders. "suppose you had loved a woman and had been living with her for two or three years, and then left off caring for her, as one does, and began to feel that you had nothing in common with her. how would you behave in that case?" "it's very simple. 'you go where you please, madam'--and that would be the end of it." "it's easy to say that! but if she has nowhere to go? a woman with no friends or relations, without a farthing, who can't work . . ." "well? five hundred roubles down or an allowance of twenty-five roubles a month--and nothing more. it's very simple." "even supposing you have five hundred roubles and can pay twenty-five roubles a month, the woman i am speaking of is an educated woman and proud. could you really bring yourself to offer her money? and how would you do it?" samoylenko was going to answer, but at that moment a big wave covered them both, then broke on the beach and rolled back noisily over the shingle. the friends got out and began dressing. "of course, it is difficult to live with a woman if you don't love her," said samoylenko, shaking the sand out of his boots. "but one must look at the thing humanely, vanya. if it were my case, i should never show a sign that i did not love her, and i should go on living with her till i died." he was at once ashamed of his own words; he pulled himself up and said: "but for aught i care, there might be no females at all. let them all go to the devil!" the friends dressed and went into the pavilion. there samoylenko was quite at home, and even had a special cup and saucer. every morning they brought him on a tray a cup of coffee, a tall cut glass of iced water, and a tiny glass of brandy. he would first drink the brandy, then the hot coffee, then the iced water, and this must have been very nice, for after drinking it his eyes looked moist with pleasure, he would stroke his whiskers with both hands, and say, looking at the sea: "a wonderfully magnificent view!" after a long night spent in cheerless, unprofitable thoughts which prevented him from sleeping, and seemed to intensify the darkness and sultriness of the night, laevsky felt listless and shattered. he felt no better for the bathe and the coffee. "let us go on with our talk, alexandr daviditch," he said. "i won't make a secret of it; i'll speak to you openly as to a friend. things are in a bad way with nadyezhda fyodorovna and me . . . a very bad way! forgive me for forcing my private affairs upon you, but i must speak out." samoylenko, who had a misgiving of what he was going to speak about, dropped his eyes and drummed with his fingers on the table. "i've lived with her for two years and have ceased to love her," laevsky went on; "or, rather, i realised that i never had felt any love for her. . . . these two years have been a mistake." it was laevsky's habit as he talked to gaze attentively at the pink palms of his hands, to bite his nails, or to pinch his cuffs. and he did so now. "i know very well you can't help me," he said. "but i tell you, because unsuccessful and superfluous people like me find their salvation in talking. i have to generalise about everything i do. i'm bound to look for an explanation and justification of my absurd existence in somebody else's theories, in literary types--in the idea that we, upper-class russians, are degenerating, for instance, and so on. last night, for example, i comforted myself by thinking all the time: 'ah, how true tolstoy is, how mercilessly true!' and that did me good. yes, really, brother, he is a great writer, say what you like!" samoylenko, who had never read tolstoy and was intending to do so every day of his life, was a little embarrassed, and said: "yes, all other authors write from imagination, but he writes straight from nature." "my god!" sighed laevsky; "how distorted we all are by civilisation! i fell in love with a married woman and she with me. . . . to begin with, we had kisses, and calm evenings, and vows, and spencer, and ideals, and interests in common. . . . what a deception! we really ran away from her husband, but we lied to ourselves and made out that we ran away from the emptiness of the life of the educated class. we pictured our future like this: to begin with, in the caucasus, while we were getting to know the people and the place, i would put on the government uniform and enter the service; then at our leisure we would pick out a plot of ground, would toil in the sweat of our brow, would have a vineyard and a field, and so on. if you were in my place, or that zoologist of yours, von koren, you might live with nadyezhda fyodorovna for thirty years, perhaps, and might leave your heirs a rich vineyard and three thousand acres of maize; but i felt like a bankrupt from the first day. in the town you have insufferable heat, boredom, and no society; if you go out into the country, you fancy poisonous spiders, scorpions, or snakes lurking under every stone and behind every bush, and beyond the fields--mountains and the desert. alien people, an alien country, a wretched form of civilisation--all that is not so easy, brother, as walking on the nevsky prospect in one's fur coat, arm-in-arm with nadyezhda fyodorovna, dreaming of the sunny south. what is needed here is a life and death struggle, and i'm not a fighting man. a wretched neurasthenic, an idle gentleman . . . . from the first day i knew that my dreams of a life of labour and of a vineyard were worthless. as for love, i ought to tell you that living with a woman who has read spencer and has followed you to the ends of the earth is no more interesting than living with any anfissa or akulina. there's the same smell of ironing, of powder, and of medicines, the same curl-papers every morning, the same self-deception." "you can't get on in the house without an iron," said samoylenko, blushing at laevsky's speaking to him so openly of a lady he knew. "you are out of humour to-day, vanya, i notice. nadyezhda fyodorovna is a splendid woman, highly educated, and you are a man of the highest intellect. of course, you are not married," samoylenko went on, glancing round at the adjacent tables, "but that's not your fault; and besides . . . one ought to be above conventional prejudices and rise to the level of modern ideas. i believe in free love myself, yes. . . . but to my thinking, once you have settled together, you ought to go on living together all your life." "without love?" "i will tell you directly," said samoylenko. "eight years ago there was an old fellow, an agent, here--a man of very great intelligence. well, he used to say that the great thing in married life was patience. do you hear, vanya? not love, but patience. love cannot last long. you have lived two years in love, and now evidently your married life has reached the period when, in order to preserve equilibrium, so to speak, you ought to exercise all your patience. . . ." "you believe in your old agent; to me his words are meaningless. your old man could be a hypocrite; he could exercise himself in the virtue of patience, and, as he did so, look upon a person he did not love as an object indispensable for his moral exercises; but i have not yet fallen so low. if i want to exercise myself in patience, i will buy dumb-bells or a frisky horse, but i'll leave human beings alone." samoylenko asked for some white wine with ice. when they had drunk a glass each, laevsky suddenly asked: "tell me, please, what is the meaning of softening of the brain?" "how can i explain it to you? . . . it's a disease in which the brain becomes softer . . . as it were, dissolves." "is it curable?" "yes, if the disease is not neglected. cold douches, blisters. . . . something internal, too." "oh! . . . well, you see my position; i can't live with her: it is more than i can do. while i'm with you i can be philosophical about it and smile, but at home i lose heart completely; i am so utterly miserable, that if i were told, for instance, that i should have to live another month with her, i should blow out my brains. at the same time, parting with her is out of the question. she has no friends or relations; she cannot work, and neither she nor i have any money. . . . what could become of her? to whom could she go? there is nothing one can think of. . . . come, tell me, what am i to do?" "h'm! . . ." growled samoylenko, not knowing what to answer. "does she love you?" "yes, she loves me in so far as at her age and with her temperament she wants a man. it would be as difficult for her to do without me as to do without her powder or her curl-papers. i am for her an indispensable, integral part of her boudoir." samoylenko was embarrassed. "you are out of humour to-day, vanya," he said. "you must have had a bad night." "yes, i slept badly. . . . altogether, i feel horribly out of sorts, brother. my head feels empty; there's a sinking at my heart, a weakness. . . . i must run away." "run where?" "there, to the north. to the pines and the mushrooms, to people and ideas. . . . i'd give half my life to bathe now in some little stream in the province of moscow or tula; to feel chilly, you know, and then to stroll for three hours even with the feeblest student, and to talk and talk endlessly. . . . and the scent of the hay! do you remember it? and in the evening, when one walks in the garden, sounds of the piano float from the house; one hears the train passing. . . ." laevsky laughed with pleasure; tears came into his eyes, and to cover them, without getting up, he stretched across the next table for the matches. "i have not been in russia for eighteen years," said samoylenko. "i've forgotten what it is like. to my mind, there is not a country more splendid than the caucasus." "vereshtchagin has a picture in which some men condemned to death are languishing at the bottom of a very deep well. your magnificent caucasus strikes me as just like that well. if i were offered the choice of a chimney-sweep in petersburg or a prince in the caucasus, i should choose the job of chimney-sweep." laevsky grew pensive. looking at his stooping figure, at his eyes fixed dreamily at one spot, at his pale, perspiring face and sunken temples, at his bitten nails, at the slipper which had dropped off his heel, displaying a badly darned sock, samoylenko was moved to pity, and probably because laevsky reminded him of a helpless child, he asked: "is your mother living?" "yes, but we are on bad terms. she could not forgive me for this affair." samoylenko was fond of his friend. he looked upon laevsky as a good-natured fellow, a student, a man with no nonsense about him, with whom one could drink, and laugh, and talk without reserve. what he understood in him he disliked extremely. laevsky drank a great deal and at unsuitable times; he played cards, despised his work, lived beyond his means, frequently made use of unseemly expressions in conversation, walked about the streets in his slippers, and quarrelled with nadyezhda fyodorovna before other people--and samoylenko did not like this. but the fact that laevsky had once been a student in the faculty of arts, subscribed to two fat reviews, often talked so cleverly that only a few people understood him, was living with a well-educated woman--all this samoylenko did not understand, and he liked this and respected laevsky, thinking him superior to himself. "there is another point," said laevsky, shaking his head. "only it is between ourselves. i'm concealing it from nadyezhda fyodorovna for the time. . . . don't let it out before her. . . . i got a letter the day before yesterday, telling me that her husband has died from softening of the brain." "the kingdom of heaven be his!" sighed samoylenko. "why are you concealing it from her?" "to show her that letter would be equivalent to 'come to church to be married.' and we should first have to make our relations clear. when she understands that we can't go on living together, i will show her the letter. then there will be no danger in it." "do you know what, vanya," said samoylenko, and a sad and imploring expression came into his face, as though he were going to ask him about something very touching and were afraid of being refused. "marry her, my dear boy!" "why?" "do your duty to that splendid woman! her husband is dead, and so providence itself shows you what to do!" "but do understand, you queer fellow, that it is impossible. to marry without love is as base and unworthy of a man as to perform mass without believing in it." "but it's your duty to." "why is it my duty?" laevsky asked irritably. "because you took her away from her husband and made yourself responsible for her." "but now i tell you in plain russian, i don't love her!" "well, if you've no love, show her proper respect, consider her wishes. . . ." "'show her respect, consider her wishes,'" laevsky mimicked him. "as though she were some mother superior! . . . you are a poor psychologist and physiologist if you think that living with a woman one can get off with nothing but respect and consideration. what a woman thinks most of is her bedroom." "vanya, vanya!" said samoylenko, overcome with confusion. "you are an elderly child, a theorist, while i am an old man in spite of my years, and practical, and we shall never understand one another. we had better drop this conversation. mustapha!" laevsky shouted to the waiter. "what's our bill?" "no, no . . ." the doctor cried in dismay, clutching laevsky's arm. "it is for me to pay. i ordered it. make it out to me," he cried to mustapha. the friends got up and walked in silence along the sea-front. when they reached the boulevard, they stopped and shook hands at parting. "you are awfully spoilt, my friend!" samoylenko sighed. "fate has sent you a young, beautiful, cultured woman, and you refuse the gift, while if god were to give me a crooked old woman, how pleased i should be if only she were kind and affectionate! i would live with her in my vineyard and . . ." samoylenko caught himself up and said: "and she might get the samovar ready for me there, the old hag." after parting with laevsky he walked along the boulevard. when, bulky and majestic, with a stern expression on his face, he walked along the boulevard in his snow-white tunic and superbly polished boots, squaring his chest, decorated with the vladimir cross on a ribbon, he was very much pleased with himself, and it seemed as though the whole world were looking at him with pleasure. without turning his head, he looked to each side and thought that the boulevard was extremely well laid out; that the young cypress-trees, the eucalyptuses, and the ugly, anemic palm-trees were very handsome and would in time give abundant shade; that the circassians were an honest and hospitable people. "it's strange that laevsky does not like the caucasus," he thought, "very strange." five soldiers, carrying rifles, met him and saluted him. on the right side of the boulevard the wife of a local official was walking along the pavement with her son, a schoolboy. "good-morning, marya konstantinovna," samoylenko shouted to her with a pleasant smile. "have you been to bathe? ha, ha, ha! . . . my respects to nikodim alexandritch!" and he went on, still smiling pleasantly, but seeing an assistant of the military hospital coming towards him, he suddenly frowned, stopped him, and asked: "is there any one in the hospital?" "no one, your excellency." "eh?" "no one, your excellency." "very well, run along. . . ." swaying majestically, he made for the lemonade stall, where sat a full-bosomed old jewess, who gave herself out to be a georgian, and said to her as loudly as though he were giving the word of command to a regiment: "be so good as to give me some soda-water!" ii laevsky's not loving nadyezhda fyodorovna showed itself chiefly in the fact that everything she said or did seemed to him a lie, or equivalent to a lie, and everything he read against women and love seemed to him to apply perfectly to himself, to nadyezhda fyodorovna and her husband. when he returned home, she was sitting at the window, dressed and with her hair done, and with a preoccupied face was drinking coffee and turning over the leaves of a fat magazine; and he thought the drinking of coffee was not such a remarkable event that she need put on a preoccupied expression over it, and that she had been wasting her time doing her hair in a fashionable style, as there was no one here to attract and no need to be attractive. and in the magazine he saw nothing but falsity. he thought she had dressed and done her hair so as to look handsomer, and was reading in order to seem clever. "will it be all right for me to go to bathe to-day?" she said. "why? there won't be an earthquake whether you go or not, i suppose . . . ." "no, i only ask in case the doctor should be vexed." "well, ask the doctor, then; i'm not a doctor." on this occasion what displeased laevsky most in nadyezhda fyodorovna was her white open neck and the little curls at the back of her head. and he remembered that when anna karenin got tired of her husband, what she disliked most of all was his ears, and thought: "how true it is, how true!" feeling weak and as though his head were perfectly empty, he went into his study, lay down on his sofa, and covered his face with a handkerchief that he might not be bothered by the flies. despondent and oppressive thoughts always about the same thing trailed slowly across his brain like a long string of waggons on a gloomy autumn evening, and he sank into a state of drowsy oppression. it seemed to him that he had wronged nadyezhda fyodorovna and her husband, and that it was through his fault that her husband had died. it seemed to him that he had sinned against his own life, which he had ruined, against the world of lofty ideas, of learning, and of work, and he conceived that wonderful world as real and possible, not on this sea-front with hungry turks and lazy mountaineers sauntering upon it, but there in the north, where there were operas, theatres, newspapers, and all kinds of intellectual activity. one could only there--not here--be honest, intelligent, lofty, and pure. he accused himself of having no ideal, no guiding principle in life, though he had a dim understanding now what it meant. two years before, when he fell in love with nadyezhda fyodorovna, it seemed to him that he had only to go with her as his wife to the caucasus, and he would be saved from vulgarity and emptiness; in the same way now, he was convinced that he had only to part from nadyezhda fyodorovna and to go to petersburg, and he would get everything he wanted. "run away," he muttered to himself, sitting up and biting his nails. "run away!" he pictured in his imagination how he would go aboard the steamer and then would have some lunch, would drink some cold beer, would talk on deck with ladies, then would get into the train at sevastopol and set off. hurrah for freedom! one station after another would flash by, the air would keep growing colder and keener, then the birches and the fir-trees, then kursk, moscow. . . . in the restaurants cabbage soup, mutton with kasha, sturgeon, beer, no more asiaticism, but russia, real russia. the passengers in the train would talk about trade, new singers, the franco-russian _entente_; on all sides there would be the feeling of keen, cultured, intellectual, eager life. . . . hasten on, on! at last nevsky prospect, and great morskaya street, and then kovensky place, where he used to live at one time when he was a student, the dear grey sky, the drizzling rain, the drenched cabmen. . . . "ivan andreitch!" some one called from the next room. "are you at home?" "i'm here," laevsky responded. "what do you want?" "papers." laevsky got up languidly, feeling giddy, walked into the other room, yawning and shuffling with his slippers. there, at the open window that looked into the street, stood one of his young fellow-clerks, laying out some government documents on the window-sill. "one minute, my dear fellow," laevsky said softly, and he went to look for the ink; returning to the window, he signed the papers without looking at them, and said: "it's hot!" "yes. are you coming to-day?" "i don't think so. . . . i'm not quite well. tell sheshkovsky that i will come and see him after dinner." the clerk went away. laevsky lay down on his sofa again and began thinking: "and so i must weigh all the circumstances and reflect on them. before i go away from here i ought to pay up my debts. i owe about two thousand roubles. i have no money. . . . of course, that's not important; i shall pay part now, somehow, and i shall send the rest, later, from petersburg. the chief point is nadyezhda fyodorovna. . . . first of all we must define our relations. . . . yes." a little later he was considering whether it would not be better to go to samoylenko for advice. "i might go," he thought, "but what use would there be in it? i shall only say something inappropriate about boudoirs, about women, about what is honest or dishonest. what's the use of talking about what is honest or dishonest, if i must make haste to save my life, if i am suffocating in this cursed slavery and am killing myself? . . . one must realise at last that to go on leading the life i do is something so base and so cruel that everything else seems petty and trivial beside it. to run away," he muttered, sitting down, "to run away." the deserted seashore, the insatiable heat, and the monotony of the smoky lilac mountains, ever the same and silent, everlastingly solitary, overwhelmed him with depression, and, as it were, made him drowsy and sapped his energy. he was perhaps very clever, talented, remarkably honest; perhaps if the sea and the mountains had not closed him in on all sides, he might have become an excellent zemstvo leader, a statesman, an orator, a political writer, a saint. who knows? if so, was it not stupid to argue whether it were honest or dishonest when a gifted and useful man--an artist or musician, for instance--to escape from prison, breaks a wall and deceives his jailers? anything is honest when a man is in such a position. at two o'clock laevsky and nadyezhda fyodorovna sat down to dinner. when the cook gave them rice and tomato soup, laevsky said: "the same thing every day. why not have cabbage soup?" "there are no cabbages." "it's strange. samoylenko has cabbage soup and marya konstantinovna has cabbage soup, and only i am obliged to eat this mawkish mess. we can't go on like this, darling." as is common with the vast majority of husbands and wives, not a single dinner had in earlier days passed without scenes and fault-finding between nadyezhda fyodorovna and laevsky; but ever since laevsky had made up his mind that he did not love her, he had tried to give way to nadyezhda fyodorovna in everything, spoke to her gently and politely, smiled, and called her "darling." "this soup tastes like liquorice," he said, smiling; he made an effort to control himself and seem amiable, but could not refrain from saying: "nobody looks after the housekeeping. . . . if you are too ill or busy with reading, let me look after the cooking." in earlier days she would have said to him, "do by all means," or, "i see you want to turn me into a cook"; but now she only looked at him timidly and flushed crimson. "well, how do you feel to-day?" he asked kindly. "i am all right to-day. there is nothing but a little weakness." "you must take care of yourself, darling. i am awfully anxious about you." nadyezhda fyodorovna was ill in some way. samoylenko said she had intermittent fever, and gave her quinine; the other doctor, ustimovitch, a tall, lean, unsociable man, who used to sit at home in the daytime, and in the evenings walk slowly up and down on the sea-front coughing, with his hands folded behind him and a cane stretched along his back, was of opinion that she had a female complaint, and prescribed warm compresses. in old days, when laevsky loved her, nadyezhda fyodorovna's illness had excited his pity and terror; now he saw falsity even in her illness. her yellow, sleepy face, her lustreless eyes, her apathetic expression, and the yawning that always followed her attacks of fever, and the fact that during them she lay under a shawl and looked more like a boy than a woman, and that it was close and stuffy in her room--all this, in his opinion, destroyed the illusion and was an argument against love and marriage. the next dish given him was spinach with hard-boiled eggs, while nadyezhda fyodorovna, as an invalid, had jelly and milk. when with a preoccupied face she touched the jelly with a spoon and then began languidly eating it, sipping milk, and he heard her swallowing, he was possessed by such an overwhelming aversion that it made his head tingle. he recognised that such a feeling would be an insult even to a dog, but he was angry, not with himself but with nadyezhda fyodorovna, for arousing such a feeling, and he understood why lovers sometimes murder their mistresses. he would not murder her, of course, but if he had been on a jury now, he would have acquitted the murderer. "merci, darling," he said after dinner, and kissed nadyezhda fyodorovna on the forehead. going back into his study, he spent five minutes in walking to and fro, looking at his boots; then he sat down on his sofa and muttered: "run away, run away! we must define the position and run away!" he lay down on the sofa and recalled again that nadyezhda fyodorovna's husband had died, perhaps, by his fault. "to blame a man for loving a woman, or ceasing to love a woman, is stupid," he persuaded himself, lying down and raising his legs in order to put on his high boots. "love and hatred are not under our control. as for her husband, maybe i was in an indirect way one of the causes of his death; but again, is it my fault that i fell in love with his wife and she with me?" then he got up, and finding his cap, set off to the lodgings of his colleague, sheshkovsky, where the government clerks met every day to play _vint_ and drink beer. "my indecision reminds me of hamlet," thought laevsky on the way. "how truly shakespeare describes it! ah, how truly!" iii for the sake of sociability and from sympathy for the hard plight of newcomers without families, who, as there was not an hotel in the town, had nowhere to dine, dr. samoylenko kept a sort of table d'hôte. at this time there were only two men who habitually dined with him: a young zoologist called von koren, who had come for the summer to the black sea to study the embryology of the medusa, and a deacon called pobyedov, who had only just left the seminary and been sent to the town to take the duty of the old deacon who had gone away for a cure. each of them paid twelve roubles a month for their dinner and supper, and samoylenko made them promise to turn up at two o'clock punctually. von koren was usually the first to appear. he sat down in the drawing-room in silence, and taking an album from the table, began attentively scrutinising the faded photographs of unknown men in full trousers and top-hats, and ladies in crinolines and caps. samoylenko only remembered a few of them by name, and of those whom he had forgotten he said with a sigh: "a very fine fellow, remarkably intelligent!" when he had finished with the album, von koren took a pistol from the whatnot, and screwing up his left eye, took deliberate aim at the portrait of prince vorontsov, or stood still at the looking-glass and gazed a long time at his swarthy face, his big forehead, and his black hair, which curled like a negro's, and his shirt of dull-coloured cotton with big flowers on it like a persian rug, and the broad leather belt he wore instead of a waistcoat. the contemplation of his own image seemed to afford him almost more satisfaction than looking at photographs or playing with the pistols. he was very well satisfied with his face, and his becomingly clipped beard, and the broad shoulders, which were unmistakable evidence of his excellent health and physical strength. he was satisfied, too, with his stylish get-up, from the cravat, which matched the colour of his shirt, down to his brown boots. while he was looking at the album and standing before the glass, at that moment, in the kitchen and in the passage near, samoylenko, without his coat and waistcoat, with his neck bare, excited and bathed in perspiration, was bustling about the tables, mixing the salad, or making some sauce, or preparing meat, cucumbers, and onion for the cold soup, while he glared fiercely at the orderly who was helping him, and brandished first a knife and then a spoon at him. "give me the vinegar!" he said. "that's not the vinegar--it's the salad oil!" he shouted, stamping. "where are you off to, you brute?" "to get the butter, your excellency," answered the flustered orderly in a cracked voice. "make haste; it's in the cupboard! and tell daria to put some fennel in the jar with the cucumbers! fennel! cover the cream up, gaping laggard, or the flies will get into it!" and the whole house seemed resounding with his shouts. when it was ten or fifteen minutes to two the deacon would come in; he was a lanky young man of twenty-two, with long hair, with no beard and a hardly perceptible moustache. going into the drawing-room, he crossed himself before the ikon, smiled, and held out his hand to von koren. "good-morning," the zoologist said coldly. "where have you been?" "i've been catching sea-gudgeon in the harbour." "oh, of course. . . . evidently, deacon, you will never be busy with work." "why not? work is not like a bear; it doesn't run off into the woods," said the deacon, smiling and thrusting his hands into the very deep pockets of his white cassock. "there's no one to whip you!" sighed the zoologist. another fifteen or twenty minutes passed and they were not called to dinner, and they could still hear the orderly running into the kitchen and back again, noisily treading with his boots, and samoylenko shouting: "put it on the table! where are your wits? wash it first." the famished deacon and von koren began tapping on the floor with their heels, expressing in this way their impatience like the audience at a theatre. at last the door opened and the harassed orderly announced that dinner was ready! in the dining-room they were met by samoylenko, crimson in the face, wrathful, perspiring from the heat of the kitchen; he looked at them furiously, and with an expression of horror, took the lid off the soup tureen and helped each of them to a plateful; and only when he was convinced that they were eating it with relish and liked it, he gave a sigh of relief and settled himself in his deep arm-chair. his face looked blissful and his eyes grew moist. . . . he deliberately poured himself out a glass of vodka and said: "to the health of the younger generation." after his conversation with laevsky, from early morning till dinner samoylenko had been conscious of a load at his heart, although he was in the best of humours; he felt sorry for laevsky and wanted to help him. after drinking a glass of vodka before the soup, he heaved a sigh and said: "i saw vanya laevsky to-day. he is having a hard time of it, poor fellow! the material side of life is not encouraging for him, and the worst of it is all this psychology is too much for him. i'm sorry for the lad." "well, that is a person i am not sorry for," said von koren. "if that charming individual were drowning, i would push him under with a stick and say, 'drown, brother, drown away.' . . ." "that's untrue. you wouldn't do it." "why do you think that?" the zoologist shrugged his shoulders. "i'm just as capable of a good action as you are." "is drowning a man a good action?" asked the deacon, and he laughed. "laevsky? yes." "i think there is something amiss with the soup . . ." said samoylenko, anxious to change the conversation. "laevsky is absolutely pernicious and is as dangerous to society as the cholera microbe," von koren went on. "to drown him would be a service." "it does not do you credit to talk like that about your neighbour. tell us: what do you hate him for?" "don't talk nonsense, doctor. to hate and despise a microbe is stupid, but to look upon everybody one meets without distinction as one's neighbour, whatever happens--thanks very much, that is equivalent to giving up criticism, renouncing a straightforward attitude to people, washing one's hands of responsibility, in fact! i consider your laevsky a blackguard; i do not conceal it, and i am perfectly conscientious in treating him as such. well, you look upon him as your neighbour--and you may kiss him if you like: you look upon him as your neighbour, and that means that your attitude to him is the same as to me and to the deacon; that is no attitude at all. you are equally indifferent to all." "to call a man a blackguard!" muttered samoylenko, frowning with distaste--"that is so wrong that i can't find words for it!" "people are judged by their actions," von koren continued. "now you decide, deacon. . . . i am going to talk to you, deacon. mr. laevsky's career lies open before you, like a long chinese puzzle, and you can read it from beginning to end. what has he been doing these two years that he has been living here? we will reckon his doings on our fingers. first, he has taught the inhabitants of the town to play _vint_: two years ago that game was unknown here; now they all play it from morning till late at night, even the women and the boys. secondly, he has taught the residents to drink beer, which was not known here either; the inhabitants are indebted to him for the knowledge of various sorts of spirits, so that now they can distinguish kospelov's vodka from smirnov's no. , blindfold. thirdly, in former days, people here made love to other men's wives in secret, from the same motives as thieves steal in secret and not openly; adultery was considered something they were ashamed to make a public display of. laevsky has come as a pioneer in that line; he lives with another man's wife openly. . . . fourthly . . ." von koren hurriedly ate up his soup and gave his plate to the orderly. "i understood laevsky from the first month of our acquaintance," he went on, addressing the deacon. "we arrived here at the same time. men like him are very fond of friendship, intimacy, solidarity, and all the rest of it, because they always want company for _vint_, drinking, and eating; besides, they are talkative and must have listeners. we made friends--that is, he turned up every day, hindered me working, and indulged in confidences in regard to his mistress. from the first he struck me by his exceptional falsity, which simply made me sick. as a friend i pitched into him, asking him why he drank too much, why he lived beyond his means and got into debt, why he did nothing and read nothing, why he had so little culture and so little knowledge; and in answer to all my questions he used to smile bitterly, sigh, and say: 'i am a failure, a superfluous man'; or: 'what do you expect, my dear fellow, from us, the debris of the serf-owning class?' or: 'we are degenerate. . . .' or he would begin a long rigmarole about onyegin, petchorin, byron's cain, and bazarov, of whom he would say: 'they are our fathers in flesh and in spirit.' so we are to understand that it was not his fault that government envelopes lay unopened in his office for weeks together, and that he drank and taught others to drink, but onyegin, petchorin, and turgenev, who had invented the failure and the superfluous man, were responsible for it. the cause of his extreme dissoluteness and unseemliness lies, do you see, not in himself, but somewhere outside in space. and so--an ingenious idea!--it is not only he who is dissolute, false, and disgusting, but we . . . 'we men of the eighties,' 'we the spiritless, nervous offspring of the serf-owning class'; 'civilisation has crippled us' . . . in fact, we are to understand that such a great man as laevsky is great even in his fall: that his dissoluteness, his lack of culture and of moral purity, is a phenomenon of natural history, sanctified by inevitability; that the causes of it are world-wide, elemental; and that we ought to hang up a lamp before laevsky, since he is the fated victim of the age, of influences, of heredity, and so on. all the officials and their ladies were in ecstasies when they listened to him, and i could not make out for a long time what sort of man i had to deal with, a cynic or a clever rogue. such types as he, on the surface intellectual with a smattering of education and a great deal of talk about their own nobility, are very clever in posing as exceptionally complex natures." "hold your tongue!" samoylenko flared up. "i will not allow a splendid fellow to be spoken ill of in my presence!" "don't interrupt, alexandr daviditch," said von koren coldly; "i am just finishing. laevsky is by no means a complex organism. here is his moral skeleton: in the morning, slippers, a bathe, and coffee; then till dinner-time, slippers, a constitutional, and conversation; at two o'clock slippers, dinner, and wine; at five o'clock a bathe, tea and wine, then _vint_ and lying; at ten o'clock supper and wine; and after midnight sleep and _la femme_. his existence is confined within this narrow programme like an egg within its shell. whether he walks or sits, is angry, writes, rejoices, it may all be reduced to wine, cards, slippers, and women. woman plays a fatal, overwhelming part in his life. he tells us himself that at thirteen he was in love; that when he was a student in his first year he was living with a lady who had a good influence over him, and to whom he was indebted for his musical education. in his second year he bought a prostitute from a brothel and raised her to his level--that is, took her as his kept mistress, and she lived with him for six months and then ran away back to the brothel-keeper, and her flight caused him much spiritual suffering. alas! his sufferings were so great that he had to leave the university and spend two years at home doing nothing. but this was all for the best. at home he made friends with a widow who advised him to leave the faculty of jurisprudence and go into the faculty of arts. and so he did. when he had taken his degree, he fell passionately in love with his present . . . what's her name? . . . married lady, and was obliged to flee with her here to the caucasus for the sake of his ideals, he would have us believe, seeing that . . . to-morrow, if not to-day, he will be tired of her and flee back again to petersburg, and that, too, will be for the sake of his ideals." "how do you know?" growled samoylenko, looking angrily at the zoologist. "you had better eat your dinner." the next course consisted of boiled mullet with polish sauce. samoylenko helped each of his companions to a whole mullet and poured out the sauce with his own hand. two minutes passed in silence. "woman plays an essential part in the life of every man," said the deacon. "you can't help that." "yes, but to what degree? for each of us woman means mother, sister, wife, friend. to laevsky she is everything, and at the same time nothing but a mistress. she--that is, cohabitation with her-- is the happiness and object of his life; he is gay, sad, bored, disenchanted--on account of woman; his life grows disagreeable --woman is to blame; the dawn of a new life begins to glow, ideals turn up--and again look for the woman. . . . he only derives enjoyment from books and pictures in which there is woman. our age is, to his thinking, poor and inferior to the forties and the sixties only because we do not know how to abandon ourselves obviously to the passion and ecstasy of love. these voluptuaries must have in their brains a special growth of the nature of sarcoma, which stifles the brain and directs their whole psychology. watch laevsky when he is sitting anywhere in company. you notice: when one raises any general question in his presence, for instance, about the cell or instinct, he sits apart, and neither speaks nor listens; he looks languid and disillusioned; nothing has any interest for him, everything is vulgar and trivial. but as soon as you speak of male and female--for instance, of the fact that the female spider, after fertilisation, devours the male--his eyes glow with curiosity, his face brightens, and the man revives, in fact. all his thoughts, however noble, lofty, or neutral they may be, they all have one point of resemblance. you walk along the street with him and meet a donkey, for instance. . . . 'tell me, please,' he asks, 'what would happen if you mated a donkey with a camel?' and his dreams! has he told you of his dreams? it is magnificent! first, he dreams that he is married to the moon, then that he is summoned before the police and ordered to live with a guitar . . ." the deacon burst into resounding laughter; samoylenko frowned and wrinkled up his face angrily so as not to laugh, but could not restrain himself, and laughed. "and it's all nonsense!" he said, wiping his tears. "yes, by jove, it's nonsense!" iv the deacon was very easily amused, and laughed at every trifle till he got a stitch in his side, till he was helpless. it seemed as though he only liked to be in people's company because there was a ridiculous side to them, and because they might be given ridiculous nicknames. he had nicknamed samoylenko "the tarantula," his orderly "the drake," and was in ecstasies when on one occasion von koren spoke of laevsky and nadyezhda fyodorovna as "japanese monkeys." he watched people's faces greedily, listened without blinking, and it could be seen that his eyes filled with laughter and his face was tense with expectation of the moment when he could let himself go and burst into laughter. "he is a corrupt and depraved type," the zoologist continued, while the deacon kept his eyes riveted on his face, expecting he would say something funny. "it is not often one can meet with such a nonentity. in body he is inert, feeble, prematurely old, while in intellect he differs in no respect from a fat shopkeeper's wife who does nothing but eat, drink, and sleep on a feather-bed, and who keeps her coachman as a lover." the deacon began guffawing again. "don't laugh, deacon," said von koren. "it grows stupid, at last. i should not have paid attention to his insignificance," he went on, after waiting till the deacon had left off laughing; "i should have passed him by if he were not so noxious and dangerous. his noxiousness lies first of all in the fact that he has great success with women, and so threatens to leave descendants--that is, to present the world with a dozen laevskys as feeble and as depraved as himself. secondly, he is in the highest degree contaminating. i have spoken to you already of _vint_ and beer. in another year or two he will dominate the whole caucasian coast. you know how the mass, especially its middle stratum, believe in intellectuality, in a university education, in gentlemanly manners, and in literary language. whatever filthy thing he did, they would all believe that it was as it should be, since he is an intellectual man, of liberal ideas and university education. what is more, he is a failure, a superfluous man, a neurasthenic, a victim of the age, and that means he can do anything. he is a charming fellow, a regular good sort, he is so genuinely indulgent to human weaknesses; he is compliant, accommodating, easy and not proud; one can drink with him and gossip and talk evil of people. . . . the masses, always inclined to anthropomorphism in religion and morals, like best of all the little gods who have the same weaknesses as themselves. only think what a wide field he has for contamination! besides, he is not a bad actor and is a clever hypocrite, and knows very well how to twist things round. only take his little shifts and dodges, his attitude to civilisation, for instance. he has scarcely sniffed at civilisation, yet: 'ah, how we have been crippled by civilisation! ah, how i envy those savages, those children of nature, who know nothing of civilisation!' we are to understand, you see, that at one time, in ancient days, he has been devoted to civilisation with his whole soul, has served it, has sounded it to its depths, but it has exhausted him, disillusioned him, deceived him; he is a faust, do you see?--a second tolstoy. . . . as for schopenhauer and spencer, he treats them like small boys and slaps them on the shoulder in a fatherly way: 'well, what do you say, old spencer?' he has not read spencer, of course, but how charming he is when with light, careless irony he says of his lady friend: 'she has read spencer!' and they all listen to him, and no one cares to understand that this charlatan has not the right to kiss the sole of spencer's foot, let alone speaking about him in that tone! sapping the foundations of civilisation, of authority, of other people's altars, spattering them with filth, winking jocosely at them only to justify and conceal one's own rottenness and moral poverty is only possible for a very vain, base, and nasty creature." "i don't know what it is you expect of him, kolya," said samoylenko, looking at the zoologist, not with anger now, but with a guilty air. "he is a man the same as every one else. of course, he has his weaknesses, but he is abreast of modern ideas, is in the service, is of use to his country. ten years ago there was an old fellow serving as agent here, a man of the greatest intelligence . . . and he used to say . . ." "nonsense, nonsense!" the zoologist interrupted. "you say he is in the service; but how does he serve? do you mean to tell me that things have been done better because he is here, and the officials are more punctual, honest, and civil? on the contrary, he has only sanctioned their slackness by his prestige as an intellectual university man. he is only punctual on the th of the month, when he gets his salary; on the other days he lounges about at home in slippers and tries to look as if he were doing the government a great service by living in the caucasus. no, alexandr daviditch, don't stick up for him. you are insincere from beginning to end. if you really loved him and considered him your neighbour, you would above all not be indifferent to his weaknesses, you would not be indulgent to them, but for his own sake would try to make him innocuous." "that is?" "innocuous. since he is incorrigible, he can only be made innocuous in one way. . . ." von koren passed his finger round his throat. "or he might be drowned . . .", he added. "in the interests of humanity and in their own interests, such people ought to be destroyed. they certainly ought." "what are you saying?" muttered samoylenko, getting up and looking with amazement at the zoologist's calm, cold face. "deacon, what is he saying? why--are you in your senses?" "i don't insist on the death penalty," said von koren. "if it is proved that it is pernicious, devise something else. if we can't destroy laevsky, why then, isolate him, make him harmless, send him to hard labour." "what are you saying!" said samoylenko in horror. "with pepper, with pepper," he cried in a voice of despair, seeing that the deacon was eating stuffed aubergines without pepper. "you with your great intellect, what are you saying! send our friend, a proud intellectual man, to penal servitude!" "well, if he is proud and tries to resist, put him in fetters!" samoylenko could not utter a word, and only twiddled his fingers; the deacon looked at his flabbergasted and really absurd face, and laughed. "let us leave off talking of that," said the zoologist. "only remember one thing, alexandr daviditch: primitive man was preserved from such as laevsky by the struggle for existence and by natural selection; now our civilisation has considerably weakened the struggle and the selection, and we ought to look after the destruction of the rotten and worthless for ourselves; otherwise, when the laevskys multiply, civilisation will perish and mankind will degenerate utterly. it will be our fault." "if it depends on drowning and hanging," said samoylenko, "damnation take your civilisation, damnation take your humanity! damnation take it! i tell you what: you are a very learned and intelligent man and the pride of your country, but the germans have ruined you. yes, the germans! the germans!" since samoylenko had left dorpat, where he had studied medicine, he had rarely seen a german and had not read a single german book, but, in his opinion, every harmful idea in politics or science was due to the germans. where he had got this notion he could not have said himself, but he held it firmly. "yes, the germans!" he repeated once more. "come and have some tea." all three stood up, and putting on their hats, went out into the little garden, and sat there under the shade of the light green maples, the pear-trees, and a chestnut-tree. the zoologist and the deacon sat on a bench by the table, while samoylenko sank into a deep wicker chair with a sloping back. the orderly handed them tea, jam, and a bottle of syrup. it was very hot, thirty degrees réaumur in the shade. the sultry air was stagnant and motionless, and a long spider-web, stretching from the chestnut-tree to the ground, hung limply and did not stir. the deacon took up the guitar, which was constantly lying on the ground near the table, tuned it, and began singing softly in a thin voice: "'gathered round the tavern were the seminary lads,'" but instantly subsided, overcome by the heat, mopped his brow and glanced upwards at the blazing blue sky. samoylenko grew drowsy; the sultry heat, the stillness and the delicious after-dinner languor, which quickly pervaded all his limbs, made him feel heavy and sleepy; his arms dropped at his sides, his eyes grew small, his head sank on his breast. he looked with almost tearful tenderness at von koren and the deacon, and muttered: "the younger generation. . . a scientific star and a luminary of the church. . . . i shouldn't wonder if the long-skirted alleluia will be shooting up into a bishop; i dare say i may come to kissing his hand. . . . well . . . please god. . . ." soon a snore was heard. von koren and the deacon finished their tea and went out into the street. "are you going to the harbour again to catch sea-gudgeon?" asked the zoologist. "no, it's too hot." "come and see me. you can pack up a parcel and copy something for me. by the way, we must have a talk about what you are to do. you must work, deacon. you can't go on like this." "your words are just and logical," said the deacon. "but my laziness finds an excuse in the circumstances of my present life. you know yourself that an uncertain position has a great tendency to make people apathetic. god only knows whether i have been sent here for a time or permanently. i am living here in uncertainty, while my wife is vegetating at her father's and is missing me. and i must confess my brain is melting with the heat." "that's all nonsense," said the zoologist. "you can get used to the heat, and you can get used to being without the deaconess. you mustn't be slack; you must pull yourself together." v nadyezhda fyodorovna went to bathe in the morning, and her cook, olga, followed her with a jug, a copper basin, towels, and a sponge. in the bay stood two unknown steamers with dirty white funnels, obviously foreign cargo vessels. some men dressed in white and wearing white shoes were walking along the harbour, shouting loudly in french, and were answered from the steamers. the bells were ringing briskly in the little church of the town. "to-day is sunday!" nadyezhda fyodorovna remembered with pleasure. she felt perfectly well, and was in a gay holiday humour. in a new loose-fitting dress of coarse thick tussore silk, and a big wide-brimmed straw hat which was bent down over her ears, so that her face looked out as though from a basket, she fancied she looked very charming. she thought that in the whole town there was only one young, pretty, intellectual woman, and that was herself, and that she was the only one who knew how to dress herself cheaply, elegantly, and with taste. that dress, for example, cost only twenty-two roubles, and yet how charming it was! in the whole town she was the only one who could be attractive, while there were numbers of men, so they must all, whether they would or not, be envious of laevsky. she was glad that of late laevsky had been cold to her, reserved and polite, and at times even harsh and rude; in the past she had met all his outbursts, all his contemptuous, cold or strange incomprehensible glances, with tears, reproaches, and threats to leave him or to starve herself to death; now she only blushed, looked guiltily at him, and was glad he was not affectionate to her. if he had abused her, threatened her, it would have been better and pleasanter, since she felt hopelessly guilty towards him. she felt she was to blame, in the first place, for not sympathising with the dreams of a life of hard work, for the sake of which he had given up petersburg and had come here to the caucasus, and she was convinced that he had been angry with her of late for precisely that. when she was travelling to the caucasus, it seemed that she would find here on the first day a cosy nook by the sea, a snug little garden with shade, with birds, with little brooks, where she could grow flowers and vegetables, rear ducks and hens, entertain her neighbours, doctor poor peasants and distribute little books amongst them. it had turned out that the caucasus was nothing but bare mountains, forests, and huge valleys, where it took a long time and a great deal of effort to find anything and settle down; that there were no neighbours of any sort; that it was very hot and one might be robbed. laevsky had been in no hurry to obtain a piece of land; she was glad of it, and they seemed to be in a tacit compact never to allude to a life of hard work. he was silent about it, she thought, because he was angry with her for being silent about it. in the second place, she had without his knowledge during those two years bought various trifles to the value of three hundred roubles at atchmianov's shop. she had bought the things by degrees, at one time materials, at another time silk or a parasol, and the debt had grown imperceptibly. "i will tell him about it to-day . . .", she used to decide, but at once reflected that in laevsky's present mood it would hardly be convenient to talk to him of debts. thirdly, she had on two occasions in laevsky's absence received a visit from kirilin, the police captain: once in the morning when laevsky had gone to bathe, and another time at midnight when he was playing cards. remembering this, nadyezhda fyodorovna flushed crimson, and looked round at the cook as though she might overhear her thoughts. the long, insufferably hot, wearisome days, beautiful languorous evenings and stifling nights, and the whole manner of living, when from morning to night one is at a loss to fill up the useless hours, and the persistent thought that she was the prettiest young woman in the town, and that her youth was passing and being wasted, and laevsky himself, though honest and idealistic, always the same, always lounging about in his slippers, biting his nails, and wearying her with his caprices, led by degrees to her becoming possessed by desire, and as though she were mad, she thought of nothing else day and night. breathing, looking, walking, she felt nothing but desire. the sound of the sea told her she must love; the darkness of evening--the same; the mountains--the same. . . . and when kirilin began paying her attentions, she had neither the power nor the wish to resist, and surrendered to him. . . . now the foreign steamers and the men in white reminded her for some reason of a huge hall; together with the shouts of french she heard the strains of a waltz, and her bosom heaved with unaccountable delight. she longed to dance and talk french. she reflected joyfully that there was nothing terrible about her infidelity. her soul had no part in her infidelity; she still loved laevsky, and that was proved by the fact that she was jealous of him, was sorry for him, and missed him when he was away. kirilin had turned out to be very mediocre, rather coarse though handsome; everything was broken off with him already and there would never be anything more. what had happened was over; it had nothing to do with any one, and if laevsky found it out he would not believe in it. there was only one bathing-house for ladies on the sea-front; men bathed under the open sky. going into the bathing-house, nadyezhda fyodorovna found there an elderly lady, marya konstantinovna bityugov, and her daughter katya, a schoolgirl of fifteen; both of them were sitting on a bench undressing. marya konstantinovna was a good-natured, enthusiastic, and genteel person, who talked in a drawling and pathetic voice. she had been a governess until she was thirty-two, and then had married bityugov, a government official--a bald little man with his hair combed on to his temples and with a very meek disposition. she was still in love with him, was jealous, blushed at the word "love," and told every one she was very happy. "my dear," she cried enthusiastically, on seeing nadyezhda fyodorovna, assuming an expression which all her acquaintances called "almond-oily." "my dear, how delightful that you have come! we'll bathe together --that's enchanting!" olga quickly flung off her dress and chemise, and began undressing her mistress. "it's not quite so hot to-day as yesterday?" said nadyezhda fyodorovna, shrinking at the coarse touch of the naked cook. "yesterday i almost died of the heat." "oh, yes, my dear; i could hardly breathe myself. would you believe it? i bathed yesterday three times! just imagine, my dear, three times! nikodim alexandritch was quite uneasy." "is it possible to be so ugly?" thought nadyezhda fyodorovna, looking at olga and the official's wife; she glanced at katya and thought: "the little girl's not badly made." "your nikodim alexandritch is very charming!" she said. "i'm simply in love with him." "ha, ha, ha!" cried marya konstantinovna, with a forced laugh; "that's quite enchanting." free from her clothes, nadyezhda fyodorovna felt a desire to fly. and it seemed to her that if she were to wave her hands she would fly upwards. when she was undressed, she noticed that olga looked scornfully at her white body. olga, a young soldier's wife, was living with her lawful husband, and so considered herself superior to her mistress. marya konstantinovna and katya were afraid of her, and did not respect her. this was disagreeable, and to raise herself in their opinion, nadyezhda fyodorovna said: "at home, in petersburg, summer villa life is at its height now. my husband and i have so many friends! we ought to go and see them." "i believe your husband is an engineer?" said marya konstantinovna timidly. "i am speaking of laevsky. he has a great many acquaintances. but unfortunately his mother is a proud aristocrat, not very intelligent. . . ." nadyezhda fyodorovna threw herself into the water without finishing; marya konstantinovna and katya made their way in after her. "there are so many conventional ideas in the world," nadyezhda fyodorovna went on, "and life is not so easy as it seems." marya konstantinovna, who had been a governess in aristocratic families and who was an authority on social matters, said: "oh yes! would you believe me, my dear, at the garatynskys' i was expected to dress for lunch as well as for dinner, so that, like an actress, i received a special allowance for my wardrobe in addition to my salary." she stood between nadyezhda fyodorovna and katya as though to screen her daughter from the water that washed the former. through the open doors looking out to the sea they could see some one swimming a hundred paces from their bathing-place. "mother, it's our kostya," said katya. "ach, ach!" marya konstantinovna cackled in her dismay. "ach, kostya!" she shouted, "come back! kostya, come back!" kostya, a boy of fourteen, to show off his prowess before his mother and sister, dived and swam farther, but began to be exhausted and hurried back, and from his strained and serious face it could be seen that he could not trust his own strength. "the trouble one has with these boys, my dear!" said marya konstantinovna, growing calmer. "before you can turn round, he will break his neck. ah, my dear, how sweet it is, and yet at the same time how difficult, to be a mother! one's afraid of everything." nadyezhda fyodorovna put on her straw hat and dashed out into the open sea. she swam some thirty feet and then turned on her back. she could see the sea to the horizon, the steamers, the people on the sea-front, the town; and all this, together with the sultry heat and the soft, transparent waves, excited her and whispered that she must live, live. . . . a sailing-boat darted by her rapidly and vigorously, cleaving the waves and the air; the man sitting at the helm looked at her, and she liked being looked at. . . . after bathing, the ladies dressed and went away together. "i have fever every alternate day, and yet i don't get thin," said nadyezhda fyodorovna, licking her lips, which were salt from the bathe, and responding with a smile to the bows of her acquaintances. "i've always been plump, and now i believe i'm plumper than ever." "that, my dear, is constitutional. if, like me, one has no constitutional tendency to stoutness, no diet is of any use. . . . but you've wetted your hat, my dear." "it doesn't matter; it will dry." nadyezhda fyodorovna saw again the men in white who were walking on the sea-front and talking french; and again she felt a sudden thrill of joy, and had a vague memory of some big hall in which she had once danced, or of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. and something at the bottom of her soul dimly and obscurely whispered to her that she was a pretty, common, miserable, worthless woman. . . . marya konstantinovna stopped at her gate and asked her to come in and sit down for a little while. "come in, my dear," she said in an imploring voice, and at the same time she looked at nadyezhda fyodorovna with anxiety and hope; perhaps she would refuse and not come in! "with pleasure," said nadyezhda fyodorovna, accepting. "you know how i love being with you!" and she went into the house. marya konstantinovna sat her down and gave her coffee, regaled her with milk rolls, then showed her photographs of her former pupils, the garatynskys, who were by now married. she showed her, too, the examination reports of kostya and katya. the reports were very good, but to make them seem even better, she complained, with a sigh, how difficult the lessons at school were now. . . . she made much of her visitor, and was sorry for her, though at the same time she was harassed by the thought that nadyezhda fyodorovna might have a corrupting influence on the morals of kostya and katya, and was glad that her nikodim alexandritch was not at home. seeing that in her opinion all men are fond of "women like that," nadyezhda fyodorovna might have a bad effect on nikodim alexandritch too. as she talked to her visitor, marya konstantinovna kept remembering that they were to have a picnic that evening, and that von koren had particularly begged her to say nothing about it to the "japanese monkeys"--that is, laevsky and nadyezhda fyodorovna; but she dropped a word about it unawares, crimsoned, and said in confusion: "i hope you will come too!" vi it was agreed to drive about five miles out of town on the road to the south, to stop near a _duhan_ at the junction of two streams --the black river and the yellow river--and to cook fish soup. they started out soon after five. foremost of the party in a char-à-banc drove samoylenko and laevsky; they were followed by marya konstantinovna, nadyezhda fyodorovna, katya and kostya, in a coach with three horses, carrying with them the crockery and a basket with provisions. in the next carriage came the police captain, kirilin, and the young atchmianov, the son of the shopkeeper to whom nadyezhda fyodorovna owed three hundred roubles; opposite them, huddled up on the little seat with his feet tucked under him, sat nikodim alexandritch, a neat little man with hair combed on to his temples. last of all came von koren and the deacon; at the deacon's feet stood a basket of fish. "r-r-right!" samoylenko shouted at the top of his voice when he met a cart or a mountaineer riding on a donkey. "in two years' time, when i shall have the means and the people ready, i shall set off on an expedition," von koren was telling the deacon. "i shall go by the sea-coast from vladivostok to the behring straits, and then from the straits to the mouth of the yenisei. we shall make the map, study the fauna and the flora, and make detailed geological, anthropological, and ethnographical researches. it depends upon you to go with me or not." "it's impossible," said the deacon. "why?" "i'm a man with ties and a family." "your wife will let you go; we will provide for her. better still if you were to persuade her for the public benefit to go into a nunnery; that would make it possible for you to become a monk, too, and join the expedition as a priest. i can arrange it for you." the deacon was silent. "do you know your theology well?" asked the zoologist. "no, rather badly." "h'm! . . . i can't give you any advice on that score, because i don't know much about theology myself. you give me a list of books you need, and i will send them to you from petersburg in the winter. it will be necessary for you to read the notes of religious travellers, too; among them are some good ethnologists and oriental scholars. when you are familiar with their methods, it will be easier for you to set to work. and you needn't waste your time till you get the books; come to me, and we will study the compass and go through a course of meteorology. all that's indispensable." "to be sure . . ." muttered the deacon, and he laughed. "i was trying to get a place in central russia, and my uncle, the head priest, promised to help me. if i go with you i shall have troubled them for nothing." "i don't understand your hesitation. if you go on being an ordinary deacon, who is only obliged to hold a service on holidays, and on the other days can rest from work, you will be exactly the same as you are now in ten years' time, and will have gained nothing but a beard and moustache; while on returning from this expedition in ten years' time you will be a different man, you will be enriched by the consciousness that something has been done by you." from the ladies' carriage came shrieks of terror and delight. the carriages were driving along a road hollowed in a literally overhanging precipitous cliff, and it seemed to every one that they were galloping along a shelf on a steep wall, and that in a moment the carriages would drop into the abyss. on the right stretched the sea; on the left was a rough brown wall with black blotches and red veins and with climbing roots; while on the summit stood shaggy fir-trees bent over, as though looking down in terror and curiosity. a minute later there were shrieks and laughter again: they had to drive under a huge overhanging rock. "i don't know why the devil i'm coming with you," said laevsky. "how stupid and vulgar it is! i want to go to the north, to run away, to escape; but here i am, for some reason, going to this stupid picnic." "but look, what a view!" said samoylenko as the horses turned to the left, and the valley of the yellow river came into sight and the stream itself gleamed in the sunlight, yellow, turbid, frantic. "i see nothing fine in that, sasha," answered laevsky. "to be in continual ecstasies over nature shows poverty of imagination. in comparison with what my imagination can give me, all these streams and rocks are trash, and nothing else." the carriages now were by the banks of the stream. the high mountain banks gradually grew closer, the valley shrank together and ended in a gorge; the rocky mountain round which they were driving had been piled together by nature out of huge rocks, pressing upon each other with such terrible weight, that samoylenko could not help gasping every time he looked at them. the dark and beautiful mountain was cleft in places by narrow fissures and gorges from which came a breath of dewy moisture and mystery; through the gorges could be seen other mountains, brown, pink, lilac, smoky, or bathed in vivid sunlight. from time to time as they passed a gorge they caught the sound of water falling from the heights and splashing on the stones. "ach, the damned mountains!" sighed laevsky. "how sick i am of them!" at the place where the black river falls into the yellow, and the water black as ink stains the yellow and struggles with it, stood the tatar kerbalay's _duhan_, with the russian flag on the roof and with an inscription written in chalk: "the pleasant _duhan_." near it was a little garden, enclosed in a hurdle fence, with tables and chairs set out in it, and in the midst of a thicket of wretched thornbushes stood a single solitary cypress, dark and beautiful. kerbalay, a nimble little tatar in a blue shirt and a white apron, was standing in the road, and, holding his stomach, he bowed low to welcome the carriages, and smiled, showing his glistening white teeth. "good-evening, kerbalay," shouted samoylenko. "we are driving on a little further, and you take along the samovar and chairs! look sharp!" kerbalay nodded his shaven head and muttered something, and only those sitting in the last carriage could hear: "we've got trout, your excellency." "bring them, bring them!" said von koren. five hundred paces from the _duhan_ the carriages stopped. samoylenko selected a small meadow round which there were scattered stones convenient for sitting on, and a fallen tree blown down by the storm with roots overgrown by moss and dry yellow needles. here there was a fragile wooden bridge over the stream, and just opposite on the other bank there was a little barn for drying maize, standing on four low piles, and looking like the hut on hen's legs in the fairy tale; a little ladder sloped from its door. the first impression in all was a feeling that they would never get out of that place again. on all sides wherever they looked, the mountains rose up and towered above them, and the shadows of evening were stealing rapidly, rapidly from the _duhan_ and dark cypress, making the narrow winding valley of the black river narrower and the mountains higher. they could hear the river murmuring and the unceasing chirrup of the grasshoppers. "enchanting!" said marya konstantinovna, heaving deep sighs of ecstasy. "children, look how fine! what peace!" "yes, it really is fine," assented laevsky, who liked the view, and for some reason felt sad as he looked at the sky and then at the blue smoke rising from the chimney of the _duhan_. "yes, it is fine," he repeated. "ivan andreitch, describe this view," marya konstantinovna said tearfully. "why?" asked laevsky. "the impression is better than any description. the wealth of sights and sounds which every one receives from nature by direct impression is ranted about by authors in a hideous and unrecognisable way." "really?" von koren asked coldly, choosing the biggest stone by the side of the water, and trying to clamber up and sit upon it. "really?" he repeated, looking directly at laevsky. "what of 'romeo and juliet'? or, for instance, pushkin's 'night in the ukraine'? nature ought to come and bow down at their feet." "perhaps," said laevsky, who was too lazy to think and oppose him. "though what is 'romeo and juliet' after all?" he added after a short pause. "the beauty of poetry and holiness of love are simply the roses under which they try to hide its rottenness. romeo is just the same sort of animal as all the rest of us." "whatever one talks to you about, you always bring it round to . . ." von koren glanced round at katya and broke off. "what do i bring it round to?" asked laevsky. "one tells you, for instance, how beautiful a bunch of grapes is, and you answer: 'yes, but how ugly it is when it is chewed and digested in one's stomach!' why say that? it's not new, and . . . altogether it is a queer habit." laevsky knew that von koren did not like him, and so was afraid of him, and felt in his presence as though every one were constrained and some one were standing behind his back. he made no answer and walked away, feeling sorry he had come. "gentlemen, quick march for brushwood for the fire!" commanded samoylenko. they all wandered off in different directions, and no one was left but kirilin, atchmianov, and nikodim alexandritch. kerbalay brought chairs, spread a rug on the ground, and set a few bottles of wine. the police captain, kirilin, a tall, good-looking man, who in all weathers wore his great-coat over his tunic, with his haughty deportment, stately carriage, and thick, rather hoarse voice, looked like a young provincial chief of police; his expression was mournful and sleepy, as though he had just been waked against his will. "what have you brought this for, you brute?" he asked kerbalay, deliberately articulating each word. "i ordered you to give us _kvarel_, and what have you brought, you ugly tatar? eh? what?" "we have plenty of wine of our own, yegor alekseitch," nikodim alexandritch observed, timidly and politely. "what? but i want us to have my wine, too; i'm taking part in the picnic and i imagine i have full right to contribute my share. i im-ma-gine so! bring ten bottles of _kvarel_." "why so many?" asked nikodim alexandritch, in wonder, knowing kirilin had no money. "twenty bottles! thirty!" shouted kirilin. "never mind, let him," atchmianov whispered to nikodim alexandritch; "i'll pay." nadyezhda fyodorovna was in a light-hearted, mischievous mood; she wanted to skip and jump, to laugh, to shout, to tease, to flirt. in her cheap cotton dress with blue pansies on it, in her red shoes and the same straw hat, she seemed to herself, little, simple, light, ethereal as a butterfly. she ran over the rickety bridge and looked for a minute into the water, in order to feel giddy; then, shrieking and laughing, ran to the other side to the drying-shed, and she fancied that all the men were admiring her, even kerbalay. when in the rapidly falling darkness the trees began to melt into the mountains and the horses into the carriages, and a light gleamed in the windows of the _duhan_, she climbed up the mountain by the little path which zigzagged between stones and thorn-bushes and sat on a stone. down below, the camp-fire was burning. near the fire, with his sleeves tucked up, the deacon was moving to and fro, and his long black shadow kept describing a circle round it; he put on wood, and with a spoon tied to a long stick he stirred the cauldron. samoylenko, with a copper-red face, was fussing round the fire just as though he were in his own kitchen, shouting furiously: "where's the salt, gentlemen? i bet you've forgotten it. why are you all sitting about like lords while i do the work?" laevsky and nikodim alexandritch were sitting side by side on the fallen tree looking pensively at the fire. marya konstantinovna, katya, and kostya were taking the cups, saucers, and plates out of the baskets. von koren, with his arms folded and one foot on a stone, was standing on a bank at the very edge of the water, thinking about something. patches of red light from the fire moved together with the shadows over the ground near the dark human figures, and quivered on the mountain, on the trees, on the bridge, on the drying-shed; on the other side the steep, scooped-out bank was all lighted up and glimmering in the stream, and the rushing turbid water broke its reflection into little bits. the deacon went for the fish which kerbalay was cleaning and washing on the bank, but he stood still half-way and looked about him. "my god, how nice it is!" he thought. "people, rocks, the fire, the twilight, a monstrous tree--nothing more, and yet how fine it is!" on the further bank some unknown persons made their appearance near the drying-shed. the flickering light and the smoke from the camp-fire puffing in that direction made it impossible to get a full view of them all at once, but glimpses were caught now of a shaggy hat and a grey beard, now of a blue shirt, now of a figure, ragged from shoulder to knee, with a dagger across the body; then a swarthy young face with black eyebrows, as thick and bold as though they had been drawn in charcoal. five of them sat in a circle on the ground, and the other five went into the drying-shed. one was standing at the door with his back to the fire, and with his hands behind his back was telling something, which must have been very interesting, for when samoylenko threw on twigs and the fire flared up, and scattered sparks and threw a glaring light on the shed, two calm countenances with an expression on them of deep attention could be seen, looking out of the door, while those who were sitting in a circle turned round and began listening to the speaker. soon after, those sitting in a circle began softly singing something slow and melodious, that sounded like lenten church music. . . . listening to them, the deacon imagined how it would be with him in ten years' time, when he would come back from the expedition: he would be a young priest and monk, an author with a name and a splendid past; he would be consecrated an archimandrite, then a bishop; and he would serve mass in the cathedral; in a golden mitre he would come out into the body of the church with the ikon on his breast, and blessing the mass of the people with the triple and the double candelabra, would proclaim: "look down from heaven, o god, behold and visit this vineyard which thy hand has planted," and the children with their angel voices would sing in response: "holy god. . ." "deacon, where is that fish?" he heard samoylenko's voice. as he went back to the fire, the deacon imagined the church procession going along a dusty road on a hot july day; in front the peasants carrying the banners and the women and children the ikons, then the boy choristers and the sacristan with his face tied up and a straw in his hair, then in due order himself, the deacon, and behind him the priest wearing his _calotte_ and carrying a cross, and behind them, tramping in the dust, a crowd of peasants--men, women, and children; in the crowd his wife and the priest's wife with kerchiefs on their heads. the choristers sing, the babies cry, the corncrakes call, the lark carols. . . . then they make a stand and sprinkle the herd with holy water. . . . they go on again, and then kneeling pray for rain. then lunch and talk. . . . "and that's nice too . . ." thought the deacon. vii kirilin and atchmianov climbed up the mountain by the path. atchmianov dropped behind and stopped, while kirilin went up to nadyezhda fyodorovna. "good-evening," he said, touching his cap. "good-evening." "yes!" said kirilin, looking at the sky and pondering. "why 'yes'?" asked nadyezhda fyodorovna after a brief pause, noticing that atchmianov was watching them both. "and so it seems," said the officer, slowly, "that our love has withered before it has blossomed, so to speak. how do you wish me to understand it? is it a sort of coquetry on your part, or do you look upon me as a nincompoop who can be treated as you choose." "it was a mistake! leave me alone!" nadyezhda fyodorovna said sharply, on that beautiful, marvellous evening, looking at him with terror and asking herself with bewilderment, could there really have been a moment when that man attracted her and had been near to her? "so that's it!" said kirilin; he thought in silence for a few minutes and said: "well, i'll wait till you are in a better humour, and meanwhile i venture to assure you i am a gentleman, and i don't allow any one to doubt it. adieu!" he touched his cap again and walked off, making his way between the bushes. after a short interval atchmianov approached hesitatingly. "what a fine evening!" he said with a slight armenian accent. he was nice-looking, fashionably dressed, and behaved unaffectedly like a well-bred youth, but nadyezhda fyodorovna did not like him because she owed his father three hundred roubles; it was displeasing to her, too, that a shopkeeper had been asked to the picnic, and she was vexed at his coming up to her that evening when her heart felt so pure. "the picnic is a success altogether," he said, after a pause. "yes," she agreed, and as though suddenly remembering her debt, she said carelessly: "oh, tell them in your shop that ivan andreitch will come round in a day or two and will pay three hundred roubles . . . . i don't remember exactly what it is." "i would give another three hundred if you would not mention that debt every day. why be prosaic?" nadyezhda fyodorovna laughed; the amusing idea occurred to her that if she had been willing and sufficiently immoral she might in one minute be free from her debt. if she, for instance, were to turn the head of this handsome young fool! how amusing, absurd, wild it would be really! and she suddenly felt a longing to make him love her, to plunder him, throw him over, and then to see what would come of it. "allow me to give you one piece of advice," atchmianov said timidly. "i beg you to beware of kirilin. he says horrible things about you everywhere." "it doesn't interest me to know what every fool says of me," nadyezhda fyodorovna said coldly, and the amusing thought of playing with handsome young atchmianov suddenly lost its charm. "we must go down," she said; "they're calling us." the fish soup was ready by now. they were ladling it out by platefuls, and eating it with the religious solemnity with which this is only done at a picnic; and every one thought the fish soup very good, and thought that at home they had never eaten anything so nice. as is always the case at picnics, in the mass of dinner napkins, parcels, useless greasy papers fluttering in the wind, no one knew where was his glass or where his bread. they poured the wine on the carpet and on their own knees, spilt the salt, while it was dark all round them and the fire burnt more dimly, and every one was too lazy to get up and put wood on. they all drank wine, and even gave kostya and katya half a glass each. nadyezhda fyodorovna drank one glass and then another, got a little drunk and forgot about kirilin. "a splendid picnic, an enchanting evening," said laevsky, growing lively with the wine. "but i should prefer a fine winter to all this. 'his beaver collar is silver with hoar-frost.'" "every one to his taste," observed von koren. laevsky felt uncomfortable; the heat of the campfire was beating upon his back, and the hatred of von koren upon his breast and face: this hatred on the part of a decent, clever man, a feeling in which there probably lay hid a well-grounded reason, humiliated him and enervated him, and unable to stand up against it, he said in a propitiatory tone: "i am passionately fond of nature, and i regret that i'm not a naturalist. i envy you." "well, i don't envy you, and don't regret it," said nadyezhda fyodorovna. "i don't understand how any one can seriously interest himself in beetles and ladybirds while the people are suffering." laevsky shared her opinion. he was absolutely ignorant of natural science, and so could never reconcile himself to the authoritative tone and the learned and profound air of the people who devoted themselves to the whiskers of ants and the claws of beetles, and he always felt vexed that these people, relying on these whiskers, claws, and something they called protoplasm (he always imagined it in the form of an oyster), should undertake to decide questions involving the origin and life of man. but in nadyezhda fyodorovna's words he heard a note of falsity, and simply to contradict her he said: "the point is not the ladybirds, but the deductions made from them." viii it was late, eleven o'clock, when they began to get into the carriages to go home. they took their seats, and the only ones missing were nadyezhda fyodorovna and atchmianov, who were running after one another, laughing, the other side of the stream. "make haste, my friends," shouted samoylenko. "you oughtn't to give ladies wine," said von koren in a low voice. laevsky, exhausted by the picnic, by the hatred of von koren, and by his own thoughts, went to meet nadyezhda fyodorovna, and when, gay and happy, feeling light as a feather, breathless and laughing, she took him by both hands and laid her head on his breast, he stepped back and said dryly: "you are behaving like a . . . cocotte." it sounded horribly coarse, so that he felt sorry for her at once. on his angry, exhausted face she read hatred, pity and vexation with himself, and her heart sank at once. she realised instantly that she had gone too far, had been too free and easy in her behaviour, and overcome with misery, feeling herself heavy, stout, coarse, and drunk, she got into the first empty carriage together with atchmianov. laevsky got in with kirilin, the zoologist with samoylenko, the deacon with the ladies, and the party set off. "you see what the japanese monkeys are like," von koren began, rolling himself up in his cloak and shutting his eyes. "you heard she doesn't care to take an interest in beetles and ladybirds because the people are suffering. that's how all the japanese monkeys look upon people like us. they're a slavish, cunning race, terrified by the whip and the fist for ten generations; they tremble and burn incense only before violence; but let the monkey into a free state where there's no one to take it by the collar, and it relaxes at once and shows itself in its true colours. look how bold they are in picture galleries, in museums, in theatres, or when they talk of science: they puff themselves out and get excited, they are abusive and critical . . . they are bound to criticise--it's the sign of the slave. you listen: men of the liberal professions are more often sworn at than pickpockets--that's because three-quarters of society are made up of slaves, of just such monkeys. it never happens that a slave holds out his hand to you and sincerely says 'thank you' to you for your work." "i don't know what you want," said samoylenko, yawning; "the poor thing, in the simplicity of her heart, wanted to talk to you of scientific subjects, and you draw a conclusion from that. you're cross with him for something or other, and with her, too, to keep him company. she's a splendid woman." "ah, nonsense! an ordinary kept woman, depraved and vulgar. listen, alexandr daviditch; when you meet a simple peasant woman, who isn't living with her husband, who does nothing but giggle, you tell her to go and work. why are you timid in this case and afraid to tell the truth? simply because nadyezhda fyodorovna is kept, not by a sailor, but by an official." "what am i to do with her?" said samoylenko, getting angry. "beat her or what? "not flatter vice. we curse vice only behind its back, and that's like making a long nose at it round a corner. i am a zoologist or a sociologist, which is the same thing; you are a doctor; society believes in us; we ought to point out the terrible harm which threatens it and the next generation from the existence of ladies like nadyezhda ivanovna." "fyodorovna," samoylenko corrected. "but what ought society to do?" "society? that's its affair. to my thinking the surest and most direct method is--compulsion. _manu militari_ she ought to be returned to her husband; and if her husband won't take her in, then she ought to be sent to penal servitude or some house of correction." "ouf!" sighed samoylenko. he paused and asked quietly: "you said the other day that people like laevsky ought to be destroyed. . . . tell me, if you . . . if the state or society commissioned you to destroy him, could you . . . bring yourself to it?" "my hand would not tremble." ix when they got home, laevsky and nadyezhda fyodorovna went into their dark, stuffy, dull rooms. both were silent. laevsky lighted a candle, while nadyezhda fyodorovna sat down, and without taking off her cloak and hat, lifted her melancholy, guilty eyes to him. he knew that she expected an explanation from him, but an explanation would be wearisome, useless and exhausting, and his heart was heavy because he had lost control over himself and been rude to her. he chanced to feel in his pocket the letter which he had been intending every day to read to her, and thought if he were to show her that letter now, it would turn her thoughts in another direction. "it is time to define our relations," he thought. "i will give it her; what is to be will be." he took out the letter and gave it her. "read it. it concerns you." saying this, he went into his own room and lay down on the sofa in the dark without a pillow. nadyezhda fyodorovna read the letter, and it seemed to her as though the ceiling were falling and the walls were closing in on her. it seemed suddenly dark and shut in and terrible. she crossed herself quickly three times and said: "give him peace, o lord . . . give him peace. . . ." and she began crying. "vanya," she called. "ivan andreitch!" there was no answer. thinking that laevsky had come in and was standing behind her chair, she sobbed like a child, and said: "why did you not tell me before that he was dead? i wouldn't have gone to the picnic; i shouldn't have laughed so horribly. . . . the men said horrid things to me. what a sin, what a sin! save me, vanya, save me. . . . i have been mad. . . . i am lost. . . ." laevsky heard her sobs. he felt stifled and his heart was beating violently. in his misery he got up, stood in the middle of the room, groped his way in the dark to an easy-chair by the table, and sat down. "this is a prison . . ." he thought. "i must get away . . . i can't bear it." it was too late to go and play cards; there were no restaurants in the town. he lay down again and covered his ears that he might not hear her sobbing, and he suddenly remembered that he could go to samoylenko. to avoid going near nadyezhda fyodorovna, he got out of the window into the garden, climbed over the garden fence and went along the street. it was dark. a steamer, judging by its lights, a big passenger one, had just come in. he heard the clank of the anchor chain. a red light was moving rapidly from the shore in the direction of the steamer: it was the customs boat going out to it. "the passengers are asleep in their cabins . . ." thought laevsky, and he envied the peace of mind of other people. the windows in samoylenko's house were open. laevsky looked in at one of them, then in at another; it was dark and still in the rooms. "alexandr daviditch, are you asleep?" he called. "alexandr daviditch!" he heard a cough and an uneasy shout: "who's there? what the devil?" "it is i, alexandr daviditch; excuse me." a little later the door opened; there was a glow of soft light from the lamp, and samoylenko's huge figure appeared all in white, with a white nightcap on his head. "what now?" he asked, scratching himself and breathing hard from sleepiness. "wait a minute; i'll open the door directly." "don't trouble; i'll get in at the window. . . ." laevsky climbed in at the window, and when he reached samoylenko, seized him by the hand. "alexandr daviditch," he said in a shaking voice, "save me! i beseech you, i implore you. understand me! my position is agonising. if it goes on for another two days i shall strangle myself like . . . like a dog." "wait a bit. . . . what are you talking about exactly?" "light a candle." "oh . . . oh! . . ." sighed samoylenko, lighting a candle. "my god! my god! . . . why, it's past one, brother." "excuse me, but i can't stay at home," said laevsky, feeling great comfort from the light and the presence of samoylenko. "you are my best, my only friend, alexandr daviditch. . . . you are my only hope. for god's sake, come to my rescue, whether you want to or not. i must get away from here, come what may! . . . lend me the money!" "oh, my god, my god! . . ." sighed samoylenko, scratching himself. "i was dropping asleep and i hear the whistle of the steamer, and now you . . . do you want much?" "three hundred roubles at least. i must leave her a hundred, and i need two hundred for the journey. . . . i owe you about four hundred already, but i will send it you all . . . all. . . ." samoylenko took hold of both his whiskers in one hand, and standing with his legs wide apart, pondered. "yes . . ." he muttered, musing. "three hundred. . . . yes. . . . but i haven't got so much. i shall have to borrow it from some one." "borrow it, for god's sake!" said laevsky, seeing from samoylenko's face that he wanted to lend him the money and certainly would lend it. "borrow it, and i'll be sure to pay you back. i will send it from petersburg as soon as i get there. you can set your mind at rest about that. i'll tell you what, sasha," he said, growing more animated; "let us have some wine." "yes . . . we can have some wine, too." they both went into the dining-room. "and how about nadyezhda fyodorovna?" asked samoylenko, setting three bottles and a plate of peaches on the table. "surely she's not remaining?" "i will arrange it all, i will arrange it all," said laevsky, feeling an unexpected rush of joy. "i will send her the money afterwards and she will join me. . . . then we will define our relations. to your health, friend." "wait a bit," said samoylenko. "drink this first. . . . this is from my vineyard. this bottle is from navaridze's vineyard and this one is from ahatulov's. . . . try all three kinds and tell me candidly. . . . there seems a little acidity about mine. eh? don't you taste it?" "yes. you have comforted me, alexandr daviditch. thank you. . . . i feel better." "is there any acidity?" "goodness only knows, i don't know. but you are a splendid, wonderful man!" looking at his pale, excited, good-natured face, samoylenko remembered von koren's view that men like that ought to be destroyed, and laevsky seemed to him a weak, defenceless child, whom any one could injure and destroy. "and when you go, make it up with your mother," he said. "it's not right." "yes, yes; i certainly shall." they were silent for a while. when they had emptied the first bottle, samoylenko said: "you ought to make it up with von koren too. you are both such splendid, clever fellows, and you glare at each other like wolves." "yes, he's a fine, very intelligent fellow," laevsky assented, ready now to praise and forgive every one. "he's a remarkable man, but it's impossible for me to get on with him. no! our natures are too different. i'm an indolent, weak, submissive nature. perhaps in a good minute i might hold out my hand to him, but he would turn away from me . . . with contempt." laevsky took a sip of wine, walked from corner to corner and went on, standing in the middle of the room: "i understand von koren very well. his is a resolute, strong, despotic nature. you have heard him continually talking of 'the expedition,' and it's not mere talk. he wants the wilderness, the moonlit night: all around in little tents, under the open sky, lie sleeping his sick and hungry cossacks, guides, porters, doctor, priest, all exhausted with their weary marches, while only he is awake, sitting like stanley on a camp-stool, feeling himself the monarch of the desert and the master of these men. he goes on and on and on, his men groan and die, one after another, and he goes on and on, and in the end perishes himself, but still is monarch and ruler of the desert, since the cross upon his tomb can be seen by the caravans for thirty or forty miles over the desert. i am sorry the man is not in the army. he would have made a splendid military genius. he would not have hesitated to drown his cavalry in the river and make a bridge out of dead bodies. and such hardihood is more needed in war than any kind of fortification or strategy. oh, i understand him perfectly! tell me: why is he wasting his substance here? what does he want here?" "he is studying the marine fauna." "no, no, brother, no!" laevsky sighed. "a scientific man who was on the steamer told me the black sea was poor in animal life, and that in its depths, thanks to the abundance of sulphuric hydrogen, organic life was impossible. all the serious zoologists work at the biological station at naples or villefranche. but von koren is independent and obstinate: he works on the black sea because nobody else is working there; he is at loggerheads with the university, does not care to know his comrades and other scientific men because he is first of all a despot and only secondly a zoologist. and you'll see he'll do something. he is already dreaming that when he comes back from his expedition he will purify our universities from intrigue and mediocrity, and will make the scientific men mind their p's and q's. despotism is just as strong in science as in the army. and he is spending his second summer in this stinking little town because he would rather be first in a village than second in a town. here he is a king and an eagle; he keeps all the inhabitants under his thumb and oppresses them with his authority. he has appropriated every one, he meddles in other people's affairs; everything is of use to him, and every one is afraid of him. i am slipping out of his clutches, he feels that and hates me. hasn't he told you that i ought to be destroyed or sent to hard labour?" "yes," laughed samoylenko. laevsky laughed too, and drank some wine. "his ideals are despotic too," he said, laughing, and biting a peach. "ordinary mortals think of their neighbour--me, you, man in fact--if they work for the common weal. to von koren men are puppets and nonentities, too trivial to be the object of his life. he works, will go for his expedition and break his neck there, not for the sake of love for his neighbour, but for the sake of such abstractions as humanity, future generations, an ideal race of men. he exerts himself for the improvement of the human race, and we are in his eyes only slaves, food for the cannon, beasts of burden; some he would destroy or stow away in siberia, others he would break by discipline, would, like araktcheev, force them to get up and go to bed to the sound of the drum; would appoint eunuchs to preserve our chastity and morality, would order them to fire at any one who steps out of the circle of our narrow conservative morality; and all this in the name of the improvement of the human race. . . . and what is the human race? illusion, mirage . . . despots have always been illusionists. i understand him very well, brother. i appreciate him and don't deny his importance; this world rests on men like him, and if the world were left only to such men as us, for all our good-nature and good intentions, we should make as great a mess of it as the flies have of that picture. yes." laevsky sat down beside samoylenko, and said with genuine feeling: "i'm a foolish, worthless, depraved man. the air i breathe, this wine, love, life in fact--for all that, i have given nothing in exchange so far but lying, idleness, and cowardice. till now i have deceived myself and other people; i have been miserable about it, and my misery was cheap and common. i bow my back humbly before von koren's hatred because at times i hate and despise myself." laevsky began again pacing from one end of the room to the other in excitement, and said: "i'm glad i see my faults clearly and am conscious of them. that will help me to reform and become a different man. my dear fellow, if only you knew how passionately, with what anguish, i long for such a change. and i swear to you i'll be a man! i will! i don't know whether it is the wine that is speaking in me, or whether it really is so, but it seems to me that it is long since i have spent such pure and lucid moments as i have just now with you." "it's time to sleep, brother," said samoylenko. "yes, yes. . . . excuse me; i'll go directly." laevsky moved hurriedly about the furniture and windows, looking for his cap. "thank you," he muttered, sighing. "thank you. . . . kind and friendly words are better than charity. you have given me new life." he found his cap, stopped, and looked guiltily at samoylenko. "alexandr daviditch," he said in an imploring voice. "what is it?" "let me stay the night with you, my dear fellow!" "certainly. . . . why not?" laevsky lay down on the sofa, and went on talking to the doctor for a long time. x three days after the picnic, marya konstantinovna unexpectedly called on nadyezhda fyodorovna, and without greeting her or taking off her hat, seized her by both hands, pressed them to her breast and said in great excitement: "my dear, i am deeply touched and moved: our dear kind-hearted doctor told my nikodim alexandritch yesterday that your husband was dead. tell me, my dear . . . tell me, is it true?" "yes, it's true; he is dead," answered nadyezhda fyodorovna. "that is awful, awful, my dear! but there's no evil without some compensation; your husband was no doubt a noble, wonderful, holy man, and such are more needed in heaven than on earth." every line and feature in marya konstantinovna's face began quivering as though little needles were jumping up and down under her skin; she gave an almond-oily smile and said, breathlessly, enthusiastically: "and so you are free, my dear. you can hold your head high now, and look people boldly in the face. henceforth god and man will bless your union with ivan andreitch. it's enchanting. i am trembling with joy, i can find no words. my dear, i will give you away. . . . nikodim alexandritch and i have been so fond of you, you will allow us to give our blessing to your pure, lawful union. when, when do you think of being married?" "i haven't thought of it," said nadyezhda fyodorovna, freeing her hands. "that's impossible, my dear. you have thought of it, you have." "upon my word, i haven't," said nadyezhda fyodorovna, laughing. "what should we be married for? i see no necessity for it. we'll go on living as we have lived." "what are you saying!" cried marya konstantinovna in horror. "for god's sake, what are you saying!" "our getting married won't make things any better. on the contrary, it will make them even worse. we shall lose our freedom." "my dear, my dear, what are you saying!" exclaimed marya konstantinovna, stepping back and flinging up her hands. "you are talking wildly! think what you are saying. you must settle down!" "'settle down.' how do you mean? i have not lived yet, and you tell me to settle down." nadyezhda fyodorovna reflected that she really had not lived. she had finished her studies in a boarding-school and had been married to a man she did not love; then she had thrown in her lot with laevsky, and had spent all her time with him on this empty, desolate coast, always expecting something better. was that life? "i ought to be married though," she thought, but remembering kirilin and atchmianov she flushed and said: "no, it's impossible. even if ivan andreitch begged me to on his knees--even then i would refuse." marya konstantinovna sat on the sofa for a minute in silence, grave and mournful, gazing fixedly into space; then she got up and said coldly: "good-bye, my dear! forgive me for having troubled you. though it's not easy for me, it's my duty to tell you that from this day all is over between us, and, in spite of my profound respect for ivan andreitch, the door of my house is closed to you henceforth." she uttered these words with great solemnity and was herself overwhelmed by her solemn tone. her face began quivering again; it assumed a soft almond-oily expression. she held out both hands to nadyezhda fyodorovna, who was overcome with alarm and confusion, and said in an imploring voice: "my dear, allow me if only for a moment to be a mother or an elder sister to you! i will be as frank with you as a mother." nadyezhda fyodorovna felt in her bosom warmth, gladness, and pity for herself, as though her own mother had really risen up and were standing before her. she impulsively embraced marya konstantinovna and pressed her face to her shoulder. both of them shed tears. they sat down on the sofa and for a few minutes sobbed without looking at one another or being able to utter a word. "my dear child," began marya konstantinovna, "i will tell you some harsh truths, without sparing you." "for god's sake, for god's sake, do!" "trust me, my dear. you remember of all the ladies here, i was the only one to receive you. you horrified me from the very first day, but i had not the heart to treat you with disdain like all the rest. i grieved over dear, good ivan andreitch as though he were my son --a young man in a strange place, inexperienced, weak, with no mother; and i was worried, dreadfully worried. . . . my husband was opposed to our making his acquaintance, but i talked him over . . . persuaded him. . . . we began receiving ivan andreitch, and with him, of course, you. if we had not, he would have been insulted. i have a daughter, a son. . . . you understand the tender mind, the pure heart of childhood . . . 'who so offendeth one of these little ones.' . . . i received you into my house and trembled for my children. oh, when you become a mother, you will understand my fears. and every one was surprised at my receiving you, excuse my saying so, as a respectable woman, and hinted to me . . . well, of course, slanders, suppositions. . . . at the bottom of my heart i blamed you, but you were unhappy, flighty, to be pitied, and my heart was wrung with pity for you." "but why, why?" asked nadyezhda fyodorovna, trembling all over. "what harm have i done any one?" "you are a terrible sinner. you broke the vow you made your husband at the altar. you seduced a fine young man, who perhaps had he not met you might have taken a lawful partner for life from a good family in his own circle, and would have been like every one else now. you have ruined his youth. don't speak, don't speak, my dear! i never believe that man is to blame for our sins. it is always the woman's fault. men are frivolous in domestic life; they are guided by their minds, and not by their hearts. there's a great deal they don't understand; woman understands it all. everything depends on her. to her much is given and from her much will be required. oh, my dear, if she had been more foolish or weaker than man on that side, god would not have entrusted her with the education of boys and girls. and then, my dear, you entered on the path of vice, forgetting all modesty; any other woman in your place would have hidden herself from people, would have sat shut up at home, and would only have been seen in the temple of god, pale, dressed all in black and weeping, and every one would have said in genuine compassion: 'o lord, this erring angel is coming back again to thee . . . .' but you, my dear, have forgotten all discretion; have lived openly, extravagantly; have seemed to be proud of your sin; you have been gay and laughing, and i, looking at you, shuddered with horror, and have been afraid that thunder from heaven would strike our house while you were sitting with us. my dear, don't speak, don't speak," cried marya konstantinovna, observing that nadyezhda fyodorovna wanted to speak. "trust me, i will not deceive you, i will not hide one truth from the eyes of your soul. listen to me, my dear. . . . god marks great sinners, and you have been marked-out: only think--your costumes have always been appalling." nadyezhda fyodorovna, who had always had the highest opinion of her costumes, left off crying and looked at her with surprise. "yes, appalling," marya konstantinovna went on. "any one could judge of your behaviour from the elaboration and gaudiness of your attire. people laughed and shrugged their shoulders as they looked at you, and i grieved, i grieved. . . . and forgive me, my dear; you are not nice in your person! when we met in the bathing-place, you made me tremble. your outer clothing was decent enough, but your petticoat, your chemise. . . . my dear, i blushed! poor ivan andreitch! no one ever ties his cravat properly, and from his linen and his boots, poor fellow! one can see he has no one at home to look after him. and he is always hungry, my darling, and of course, if there is no one at home to think of the samovar and the coffee, one is forced to spend half one's salary at the pavilion. and it's simply awful, awful in your home! no one else in the town has flies, but there's no getting rid of them in your rooms: all the plates and dishes are black with them. if you look at the windows and the chairs, there's nothing but dust, dead flies, and glasses. . . . what do you want glasses standing about for? and, my dear, the table's not cleared till this time in the day. and one's ashamed to go into your bedroom: underclothes flung about everywhere, india-rubber tubes hanging on the walls, pails and basins standing about. . . . my dear! a husband ought to know nothing, and his wife ought to be as neat as a little angel in his presence. i wake up every morning before it is light, and wash my face with cold water that my nikodim alexandritch may not see me looking drowsy." "that's all nonsense," nadyezhda fyodorovna sobbed. "if only i were happy, but i am so unhappy!" "yes, yes; you are very unhappy!" marya konstantinovna sighed, hardly able to restrain herself from weeping. "and there's terrible grief in store for you in the future! a solitary old age, ill-health; and then you will have to answer at the dread judgment seat. . . it's awful, awful. now fate itself holds out to you a helping hand, and you madly thrust it from you. be married, make haste and be married!" "yes, we must, we must," said nadyezhda fyodorovna; "but it's impossible!" "why?" "it's impossible. oh, if only you knew!" nadyezhda fyodorovna had an impulse to tell her about kirilin, and how the evening before she had met handsome young atchmianov at the harbour, and how the mad, ridiculous idea had occurred to her of cancelling her debt for three hundred; it had amused her very much, and she returned home late in the evening feeling that she had sold herself and was irrevocably lost. she did not know herself how it had happened. and she longed to swear to marya konstantinovna that she would certainly pay that debt, but sobs and shame prevented her from speaking. "i am going away," she said. "ivan andreitch may stay, but i am going." "where?" "to russia." "but how will you live there? why, you have nothing." "i will do translation, or . . . or i will open a library . . . ." "don't let your fancy run away with you, my dear. you must have money for a library. well, i will leave you now, and you calm yourself and think things over, and to-morrow come and see me, bright and happy. that will be enchanting! well, good-bye, my angel. let me kiss you." marya konstantinovna kissed nadyezhda fyodorovna on the forehead, made the sign of the cross over her, and softly withdrew. it was getting dark, and olga lighted up in the kitchen. still crying, nadyezhda fyodorovna went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. she began to be very feverish. she undressed without getting up, crumpled up her clothes at her feet, and curled herself up under the bedclothes. she was thirsty, and there was no one to give her something to drink. "i'll pay it back!" she said to herself, and it seemed to her in delirium that she was sitting beside some sick woman, and recognised her as herself. "i'll pay it back. it would be stupid to imagine that it was for money i . . . i will go away and send him the money from petersburg. at first a hundred . . . then another hundred . . . and then the third hundred. . . ." it was late at night when laevsky came in. "at first a hundred . . ." nadyezhda fyodorovna said to him, "then another hundred . . ." "you ought to take some quinine," he said, and thought, "to-morrow is wednesday; the steamer goes and i am not going in it. so i shall have to go on living here till saturday." nadyezhda fyodorovna knelt up in bed. "i didn't say anything just now, did i?" she asked, smiling and screwing up her eyes at the light. "no, nothing. we shall have to send for the doctor to-morrow morning. go to sleep." he took his pillow and went to the door. ever since he had finally made up his mind to go away and leave nadyezhda fyodorovna, she had begun to raise in him pity and a sense of guilt; he felt a little ashamed in her presence, as though in the presence of a sick or old horse whom one has decided to kill. he stopped in the doorway and looked round at her. "i was out of humour at the picnic and said something rude to you. forgive me, for god's sake!" saying this, he went off to his study, lay down, and for a long while could not get to sleep. next morning when samoylenko, attired, as it was a holiday, in full-dress uniform with epaulettes on his shoulders and decorations on his breast, came out of the bedroom after feeling nadyezhda fyodorovna's pulse and looking at her tongue, laevsky, who was standing in the doorway, asked him anxiously: "well? well?" there was an expression of terror, of extreme uneasiness, and of hope on his face. "don't worry yourself; there's nothing dangerous," said samoylenko; "it's the usual fever." "i don't mean that." laevsky frowned impatiently. "have you got the money?" "my dear soul, forgive me," he whispered, looking round at the door and overcome with confusion. "for god's sake, forgive me! no one has anything to spare, and i've only been able to collect by five- and by ten-rouble notes. . . . only a hundred and ten in all. to-day i'll speak to some one else. have patience." "but saturday is the latest date," whispered laevsky, trembling with impatience. "by all that's sacred, get it by saturday! if i don't get away by saturday, nothing's any use, nothing! i can't understand how a doctor can be without money!" "lord have mercy on us!" samoylenko whispered rapidly and intensely, and there was positively a breaking note in his throat. "i've been stripped of everything; i am owed seven thousand, and i'm in debt all round. is it my fault?" "then you'll get it by saturday? yes?" "i'll try." "i implore you, my dear fellow! so that the money may be in my hands by friday morning!" samoylenko sat down and prescribed solution of quinine and kalii bromati and tincture of rhubarb, tincturæ gentianæ, aquæ foeniculi --all in one mixture, added some pink syrup to sweeten it, and went away. xi "you look as though you were coming to arrest me," said von koren, seeing samoylenko coming in, in his full-dress uniform. "i was passing by and thought: 'suppose i go in and pay my respects to zoology,'" said samoylenko, sitting down at the big table, knocked together by the zoologist himself out of plain boards. "good-morning, holy father," he said to the deacon, who was sitting in the window, copying something. "i'll stay a minute and then run home to see about dinner. it's time. . . . i'm not hindering you?" "not in the least," answered the zoologist, laying out over the table slips of paper covered with small writing. "we are busy copying." "ah! . . . oh, my goodness, my goodness! . . ." sighed samoylenko. he cautiously took up from the table a dusty book on which there was lying a dead dried spider, and said: "only fancy, though; some little green beetle is going about its business, when suddenly a monster like this swoops down upon it. i can fancy its terror." "yes, i suppose so." "is poison given it to protect it from its enemies?" "yes, to protect it and enable it to attack." "to be sure, to be sure. . . . and everything in nature, my dear fellows, is consistent and can be explained," sighed samoylenko; "only i tell you what i don't understand. you're a man of very great intellect, so explain it to me, please. there are, you know, little beasts no bigger than rats, rather handsome to look at, but nasty and immoral in the extreme, let me tell you. suppose such a little beast is running in the woods. he sees a bird; he catches it and devours it. he goes on and sees in the grass a nest of eggs; he does not want to eat them--he is not hungry, but yet he tastes one egg and scatters the others out of the nest with his paw. then he meets a frog and begins to play with it; when he has tormented the frog he goes on licking himself and meets a beetle; he crushes the beetle with his paw . . . and so he spoils and destroys everything on his way. . . . he creeps into other beasts' holes, tears up the anthills, cracks the snail's shell. if he meets a rat, he fights with it; if he meets a snake or a mouse, he must strangle it; and so the whole day long. come, tell me: what is the use of a beast like that? why was he created?" "i don't know what animal you are talking of," said von koren; "most likely one of the insectivora. well, he got hold of the bird because it was incautious; he broke the nest of eggs because the bird was not skilful, had made the nest badly and did not know how to conceal it. the frog probably had some defect in its colouring or he would not have seen it, and so on. your little beast only destroys the weak, the unskilful, the careless--in fact, those who have defects which nature does not think fit to hand on to posterity. only the cleverer, the stronger, the more careful and developed survive; and so your little beast, without suspecting it, is serving the great ends of perfecting creation." "yes, yes, yes. . . . by the way, brother," said samoylenko carelessly, "lend me a hundred roubles." "very good. there are some very interesting types among the insectivorous mammals. for instance, the mole is said to be useful because he devours noxious insects. there is a story that some german sent william i. a fur coat made of moleskins, and the emperor ordered him to be reproved for having destroyed so great a number of useful animals. and yet the mole is not a bit less cruel than your little beast, and is very mischievous besides, as he spoils meadows terribly." von koren opened a box and took out a hundred-rouble note. "the mole has a powerful thorax, just like the bat," he went on, shutting the box; "the bones and muscles are tremendously developed, the mouth is extraordinarily powerfully furnished. if it had the proportions of an elephant, it would be an all-destructive, invincible animal. it is interesting when two moles meet underground; they begin at once as though by agreement digging a little platform; they need the platform in order to have a battle more conveniently. when they have made it they enter upon a ferocious struggle and fight till the weaker one falls. take the hundred roubles," said von koren, dropping his voice, "but only on condition that you're not borrowing it for laevsky." "and if it were for laevsky," cried samoylenko, flaring up, "what is that to you?" "i can't give it to you for laevsky. i know you like lending people money. you would give it to kerim, the brigand, if he were to ask you; but, excuse me, i can't assist you in that direction." "yes, it is for laevsky i am asking it," said samoylenko, standing up and waving his right arm. "yes! for laevsky! and no one, fiend or devil, has a right to dictate to me how to dispose of my own money. it doesn't suit you to lend it me? no?" the deacon began laughing. "don't get excited, but be reasonable," said the zoologist. "to shower benefits on mr. laevsky is, to my thinking, as senseless as to water weeds or to feed locusts." "to my thinking, it is our duty to help our neighbours!" cried samoylenko. "in that case, help that hungry turk who is lying under the fence! he is a workman and more useful and indispensable than your laevsky. give him that hundred-rouble note! or subscribe a hundred roubles to my expedition!" "will you give me the money or not? i ask you!" "tell me openly: what does he want money for?" "it's not a secret; he wants to go to petersburg on saturday." "so that is it!" von koren drawled out. "aha! . . . we understand. and is she going with him, or how is it to be?" "she's staying here for the time. he'll arrange his affairs in petersburg and send her the money, and then she'll go." "that's smart!" said the zoologist, and he gave a short tenor laugh. "smart, well planned." he went rapidly up to samoylenko, and standing face to face with him, and looking him in the eyes, asked: "tell me now honestly: is he tired of her? yes? tell me: is he tired of her? yes?" "yes," samoylenko articulated, beginning to perspire. "how repulsive it is!" said von koren, and from his face it could be seen that he felt repulsion. "one of two things, alexandr daviditch: either you are in the plot with him, or, excuse my saying so, you are a simpleton. surely you must see that he is taking you in like a child in the most shameless way? why, it's as clear as day that he wants to get rid of her and abandon her here. she'll be left a burden on you. it is as clear as day that you will have to send her to petersburg at your expense. surely your fine friend can't have so blinded you by his dazzling qualities that you can't see the simplest thing?" "that's all supposition," said samoylenko, sitting down. "supposition? but why is he going alone instead of taking her with him? and ask him why he doesn't send her off first. the sly beast!" overcome with sudden doubts and suspicions about his friend, samoylenko weakened and took a humbler tone. "but it's impossible," he said, recalling the night laevsky had spent at his house. "he is so unhappy!" "what of that? thieves and incendiaries are unhappy too!" "even supposing you are right . . ." said samoylenko, hesitating. "let us admit it. . . . still, he's a young man in a strange place . . . a student. we have been students, too, and there is no one but us to come to his assistance." "to help him to do abominable things, because he and you at different times have been at universities, and neither of you did anything there! what nonsense!" "stop; let us talk it over coolly. i imagine it will be possible to make some arrangement. . . ." samoylenko reflected, twiddling his fingers. "i'll give him the money, you see, but make him promise on his honour that within a week he'll send nadyezhda fyodorovna the money for the journey." "and he'll give you his word of honour--in fact, he'll shed tears and believe in it himself; but what's his word of honour worth? he won't keep it, and when in a year or two you meet him on the nevsky prospect with a new mistress on his arm, he'll excuse himself on the ground that he has been crippled by civilisation, and that he is made after the pattern of rudin. drop him, for god's sake! keep away from the filth; don't stir it up with both hands!" samoylenko thought for a minute and said resolutely: "but i shall give him the money all the same. as you please. i can't bring myself to refuse a man simply on an assumption." "very fine, too. you can kiss him if you like." "give me the hundred roubles, then," samoylenko asked timidly. "i won't." a silence followed. samoylenko was quite crushed; his face wore a guilty, abashed, and ingratiating expression, and it was strange to see this pitiful, childish, shamefaced countenance on a huge man wearing epaulettes and orders of merit. "the bishop here goes the round of his diocese on horseback instead of in a carriage," said the deacon, laying down his pen. "it's extremely touching to see him sit on his horse. his simplicity and humility are full of biblical grandeur." "is he a good man?" asked von koren, who was glad to change the conversation. "of course! if he hadn't been a good man, do you suppose he would have been consecrated a bishop?" "among the bishops are to be found good and gifted men," said von koren. "the only drawback is that some of them have the weakness to imagine themselves statesmen. one busies himself with russification, another criticises the sciences. that's not their business. they had much better look into their consistory a little." "a layman cannot judge of bishops." "why so, deacon? a bishop is a man just the same as you or i." "the same, but not the same." the deacon was offended and took up his pen. "if you had been the same, the divine grace would have rested upon you, and you would have been bishop yourself; and since you are not bishop, it follows you are not the same." "don't talk nonsense, deacon," said samoylenko dejectedly. "listen to what i suggest," he said, turning to von koren. "don't give me that hundred roubles. you'll be having your dinners with me for three months before the winter, so let me have the money beforehand for three months." "i won't." samoylenko blinked and turned crimson; he mechanically drew towards him the book with the spider on it and looked at it, then he got up and took his hat. von koren felt sorry for him. "what it is to have to live and do with people like this," said the zoologist, and he kicked a paper into the corner with indignation. "you must understand that this is not kindness, it is not love, but cowardice, slackness, poison! what's gained by reason is lost by your flabby good-for-nothing hearts! when i was ill with typhoid as a schoolboy, my aunt in her sympathy gave me pickled mushrooms to eat, and i very nearly died. you, and my aunt too, must understand that love for man is not to be found in the heart or the stomach or the bowels, but here!" von koren slapped himself on the forehead. "take it," he said, and thrust a hundred-rouble note into his hand. "you've no need to be angry, kolya," said samoylenko mildly, folding up the note. "i quite understand you, but . . . you must put yourself in my place." "you are an old woman, that's what you are." the deacon burst out laughing. "hear my last request, alexandr daviditch," said von koren hotly. "when you give that scoundrel the money, make it a condition that he takes his lady with him, or sends her on ahead, and don't give it him without. there's no need to stand on ceremony with him. tell him so, or, if you don't, i give you my word i'll go to his office and kick him downstairs, and i'll break off all acquaintance with you. so you'd better know it." "well! to go with her or send her on beforehand will be more convenient for him," said samoylenko. "he'll be delighted indeed. well, goodbye." he said good-bye affectionately and went out, but before shutting the door after him, he looked round at von koren and, with a ferocious face, said: "it's the germans who have ruined you, brother! yes! the germans!" xii next day, thursday, marya konstantinovna was celebrating the birthday of her kostya. all were invited to come at midday and eat pies, and in the evening to drink chocolate. when laevsky and nadyezhda fyodorovna arrived in the evening, the zoologist, who was already sitting in the drawing-room, drinking chocolate, asked samoylenko: "have you talked to him?" "not yet." "mind now, don't stand on ceremony. i can't understand the insolence of these people! why, they know perfectly well the view taken by this family of their cohabitation, and yet they force themselves in here." "if one is to pay attention to every prejudice," said samoylenko, "one could go nowhere." "do you mean to say that the repugnance felt by the masses for illicit love and moral laxity is a prejudice?" "of course it is. it's prejudice and hate. when the soldiers see a girl of light behaviour, they laugh and whistle; but just ask them what they are themselves." "it's not for nothing they whistle. the fact that girls strangle their illegitimate children and go to prison for it, and that anna karenin flung herself under the train, and that in the villages they smear the gates with tar, and that you and i, without knowing why, are pleased by katya's purity, and that every one of us feels a vague craving for pure love, though he knows there is no such love--is all that prejudice? that is the one thing, brother, which has survived intact from natural selection, and, if it were not for that obscure force regulating the relations of the sexes, the laevskys would have it all their own way, and mankind would degenerate in two years." laevsky came into the drawing-room, greeted every one, and shaking hands with von koren, smiled ingratiatingly. he waited for a favourable moment and said to samoylenko: "excuse me, alexandr daviditch, i must say two words to you." samoylenko got up, put his arm round laevsky's waist, and both of them went into nikodim alexandritch's study. "to-morrow's friday," said laevsky, biting his nails. "have you got what you promised?" "i've only got two hundred. i'll get the rest to-day or to-morrow. don't worry yourself." "thank god . . ." sighed laevsky, and his hands began trembling with joy. "you are saving me, alexandr daviditch, and i swear to you by god, by my happiness and anything you like, i'll send you the money as soon as i arrive. and i'll send you my old debt too." "look here, vanya . . ." said samoylenko, turning crimson and taking him by the button. "you must forgive my meddling in your private affairs, but . . . why shouldn't you take nadyezhda fyodorovna with you?" "you queer fellow. how is that possible? one of us must stay, or our creditors will raise an outcry. you see, i owe seven hundred or more to the shops. only wait, and i will send them the money. i'll stop their mouths, and then she can come away." "i see. . . . but why shouldn't you send her on first?" "my goodness, as though that were possible!" laevsky was horrified. "why, she's a woman; what would she do there alone? what does she know about it? that would only be a loss of time and a useless waste of money." "that's reasonable . . ." thought samoylenko, but remembering his conversation with von koren, he looked down and said sullenly: "i can't agree with you. either go with her or send her first; otherwise . . . otherwise i won't give you the money. those are my last words. . ." he staggered back, lurched backwards against the door, and went into the drawing-room, crimson, and overcome with confusion. "friday . . . friday," thought laevsky, going back into the drawing-room. "friday. . . ." he was handed a cup of chocolate; he burnt his lips and tongue with the scalding chocolate and thought: "friday . . . friday. . . ." for some reason he could not get the word "friday" out of his head; he could think of nothing but friday, and the only thing that was clear to him, not in his brain but somewhere in his heart, was that he would not get off on saturday. before him stood nikodim alexandritch, very neat, with his hair combed over his temples, saying: "please take something to eat. . . ." marya konstantinovna showed the visitors katya's school report and said, drawling: "it's very, very difficult to do well at school nowadays! so much is expected . . ." "mamma!" groaned katya, not knowing where to hide her confusion at the praises of the company. laevsky, too, looked at the report and praised it. scripture, russian language, conduct, fives and fours, danced before his eyes, and all this, mixed with the haunting refrain of "friday," with the carefully combed locks of nikodim alexandritch and the red cheeks of katya, produced on him a sensation of such immense overwhelming boredom that he almost shrieked with despair and asked himself: "is it possible, is it possible i shall not get away?" they put two card tables side by side and sat down to play post. laevsky sat down too. "friday . . . friday . . ." he kept thinking, as he smiled and took a pencil out of his pocket. "friday. . . ." he wanted to think over his position, and was afraid to think. it was terrible to him to realise that the doctor had detected him in the deception which he had so long and carefully concealed from himself. every time he thought of his future he would not let his thoughts have full rein. he would get into the train and set off, and thereby the problem of his life would be solved, and he did not let his thoughts go farther. like a far-away dim light in the fields, the thought sometimes flickered in his mind that in one of the side-streets of petersburg, in the remote future, he would have to have recourse to a tiny lie in order to get rid of nadyezhda fyodorovna and pay his debts; he would tell a lie only once, and then a completely new life would begin. and that was right: at the price of a small lie he would win so much truth. now when by his blunt refusal the doctor had crudely hinted at his deception, he began to understand that he would need deception not only in the remote future, but to-day, and to-morrow, and in a month's time, and perhaps up to the very end of his life. in fact, in order to get away he would have to lie to nadyezhda fyodorovna, to his creditors, and to his superiors in the service; then, in order to get money in petersburg, he would have to lie to his mother, to tell her that he had already broken with nadyezhda fyodorovna; and his mother would not give him more than five hundred roubles, so he had already deceived the doctor, as he would not be in a position to pay him back the money within a short time. afterwards, when nadyezhda fyodorovna came to petersburg, he would have to resort to a regular series of deceptions, little and big, in order to get free of her; and again there would be tears, boredom, a disgusting existence, remorse, and so there would be no new life. deception and nothing more. a whole mountain of lies rose before laevsky's imagination. to leap over it at one bound and not to do his lying piecemeal, he would have to bring himself to stern, uncompromising action; for instance, to getting up without saying a word, putting on his hat, and at once setting off without money and without explanation. but laevsky felt that was impossible for him. "friday, friday . . ." he thought. "friday. . . ." they wrote little notes, folded them in two, and put them in nikodim alexandritch's old top-hat. when there were a sufficient heap of notes, kostya, who acted the part of postman, walked round the table and delivered them. the deacon, katya, and kostya, who received amusing notes and tried to write as funnily as they could, were highly delighted. "we must have a little talk," nadyezhda fyodorovna read in a little note; she glanced at marya konstantinovna, who gave her an almond-oily smile and nodded. "talk of what?" thought nadyezhda fyodorovna. "if one can't tell the whole, it's no use talking." before going out for the evening she had tied laevsky's cravat for him, and that simple action filled her soul with tenderness and sorrow. the anxiety in his face, his absent-minded looks, his pallor, and the incomprehensible change that had taken place in him of late, and the fact that she had a terrible revolting secret from him, and the fact that her hands trembled when she tied his cravat--all this seemed to tell her that they had not long left to be together. she looked at him as though he were an ikon, with terror and penitence, and thought: "forgive, forgive." opposite her was sitting atchmianov, and he never took his black, love-sick eyes off her. she was stirred by passion; she was ashamed of herself, and afraid that even her misery and sorrow would not prevent her from yielding to impure desire to-morrow, if not to-day --and that, like a drunkard, she would not have the strength to stop herself. she made up her mind to go away that she might not continue this life, shameful for herself, and humiliating for laevsky. she would beseech him with tears to let her go; and if he opposed her, she would go away secretly. she would not tell him what had happened; let him keep a pure memory of her. "i love you, i love you, i love you," she read. it was from atchmianov. she would live in some far remote place, would work and send laevsky, "anonymously," money, embroidered shirts, and tobacco, and would return to him only in old age or if he were dangerously ill and needed a nurse. when in his old age he learned what were her reasons for leaving him and refusing to be his wife, he would appreciate her sacrifice and forgive. "you've got a long nose." that must be from the deacon or kostya. nadyezhda fyodorovna imagined how, parting from laevsky, she would embrace him warmly, would kiss his hand, and would swear to love him all her life, all her life, and then, living in obscurity among strangers, she would every day think that somewhere she had a friend, some one she loved--a pure, noble, lofty man who kept a pure memory of her. "if you don't give me an interview to-day, i shall take measures, i assure you on my word of honour. you can't treat decent people like this; you must understand that." that was from kirilin. xiii laevsky received two notes; he opened one and read: "don't go away, my darling." "who could have written that?" he thought. "not samoylenko, of course. and not the deacon, for he doesn't know i want to go away. von koren, perhaps?" the zoologist bent over the table and drew a pyramid. laevsky fancied that his eyes were smiling. "most likely samoylenko . . . has been gossiping," thought laevsky. in the other note, in the same disguised angular handwriting with long tails to the letters, was written: "somebody won't go away on saturday." "a stupid gibe," thought laevsky. "friday, friday. . . ." something rose in his throat. he touched his collar and coughed, but instead of a cough a laugh broke from his throat. "ha-ha-ha!" he laughed. "ha-ha-ha! what am i laughing at? ha-ha-ha!" he tried to restrain himself, covered his mouth with his hand, but the laugh choked his chest and throat, and his hand could not cover his mouth. "how stupid it is!" he thought, rolling with laughter. "have i gone out of my mind?" the laugh grew shriller and shriller, and became something like the bark of a lap-dog. laevsky tried to get up from the table, but his legs would not obey him and his right hand was strangely, without his volition, dancing on the table, convulsively clutching and crumpling up the bits of paper. he saw looks of wonder, samoylenko's grave, frightened face, and the eyes of the zoologist full of cold irony and disgust, and realised that he was in hysterics. "how hideous, how shameful!" he thought, feeling the warmth of tears on his face. ". . . oh, oh, what a disgrace! it has never happened to me. . . ." they took him under his arms, and supporting his head from behind, led him away; a glass gleamed before his eyes and knocked against his teeth, and the water was spilt on his breast; he was in a little room, with two beds in the middle, side by side, covered by two snow-white quilts. he dropped on one of the beds and sobbed. "it's nothing, it's nothing," samoylenko kept saying; "it does happen . . . it does happen. . . ." chill with horror, trembling all over and dreading something awful, nadyezhda fyodorovna stood by the bedside and kept asking: "what is it? what is it? for god's sake, tell me." "can kirilin have written him something?" she thought. "it's nothing," said laevsky, laughing and crying; "go away, darling." his face expressed neither hatred nor repulsion: so he knew nothing; nadyezhda fyodorovna was somewhat reassured, and she went into the drawing-room. "don't agitate yourself, my dear!" said marya konstantinovna, sitting down beside her and taking her hand. "it will pass. men are just as weak as we poor sinners. you are both going through a crisis. . . . one can so well understand it! well, my dear, i am waiting for an answer. let us have a little talk." "no, we are not going to talk," said nadyezhda fyodorovna, listening to laevsky's sobs. "i feel depressed. . . . you must allow me to go home." "what do you mean, what do you mean, my dear?" cried marya konstantinovna in alarm. "do you think i could let you go without supper? we will have something to eat, and then you may go with my blessing." "i feel miserable . . ." whispered nadyezhda fyodorovna, and she caught at the arm of the chair with both hands to avoid falling. "he's got a touch of hysterics," said von koren gaily, coming into the drawing-room, but seeing nadyezhda fyodorovna, he was taken aback and retreated. when the attack was over, laevsky sat on the strange bed and thought. "disgraceful! i've been howling like some wretched girl! i must have been absurd and disgusting. i will go away by the back stairs . . . . but that would seem as though i took my hysterics too seriously. i ought to take it as a joke. . . ." he looked in the looking-glass, sat there for some time, and went back into the drawing-room. "here i am," he said, smiling; he felt agonisingly ashamed, and he felt others were ashamed in his presence. "fancy such a thing happening," he said, sitting down. "i was sitting here, and all of a sudden, do you know, i felt a terrible piercing pain in my side . . . unendurable, my nerves could not stand it, and . . . and it led to this silly performance. this is the age of nerves; there is no help for it." at supper he drank some wine, and, from time to time, with an abrupt sigh rubbed his side as though to suggest that he still felt the pain. and no one, except nadyezhda fyodorovna, believed him, and he saw that. after nine o'clock they went for a walk on the boulevard. nadyezhda fyodorovna, afraid that kirilin would speak to her, did her best to keep all the time beside marya konstantinovna and the children. she felt weak with fear and misery, and felt she was going to be feverish; she was exhausted and her legs would hardly move, but she did not go home, because she felt sure that she would be followed by kirilin or atchmianov or both at once. kirilin walked behind her with nikodim alexandritch, and kept humming in an undertone: "i don't al-low people to play with me! i don't al-low it." from the boulevard they went back to the pavilion and walked along the beach, and looked for a long time at the phosphorescence on the water. von koren began telling them why it looked phosphorescent. xiv "it's time i went to my _vint_. . . . they will be waiting for me," said laevsky. "good-bye, my friends." "i'll come with you; wait a minute," said nadyezhda fyodorovna, and she took his arm. they said good-bye to the company and went away. kirilin took leave too, and saying that he was going the same way, went along beside them. "what will be, will be," thought nadyezhda fyodorovna. "so be it. . . ." and it seemed to her that all the evil memories in her head had taken shape and were walking beside her in the darkness, breathing heavily, while she, like a fly that had fallen into the inkpot, was crawling painfully along the pavement and smirching laevsky's side and arm with blackness. if kirilin should do anything horrid, she thought, not he but she would be to blame for it. there was a time when no man would have talked to her as kirilin had done, and she had torn up her security like a thread and destroyed it irrevocably--who was to blame for it? intoxicated by her passions she had smiled at a complete stranger, probably just because he was tall and a fine figure. after two meetings she was weary of him, had thrown him over, and did not that, she thought now, give him the right to treat her as he chose? "here i'll say good-bye to you, darling," said laevsky. "ilya mihalitch will see you home." he nodded to kirilin, and, quickly crossing the boulevard, walked along the street to sheshkovsky's, where there were lights in the windows, and then they heard the gate bang as he went in. "allow me to have an explanation with you," said kirilin. "i'm not a boy, not some atchkasov or latchkasov, zatchkasov. . . . i demand serious attention." nadyezhda fyodorovna's heart began beating violently. she made no reply. "the abrupt change in your behaviour to me i put down at first to coquetry," kirilin went on; "now i see that you don't know how to behave with gentlemanly people. you simply wanted to play with me, as you are playing with that wretched armenian boy; but i'm a gentleman and i insist on being treated like a gentleman. and so i am at your service. . . ." "i'm miserable," said nadyezhda fyodorovna beginning to cry, and to hide her tears she turned away. "i'm miserable too," said kirilin, "but what of that?" kirilin was silent for a space, then he said distinctly and emphatically: "i repeat, madam, that if you do not give me an interview this evening, i'll make a scandal this very evening." "let me off this evening," said nadyezhda fyodorovna, and she did not recognise her own voice, it was so weak and pitiful. "i must give you a lesson. . . . excuse me for the roughness of my tone, but it's necessary to give you a lesson. yes, i regret to say i must give you a lesson. i insist on two interviews--to-day and to-morrow. after to-morrow you are perfectly free and can go wherever you like with any one you choose. to-day and to-morrow." nadyezhda fyodorovna went up to her gate and stopped. "let me go," she murmured, trembling all over and seeing nothing before her in the darkness but his white tunic. "you're right: i'm a horrible woman. . . . i'm to blame, but let me go . . . i beg you." she touched his cold hand and shuddered. "i beseech you. . . ." "alas!" sighed kirilin, "alas! it's not part of my plan to let you go; i only mean to give you a lesson and make you realise. and what's more, madam, i've too little faith in women." "i'm miserable. . . ." nadyezhda fyodorovna listened to the even splash of the sea, looked at the sky studded with stars, and longed to make haste and end it all, and get away from the cursed sensation of life, with its sea, stars, men, fever. "only not in my home," she said coldly. "take me somewhere else." "come to muridov's. that's better." "where's that?" "near the old wall." she walked quickly along the street and then turned into the side-street that led towards the mountains. it was dark. there were pale streaks of light here and there on the pavement, from the lighted windows, and it seemed to her that, like a fly, she kept falling into the ink and crawling out into the light again. at one point he stumbled, almost fell down and burst out laughing. "he's drunk," thought nadyezhda fyodorovna. "never mind. . . . never mind. . . . so be it." atchmianov, too, soon took leave of the party and followed nadyezhda fyodorovna to ask her to go for a row. he went to her house and looked over the fence: the windows were wide open, there were no lights. "nadyezhda fyodorovna!" he called. a moment passed, he called again. "who's there?" he heard olga's voice. "is nadyezhda fyodorovna at home?" "no, she has not come in yet." "strange . . . very strange," thought atchmianov, feeling very uneasy. "she went home. . . ." he walked along the boulevard, then along the street, and glanced in at the windows of sheshkovsky's. laevsky was sitting at the table without his coat on, looking attentively at his cards. "strange, strange," muttered atchmianov, and remembering laevsky's hysterics, he felt ashamed. "if she is not at home, where is she?" he went to nadyezhda fyodorovna's lodgings again, and looked at the dark windows. "it's a cheat, a cheat . . ." he thought, remembering that, meeting him at midday at marya konstantinovna's, she had promised to go in a boat with him that evening. the windows of the house where kirilin lived were dark, and there was a policeman sitting asleep on a little bench at the gate. everything was clear to atchmianov when he looked at the windows and the policeman. he made up his mind to go home, and set off in that direction, but somehow found himself near nadyezhda fyodorovna's lodgings again. he sat down on the bench near the gate and took off his hat, feeling that his head was burning with jealousy and resentment. the clock in the town church only struck twice in the twenty-four hours--at midday and midnight. soon after it struck midnight he heard hurried footsteps. "to-morrow evening, then, again at muridov's," atchmianov heard, and he recognised kirilin's voice. "at eight o'clock; good-bye!" nadyezhda fyodorovna made her appearance near the garden. without noticing that atchmianov was sitting on the bench, she passed beside him like a shadow, opened the gate, and leaving it open, went into the house. in her own room she lighted the candle and quickly undressed, but instead of getting into bed, she sank on her knees before a chair, flung her arms round it, and rested her head on it. it was past two when laevsky came home. xv having made up his mind to lie, not all at once but piecemeal, laevsky went soon after one o'clock next day to samoylenko to ask for the money that he might be sure to get off on saturday. after his hysterical attack, which had added an acute feeling of shame to his depressed state of mind, it was unthinkable to remain in the town. if samoylenko should insist on his conditions, he thought it would be possible to agree to them and take the money, and next day, just as he was starting, to say that nadyezhda fyodorovna refused to go. he would be able to persuade her that evening that the whole arrangement would be for her benefit. if samoylenko, who was obviously under the influence of von koren, should refuse the money altogether or make fresh conditions, then he, laevsky, would go off that very evening in a cargo vessel, or even in a sailing-boat, to novy athon or novorossiisk, would send from there an humiliating telegram, and would stay there till his mother sent him the money for the journey. when he went into samoylenko's, he found von koren in the drawing-room. the zoologist had just arrived for dinner, and, as usual, was turning over the album and scrutinising the gentlemen in top-hats and the ladies in caps. "how very unlucky!" thought laevsky, seeing him. "he may be in the way. good-morning." "good-morning," answered von koren, without looking at him. "is alexandr daviditch at home?" "yes, in the kitchen." laevsky went into the kitchen, but seeing from the door that samoylenko was busy over the salad, he went back into the drawing-room and sat down. he always had a feeling of awkwardness in the zoologist's presence, and now he was afraid there would be talk about his attack of hysterics. there was more than a minute of silence. von koren suddenly raised his eyes to laevsky and asked: "how do you feel after yesterday?" "very well indeed," said laevsky, flushing. "it really was nothing much. . . ." "until yesterday i thought it was only ladies who had hysterics, and so at first i thought you had st. vitus's dance." laevsky smiled ingratiatingly, and thought: "how indelicate on his part! he knows quite well how unpleasant it is for me. . . ." "yes, it was a ridiculous performance," he said, still smiling. "i've been laughing over it the whole morning. what's so curious in an attack of hysterics is that you know it is absurd, and are laughing at it in your heart, and at the same time you sob. in our neurotic age we are the slaves of our nerves; they are our masters and do as they like with us. civilisation has done us a bad turn in that way. . . ." as laevsky talked, he felt it disagreeable that von koren listened to him gravely, and looked at him steadily and attentively as though studying him; and he was vexed with himself that in spite of his dislike of von koren, he could not banish the ingratiating smile from his face. "i must admit, though," he added, "that there were immediate causes for the attack, and quite sufficient ones too. my health has been terribly shaky of late. to which one must add boredom, constantly being hard up . . . the absence of people and general interests . . . . my position is worse than a governor's." "yes, your position is a hopeless one," answered von koren. these calm, cold words, implying something between a jeer and an uninvited prediction, offended laevsky. he recalled the zoologist's eyes the evening before, full of mockery and disgust. he was silent for a space and then asked, no longer smiling: "how do you know anything of my position?" "you were only just speaking of it yourself. besides, your friends take such a warm interest in you, that i am hearing about you all day long." "what friends? samoylenko, i suppose?" "yes, he too." "i would ask alexandr daviditch and my friends in general not to trouble so much about me." "here is samoylenko; you had better ask him not to trouble so much about you." "i don't understand your tone," laevsky muttered, suddenly feeling as though he had only just realised that the zoologist hated and despised him, and was jeering at him, and was his bitterest and most inveterate enemy. "keep that tone for some one else," he said softly, unable to speak aloud for the hatred with which his chest and throat were choking, as they had been the night before with laughter. samoylenko came in in his shirt-sleeves, crimson and perspiring from the stifling kitchen. "ah, you here?" he said. "good-morning, my dear boy. have you had dinner? don't stand on ceremony. have you had dinner?" "alexandr daviditch," said laevsky, standing up, "though i did appeal to you to help me in a private matter, it did not follow that i released you from the obligation of discretion and respect for other people's private affairs." "what's this?" asked samoylenko, in astonishment. "if you have no money," laevsky went on, raising his voice and shifting from one foot to the other in his excitement, "don't give it; refuse it. but why spread abroad in every back street that my position is hopeless, and all the rest of it? i can't endure such benevolence and friend's assistance where there's a shilling-worth of talk for a ha'p'orth of help! you can boast of your benevolence as much as you please, but no one has given you the right to gossip about my private affairs!" "what private affairs?" asked samoylenko, puzzled and beginning to be angry. "if you've come here to be abusive, you had better clear out. you can come again afterwards!" he remembered the rule that when one is angry with one's neighbour, one must begin to count a hundred, and one will grow calm again; and he began rapidly counting. "i beg you not to trouble yourself about me," laevsky went on. "don't pay any attention to me, and whose business is it what i do and how i live? yes, i want to go away. yes, i get into debt, i drink, i am living with another man's wife, i'm hysterical, i'm ordinary. i am not so profound as some people, but whose business is that? respect other people's privacy." "excuse me, brother," said samoylenko, who had counted up to thirty-five, "but . . ." "respect other people's individuality!" interrupted laevsky. "this continual gossip about other people's affairs, this sighing and groaning and everlasting prying, this eavesdropping, this friendly sympathy . . . damn it all! they lend me money and make conditions as though i were a schoolboy! i am treated as the devil knows what! i don't want anything," shouted laevsky, staggering with excitement and afraid that it might end in another attack of hysterics. "i shan't get away on saturday, then," flashed through his mind. "i want nothing. all i ask of you is to spare me your protecting care. i'm not a boy, and i'm not mad, and i beg you to leave off looking after me." the deacon came in, and seeing laevsky pale and gesticulating, addressing his strange speech to the portrait of prince vorontsov, stood still by the door as though petrified. "this continual prying into my soul," laevsky went on, "is insulting to my human dignity, and i beg these volunteer detectives to give up their spying! enough!" "what's that . . . what did you say?" said samoylenko, who had counted up to a hundred. he turned crimson and went up to laevsky. "it's enough," said laevsky, breathing hard and snatching up his cap. "i'm a russian doctor, a nobleman by birth, and a civil councillor," said samoylenko emphatically. "i've never been a spy, and i allow no one to insult me!" he shouted in a breaking voice, emphasising the last word. "hold your tongue!" the deacon, who had never seen the doctor so majestic, so swelling with dignity, so crimson and so ferocious, shut his mouth, ran out into the entry and there exploded with laughter. as though through a fog, laevsky saw von koren get up and, putting his hands in his trouser-pockets, stand still in an attitude of expectancy, as though waiting to see what would happen. this calm attitude struck laevsky as insolent and insulting to the last degree. "kindly take back your words," shouted samoylenko. laevsky, who did not by now remember what his words were, answered: "leave me alone! i ask for nothing. all i ask is that you and german upstarts of jewish origin should let me alone! or i shall take steps to make you! i will fight you!" "now we understand," said von koren, coming from behind the table. "mr. laevsky wants to amuse himself with a duel before he goes away. i can give him that pleasure. mr. laevsky, i accept your challenge." "a challenge," said laevsky, in a low voice, going up to the zoologist and looking with hatred at his swarthy brow and curly hair. "a challenge? by all means! i hate you! i hate you!" "delighted. to-morrow morning early near kerbalay's. i leave all details to your taste. and now, clear out!" "i hate you," laevsky said softly, breathing hard. "i have hated you a long while! a duel! yes!" "get rid of him, alexandr daviditch, or else i'm going," said von koren. "he'll bite me." von koren's cool tone calmed the doctor; he seemed suddenly to come to himself, to recover his reason; he put both arms round laevsky's waist, and, leading him away from the zoologist, muttered in a friendly voice that shook with emotion: "my friends . . . dear, good . . . you've lost your tempers and that's enough . . . and that's enough, my friends." hearing his soft, friendly voice, laevsky felt that something unheard of, monstrous, had just happened to him, as though he had been nearly run over by a train; he almost burst into tears, waved his hand, and ran out of the room. "to feel that one is hated, to expose oneself before the man who hates one, in the most pitiful, contemptible, helpless state. my god, how hard it is!" he thought a little while afterwards as he sat in the pavilion, feeling as though his body were scarred by the hatred of which he had just been the object. "how coarse it is, my god!" cold water with brandy in it revived him. he vividly pictured von koren's calm, haughty face; his eyes the day before, his shirt like a rug, his voice, his white hand; and heavy, passionate, hungry hatred rankled in his breast and clamoured for satisfaction. in his thoughts he felled von koren to the ground, and trampled him underfoot. he remembered to the minutest detail all that had happened, and wondered how he could have smiled ingratiatingly to that insignificant man, and how he could care for the opinion of wretched petty people whom nobody knew, living in a miserable little town which was not, it seemed, even on the map, and of which not one decent person in petersburg had heard. if this wretched little town suddenly fell into ruins or caught fire, the telegram with the news would be read in russia with no more interest than an advertisement of the sale of second-hand furniture. whether he killed von koren next day or left him alive, it would be just the same, equally useless and uninteresting. better to shoot him in the leg or hand, wound him, then laugh at him, and let him, like an insect with a broken leg lost in the grass--let him be lost with his obscure sufferings in the crowd of insignificant people like himself. laevsky went to sheshkovsky, told him all about it, and asked him to be his second; then they both went to the superintendent of the postal telegraph department, and asked him, too, to be a second, and stayed to dinner with him. at dinner there was a great deal of joking and laughing. laevsky made jests at his own expense, saying he hardly knew how to fire off a pistol, calling himself a royal archer and william tell. "we must give this gentleman a lesson . . ." he said. after dinner they sat down to cards. laevsky played, drank wine, and thought that duelling was stupid and senseless, as it did not decide the question but only complicated it, but that it was sometimes impossible to get on without it. in the given case, for instance, one could not, of course, bring an action against von koren. and this duel was so far good in that it made it impossible for laevsky to remain in the town afterwards. he got a little drunk and interested in the game, and felt at ease. but when the sun had set and it grew dark, he was possessed by a feeling of uneasiness. it was not fear at the thought of death, because while he was dining and playing cards, he had for some reason a confident belief that the duel would end in nothing; it was dread at the thought of something unknown which was to happen next morning for the first time in his life, and dread of the coming night. . . . he knew that the night would be long and sleepless, and that he would have to think not only of von koren and his hatred, but also of the mountain of lies which he had to get through, and which he had not strength or ability to dispense with. it was as though he had been taken suddenly ill; all at once he lost all interest in the cards and in people, grew restless, and began asking them to let him go home. he was eager to get into bed, to lie without moving, and to prepare his thoughts for the night. sheshkovsky and the postal superintendent saw him home and went on to von koren's to arrange about the duel. near his lodgings laevsky met atchmianov. the young man was breathless and excited. "i am looking for you, ivan andreitch," he said. "i beg you to come quickly. . . ." "where?" "some one wants to see you, some one you don't know, about very important business; he earnestly begs you to come for a minute. he wants to speak to you of something. . . . for him it's a question of life and death. . . ." in his excitement atchmianov spoke in a strong armenian accent. "who is it?" asked laevsky. "he asked me not to tell you his name." "tell him i'm busy; to-morrow, if he likes. . . ." "how can you!" atchmianov was aghast. "he wants to tell you something very important for you . . . very important! if you don't come, something dreadful will happen." "strange . . ." muttered laevsky, unable to understand why atchmianov was so excited and what mysteries there could be in this dull, useless little town. "strange," he repeated in hesitation. "come along, though; i don't care." atchmianov walked rapidly on ahead and laevsky followed him. they walked down a street, then turned into an alley. "what a bore this is!" said laevsky. "one minute, one minute . . . it's near." near the old rampart they went down a narrow alley between two empty enclosures, then they came into a sort of large yard and went towards a small house. "that's muridov's, isn't it?" asked laevsky. "yes." "but why we've come by the back yards i don't understand. we might have come by the street; it's nearer. . . ." "never mind, never mind. . . ." it struck laevsky as strange, too, that atchmianov led him to a back entrance, and motioned to him as though bidding him go quietly and hold his tongue. "this way, this way . . ." said atchmianov, cautiously opening the door and going into the passage on tiptoe. "quietly, quietly, i beg you . . . they may hear." he listened, drew a deep breath and said in a whisper: "open that door, and go in . . . don't be afraid." laevsky, puzzled, opened the door and went into a room with a low ceiling and curtained windows. there was a candle on the table. "what do you want?" asked some one in the next room. "is it you, muridov?" laevsky turned into that room and saw kirilin, and beside him nadyezhda fyodorovna. he didn't hear what was said to him; he staggered back, and did not know how he found himself in the street. his hatred for von koren and his uneasiness--all had vanished from his soul. as he went home he waved his right arm awkwardly and looked carefully at the ground under his feet, trying to step where it was smooth. at home in his study he walked backwards and forwards, rubbing his hands, and awkwardly shrugging his shoulders and neck, as though his jacket and shirt were too tight; then he lighted a candle and sat down to the table. . . . xvi "the 'humane studies' of which you speak will only satisfy human thought when, as they advance, they meet the exact sciences and progress side by side with them. whether they will meet under a new microscope, or in the monologues of a new hamlet, or in a new religion, i do not know, but i expect the earth will be covered with a crust of ice before it comes to pass. of all humane learning the most durable and living is, of course, the teaching of christ; but look how differently even that is interpreted! some teach that we must love all our neighbours but make an exception of soldiers, criminals, and lunatics. they allow the first to be killed in war, the second to be isolated or executed, and the third they forbid to marry. other interpreters teach that we must love all our neighbours without exception, with no distinction of _plus_ or _minus_. according to their teaching, if a consumptive or a murderer or an epileptic asks your daughter in marriage, you must let him have her. if _crêtins_ go to war against the physically and mentally healthy, don't defend yourselves. this advocacy of love for love's sake, like art for art's sake, if it could have power, would bring mankind in the long run to complete extinction, and so would become the vastest crime that has ever been committed upon earth. there are very many interpretations, and since there are many of them, serious thought is not satisfied by any one of them, and hastens to add its own individual interpretation to the mass. for that reason you should never put a question on a philosophical or so-called christian basis; by so doing you only remove the question further from solution." the deacon listened to the zoologist attentively, thought a little, and asked: "have the philosophers invented the moral law which is innate in every man, or did god create it together with the body?" "i don't know. but that law is so universal among all peoples and all ages that i fancy we ought to recognise it as organically connected with man. it is not invented, but exists and will exist. i don't tell you that one day it will be seen under the microscope, but its organic connection is shown, indeed, by evidence: serious affections of the brain and all so-called mental diseases, to the best of my belief, show themselves first of all in the perversion of the moral law." "good. so then, just as our stomach bids us eat, our moral sense bids us love our neighbours. is that it? but our natural man through self-love opposes the voice of conscience and reason, and this gives rise to many brain-racking questions. to whom ought we to turn for the solution of those questions if you forbid us to put them on the philosophic basis?" "turn to what little exact science we have. trust to evidence and the logic of facts. it is true it is but little, but, on the other hand, it is less fluid and shifting than philosophy. the moral law, let us suppose, demands that you love your neighbour. well? love ought to show itself in the removal of everything which in one way or another is injurious to men and threatens them with danger in the present or in the future. our knowledge and the evidence tells us that the morally and physically abnormal are a menace to humanity. if so you must struggle against the abnormal; if you are not able to raise them to the normal standard you must have strength and ability to render them harmless--that is, to destroy them." "so love consists in the strong overcoming the weak." "undoubtedly." "but you know the strong crucified our lord jesus christ," said the deacon hotly. "the fact is that those who crucified him were not the strong but the weak. human culture weakens and strives to nullify the struggle for existence and natural selection; hence the rapid advancement of the weak and their predominance over the strong. imagine that you succeeded in instilling into bees humanitarian ideas in their crude and elementary form. what would come of it? the drones who ought to be killed would remain alive, would devour the honey, would corrupt and stifle the bees, resulting in the predominance of the weak over the strong and the degeneration of the latter. the same process is taking place now with humanity; the weak are oppressing the strong. among savages untouched by civilisation the strongest, cleverest, and most moral takes the lead; he is the chief and the master. but we civilised men have crucified christ, and we go on crucifying him, so there is something lacking in us. . . . and that something one ought to raise up in ourselves, or there will be no end to these errors." "but what criterion have you to distinguish the strong from the weak?" "knowledge and evidence. the tuberculous and the scrofulous are recognised by their diseases, and the insane and the immoral by their actions." "but mistakes may be made!" "yes, but it's no use to be afraid of getting your feet wet when you are threatened with the deluge!" "that's philosophy," laughed the deacon. "not a bit of it. you are so corrupted by your seminary philosophy that you want to see nothing but fog in everything. the abstract studies with which your youthful head is stuffed are called abstract just because they abstract your minds from what is obvious. look the devil straight in the eye, and if he's the devil, tell him he's the devil, and don't go calling to kant or hegel for explanations." the zoologist paused and went on: "twice two's four, and a stone's a stone. here to-morrow we have a duel. you and i will say it's stupid and absurd, that the duel is out of date, that there is no real difference between the aristocratic duel and the drunken brawl in the pot-house, and yet we shall not stop, we shall go there and fight. so there is some force stronger than our reasoning. we shout that war is plunder, robbery, atrocity, fratricide; we cannot look upon blood without fainting; but the french or the germans have only to insult us for us to feel at once an exaltation of spirit; in the most genuine way we shout 'hurrah!' and rush to attack the foe. you will invoke the blessing of god on our weapons, and our valour will arouse universal and general enthusiasm. again it follows that there is a force, if not higher, at any rate stronger, than us and our philosophy. we can no more stop it than that cloud which is moving upwards over the sea. don't be hypocritical, don't make a long nose at it on the sly; and don't say, 'ah, old-fashioned, stupid! ah, it's inconsistent with scripture!' but look it straight in the face, recognise its rational lawfulness, and when, for instance, it wants to destroy a rotten, scrofulous, corrupt race, don't hinder it with your pilules and misunderstood quotations from the gospel. leskov has a story of a conscientious danila who found a leper outside the town, and fed and warmed him in the name of love and of christ. if that danila had really loved humanity, he would have dragged the leper as far as possible from the town, and would have flung him in a pit, and would have gone to save the healthy. christ, i hope, taught us a rational, intelligent, practical love." "what a fellow you are!" laughed the deacon. "you don't believe in christ. why do you mention his name so often?" "yes, i do believe in him. only, of course, in my own way, not in yours. oh, deacon, deacon!" laughed the zoologist; he put his arm round the deacon's waist, and said gaily: "well? are you coming with us to the duel to-morrow?" "my orders don't allow it, or else i should come." "what do you mean by 'orders'?" "i have been consecrated. i am in a state of grace." "oh, deacon, deacon," repeated von koren, laughing, "i love talking to you." "you say you have faith," said the deacon. "what sort of faith is it? why, i have an uncle, a priest, and he believes so that when in time of drought he goes out into the fields to pray for rain, he takes his umbrella and leather overcoat for fear of getting wet through on his way home. that's faith! when he speaks of christ, his face is full of radiance, and all the peasants, men and women, weep floods of tears. he would stop that cloud and put all those forces you talk about to flight. yes . . . faith moves mountains." the deacon laughed and slapped the zoologist on the shoulder. "yes . . ." he went on; "here you are teaching all the time, fathoming the depths of the ocean, dividing the weak and the strong, writing books and challenging to duels--and everything remains as it is; but, behold! some feeble old man will mutter just one word with a holy spirit, or a new mahomet, with a sword, will gallop from arabia, and everything will be topsy-turvy, and in europe not one stone will be left standing upon another." "well, deacon, that's on the knees of the gods." "faith without works is dead, but works without faith are worse still--mere waste of time and nothing more." the doctor came into sight on the sea-front. he saw the deacon and the zoologist, and went up to them. "i believe everything is ready," he said, breathing hard. "govorovsky and boyko will be the seconds. they will start at five o'clock in the morning. how it has clouded over," he said, looking at the sky. "one can see nothing; there will be rain directly." "i hope you are coming with us?" said the zoologist. "no, god preserve me; i'm worried enough as it is. ustimovitch is going instead of me. i've spoken to him already." far over the sea was a flash of lightning, followed by a hollow roll of thunder. "how stifling it is before a storm!" said von koren. "i bet you've been to laevsky already and have been weeping on his bosom." "why should i go to him?" answered the doctor in confusion. "what next?" before sunset he had walked several times along the boulevard and the street in the hope of meeting laevsky. he was ashamed of his hastiness and the sudden outburst of friendliness which had followed it. he wanted to apologise to laevsky in a joking tone, to give him a good talking to, to soothe him and to tell him that the duel was a survival of mediæval barbarism, but that providence itself had brought them to the duel as a means of reconciliation; that the next day, both being splendid and highly intelligent people, they would, after exchanging shots, appreciate each other's noble qualities and would become friends. but he could not come across laevsky. "what should i go and see him for?" repeated samoylenko. "i did not insult him; he insulted me. tell me, please, why he attacked me. what harm had i done him? i go into the drawing-room, and, all of a sudden, without the least provocation: 'spy!' there's a nice thing! tell me, how did it begin? what did you say to him?" "i told him his position was hopeless. and i was right. it is only honest men or scoundrels who can find an escape from any position, but one who wants to be at the same time an honest man and a scoundrel --it is a hopeless position. but it's eleven o'clock, gentlemen, and we have to be up early to-morrow." there was a sudden gust of wind; it blew up the dust on the sea-front, whirled it round in eddies, with a howl that drowned the roar of the sea. "a squall," said the deacon. "we must go in, our eyes are getting full of dust." as they went, samoylenko sighed and, holding his hat, said: "i suppose i shan't sleep to-night." "don't you agitate yourself," laughed the zoologist. "you can set your mind at rest; the duel will end in nothing. laevsky will magnanimously fire into the air--he can do nothing else; and i daresay i shall not fire at all. to be arrested and lose my time on laevsky's account--the game's not worth the candle. by the way, what is the punishment for duelling?" "arrest, and in the case of the death of your opponent a maximum of three years' imprisonment in the fortress." "the fortress of st. peter and st. paul?" "no, in a military fortress, i believe." "though this fine gentleman ought to have a lesson!" behind them on the sea, there was a flash of lightning, which for an instant lighted up the roofs of the houses and the mountains. the friends parted near the boulevard. when the doctor disappeared in the darkness and his steps had died away, von koren shouted to him: "i only hope the weather won't interfere with us to-morrow!" "very likely it will! please god it may!" "good-night!" "what about the night? what do you say?" in the roar of the wind and the sea and the crashes of thunder, it was difficult to hear. "it's nothing," shouted the zoologist, and hurried home. xvii "upon my mind, weighed down with woe, crowd thoughts, a heavy multitude: in silence memory unfolds her long, long scroll before my eyes. loathing and shuddering i curse and bitterly lament in vain, and bitter though the tears i weep i do not wash those lines away." pushkin. whether they killed him next morning, or mocked at him--that is, left him his life--he was ruined, anyway. whether this disgraced woman killed herself in her shame and despair, or dragged on her pitiful existence, she was ruined anyway. so thought laevsky as he sat at the table late in the evening, still rubbing his hands. the windows suddenly blew open with a bang; a violent gust of wind burst into the room, and the papers fluttered from the table. laevsky closed the windows and bent down to pick up the papers. he was aware of something new in his body, a sort of awkwardness he had not felt before, and his movements were strange to him. he moved timidly, jerking with his elbows and shrugging his shoulders; and when he sat down to the table again, he again began rubbing his hands. his body had lost its suppleness. on the eve of death one ought to write to one's nearest relation. laevsky thought of this. he took a pen and wrote with a tremulous hand: "mother!" he wanted to write to beg his mother, for the sake of the merciful god in whom she believed, that she would give shelter and bring a little warmth and kindness into the life of the unhappy woman who, by his doing, had been disgraced and was in solitude, poverty, and weakness, that she would forgive and forget everything, everything, everything, and by her sacrifice atone to some extent for her son's terrible sin. but he remembered how his mother, a stout, heavily-built old woman in a lace cap, used to go out into the garden in the morning, followed by her companion with the lap-dog; how she used to shout in a peremptory way to the gardener and the servants, and how proud and haughty her face was--he remembered all this and scratched out the word he had written. there was a vivid flash of lightning at all three windows, and it was followed by a prolonged, deafening roll of thunder, beginning with a hollow rumble and ending with a crash so violent that all the window-panes rattled. laevsky got up, went to the window, and pressed his forehead against the pane. there was a fierce, magnificent storm. on the horizon lightning-flashes were flung in white streams from the storm-clouds into the sea, lighting up the high, dark waves over the far-away expanse. and to right and to left, and, no doubt, over the house too, the lightning flashed. "the storm!" whispered laevsky; he had a longing to pray to some one or to something, if only to the lightning or the storm-clouds. "dear storm!" he remembered how as a boy he used to run out into the garden without a hat on when there was a storm, and how two fair-haired girls with blue eyes used to run after him, and how they got wet through with the rain; they laughed with delight, but when there was a loud peal of thunder, the girls used to nestle up to the boy confidingly, while he crossed himself and made haste to repeat: "holy, holy, holy. . . ." oh, where had they vanished to! in what sea were they drowned, those dawning days of pure, fair life? he had no fear of the storm, no love of nature now; he had no god. all the confiding girls he had ever known had by now been ruined by him and those like him. all his life he had not planted one tree in his own garden, nor grown one blade of grass; and living among the living, he had not saved one fly; he had done nothing but destroy and ruin, and lie, lie. . . . "what in my past was not vice?" he asked himself, trying to clutch at some bright memory as a man falling down a precipice clutches at the bushes. school? the university? but that was a sham. he had neglected his work and forgotten what he had learnt. the service of his country? that, too, was a sham, for he did nothing in the service, took a salary for doing nothing, and it was an abominable swindling of the state for which one was not punished. he had no craving for truth, and had not sought it; spellbound by vice and lying, his conscience had slept or been silent. like a stranger, like an alien from another planet, he had taken no part in the common life of men, had been indifferent to their sufferings, their ideas, their religion, their sciences, their strivings, and their struggles. he had not said one good word, not written one line that was not useless and vulgar; he had not done his fellows one ha'p'orth of service, but had eaten their bread, drunk their wine, seduced their wives, lived on their thoughts, and to justify his contemptible, parasitic life in their eyes and in his own, he had always tried to assume an air of being higher and better than they. lies, lies, lies. . . . he vividly remembered what he had seen that evening at muridov's, and he was in an insufferable anguish of loathing and misery. kirilin and atchmianov were loathsome, but they were only continuing what he had begun; they were his accomplices and his disciples. this young weak woman had trusted him more than a brother, and he had deprived her of her husband, of her friends and of her country, and had brought her here--to the heat, to fever, and to boredom; and from day to day she was bound to reflect, like a mirror, his idleness, his viciousness and falsity--and that was all she had had to fill her weak, listless, pitiable life. then he had grown sick of her, had begun to hate her, but had not had the pluck to abandon her, and he had tried to entangle her more and more closely in a web of lies. . . . these men had done the rest. laevsky sat at the table, then got up and went to the window; at one minute he put out the candle and then he lighted it again. he cursed himself aloud, wept and wailed, and asked forgiveness; several times he ran to the table in despair, and wrote: "mother!" except his mother, he had no relations or near friends; but how could his mother help him? and where was she? he had an impulse to run to nadyezhda fyodorovna, to fall at her feet, to kiss her hands and feet, to beg her forgiveness; but she was his victim, and he was afraid of her as though she were dead. "my life is ruined," he repeated, rubbing his hands. "why am i still alive, my god! . . ." he had cast out of heaven his dim star; it had fallen, and its track was lost in the darkness of night. it would never return to the sky again, because life was given only once and never came a second time. if he could have turned back the days and years of the past, he would have replaced the falsity with truth, the idleness with work, the boredom with happiness; he would have given back purity to those whom he had robbed of it. he would have found god and goodness, but that was as impossible as to put back the fallen star into the sky, and because it was impossible he was in despair. when the storm was over, he sat by the open window and thought calmly of what was before him. von koren would most likely kill him. the man's clear, cold theory of life justified the destruction of the rotten and the useless; if it changed at the crucial moment, it would be the hatred and the repugnance that laevsky inspired in him that would save him. if he missed his aim or, in mockery of his hated opponent, only wounded him, or fired in the air, what could he do then? where could he go? "go to petersburg?" laevsky asked himself. but that would mean beginning over again the old life which he cursed. and the man who seeks salvation in change of place like a migrating bird would find nothing anywhere, for all the world is alike to him. seek salvation in men? in whom and how? samoylenko's kindness and generosity could no more save him than the deacon's laughter or von koren's hatred. he must look for salvation in himself alone, and if there were no finding it, why waste time? he must kill himself, that was all. . . . he heard the sound of a carriage. it was getting light. the carriage passed by, turned, and crunching on the wet sand, stopped near the house. there were two men in the carriage. "wait a minute; i'm coming directly," laevsky said to them out of the window. "i'm not asleep. surely it's not time yet?" "yes, it's four o'clock. by the time we get there . . . ." laevsky put on his overcoat and cap, put some cigarettes in his pocket, and stood still hesitating. he felt as though there was something else he must do. in the street the seconds talked in low voices and the horses snorted, and this sound in the damp, early morning, when everybody was asleep and light was hardly dawning in the sky, filled laevsky's soul with a disconsolate feeling which was like a presentiment of evil. he stood for a little, hesitating, and went into the bedroom. nadyezhda fyodorovna was lying stretched out on the bed, wrapped from head to foot in a rug. she did not stir, and her whole appearance, especially her head, suggested an egyptian mummy. looking at her in silence, laevsky mentally asked her forgiveness, and thought that if the heavens were not empty and there really were a god, then he would save her; if there were no god, then she had better perish--there was nothing for her to live for. all at once she jumped up, and sat up in bed. lifting her pale face and looking with horror at laevsky, she asked: "is it you? is the storm over?" "yes." she remembered; put both hands to her head and shuddered all over. "how miserable i am!" she said. "if only you knew how miserable i am! i expected," she went on, half closing her eyes, "that you would kill me or turn me out of the house into the rain and storm, but you delay . . . delay . . ." warmly and impulsively he put his arms round her and covered her knees and hands with kisses. then when she muttered something and shuddered with the thought of the past, he stroked her hair, and looking into her face, realised that this unhappy, sinful woman was the one creature near and dear to him, whom no one could replace. when he went out of the house and got into the carriage he wanted to return home alive. xviii the deacon got up, dressed, took his thick, gnarled stick and slipped quietly out of the house. it was dark, and for the first minute when he went into the street, he could not even see his white stick. there was not a single star in the sky, and it looked as though there would be rain again. there was a smell of wet sand and sea. "it's to be hoped that the mountaineers won't attack us," thought the deacon, hearing the tap of the stick on the pavement, and noticing how loud and lonely the taps sounded in the stillness of the night. when he got out of town, he began to see both the road and his stick. here and there in the black sky there were dark cloudy patches, and soon a star peeped out and timidly blinked its one eye. the deacon walked along the high rocky coast and did not see the sea; it was slumbering below, and its unseen waves broke languidly and heavily on the shore, as though sighing "ouf!" and how slowly! one wave broke--the deacon had time to count eight steps; then another broke, and six steps; later a third. as before, nothing could be seen, and in the darkness one could hear the languid, drowsy drone of the sea. one could hear the infinitely faraway, inconceivable time when god moved above chaos. the deacon felt uncanny. he hoped god would not punish him for keeping company with infidels, and even going to look at their duels. the duel would be nonsensical, bloodless, absurd, but however that might be, it was a heathen spectacle, and it was altogether unseemly for an ecclesiastical person to be present at it. he stopped and wondered--should he go back? but an intense, restless curiosity triumphed over his doubts, and he went on. "though they are infidels they are good people, and will be saved," he assured himself. "they are sure to be saved," he said aloud, lighting a cigarette. by what standard must one measure men's qualities, to judge rightly of them? the deacon remembered his enemy, the inspector of the clerical school, who believed in god, lived in chastity, and did not fight duels; but he used to feed the deacon on bread with sand in it, and on one occasion almost pulled off the deacon's ear. if human life was so artlessly constructed that every one respected this cruel and dishonest inspector who stole the government flour, and his health and salvation were prayed for in the schools, was it just to shun such men as von koren and laevsky, simply because they were unbelievers? the deacon was weighing this question, but he recalled how absurd samoylenko had looked yesterday, and that broke the thread of his ideas. what fun they would have next day! the deacon imagined how he would sit under a bush and look on, and when von koren began boasting next day at dinner, he, the deacon, would begin laughing and telling him all the details of the duel. "how do you know all about it?" the zoologist would ask. "well, there you are! i stayed at home, but i know all about it." it would be nice to write a comic description of the duel. his father-in-law would read it and laugh. a good story, told or written, was more than meat and drink to his father-in-law. the valley of the yellow river opened before him. the stream was broader and fiercer for the rain, and instead of murmuring as before, it was raging. it began to get light. the grey, dingy morning, and the clouds racing towards the west to overtake the storm-clouds, the mountains girt with mist, and the wet trees, all struck the deacon as ugly and sinister. he washed at the brook, repeated his morning prayer, and felt a longing for tea and hot rolls, with sour cream, which were served every morning at his father-in-law's. he remembered his wife and the "days past recall," which she played on the piano. what sort of woman was she? his wife had been introduced, betrothed, and married to him all in one week: he had lived with her less than a month when he was ordered here, so that he had not had time to find out what she was like. all the same, he rather missed her. "i must write her a nice letter . . ." he thought. the flag on the _duhan_ hung limp, soaked by the rain, and the _duhan_ itself with its wet roof seemed darker and lower than it had been before. near the door was standing a cart; kerbalay, with two mountaineers and a young tatar woman in trousers--no doubt kerbalay's wife or daughter--were bringing sacks of something out of the _duhan_, and putting them on maize straw in the cart. near the cart stood a pair of asses hanging their heads. when they had put in all the sacks, the mountaineers and the tatar woman began covering them over with straw, while kerbalay began hurriedly harnessing the asses. "smuggling, perhaps," thought the deacon. here was the fallen tree with the dried pine-needles, here was the blackened patch from the fire. he remembered the picnic and all its incidents, the fire, the singing of the mountaineers, his sweet dreams of becoming a bishop, and of the church procession. . . . the black river had grown blacker and broader with the rain. the deacon walked cautiously over the narrow bridge, which by now was reached by the topmost crests of the dirty water, and went up through the little copse to the drying-shed. "a splendid head," he thought, stretching himself on the straw, and thinking of von koren. "a fine head--god grant him health; only there is cruelty in him. . . ." why did he hate laevsky and laevsky hate him? why were they going to fight a duel? if from their childhood they had known poverty as the deacon had; if they had been brought up among ignorant, hard-hearted, grasping, coarse and ill-mannered people who grudged you a crust of bread, who spat on the floor and hiccoughed at dinner and at prayers; if they had not been spoilt from childhood by the pleasant surroundings and the select circle of friends they lived in--how they would have rushed at each other, how readily they would have overlooked each other's shortcomings and would have prized each other's strong points! why, how few even outwardly decent people there were in the world! it was true that laevsky was flighty, dissipated, queer, but he did not steal, did not spit loudly on the floor; he did not abuse his wife and say, "you'll eat till you burst, but you don't want to work;" he would not beat a child with reins, or give his servants stinking meat to eat-- surely this was reason enough to be indulgent to him? besides, he was the chief sufferer from his failings, like a sick man from his sores. instead of being led by boredom and some sort of misunderstanding to look for degeneracy, extinction, heredity, and other such incomprehensible things in each other, would they not do better to stoop a little lower and turn their hatred and anger where whole streets resounded with moanings from coarse ignorance, greed, scolding, impurity, swearing, the shrieks of women. . . . the sound of a carriage interrupted the deacon's thoughts. he glanced out of the door and saw a carriage and in it three persons: laevsky, sheshkovsky, and the superintendent of the post-office. "stop!" said sheshkovsky. all three got out of the carriage and looked at one another. "they are not here yet," said sheshkovsky, shaking the mud off. "well? till the show begins, let us go and find a suitable spot; there's not room to turn round here." they went further up the river and soon vanished from sight. the tatar driver sat in the carriage with his head resting on his shoulder and fell asleep. after waiting ten minutes the deacon came out of the drying-shed, and taking off his black hat that he might not be noticed, he began threading his way among the bushes and strips of maize along the bank, crouching and looking about him. the grass and maize were wet, and big drops fell on his head from the trees and bushes. "disgraceful!" he muttered, picking up his wet and muddy skirt. "had i realised it, i would not have come." soon he heard voices and caught sight of them. laevsky was walking rapidly to and fro in the small glade with bowed back and hands thrust in his sleeves; his seconds were standing at the water's edge, rolling cigarettes. "strange," thought the deacon, not recognising laevsky's walk; "he looks like an old man. . . ." "how rude it is of them!" said the superintendent of the post-office, looking at his watch. "it may be learned manners to be late, but to my thinking it's hoggish." sheshkovsky, a stout man with a black beard, listened and said: "they're coming!" xix "it's the first time in my life i've seen it! how glorious!" said von koren, pointing to the glade and stretching out his hands to the east. "look: green rays!" in the east behind the mountains rose two green streaks of light, and it really was beautiful. the sun was rising. "good-morning!" the zoologist went on, nodding to laevsky's seconds. "i'm not late, am i?" he was followed by his seconds, boyko and govorovsky, two very young officers of the same height, wearing white tunics, and ustimovitch, the thin, unsociable doctor; in one hand he had a bag of some sort, and in the other hand, as usual, a cane which he held behind him. laying the bag on the ground and greeting no one, he put the other hand, too, behind his back and began pacing up and down the glade. laevsky felt the exhaustion and awkwardness of a man who is soon perhaps to die, and is for that reason an object of general attention. he wanted to be killed as soon as possible or taken home. he saw the sunrise now for the first time in his life; the early morning, the green rays of light, the dampness, and the men in wet boots, seemed to him to have nothing to do with his life, to be superfluous and embarrassing. all this had no connection with the night he had been through, with his thoughts and his feeling of guilt, and so he would have gladly gone away without waiting for the duel. von koren was noticeably excited and tried to conceal it, pretending that he was more interested in the green light than anything. the seconds were confused, and looked at one another as though wondering why they were here and what they were to do. "i imagine, gentlemen, there is no need for us to go further," said sheshkovsky. "this place will do." "yes, of course," von koren agreed. a silence followed. ustimovitch, pacing to and fro, suddenly turned sharply to laevsky and said in a low voice, breathing into his face: "they have very likely not told you my terms yet. each side is to pay me fifteen roubles, and in the case of the death of one party, the survivor is to pay thirty." laevsky was already acquainted with the man, but now for the first time he had a distinct view of his lustreless eyes, his stiff moustaches, and wasted, consumptive neck; he was a money-grubber, not a doctor; his breath had an unpleasant smell of beef. "what people there are in the world!" thought laevsky, and answered: "very good." the doctor nodded and began pacing to and fro again, and it was evident he did not need the money at all, but simply asked for it from hatred. every one felt it was time to begin, or to end what had been begun, but instead of beginning or ending, they stood about, moved to and fro and smoked. the young officers, who were present at a duel for the first time in their lives, and even now hardly believed in this civilian and, to their thinking, unnecessary duel, looked critically at their tunics and stroked their sleeves. sheshkovsky went up to them and said softly: "gentlemen, we must use every effort to prevent this duel; they ought to be reconciled." he flushed crimson and added: "kirilin was at my rooms last night complaining that laevsky had found him with nadyezhda fyodorovna, and all that sort of thing." "yes, we know that too," said boyko. "well, you see, then . . . laevsky's hands are trembling and all that sort of thing . . . he can scarcely hold a pistol now. to fight with him is as inhuman as to fight a man who is drunk or who has typhoid. if a reconciliation cannot be arranged, we ought to put off the duel, gentlemen, or something. . . . it's such a sickening business, i can't bear to see it." "talk to von koren." "i don't know the rules of duelling, damnation take them, and i don't want to either; perhaps he'll imagine laevsky funks it and has sent me to him, but he can think what he likes--i'll speak to him." sheshkovsky hesitatingly walked up to von koren with a slight limp, as though his leg had gone to sleep; and as he went towards him, clearing his throat, his whole figure was a picture of indolence. "there's something i must say to you, sir," he began, carefully scrutinising the flowers on the zoologist's shirt. "it's confidential. i don't know the rules of duelling, damnation take them, and i don't want to, and i look on the matter not as a second and that sort of thing, but as a man, and that's all about it." "yes. well?" "when seconds suggest reconciliation they are usually not listened to; it is looked upon as a formality. _amour propre_ and all that. but i humbly beg you to look carefully at ivan andreitch. he's not in a normal state, so to speak, to-day--not in his right mind, and a pitiable object. he has had a misfortune. i can't endure gossip. . . ." sheshkovsky flushed crimson and looked round. "but in view of the duel, i think it necessary to inform you, laevsky found his madam last night at muridov's with . . . another gentleman." "how disgusting!" muttered the zoologist; he turned pale, frowned, and spat loudly. "tfoo!" his lower lip quivered, he walked away from sheshkovsky, unwilling to hear more, and as though he had accidentally tasted something bitter, spat loudly again, and for the first time that morning looked with hatred at laevsky. his excitement and awkwardness passed off; he tossed his head and said aloud: "gentlemen, what are we waiting for, i should like to know? why don't we begin?" sheshkovsky glanced at the officers and shrugged his shoulders. "gentlemen," he said aloud, addressing no one in particular. "gentlemen, we propose that you should be reconciled." "let us make haste and get the formalities over," said von koren. "reconciliation has been discussed already. what is the next formality? make haste, gentlemen, time won't wait for us." "but we insist on reconciliation all the same," said sheshkovsky in a guilty voice, as a man compelled to interfere in another man's business; he flushed, laid his hand on his heart, and went on: "gentlemen, we see no grounds for associating the offence with the duel. there's nothing in common between duelling and offences against one another of which we are sometimes guilty through human weakness. you are university men and men of culture, and no doubt you see in the duel nothing but a foolish and out-of-date formality, and all that sort of thing. that's how we look at it ourselves, or we shouldn't have come, for we cannot allow that in our presence men should fire at one another, and all that." sheshkovsky wiped the perspiration off his face and went on: "make an end to your misunderstanding, gentlemen; shake hands, and let us go home and drink to peace. upon my honour, gentlemen!" von koren did not speak. laevsky, seeing that they were looking at him, said: "i have nothing against nikolay vassilitch; if he considers i'm to blame, i'm ready to apologise to him." von koren was offended. "it is evident, gentlemen," he said, "you want mr. laevsky to return home a magnanimous and chivalrous figure, but i cannot give you and him that satisfaction. and there was no need to get up early and drive eight miles out of town simply to drink to peace, to have breakfast, and to explain to me that the duel is an out-of-date formality. a duel is a duel, and there is no need to make it more false and stupid than it is in reality. i want to fight!" a silence followed. boyko took a pair of pistols out of a box; one was given to von koren and one to laevsky, and then there followed a difficulty which afforded a brief amusement to the zoologist and the seconds. it appeared that of all the people present not one had ever in his life been at a duel, and no one knew precisely how they ought to stand, and what the seconds ought to say and do. but then boyko remembered and began, with a smile, to explain. "gentlemen, who remembers the description in lermontov?" asked von koren, laughing. "in turgenev, too, bazarov had a duel with some one. . . ." "there's no need to remember," said ustimovitch impatiently. "measure the distance, that's all." and he took three steps as though to show how to measure it. boyko counted out the steps while his companion drew his sabre and scratched the earth at the extreme points to mark the barrier. in complete silence the opponents took their places. "moles," the deacon thought, sitting in the bushes. sheshkovsky said something, boyko explained something again, but laevsky did not hear--or rather heard, but did not understand. he cocked his pistol when the time came to do so, and raised the cold, heavy weapon with the barrel upwards. he forgot to unbutton his overcoat, and it felt very tight over his shoulder and under his arm, and his arm rose as awkwardly as though the sleeve had been cut out of tin. he remembered the hatred he had felt the night before for the swarthy brow and curly hair, and felt that even yesterday at the moment of intense hatred and anger he could not have shot a man. fearing that the bullet might somehow hit von koren by accident, he raised the pistol higher and higher, and felt that this too obvious magnanimity was indelicate and anything but magnanimous, but he did not know how else to do and could do nothing else. looking at the pale, ironically smiling face of von koren, who evidently had been convinced from the beginning that his opponent would fire in the air, laevsky thought that, thank god, everything would be over directly, and all that he had to do was to press the trigger rather hard. . . . he felt a violent shock on the shoulder; there was the sound of a shot and an answering echo in the mountains: ping-ting! von koren cocked his pistol and looked at ustimovitch, who was pacing as before with his hands behind his back, taking no notice of any one. "doctor," said the zoologist, "be so good as not to move to and fro like a pendulum. you make me dizzy." the doctor stood still. von koren began to take aim at laevsky. "it's all over!" thought laevsky. the barrel of the pistol aimed straight at his face, the expression of hatred and contempt in von koren's attitude and whole figure, and the murder just about to be committed by a decent man in broad daylight, in the presence of decent men, and the stillness and the unknown force that compelled laevsky to stand still and not to run --how mysterious it all was, how incomprehensible and terrible! the moment while von koren was taking aim seemed to laevsky longer than a night: he glanced imploringly at the seconds; they were pale and did not stir. "make haste and fire," thought laevsky, and felt that his pale, quivering, and pitiful face must arouse even greater hatred in von koren. "i'll kill him directly," thought von koren, aiming at his forehead, with his finger already on the catch. "yes, of course i'll kill him." "he'll kill him!" a despairing shout was suddenly heard somewhere very close at hand. a shot rang out at once. seeing that laevsky remained standing where he was and did not fall, they all looked in the direction from which the shout had come, and saw the deacon. with pale face and wet hair sticking to his forehead and his cheeks, wet through and muddy, he was standing in the maize on the further bank, smiling rather queerly and waving his wet hat. sheshkovsky laughed with joy, burst into tears, and moved away. . . . xx a little while afterwards, von koren and the deacon met near the little bridge. the deacon was excited; he breathed hard, and avoided looking in people's faces. he felt ashamed both of his terror and his muddy, wet garments. "i thought you meant to kill him . . ." he muttered. "how contrary to human nature it is! how utterly unnatural it is!" "but how did you come here?" asked the zoologist. "don't ask," said the deacon, waving his hand. "the evil one tempted me, saying: 'go, go. . . .' so i went and almost died of fright in the maize. but now, thank god, thank god. . . . i am awfully pleased with you," muttered the deacon. "old grandad tarantula will be glad . . . . it's funny, it's too funny! only i beg of you most earnestly don't tell anybody i was there, or i may get into hot water with the authorities. they will say: 'the deacon was a second.'" "gentlemen," said von koren, "the deacon asks you not to tell any one you've seen him here. he might get into trouble." "how contrary to human nature it is!" sighed the deacon. "excuse my saying so, but your face was so dreadful that i thought you were going to kill him." "i was very much tempted to put an end to that scoundrel," said von koren, "but you shouted close by, and i missed my aim. the whole procedure is revolting to any one who is not used to it, and it has exhausted me, deacon. i feel awfully tired. come along. . . ." "no, you must let me walk back. i must get dry, for i am wet and cold." "well, as you like," said the zoologist, in a weary tone, feeling dispirited, and, getting into the carriage, he closed his eyes. "as you like. . . ." while they were moving about the carriages and taking their seats, kerbalay stood in the road, and, laying his hands on his stomach, he bowed low, showing his teeth; he imagined that the gentry had come to enjoy the beauties of nature and drink tea, and could not understand why they were getting into the carriages. the party set off in complete silence and only the deacon was left by the _duhan_. "come to the _duhan_, drink tea," he said to kerbalay. "me wants to eat." kerbalay spoke good russian, but the deacon imagined that the tatar would understand him better if he talked to him in broken russian. "cook omelette, give cheese. . . ." "come, come, father," said kerbalay, bowing. "i'll give you everything . . . . i've cheese and wine. . . . eat what you like." "what is 'god' in tatar?" asked the deacon, going into the _duhan_. "your god and my god are the same," said kerbalay, not understanding him. "god is the same for all men, only men are different. some are russian, some are turks, some are english--there are many sorts of men, but god is one." "very good. if all men worship the same god, why do you mohammedans look upon christians as your everlasting enemies?" "why are you angry?" said kerbalay, laying both hands on his stomach. "you are a priest; i am a mussulman: you say, 'i want to eat'--i give it you. . . . only the rich man distinguishes your god from my god; for the poor man it is all the same. if you please, it is ready." while this theological conversation was taking place at the _duhan_, laevsky was driving home thinking how dreadful it had been driving there at daybreak, when the roads, the rocks, and the mountains were wet and dark, and the uncertain future seemed like a terrible abyss, of which one could not see the bottom; while now the raindrops hanging on the grass and on the stones were sparkling in the sun like diamonds, nature was smiling joyfully, and the terrible future was left behind. he looked at sheshkovsky's sullen, tear-stained face, and at the two carriages ahead of them in which von koren, his seconds, and the doctor were sitting, and it seemed to him as though they were all coming back from a graveyard in which a wearisome, insufferable man who was a burden to others had just been buried. "everything is over," he thought of his past, cautiously touching his neck with his fingers. on the right side of his neck was a small swelling, of the length and breadth of his little finger, and he felt a pain, as though some one had passed a hot iron over his neck. the bullet had bruised it. afterwards, when he got home, a strange, long, sweet day began for him, misty as forgetfulness. like a man released from prison or from hospital, he stared at the long-familiar objects and wondered that the tables, the windows, the chairs, the light, and the sea stirred in him a keen, childish delight such as he had not known for long, long years. nadyezhda fyodorovna, pale and haggard, could not understand his gentle voice and strange movements; she made haste to tell him everything that had happened to her. . . . it seemed to her that very likely he scarcely heard and did not understand her, and that if he did know everything he would curse her and kill her, but he listened to her, stroked her face and hair, looked into her eyes and said: "i have nobody but you. . . ." then they sat a long while in the garden, huddled close together, saying nothing, or dreaming aloud of their happy life in the future, in brief, broken sentences, while it seemed to him that he had never spoken at such length or so eloquently. xxi more than three months had passed. the day came that von koren had fixed on for his departure. a cold, heavy rain had been falling from early morning, a north-east wind was blowing, and the waves were high on the sea. it was said that the steamer would hardly be able to come into the harbour in such weather. by the time-table it should have arrived at ten o'clock in the morning, but von koren, who had gone on to the sea-front at midday and again after dinner, could see nothing through the field-glass but grey waves and rain covering the horizon. towards the end of the day the rain ceased and the wind began to drop perceptibly. von koren had already made up his mind that he would not be able to get off that day, and had settled down to play chess with samoylenko; but after dark the orderly announced that there were lights on the sea and that a rocket had been seen. von koren made haste. he put his satchel over his shoulder, and kissed samoylenko and the deacon. though there was not the slightest necessity, he went through the rooms again, said good-bye to the orderly and the cook, and went out into the street, feeling that he had left something behind, either at the doctor's or his lodging. in the street he walked beside samoylenko, behind them came the deacon with a box, and last of all the orderly with two portmanteaus. only samoylenko and the orderly could distinguish the dim lights on the sea. the others gazed into the darkness and saw nothing. the steamer had stopped a long way from the coast. "make haste, make haste," von koren hurried them. "i am afraid it will set off." as they passed the little house with three windows, into which laevsky had moved soon after the duel, von koren could not resist peeping in at the window. laevsky was sitting, writing, bent over the table, with his back to the window. "i wonder at him!" said the zoologist softly. "what a screw he has put on himself!" "yes, one may well wonder," said samoylenko. "he sits from morning till night, he's always at work. he works to pay off his debts. and he lives, brother, worse than a beggar!" half a minute of silence followed. the zoologist, the doctor, and the deacon stood at the window and went on looking at laevsky. "so he didn't get away from here, poor fellow," said samoylenko. "do you remember how hard he tried?" "yes, he has put a screw on himself," von koren repeated. "his marriage, the way he works all day long for his daily bread, a new expression in his face, and even in his walk--it's all so extraordinary that i don't know what to call it." the zoologist took samoylenko's sleeve and went on with emotion in his voice: "you tell him and his wife that when i went away i was full of admiration for them and wished them all happiness . . . and i beg him, if he can, not to remember evil against me. he knows me. he knows that if i could have foreseen this change, then i might have become his best friend." "go in and say good-bye to him." "no, that wouldn't do." "why? god knows, perhaps you'll never see him again." the zoologist reflected, and said: "that's true." samoylenko tapped softly at the window. laevsky started and looked round. "vanya, nikolay vassilitch wants to say goodbye to you," said samoylenko. "he is just going away." laevsky got up from the table, and went into the passage to open the door. samoylenko, the zoologist, and the deacon went into the house. "i can only come for one minute," began the zoologist, taking off his goloshes in the passage, and already wishing he had not given way to his feelings and come in, uninvited. "it is as though i were forcing myself on him," he thought, "and that's stupid." "forgive me for disturbing you," he said as he went into the room with laevsky, "but i'm just going away, and i had an impulse to see you. god knows whether we shall ever meet again." "i am very glad to see you. . . . please come in," said laevsky, and he awkwardly set chairs for his visitors as though he wanted to bar their way, and stood in the middle of the room, rubbing his hands. "i should have done better to have left my audience in the street," thought von koren, and he said firmly: "don't remember evil against me, ivan andreitch. to forget the past is, of course, impossible --it is too painful, and i've not come here to apologise or to declare that i was not to blame. i acted sincerely, and i have not changed my convictions since then. . . . it is true that i see, to my great delight, that i was mistaken in regard to you, but it's easy to make a false step even on a smooth road, and, in fact, it's the natural human lot: if one is not mistaken in the main, one is mistaken in the details. nobody knows the real truth." "no, no one knows the truth," said laevsky. "well, good-bye. . . . god give you all happiness." von koren gave laevsky his hand; the latter took it and bowed. "don't remember evil against me," said von koren. "give my greetings to your wife, and say i am very sorry not to say good-bye to her." "she is at home." laevsky went to the door of the next room, and said: "nadya, nikolay vassilitch wants to say goodbye to you." nadyezhda fyodorovna came in; she stopped near the doorway and looked shyly at the visitors. there was a look of guilt and dismay on her face, and she held her hands like a schoolgirl receiving a scolding. "i'm just going away, nadyezhda fyodorovna," said von koren, "and have come to say good-bye." she held out her hand uncertainly, while laevsky bowed. "what pitiful figures they are, though!" thought von koren. "the life they are living does not come easy to them. i shall be in moscow and petersburg; can i send you anything?" he asked. "oh!" said nadyezhda fyodorovna, and she looked anxiously at her husband. "i don't think there's anything. . . ." "no, nothing . . ." said laevsky, rubbing his hands. "our greetings." von koren did not know what he could or ought to say, though as he went in he thought he would say a very great deal that would be warm and good and important. he shook hands with laevsky and his wife in silence, and left them with a depressed feeling. "what people!" said the deacon in a low voice, as he walked behind them. "my god, what people! of a truth, the right hand of god has planted this vine! lord! lord! one man vanquishes thousands and another tens of thousands. nikolay vassilitch," he said ecstatically, "let me tell you that to-day you have conquered the greatest of man's enemies--pride." "hush, deacon! fine conquerors we are! conquerors ought to look like eagles, while he's a pitiful figure, timid, crushed; he bows like a chinese idol, and i, i am sad. . . ." they heard steps behind them. it was laevsky, hurrying after them to see him off. the orderly was standing on the quay with the two portmanteaus, and at a little distance stood four boatmen. "there is a wind, though. . . . brrr!" said samoylenko. "there must be a pretty stiff storm on the sea now! you are not going off at a nice time, koyla." "i'm not afraid of sea-sickness." "that's not the point. . . . i only hope these rascals won't upset you. you ought to have crossed in the agent's sloop. where's the agent's sloop?" he shouted to the boatmen. "it has gone, your excellency." "and the customs-house boat?" "that's gone, too." "why didn't you let us know," said samoylenko angrily. "you dolts!" "it's all the same, don't worry yourself . . ." said von koren. "well, good-bye. god keep you." samoylenko embraced von koren and made the sign of the cross over him three times. "don't forget us, kolya. . . . write. . . . we shall look out for you next spring." "good-bye, deacon," said von koren, shaking hands with the deacon. "thank you for your company and for your pleasant conversation. think about the expedition." "oh lord, yes! to the ends of the earth," laughed the deacon. "i've nothing against it." von koren recognised laevsky in the darkness, and held out his hand without speaking. the boatmen were by now below, holding the boat, which was beating against the piles, though the breakwater screened it from the breakers. von koren went down the ladder, jumped into the boat, and sat at the helm. "write!" samoylenko shouted to him. "take care of yourself." "no one knows the real truth," thought laevsky, turning up the collar of his coat and thrusting his hands into his sleeves. the boat turned briskly out of the harbour into the open sea. it vanished in the waves, but at once from a deep hollow glided up onto a high breaker, so that they could distinguish the men and even the oars. the boat moved three yards forward and was sucked two yards back. "write!" shouted samoylenko; "it's devilish weather for you to go in." "yes, no one knows the real truth . . ." thought laevsky, looking wearily at the dark, restless sea. "it flings the boat back," he thought; "she makes two steps forward and one step back; but the boatmen are stubborn, they work the oars unceasingly, and are not afraid of the high waves. the boat goes on and on. now she is out of sight, but in half an hour the boatmen will see the steamer lights distinctly, and within an hour they will be by the steamer ladder. so it is in life. . . . in the search for truth man makes two steps forward and one step back. suffering, mistakes, and weariness of life thrust them back, but the thirst for truth and stubborn will drive them on and on. and who knows? perhaps they will reach the real truth at last." "go--o--od-by--e," shouted samoylenko. "there's no sight or sound of them," said the deacon. "good luck on the journey!" it began to spot with rain. excellent people once upon a time there lived in moscow a man called vladimir semyonitch liadovsky. he took his degree at the university in the faculty of law and had a post on the board of management of some railway; but if you had asked him what his work was, he would look candidly and openly at you with his large bright eyes through his gold pincenez, and would answer in a soft, velvety, lisping baritone: "my work is literature." after completing his course at the university, vladimir semyonitch had had a paragraph of theatrical criticism accepted by a newspaper. from this paragraph he passed on to reviewing, and a year later he had advanced to writing a weekly article on literary matters for the same paper. but it does not follow from these facts that he was an amateur, that his literary work was of an ephemeral, haphazard character. whenever i saw his neat spare figure, his high forehead and long mane of hair, when i listened to his speeches, it always seemed to me that his writing, quite apart from what and how he wrote, was something organically part of him, like the beating of his heart, and that his whole literary programme must have been an integral part of his brain while he was a baby in his mother's womb. even in his walk, his gestures, his manner of shaking off the ash from his cigarette, i could read this whole programme from a to z, with all its claptrap, dulness, and honourable sentiments. he was a literary man all over when with an inspired face he laid a wreath on the coffin of some celebrity, or with a grave and solemn face collected signatures for some address; his passion for making the acquaintance of distinguished literary men, his faculty for finding talent even where it was absent, his perpetual enthusiasm, his pulse that went at one hundred and twenty a minute, his ignorance of life, the genuinely feminine flutter with which he threw himself into concerts and literary evenings for the benefit of destitute students, the way in which he gravitated towards the young--all this would have created for him the reputation of a writer even if he had not written his articles. he was one of those writers to whom phrases like, "we are but few," or "what would life be without strife? forward!" were pre-eminently becoming, though he never strove with any one and never did go forward. it did not even sound mawkish when he fell to discoursing of ideals. every anniversary of the university, on st. tatiana's day, he got drunk, chanted _gaudeamus_ out of tune, and his beaming and perspiring countenance seemed to say: "see, i'm drunk; i'm keeping it up!" but even that suited him. vladimir semyonitch had genuine faith in his literary vocation and his whole programme. he had no doubts, and was evidently very well pleased with himself. only one thing grieved him--the paper for which he worked had a limited circulation and was not very influential. but vladimir semyonitch believed that sooner or later he would succeed in getting on to a solid magazine where he would have scope and could display himself--and what little distress he felt on this score was pale beside the brilliance of his hopes. visiting this charming man, i made the acquaintance of his sister, vera semyonovna, a woman doctor. at first sight, what struck me about this woman was her look of exhaustion and extreme ill-health. she was young, with a good figure and regular, rather large features, but in comparison with her agile, elegant, and talkative brother she seemed angular, listless, slovenly, and sullen. there was something strained, cold, apathetic in her movements, smiles, and words; she was not liked, and was thought proud and not very intelligent. in reality, i fancy, she was resting. "my dear friend," her brother would often say to me, sighing and flinging back his hair in his picturesque literary way, "one must never judge by appearances! look at this book: it has long ago been read. it is warped, tattered, and lies in the dust uncared for; but open it, and it will make you weep and turn pale. my sister is like that book. lift the cover and peep into her soul, and you will be horror-stricken. vera passed in some three months through experiences that would have been ample for a whole lifetime!" vladimir semyonitch looked round him, took me by the sleeve, and began to whisper: "you know, after taking her degree she married, for love, an architect. it's a complete tragedy! they had hardly been married a month when--whew--her husband died of typhus. but that was not all. she caught typhus from him, and when, on her recovery, she learnt that her ivan was dead, she took a good dose of morphia. if it had not been for vigorous measures taken by her friends, my vera would have been by now in paradise. tell me, isn't it a tragedy? and is not my sister like an _ingénue_, who has played already all the five acts of her life? the audience may stay for the farce, but the _ingénue_ must go home to rest." after three months of misery vera semyonovna had come to live with her brother. she was not fitted for the practice of medicine, which exhausted her and did not satisfy her; she did not give one the impression of knowing her subject, and i never once heard her say anything referring to her medical studies. she gave up medicine, and, silent and unoccupied, as though she were a prisoner, spent the remainder of her youth in colourless apathy, with bowed head and hanging hands. the only thing to which she was not completely indifferent, and which brought some brightness into the twilight of her life, was the presence of her brother, whom she loved. she loved him himself and his programme, she was full of reverence for his articles; and when she was asked what her brother was doing, she would answer in a subdued voice as though afraid of waking or distracting him: "he is writing. . . ." usually when he was at his work she used to sit beside him, her eyes fixed on his writing hand. she used at such moments to look like a sick animal warming itself in the sun. . . . one winter evening vladimir semyonitch was sitting at his table writing a critical article for his newspaper: vera semyonovna was sitting beside him, staring as usual at his writing hand. the critic wrote rapidly, without erasures or corrections. the pen scratched and squeaked. on the table near the writing hand there lay open a freshly-cut volume of a thick magazine, containing a story of peasant life, signed with two initials. vladimir semyonitch was enthusiastic; he thought the author was admirable in his handling of the subject, suggested turgenev in his descriptions of nature, was truthful, and had an excellent knowledge of the life of the peasantry. the critic himself knew nothing of peasant life except from books and hearsay, but his feelings and his inner convictions forced him to believe the story. he foretold a brilliant future for the author, assured him he should await the conclusion of the story with great impatience, and so on. "fine story!" he said, flinging himself back in his chair and closing his eyes with pleasure. "the tone is extremely good." vera semyonovna looked at him, yawned aloud, and suddenly asked an unexpected question. in the evening she had a habit of yawning nervously and asking short, abrupt questions, not always relevant. "volodya," she asked, "what is the meaning of non-resistance to evil?" "non-resistance to evil!" repeated her brother, opening his eyes. "yes. what do you understand by it?" "you see, my dear, imagine that thieves or brigands attack you, and you, instead of . . ." "no, give me a logical definition." "a logical definition? um! well." vladimir semyonitch pondered. "non-resistance to evil means an attitude of non-interference with regard to all that in the sphere of mortality is called evil." saying this, vladimir semyonitch bent over the table and took up a novel. this novel, written by a woman, dealt with the painfulness of the irregular position of a society lady who was living under the same roof with her lover and her illegitimate child. vladimir semyonitch was pleased with the excellent tendency of the story, the plot and the presentation of it. making a brief summary of the novel, he selected the best passages and added to them in his account: "how true to reality, how living, how picturesque! the author is not merely an artist; he is also a subtle psychologist who can see into the hearts of his characters. take, for example, this vivid description of the emotions of the heroine on meeting her husband," and so on. "volodya," vera semyonovna interrupted his critical effusions, "i've been haunted by a strange idea since yesterday. i keep wondering where we should all be if human life were ordered on the basis of non-resistance to evil?" "in all probability, nowhere. non-resistance to evil would give the full rein to the criminal will, and, to say nothing of civilisation, this would leave not one stone standing upon another anywhere on earth." "what would be left?" "bashi-bazouke and brothels. in my next article i'll talk about that perhaps. thank you for reminding me." and a week later my friend kept his promise. that was just at the period--in the eighties--when people were beginning to talk and write of non-resistance, of the right to judge, to punish, to make war; when some people in our set were beginning to do without servants, to retire into the country, to work on the land, and to renounce animal food and carnal love. after reading her brother's article, vera semyonovna pondered and hardly perceptibly shrugged her shoulders. "very nice!" she said. "but still there's a great deal i don't understand. for instance, in leskov's story 'belonging to the cathedral' there is a queer gardener who sows for the benefit of all--for customers, for beggars, and any who care to steal. did he behave sensibly?" from his sister's tone and expression vladimir semyonitch saw that she did not like his article, and, almost for the first time in his life, his vanity as an author sustained a shock. with a shade of irritation he answered: "theft is immoral. to sow for thieves is to recognise the right of thieves to existence. what would you think if i were to establish a newspaper and, dividing it into sections, provide for blackmailing as well as for liberal ideas? following the example of that gardener, i ought, logically, to provide a section for blackmailers, the intellectual scoundrels? yes." vera semyonovna made no answer. she got up from the table, moved languidly to the sofa and lay down. "i don't know, i know nothing about it," she said musingly. "you are probably right, but it seems to me, i feel somehow, that there's something false in our resistance to evil, as though there were something concealed or unsaid. god knows, perhaps our methods of resisting evil belong to the category of prejudices which have become so deeply rooted in us, that we are incapable of parting with them, and therefore cannot form a correct judgment of them." "how do you mean?" "i don't know how to explain to you. perhaps man is mistaken in thinking that he is obliged to resist evil and has a right to do so, just as he is mistaken in thinking, for instance, that the heart looks like an ace of hearts. it is very possible in resisting evil we ought not to use force, but to use what is the very opposite of force--if you, for instance, don't want this picture stolen from you, you ought to give it away rather than lock it up. . . ." "that's clever, very clever! if i want to marry a rich, vulgar woman, she ought to prevent me from such a shabby action by hastening to make me an offer herself!" the brother and sister talked till midnight without understanding each other. if any outsider had overheard them he would hardly have been able to make out what either of them was driving at. they usually spent the evening at home. there were no friends' houses to which they could go, and they felt no need for friends; they only went to the theatre when there was a new play--such was the custom in literary circles--they did not go to concerts, for they did not care for music. "you may think what you like," vera semyonovna began again the next day, "but for me the question is to a great extent settled. i am firmly convinced that i have no grounds for resisting evil directed against me personally. if they want to kill me, let them. my defending myself will not make the murderer better. all i have now to decide is the second half of the question: how i ought to behave to evil directed against my neighbours?" "vera, mind you don't become rabid!" said vladimir semyonitch, laughing. "i see non-resistance is becoming your _idée fixe_!" he wanted to turn off these tedious conversations with a jest, but somehow it was beyond a jest; his smile was artificial and sour. his sister gave up sitting beside his table and gazing reverently at his writing hand, and he felt every evening that behind him on the sofa lay a person who did not agree with him. and his back grew stiff and numb, and there was a chill in his soul. an author's vanity is vindictive, implacable, incapable of forgiveness, and his sister was the first and only person who had laid bare and disturbed that uneasy feeling, which is like a big box of crockery, easy to unpack but impossible to pack up again as it was before. weeks and months passed by, and his sister clung to her ideas, and did not sit down by the table. one spring evening vladimir semyonitch was sitting at his table writing an article. he was reviewing a novel which described how a village schoolmistress refused the man whom she loved and who loved her, a man both wealthy and intellectual, simply because marriage made her work as a schoolmistress impossible. vera semyonovna lay on the sofa and brooded. "my god, how slow it is!" she said, stretching. "how insipid and empty life is! i don't know what to do with myself, and you are wasting your best years in goodness knows what. like some alchemist, you are rummaging in old rubbish that nobody wants. my god!" vladimir semyonitch dropped his pen and slowly looked round at his sister. "it's depressing to look at you!" said his sister. "wagner in 'faust' dug up worms, but he was looking for a treasure, anyway, and you are looking for worms for the sake of the worms." "that's vague!" "yes, volodya; all these days i've been thinking, i've been thinking painfully for a long time, and i have come to the conclusion that you are hopelessly reactionary and conventional. come, ask yourself what is the object of your zealous, conscientious work? tell me, what is it? why, everything has long ago been extracted that can be extracted from that rubbish in which you are always rummaging. you may pound water in a mortar and analyse it as long as you like, you'll make nothing more of it than the chemists have made already. . . ." "indeed!" drawled vladimir semyonitch, getting up. "yes, all this is old rubbish because these ideas are eternal; but what do you consider new, then?" "you undertake to work in the domain of thought; it is for you to think of something new. it's not for me to teach you." "me--an alchemist!" the critic cried in wonder and indignation, screwing up his eyes ironically. "art, progress--all that is alchemy?" "you see, volodya, it seems to me that if all you thinking people had set yourselves to solving great problems, all these little questions that you fuss about now would solve themselves by the way. if you go up in a balloon to see a town, you will incidentally, without any effort, see the fields and the villages and the rivers as well. when stearine is manufactured, you get glycerine as a by-product. it seems to me that contemporary thought has settled on one spot and stuck to it. it is prejudiced, apathetic, timid, afraid to take a wide titanic flight, just as you and i are afraid to climb on a high mountain; it is conservative." such conversations could not but leave traces. the relations of the brother and sister grew more and more strained every day. the brother became unable to work in his sister's presence, and grew irritable when he knew his sister was lying on the sofa, looking at his back; while the sister frowned nervously and stretched when, trying to bring back the past, he attempted to share his enthusiasms with her. every evening she complained of being bored, and talked about independence of mind and those who are in the rut of tradition. carried away by her new ideas, vera semyonovna proved that the work that her brother was so engrossed in was conventional, that it was a vain effort of conservative minds to preserve what had already served its turn and was vanishing from the scene of action. she made no end of comparisons. she compared her brother at one time to an alchemist, then to a musty old believer who would sooner die than listen to reason. by degrees there was a perceptible change in her manner of life, too. she was capable of lying on the sofa all day long doing nothing but think, while her face wore a cold, dry expression such as one sees in one-sided people of strong faith. she began to refuse the attentions of the servants, swept and tidied her own room, cleaned her own boots and brushed her own clothes. her brother could not help looking with irritation and even hatred at her cold face when she went about her menial work. in that work, which was always performed with a certain solemnity, he saw something strained and false, he saw something both pharisaical and affected. and knowing he could not touch her by persuasion, he carped at her and teased her like a schoolboy. "you won't resist evil, but you resist my having servants!" he taunted her. "if servants are an evil, why do you oppose it? that's inconsistent!" he suffered, was indignant and even ashamed. he felt ashamed when his sister began doing odd things before strangers. "it's awful, my dear fellow," he said to me in private, waving his hands in despair. "it seems that our _ingénue_ has remained to play a part in the farce, too. she's become morbid to the marrow of her bones! i've washed my hands of her, let her think as she likes; but why does she talk, why does she excite me? she ought to think what it means for me to listen to her. what i feel when in my presence she has the effrontery to support her errors by blasphemously quoting the teaching of christ! it chokes me! it makes me hot all over to hear my sister propounding her doctrines and trying to distort the gospel to suit her, when she purposely refrains from mentioning how the moneychangers were driven out of the temple. that's, my dear fellow, what comes of being half educated, undeveloped! that's what comes of medical studies which provide no general culture!" one day on coming home from the office, vladimir semyonitch found his sister crying. she was sitting on the sofa with her head bowed, wringing her hands, and tears were flowing freely down her cheeks. the critic's good heart throbbed with pain. tears fell from his eyes, too, and he longed to pet his sister, to forgive her, to beg her forgiveness, and to live as they used to before. . . . he knelt down and kissed her head, her hands, her shoulders. . . . she smiled, smiled bitterly, unaccountably, while he with a cry of joy jumped up, seized the magazine from the table and said warmly: "hurrah! we'll live as we used to, verotchka! with god's blessing! and i've such a surprise for you here! instead of celebrating the occasion with champagne, let us read it together! a splendid, wonderful thing!" "oh, no, no!" cried vera semyonovna, pushing away the book in alarm. "i've read it already! i don't want it, i don't want it!" "when did you read it?" "a year . . . two years ago. . . i read it long ago, and i know it, i know it!" "h'm! . . . you're a fanatic!" her brother said coldly, flinging the magazine on to the table. "no, you are a fanatic, not i! you!" and vera semyonovna dissolved into tears again. her brother stood before her, looked at her quivering shoulders, and thought. he thought, not of the agonies of loneliness endured by any one who begins to think in a new way of their own, not of the inevitable sufferings of a genuine spiritual revolution, but of the outrage of his programme, the outrage to his author's vanity. from this time he treated his sister coldly, with careless irony, and he endured her presence in the room as one endures the presence of old women that are dependent on one. for her part, she left off disputing with him and met all his arguments, jeers, and attacks with a condescending silence which irritated him more than ever. one summer morning vera semyonovna, dressed for travelling with a satchel over her shoulder, went in to her brother and coldly kissed him on the forehead. "where are you going?" he asked with surprise. "to the province of n. to do vaccination work." her brother went out into the street with her. "so that's what you've decided upon, you queer girl," he muttered. "don't you want some money?" "no, thank you. good-bye." the sister shook her brother's hand and set off. "why don't you have a cab?" cried vladimir semyonitch. she did not answer. her brother gazed after her, watched her rusty-looking waterproof, the swaying of her figure as she slouched along, forced himself to sigh, but did not succeed in rousing a feeling of regret. his sister had become a stranger to him. and he was a stranger to her. anyway, she did not once look round. going back to his room, vladimir semyonitch at once sat down to the table and began to work at his article. i never saw vera semyonovna again. where she is now i do not know. and vladimir semyonitch went on writing his articles, laying wreaths on coffins, singing _gaudeamus_, busying himself over the mutual aid society of moscow journalists. he fell ill with inflammation of the lungs; he was ill in bed for three months--at first at home, and afterwards in the golitsyn hospital. an abscess developed in his knee. people said he ought to be sent to the crimea, and began getting up a collection for him. but he did not go to the crimea--he died. we buried him in the vagankovsky cemetery, on the left side, where artists and literary men are buried. one day we writers were sitting in the tatars' restaurant. i mentioned that i had lately been in the vagankovsky cemetery and had seen vladimir semyonitch's grave there. it was utterly neglected and almost indistinguishable from the rest of the ground, the cross had fallen; it was necessary to collect a few roubles to put it in order. but they listened to what i said unconcernedly, made no answer, and i could not collect a farthing. no one remembered vladimir semyonitch. he was utterly forgotten. mire i gracefully swaying in the saddle, a young man wearing the snow-white tunic of an officer rode into the great yard of the vodka distillery belonging to the heirs of m. e. rothstein. the sun smiled carelessly on the lieutenant's little stars, on the white trunks of the birch-trees, on the heaps of broken glass scattered here and there in the yard. the radiant, vigorous beauty of a summer day lay over everything, and nothing hindered the snappy young green leaves from dancing gaily and winking at the clear blue sky. even the dirty and soot-begrimed appearance of the bricksheds and the stifling fumes of the distillery did not spoil the general good impression. the lieutenant sprang gaily out of the saddle, handed over his horse to a man who ran up, and stroking with his finger his delicate black moustaches, went in at the front door. on the top step of the old but light and softly carpeted staircase he was met by a maidservant with a haughty, not very youthful face. the lieutenant gave her his card without speaking. as she went through the rooms with the card, the maid could see on it the name "alexandr grigoryevitch sokolsky." a minute later she came back and told the lieutenant that her mistress could not see him, as she was not feeling quite well. sokolsky looked at the ceiling and thrust out his lower lip. "how vexatious!" he said. "listen, my dear," he said eagerly. "go and tell susanna moiseyevna, that it is very necessary for me to speak to her--very. i will only keep her one minute. ask her to excuse me." the maid shrugged one shoulder and went off languidly to her mistress. "very well!" she sighed, returning after a brief interval. "please walk in!" the lieutenant went with her through five or six large, luxuriously furnished rooms and a corridor, and finally found himself in a large and lofty square room, in which from the first step he was impressed by the abundance of flowers and plants and the sweet, almost revoltingly heavy fragrance of jasmine. flowers were trained to trellis-work along the walls, screening the windows, hung from the ceiling, and were wreathed over the corners, so that the room was more like a greenhouse than a place to live in. tits, canaries, and goldfinches chirruped among the green leaves and fluttered against the window-panes. "forgive me for receiving you here," the lieutenant heard in a mellow feminine voice with a burr on the letter _r_ which was not without charm. "yesterday i had a sick headache, and i'm trying to keep still to prevent its coming on again. what do you want?" exactly opposite the entrance, he saw sitting in a big low chair, such as old men use, a woman in an expensive chinese dressing-gown, with her head wrapped up, leaning back on a pillow. nothing could be seen behind the woollen shawl in which she was muffled but a pale, long, pointed, somewhat aquiline nose, and one large dark eye. her ample dressing-gown concealed her figure, but judging from her beautiful hand, from her voice, her nose, and her eye, she might be twenty-six or twenty-eight. "forgive me for being so persistent . . ." began the lieutenant, clinking his spurs. "allow me to introduce myself: sokolsky! i come with a message from my cousin, your neighbour, alexey ivanovitch kryukov, who . . ." "i know!" interposed susanna moiseyevna. "i know kryukov. sit down; i don't like anything big standing before me." "my cousin charges me to ask you a favour," the lieutenant went on, clinking his spurs once more and sitting down. "the fact is, your late father made a purchase of oats from my cousin last winter, and a small sum was left owing. the payment only becomes due next week, but my cousin begs you most particularly to pay him--if possible, to-day." as the lieutenant talked, he stole side-glances about him. "surely i'm not in her bedroom?" he thought. in one corner of the room, where the foliage was thickest and tallest, under a pink awning like a funeral canopy, stood a bed not yet made, with the bedclothes still in disorder. close by on two arm-chairs lay heaps of crumpled feminine garments. petticoats and sleeves with rumpled lace and flounces were trailing on the carpet, on which here and there lay bits of white tape, cigarette-ends, and the papers of caramels. . . . under the bed the toes, pointed and square, of slippers of all kinds peeped out in a long row. and it seemed to the lieutenant that the scent of the jasmine came not from the flowers, but from the bed and the slippers. "and what is the sum owing?" asked susanna moiseyevna. "two thousand three hundred." "oho!" said the jewess, showing another large black eye. "and you call that--a small sum! however, it's just the same paying it to-day or paying it in a week, but i've had so many payments to make in the last two months since my father's death. . . . such a lot of stupid business, it makes my head go round! a nice idea! i want to go abroad, and they keep forcing me to attend to these silly things. vodka, oats . . ." she muttered, half closing her eyes, "oats, bills, percentages, or, as my head-clerk says, 'percentage.' . . . it's awful. yesterday i simply turned the excise officer out. he pesters me with his tralles. i said to him: 'go to the devil with your tralles! i can't see any one!' he kissed my hand and went away. i tell you what: can't your cousin wait two or three months?" "a cruel question!" laughed the lieutenant. "my cousin can wait a year, but it's i who cannot wait! you see, it's on my own account i'm acting, i ought to tell you. at all costs i must have money, and by ill-luck my cousin hasn't a rouble to spare. i'm forced to ride about and collect debts. i've just been to see a peasant, our tenant; here i'm now calling on you; from here i shall go on to somewhere else, and keep on like that until i get together five thousand roubles. i need money awfully!" "nonsense! what does a young man want with money? whims, mischief. why, have you been going in for dissipation? or losing at cards? or are you getting married?" "you've guessed!" laughed the lieutenant, and rising slightly from his seat, he clinked his spurs. "i really am going to be married." susanna moiseyevna looked intently at her visitor, made a wry face, and sighed. "i can't make out what possesses people to get married!" she said, looking about her for her pocket-handkerchief. "life is so short, one has so little freedom, and they must put chains on themselves!" "every one has his own way of looking at things. . . ." "yes, yes, of course; every one has his own way of looking at things . . . . but, i say, are you really going to marry some one poor? are you passionately in love? and why must you have five thousand? why won't four do, or three?" "what a tongue she has!" thought the lieutenant, and answered: "the difficulty is that an officer is not allowed by law to marry till he is twenty-eight; if you choose to marry, you have to leave the service or else pay a deposit of five thousand." "ah, now i understand. listen. you said just now that every one has his own way of looking at things. . . . perhaps your fiancée is some one special and remarkable, but . . . but i am utterly unable to understand how any decent man can live with a woman. i can't for the life of me understand it. i have lived, thank the lord, twenty-seven years, and i have never yet seen an endurable woman. they're all affected minxes, immoral, liars. . . . the only ones i can put up with are cooks and housemaids, but so-called ladies i won't let come within shooting distance of me. but, thank god, they hate me and don't force themselves on me! if one of them wants money she sends her husband, but nothing will induce her to come herself, not from pride--no, but from cowardice; she's afraid of my making a scene. oh, i understand their hatred very well! rather! i openly display what they do their very utmost to conceal from god and man. how can they help hating me? no doubt you've heard bushels of scandal about me already. . . ." "i only arrived here so lately . . ." "tut, tut, tut! . . . i see from your eyes! but your brother's wife, surely she primed you for this expedition? think of letting a young man come to see such an awful woman without warning him--how could she? ha, ha! . . . but tell me, how is your brother? he's a fine fellow, such a handsome man! . . . i've seen him several times at mass. why do you look at me like that? i very often go to church! we all have the same god. to an educated person externals matter less than the idea. . . . that's so, isn't it?" "yes, of course . . ." smiled the lieutenant. "yes, the idea. . . . but you are not a bit like your brother. you are handsome, too, but your brother is a great deal better-looking. there's wonderfully little likeness!" "that's quite natural; he's not my brother, but my cousin." "ah, to be sure! so you must have the money to-day? why to-day?" "my furlough is over in a few days." "well, what's to be done with you!" sighed susanna moiseyevna. "so be it. i'll give you the money, though i know you'll abuse me for it afterwards. you'll quarrel with your wife after you are married, and say: 'if that mangy jewess hadn't given me the money, i should perhaps have been as free as a bird to-day!' is your fiancée pretty?" "oh yes. . . ." "h'm! . . . anyway, better something, if it's only beauty, than nothing. though however beautiful a woman is, it can never make up to her husband for her silliness." "that's original!" laughed the lieutenant. "you are a woman yourself, and such a woman-hater!" "a woman . . ." smiled susanna. "it's not my fault that god has cast me into this mould, is it? i'm no more to blame for it than you are for having moustaches. the violin is not responsible for the choice of its case. i am very fond of myself, but when any one reminds me that i am a woman, i begin to hate myself. well, you can go away, and i'll dress. wait for me in the drawing-room." the lieutenant went out, and the first thing he did was to draw a deep breath, to get rid of the heavy scent of jasmine, which had begun to irritate his throat and to make him feel giddy. "what a strange woman!" he thought, looking about him. "she talks fluently, but . . . far too much, and too freely. she must be neurotic." the drawing-room, in which he was standing now, was richly furnished, and had pretensions to luxury and style. there were dark bronze dishes with patterns in relief, views of nice and the rhine on the tables, old-fashioned sconces, japanese statuettes, but all this striving after luxury and style only emphasised the lack of taste which was glaringly apparent in the gilt cornices, the gaudy wall-paper, the bright velvet table-cloths, the common oleographs in heavy frames. the bad taste of the general effect was the more complete from the lack of finish and the overcrowding of the room, which gave one a feeling that something was lacking, and that a great deal should have been thrown away. it was evident that the furniture had not been bought all at once, but had been picked up at auctions and other favourable opportunities. heaven knows what taste the lieutenant could boast of, but even he noticed one characteristic peculiarity about the whole place, which no luxury or style could efface--a complete absence of all trace of womanly, careful hands, which, as we all know, give a warmth, poetry, and snugness to the furnishing of a room. there was a chilliness about it such as one finds in waiting-rooms at stations, in clubs, and foyers at the theatres. there was scarcely anything in the room definitely jewish, except, perhaps, a big picture of the meeting of jacob and esau. the lieutenant looked round about him, and, shrugging his shoulders, thought of his strange, new acquaintance, of her free-and-easy manners, and her way of talking. but then the door opened, and in the doorway appeared the lady herself, in a long black dress, so slim and tightly laced that her figure looked as though it had been turned in a lathe. now the lieutenant saw not only the nose and eyes, but also a thin white face, a head black and as curly as lamb's-wool. she did not attract him, though she did not strike him as ugly. he had a prejudice against un-russian faces in general, and he considered, too, that the lady's white face, the whiteness of which for some reason suggested the cloying scent of jasmine, did not go well with her little black curls and thick eyebrows; that her nose and ears were astoundingly white, as though they belonged to a corpse, or had been moulded out of transparent wax. when she smiled she showed pale gums as well as her teeth, and he did not like that either. "anæmic debility . . ." he thought; "she's probably as nervous as a turkey." "here i am! come along!" she said, going on rapidly ahead of him and pulling off the yellow leaves from the plants as she passed. "i'll give you the money directly, and if you like i'll give you some lunch. two thousand three hundred roubles! after such a good stroke of business you'll have an appetite for your lunch. do you like my rooms? the ladies about here declare that my rooms always smell of garlic. with that culinary gibe their stock of wit is exhausted. i hasten to assure you that i've no garlic even in the cellar. and one day when a doctor came to see me who smelt of garlic, i asked him to take his hat and go and spread his fragrance elsewhere. there is no smell of garlic here, but the place does smell of drugs. my father lay paralyzed for a year and a half, and the whole house smelt of medicine. a year and a half! i was sorry to lose him, but i'm glad he's dead: he suffered so!" she led the officer through two rooms similar to the drawing-room, through a large reception hall, and came to a stop in her study, where there was a lady's writing-table covered with little knick-knacks. on the carpet near it several books lay strewn about, opened and folded back. through a small door leading from the study he saw a table laid for lunch. still chatting, susanna took out of her pocket a bunch of little keys and unlocked an ingeniously made cupboard with a curved, sloping lid. when the lid was raised the cupboard emitted a plaintive note which made the lieutenant think of an Ã�olian harp. susanna picked out another key and clicked another lock. "i have underground passages here and secret doors," she said, taking out a small morocco portfolio. "it's a funny cupboard, isn't it? and in this portfolio i have a quarter of my fortune. look how podgy it is! you won't strangle me, will you?" susanna raised her eyes to the lieutenant and laughed good-naturedly. the lieutenant laughed too. "she's rather jolly," he thought, watching the keys flashing between her fingers. "here it is," she said, picking out the key of the portfolio. "now, mr. creditor, trot out the iou. what a silly thing money is really! how paltry it is, and yet how women love it! i am a jewess, you know, to the marrow of my bones. i am passionately fond of shmuls and yankels, but how i loathe that passion for gain in our semitic blood. they hoard and they don't know what they are hoarding for. one ought to live and enjoy oneself, but they're afraid of spending an extra farthing. in that way i am more like an hussar than a shmul. i don't like money to be kept long in one place. and altogether i fancy i'm not much like a jewess. does my accent give me away much, eh?" "what shall i say?" mumbled the lieutenant. "you speak good russian, but you do roll your _r's_." susanna laughed and put the little key in the lock of the portfolio. the lieutenant took out of his pocket a little roll of ious and laid them with a notebook on the table. "nothing betrays a jew as much as his accent," susanna went on, looking gaily at the lieutenant. "however much he twists himself into a russian or a frenchman, ask him to say 'feather' and he will say 'fedder' . . . but i pronounce it correctly: 'feather! feather! feather!'" both laughed. "by jove, she's very jolly!" thought sokolsky. susanna put the portfolio on a chair, took a step towards the lieutenant, and bringing her face close to his, went on gaily: "next to the jews i love no people so much as the russian and the french. i did not do much at school and i know no history, but it seems to me that the fate of the world lies in the hands of those two nations. i lived a long time abroad. . . . i spent six months in madrid. . . . i've gazed my fill at the public, and the conclusion i've come to is that there are no decent peoples except the russian and the french. take the languages, for instance. . . . the german language is like the neighing of horses; as for the english . . . you can't imagine anything stupider. fight--feet--foot! italian is only pleasant when they speak it slowly. if you listen to italians gabbling, you get the effect of the jewish jargon. and the poles? mercy on us! there's no language so disgusting! 'nie pieprz, pietrze, pieprzem wieprza bo mozeoz przepieprzyé wieprza pieprzem.' that means: 'don't pepper a sucking pig with pepper, pyotr, or perhaps you'll over-pepper the sucking pig with pepper.' ha, ha, ha!" susanna moiseyevna rolled her eyes and broke into such a pleasant, infectious laugh that the lieutenant, looking at her, went off into a loud and merry peal of laughter. she took the visitor by the button, and went on: "you don't like jews, of course . . . they've many faults, like all nations. i don't dispute that. but are the jews to blame for it? no, it's not the jews who are to blame, but the jewish women! they are narrow-minded, greedy; there's no sort of poetry about them, they're dull. . . . you have never lived with a jewess, so you don't know how charming it is!" susanna moiseyevna pronounced the last words with deliberate emphasis and with no eagerness or laughter. she paused as though frightened at her own openness, and her face was suddenly distorted in a strange, unaccountable way. her eyes stared at the lieutenant without blinking, her lips parted and showed clenched teeth. her whole face, her throat, and even her bosom, seemed quivering with a spiteful, catlike expression. still keeping her eyes fixed on her visitor, she rapidly bent to one side, and swiftly, like a cat, snatched something from the table. all this was the work of a few seconds. watching her movements, the lieutenant saw five fingers crumple up his ious and caught a glimpse of the white rustling paper as it disappeared in her clenched fist. such an extraordinary transition from good-natured laughter to crime so appalled him that he turned pale and stepped back. . . . and she, still keeping her frightened, searching eyes upon him, felt along her hip with her clenched fist for her pocket. her fist struggled convulsively for the pocket, like a fish in the net, and could not find the opening. in another moment the ious would have vanished in the recesses of her feminine garments, but at that point the lieutenant uttered a faint cry, and, moved more by instinct than reflection, seized the jewess by her arm above the clenched fist. showing her teeth more than ever, she struggled with all her might and pulled her hand away. then sokolsky put his right arm firmly round her waist, and the other round her chest and a struggle followed. afraid of outraging her sex or hurting her, he tried only to prevent her moving, and to get hold of the fist with the ious; but she wriggled like an eel in his arms with her supple, flexible body, struck him in the chest with her elbows, and scratched him, so that he could not help touching her all over, and was forced to hurt her and disregard her modesty. "how unusual this is! how strange!" he thought, utterly amazed, hardly able to believe his senses, and feeling rather sick from the scent of jasmine. in silence, breathing heavily, stumbling against the furniture, they moved about the room. susanna was carried away by the struggle. she flushed, closed her eyes, and forgetting herself, once even pressed her face against the face of the lieutenant, so that there was a sweetish taste left on his lips. at last he caught hold of her clenched hand. . . . forcing it open, and not finding the papers in it, he let go the jewess. with flushed faces and dishevelled hair, they looked at one another, breathing hard. the spiteful, catlike expression on the jewess's face was gradually replaced by a good-natured smile. she burst out laughing, and turning on one foot, went towards the room where lunch was ready. the lieutenant moved slowly after her. she sat down to the table, and, still flushed and breathing hard, tossed off half a glass of port. "listen"--the lieutenant broke the silence--"i hope you are joking?" "not a bit of it," she answered, thrusting a piece of bread into her mouth. "h'm! . . . how do you wish me to take all this?" "as you choose. sit down and have lunch!" "but . . . it's dishonest!" "perhaps. but don't trouble to give me a sermon; i have my own way of looking at things." "won't you give them back?" "of course not! if you were a poor unfortunate man, with nothing to eat, then it would be a different matter. but--he wants to get married!" "it's not my money, you know; it's my cousin's!" "and what does your cousin want with money? to get fashionable clothes for his wife? but i really don't care whether your _belle-soeur_ has dresses or not." the lieutenant had ceased to remember that he was in a strange house with an unknown lady, and did not trouble himself with decorum. he strode up and down the room, scowled and nervously fingered his waistcoat. the fact that the jewess had lowered herself in his eyes by her dishonest action, made him feel bolder and more free-and-easy. "the devil knows what to make of it!" he muttered. "listen. i shan't go away from here until i get the ious!" "ah, so much the better," laughed susanna. "if you stay here for good, it will make it livelier for me." excited by the struggle, the lieutenant looked at susanna's laughing, insolent face, at her munching mouth, at her heaving bosom, and grew bolder and more audacious. instead of thinking about the iou he began for some reason recalling with a sort of relish his cousin's stories of the jewess's romantic adventures, of her free way of life, and these reminiscences only provoked him to greater audacity. impulsively he sat down beside the jewess and thinking no more of the ious began to eat. . . . "will you have vodka or wine?" susanna asked with a laugh. "so you will stay till you get the ious? poor fellow! how many days and nights you will have to spend with me, waiting for those ious! won't your fiancée have something to say about it?" ii five hours had passed. the lieutenant's cousin, alexey ivanovitch kryukov was walking about the rooms of his country-house in his dressing-gown and slippers, and looking impatiently out of window. he was a tall, sturdy man, with a large black beard and a manly face; and as the jewess had truly said, he was handsome, though he had reached the age when men are apt to grow too stout, puffy, and bald. by mind and temperament he was one of those natures in which the russian intellectual classes are so rich: warm-hearted, good-natured, well-bred, having some knowledge of the arts and sciences, some faith, and the most chivalrous notions about honour, but indolent and lacking in depth. he was fond of good eating and drinking, was an ideal whist-player, was a connoisseur in women and horses, but in other things he was apathetic and sluggish as a seal, and to rouse him from his lethargy something extraordinary and quite revolting was needed, and then he would forget everything in the world and display intense activity; he would fume and talk of a duel, write a petition of seven pages to a minister, gallop at breakneck speed about the district, call some one publicly "a scoundrel," would go to law, and so on. "how is it our sasha's not back yet?" he kept asking his wife, glancing out of window. "why, it's dinner-time!" after waiting for the lieutenant till six o'clock, they sat down to dinner. when supper-time came, however, alexey ivanovitch was listening to every footstep, to every sound of the door, and kept shrugging his shoulders. "strange!" he said. "the rascally dandy must have stayed on at the tenant's." as he went to bed after supper, kryukov made up his mind that the lieutenant was being entertained at the tenant's, where after a festive evening he was staying the night. alexandr grigoryevitch only returned next morning. he looked extremely crumpled and confused. "i want to speak to you alone . . ." he said mysteriously to his cousin. they went into the study. the lieutenant shut the door, and he paced for a long time up and down before he began to speak. "something's happened, my dear fellow," he began, "that i don't know how to tell you about. you wouldn't believe it . . ." and blushing, faltering, not looking at his cousin, he told what had happened with the ious. kryukov, standing with his feet wide apart and his head bent, listened and frowned. "are you joking?" he asked. "how the devil could i be joking? it's no joking matter!" "i don't understand!" muttered kryukov, turning crimson and flinging up his hands. "it's positively . . . immoral on your part. before your very eyes a hussy is up to the devil knows what, a serious crime, plays a nasty trick, and you go and kiss her!" "but i can't understand myself how it happened!" whispered the lieutenant, blinking guiltily. "upon my honour, i don't understand it! it's the first time in my life i've come across such a monster! it's not her beauty that does for you, not her mind, but that . . . you understand . . . insolence, cynicism. . . ." "insolence, cynicism . . . it's unclean! if you've such a longing for insolence and cynicism, you might have picked a sow out of the mire and have devoured her alive. it would have been cheaper, anyway! instead of two thousand three hundred!" "you do express yourself elegantly!" said the lieutenant, frowning. "i'll pay you back the two thousand three hundred!" "i know you'll pay it back, but it's not a question of money! damn the money! what revolts me is your being such a limp rag . . . such filthy feebleness! and engaged! with a fiancée!" "don't speak of it . . ." said the lieutenant, blushing. "i loathe myself as it is. i should like to sink into the earth. it's sickening and vexatious that i shall have to bother my aunt for that five thousand. . . ." kryukov continued for some time longer expressing his indignation and grumbling, then, as he grew calmer, he sat down on the sofa and began to jeer at his cousin. "you young officers!" he said with contemptuous irony. "nice bridegrooms." suddenly he leapt up as though he had been stung, stamped his foot, and ran about the study. "no, i'm not going to leave it like that!" he said, shaking his fist. "i will have those ious, i will! i'll give it her! one doesn't beat women, but i'll break every bone in her body. . . . i'll pound her to a jelly! i'm not a lieutenant! you won't touch me with insolence or cynicism! no-o-o, damn her! mishka!" he shouted, "run and tell them to get the racing droshky out for me!" kryukov dressed rapidly, and, without heeding the agitated lieutenant, got into the droshky, and with a wave of his hand resolutely raced off to susanna moiseyevna. for a long time the lieutenant gazed out of window at the clouds of dust that rolled after his cousin's droshky, stretched, yawned, and went to his own room. a quarter of an hour later he was sound asleep. at six o'clock he was waked up and summoned to dinner. "how nice this is of alexey!" his cousin's wife greeted him in the dining-room. "he keeps us waiting for dinner." "do you mean to say he's not come back yet?" yawned the lieutenant. "h'm! . . . he's probably gone round to see the tenant." but alexey ivanovitch was not back by supper either. his wife and sokolsky decided that he was playing cards at the tenant's and would most likely stay the night there. what had happened was not what they had supposed, however. kryukov returned next morning, and without greeting any one, without a word, dashed into his study. "well?" whispered the lieutenant, gazing at him round-eyed. kryukov waved his hand and gave a snort. "why, what's the matter? what are you laughing at?" kryukov flopped on the sofa, thrust his head in the pillow, and shook with suppressed laughter. a minute later he got up, and looking at the surprised lieutenant, with his eyes full of tears from laughing, said: "close the door. well . . . she _is_ a fe-e-male, i beg to inform you!" "did you get the ious?" kryukov waved his hand and went off into a peal of laughter again. "well! she is a female!" he went on. "_merci_ for the acquaintance, my boy! she's a devil in petticoats. i arrived; i walked in like such an avenging jove, you know, that i felt almost afraid of myself . . . . i frowned, i scowled, even clenched my fists to be more awe-inspiring. . . . 'jokes don't pay with me, madam!' said i, and more in that style. and i threatened her with the law and with the governor. to begin with she burst into tears, said she'd been joking with you, and even took me to the cupboard to give me the money. then she began arguing that the future of europe lies in the hands of the french, and the russians, swore at women. . . . like you, i listened, fascinated, ass that i was. . . . she kept singing the praises of my beauty, patted me on the arm near the shoulder, to see how strong i was, and . . . and as you see, i've only just got away from her! ha, ha! she's enthusiastic about you!" "you're a nice fellow!" laughed the lieutenant. "a married man! highly respected. . . . well, aren't you ashamed? disgusted? joking apart though, old man, you've got your queen tamara in your own neighbourhood. . . ." "in my own neighbourhood! why, you wouldn't find another such chameleon in the whole of russia! i've never seen anything like it in my life, though i know a good bit about women, too. i have known regular devils in my time, but i never met anything like this. it is, as you say, by insolence and cynicism she gets over you. what is so attractive in her is the diabolical suddenness, the quick transitions, the swift shifting hues. . . . brrr! and the iou-- phew! write it off for lost. we are both great sinners, we'll go halves in our sin. i shall put down to you not two thousand three hundred, but half of it. mind, tell my wife i was at the tenant's." kryukov and the lieutenant buried their heads in the pillows, and broke into laughter; they raised their heads, glanced at one another, and again subsided into their pillows. "engaged! a lieutenant!" kryukov jeered. "married!" retorted sokolsky. "highly respected! father of a family!" at dinner they talked in veiled allusions, winked at one another, and, to the surprise of the others, were continually gushing with laughter into their dinner-napkins. after dinner, still in the best of spirits, they dressed up as turks, and, running after one another with guns, played at soldiers with the children. in the evening they had a long argument. the lieutenant maintained that it was mean and contemptible to accept a dowry with your wife, even when there was passionate love on both sides. kryukov thumped the table with his fists and declared that this was absurd, and that a husband who did not like his wife to have property of her own was an egoist and a despot. both shouted, boiled over, did not understand each other, drank a good deal, and in the end, picking up the skirts of their dressing-gowns, went to their bedrooms. they soon fell asleep and slept soundly. life went on as before, even, sluggish and free from sorrow. the shadows lay on the earth, thunder pealed from the clouds, from time to time the wind moaned plaintively, as though to prove that nature, too, could lament, but nothing troubled the habitual tranquillity of these people. of susanna moiseyevna and the ious they said nothing. both of them felt, somehow, ashamed to speak of the incident aloud. yet they remembered it and thought of it with pleasure, as of a curious farce, which life had unexpectedly and casually played upon them, and which it would be pleasant to recall in old age. on the sixth or seventh day after his visit to the jewess, kryukov was sitting in his study in the morning writing a congratulatory letter to his aunt. alexandr grigoryevitch was walking to and fro near the table in silence. the lieutenant had slept badly that night; he woke up depressed, and now he felt bored. he paced up and down, thinking of the end of his furlough, of his fiancée, who was expecting him, of how people could live all their lives in the country without feeling bored. standing at the window, for a long time he stared at the trees, smoked three cigarettes one after another, and suddenly turned to his cousin. "i have a favour to ask you, alyosha," he said. "let me have a saddle-horse for the day. . . ." kryukov looked searchingly at him and continued his writing with a frown. "you will, then?" asked the lieutenant. kryukov looked at him again, then deliberately drew out a drawer in the table, and taking out a thick roll of notes, gave it to his cousin. "here's five thousand . . ." he said. "though it's not my money, yet, god bless you, it's all the same. i advise you to send for post-horses at once and go away. yes, really!" the lieutenant in his turn looked searchingly at kryukov and laughed. "you've guessed right, alyosha," he said, reddening. "it was to her i meant to ride. yesterday evening when the washerwoman gave me that damned tunic, the one i was wearing then, and it smelt of jasmine, why . . . i felt i must go!" "you must go away." "yes, certainly. and my furlough's just over. i really will go to-day! yes, by jove! however long one stays, one has to go in the end. . . . i'm going!" the post-horses were brought after dinner the same day; the lieutenant said good-bye to the kryukovs and set off, followed by their good wishes. another week passed. it was a dull but hot and heavy day. from early morning kryukov walked aimlessly about the house, looking out of window, or turning over the leaves of albums, though he was sick of the sight of them already. when he came across his wife or children, he began grumbling crossly. it seemed to him, for some reason that day, that his children's manners were revolting, that his wife did not know how to look after the servants, that their expenditure was quite disproportionate to their income. all this meant that "the master" was out of humour. after dinner, kryukov, feeling dissatisfied with the soup and the roast meat he had eaten, ordered out his racing droshky. he drove slowly out of the courtyard, drove at a walking pace for a quarter of a mile, and stopped. "shall i . . . drive to her . . . that devil?" he thought, looking at the leaden sky. and kryukov positively laughed, as though it were the first time that day he had asked himself that question. at once the load of boredom was lifted from his heart, and there rose a gleam of pleasure in his lazy eyes. he lashed the horse. . . . all the way his imagination was picturing how surprised the jewess would be to see him, how he would laugh and chat, and come home feeling refreshed. . . . "once a month one needs something to brighten one up . . . something out of the common round," he thought, "something that would give the stagnant organism a good shaking up, a reaction . . . whether it's a drinking bout, or . . . susanna. one can't get on without it." it was getting dark when he drove into the yard of the vodka distillery. from the open windows of the owner's house came sounds of laughter and singing: "'brighter than lightning, more burning than flame. . . .'" sang a powerful, mellow, bass voice. "aha! she has visitors," thought kryukov. and he was annoyed that she had visitors. "shall i go back?" he thought with his hand on the bell, but he rang all the same, and went up the familiar staircase. from the entry he glanced into the reception hall. there were about five men there--all landowners and officials of his acquaintance; one, a tall, thin gentleman, was sitting at the piano, singing, and striking the keys with his long, thin fingers. the others were listening and grinning with enjoyment. kryukov looked himself up and down in the looking-glass, and was about to go into the hall, when susanna moiseyevna herself darted into the entry, in high spirits and wearing the same black dress. . . . seeing kryukov, she was petrified for an instant, then she uttered a little scream and beamed with delight. "is it you?" she said, clutching his hand. "what a surprise!" "here she is!" smiled kryukov, putting his arm round her waist. "well! does the destiny of europe still lie in the hands of the french and the russians?" "i'm so glad," laughed the jewess, cautiously removing his arm. "come, go into the hall; they're all friends there. . . . i'll go and tell them to bring you some tea. your name's alexey, isn't it? well, go in, i'll come directly. . . ." she blew him a kiss and ran out of the entry, leaving behind her the same sickly smell of jasmine. kryukov raised his head and walked into the hall. he was on terms of friendly intimacy with all the men in the room, but scarcely nodded to them; they, too, scarcely responded, as though the places in which they met were not quite decent, and as though they were in tacit agreement with one another that it was more suitable for them not to recognise one another. from the hall kryukov walked into the drawing-room, and from it into a second drawing-room. on the way he met three or four other guests, also men whom he knew, though they barely recognised him. their faces were flushed with drink and merriment. alexey ivanovitch glanced furtively at them and marvelled that these men, respectable heads of families, who had known sorrow and privation, could demean themselves to such pitiful, cheap gaiety! he shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and walked on. "there are places," he reflected, "where a sober man feels sick, and a drunken man rejoices. i remember i never could go to the operetta or the gipsies when i was sober: wine makes a man more good-natured and reconciles him with vice. . . ." suddenly he stood still, petrified, and caught hold of the door-post with both hands. at the writing-table in susanna's study was sitting lieutenant alexandr grigoryevitch. he was discussing something in an undertone with a fat, flabby-looking jew, and seeing his cousin, flushed crimson and looked down at an album. the sense of decency was stirred in kryukov and the blood rushed to his head. overwhelmed with amazement, shame, and anger, he walked up to the table without a word. sokolsky's head sank lower than ever. his face worked with an expression of agonising shame. "ah, it's you, alyosha!" he articulated, making a desperate effort to raise his eyes and to smile. "i called here to say good-bye, and, as you see. . . . but to-morrow i am certainly going." "what can i say to him? what?" thought alexey ivanovitch. "how can i judge him since i'm here myself?" and clearing his throat without uttering a word, he went out slowly. "'call her not heavenly, and leave her on earth. . . .'" the bass was singing in the hall. a little while after, kryukov's racing droshky was bumping along the dusty road. neighbours pyotr mihalitch ivashin was very much out of humour: his sister, a young girl, had gone away to live with vlassitch, a married man. to shake off the despondency and depression which pursued him at home and in the fields, he called to his aid his sense of justice, his genuine and noble ideas--he had always defended free-love! --but this was of no avail, and he always came back to the same conclusion as their foolish old nurse, that his sister had acted wrongly and that vlassitch had abducted his sister. and that was distressing. his mother did not leave her room all day long; the old nurse kept sighing and speaking in whispers; his aunt had been on the point of taking her departure every day, and her trunks were continually being brought down to the hall and carried up again to her room. in the house, in the yard, and in the garden it was as still as though there were some one dead in the house. his aunt, the servants, and even the peasants, so it seemed to pyotr mihalitch, looked at him enigmatically and with perplexity, as though they wanted to say "your sister has been seduced; why are you doing nothing?" and he reproached himself for inactivity, though he did not know precisely what action he ought to have taken. so passed six days. on the seventh--it was sunday afternoon--a messenger on horseback brought a letter. the address was in a familiar feminine handwriting: "her excy. anna nikolaevna ivashin." pyotr mihalitch fancied that there was something defiant, provocative, in the handwriting and in the abbreviation "excy." and advanced ideas in women are obstinate, ruthless, cruel. "she'd rather die than make any concession to her unhappy mother, or beg her forgiveness," thought pyotr mihalitch, as he went to his mother with the letter. his mother was lying on her bed, dressed. seeing her son, she rose impulsively, and straightening her grey hair, which had fallen from under her cap, asked quickly: "what is it? what is it?" "this has come . . ." said her son, giving her the letter. zina's name, and even the pronoun "she" was not uttered in the house. zina was spoken of impersonally: "this has come," "gone away," and so on. . . . the mother recognised her daughter's handwriting, and her face grew ugly and unpleasant, and her grey hair escaped again from her cap. "no!" she said, with a motion of her hands, as though the letter scorched her fingers. "no, no, never! nothing would induce me!" the mother broke into hysterical sobs of grief and shame; she evidently longed to read the letter, but her pride prevented her. pyotr mihalitch realised that he ought to open the letter himself and read it aloud, but he was overcome by anger such as he had never felt before; he ran out into the yard and shouted to the messenger: "say there will be no answer! there will be no answer! tell them that, you beast!" and he tore up the letter; then tears came into his eyes, and feeling that he was cruel, miserable, and to blame, he went out into the fields. he was only twenty-seven, but he was already stout. he dressed like an old man in loose, roomy clothes, and suffered from asthma. he already seemed to be developing the characteristics of an elderly country bachelor. he never fell in love, never thought of marriage, and loved no one but his mother, his sister, his old nurse, and the gardener, vassilitch. he was fond of good fare, of his nap after dinner, and of talking about politics and exalted subjects. he had in his day taken his degree at the university, but he now looked upon his studies as though in them he had discharged a duty incumbent upon young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five; at any rate, the ideas which now strayed every day through his mind had nothing in common with the university or the subjects he had studied there. in the fields it was hot and still, as though rain were coming. it was steaming in the wood, and there was a heavy fragrant scent from the pines and rotting leaves. pyotr mihalitch stopped several times and wiped his wet brow. he looked at his winter corn and his spring oats, walked round the clover-field, and twice drove away a partridge with its chicks which had strayed in from the wood. and all the while he was thinking that this insufferable state of things could not go on for ever, and that he must end it one way or another. end it stupidly, madly, but he must end it. "but how? what can i do?" he asked himself, and looked imploringly at the sky and at the trees, as though begging for their help. but the sky and the trees were mute. his noble ideas were no help, and his common sense whispered that the agonising question could have no solution but a stupid one, and that to-day's scene with the messenger was not the last one of its kind. it was terrible to think what was in store for him! as he returned home the sun was setting. by now it seemed to him that the problem was incapable of solution. he could not accept the accomplished fact, and he could not refuse to accept it, and there was no intermediate course. when, taking off his hat and fanning himself with his handkerchief, he was walking along the road, and had only another mile and a half to go before he would reach home, he heard bells behind him. it was a very choice and successful combination of bells, which gave a clear crystal note. no one had such bells on his horses but the police captain, medovsky, formerly an officer in the hussars, a man in broken-down health, who had been a great rake and spendthrift, and was a distant relation of pyotr mihalitch. he was like one of the family at the ivashins' and had a tender, fatherly affection for zina, as well as a great admiration for her. "i was coming to see you," he said, overtaking pyotr mihalitch. "get in; i'll give you a lift." he was smiling and looked cheerful. evidently he did not yet know that zina had gone to live with vlassitch; perhaps he had been told of it already, but did not believe it. pyotr mihalitch felt in a difficult position. "you are very welcome," he muttered, blushing till the tears came into his eyes, and not knowing how to lie or what to say. "i am delighted," he went on, trying to smile, "but . . . zina is away and mother is ill." "how annoying!" said the police captain, looking pensively at pyotr mihalitch. "and i was meaning to spend the evening with you. where has zinaida mihalovna gone?" "to the sinitskys', and i believe she meant to go from there to the monastery. i don't quite know." the police captain talked a little longer and then turned back. pyotr mihalitch walked home, and thought with horror what the police captain's feelings would be when he learned the truth. and pyotr mihalitch imagined his feelings, and actually experiencing them himself, went into the house. "lord help us," he thought, "lord help us!" at evening tea the only one at the table was his aunt. as usual, her face wore the expression that seemed to say that though she was a weak, defenceless woman, she would allow no one to insult her. pyotr mihalitch sat down at the other end of the table (he did not like his aunt) and began drinking tea in silence. "your mother has had no dinner again to-day," said his aunt. "you ought to do something about it, petrusha. starving oneself is no help in sorrow." it struck pyotr mihalitch as absurd that his aunt should meddle in other people's business and should make her departure depend on zina's having gone away. he was tempted to say something rude to her, but restrained himself. and as he restrained himself he felt the time had come for action, and that he could not bear it any longer. either he must act at once or fall on the ground, and scream and bang his head upon the floor. he pictured vlassitch and zina, both of them progressive and self-satisfied, kissing each other somewhere under a maple tree, and all the anger and bitterness that had been accumulating in him for the last seven days fastened upon vlassitch. "one has seduced and abducted my sister," he thought, "another will come and murder my mother, a third will set fire to the house and sack the place. . . . and all this under the mask of friendship, lofty ideas, unhappiness!" "no, it shall not be!" pyotr mihalitch cried suddenly, and he brought his fist down on the table. he jumped up and ran out of the dining-room. in the stable the steward's horse was standing ready saddled. he got on it and galloped off to vlassitch. there was a perfect tempest within him. he felt a longing to do something extraordinary, startling, even if he had to repent of it all his life afterwards. should he call vlassitch a blackguard, slap him in the face, and then challenge him to a duel? but vlassitch was not one of those men who do fight duels; being called a blackguard and slapped in the face would only make him more unhappy, and would make him shrink into himself more than ever. these unhappy, defenceless people are the most insufferable, the most tiresome creatures in the world. they can do anything with impunity. when the luckless man responds to well-deserved reproach by looking at you with eyes full of deep and guilty feeling, and with a sickly smile bends his head submissively, even justice itself could not lift its hand against him. "no matter. i'll horsewhip him before her eyes and tell him what i think of him," pyotr mihalitch decided. he was riding through his wood and waste land, and he imagined zina would try to justify her conduct by talking about the rights of women and individual freedom, and about there being no difference between legal marriage and free union. like a woman, she would argue about what she did not understand. and very likely at the end she would ask, "how do you come in? what right have you to interfere?" "no, i have no right," muttered pyotr mihalitch. "but so much the better. . . . the harsher i am, the less right i have to interfere, the better." it was sultry. clouds of gnats hung over the ground and in the waste places the peewits called plaintively. everything betokened rain, but he could not see a cloud in the sky. pyotr mihalitch crossed the boundary of his estate and galloped over a smooth, level field. he often went along this road and knew every bush, every hollow in it. what now in the far distance looked in the dusk like a dark cliff was a red church; he could picture it all down to the smallest detail, even the plaster on the gate and the calves that were always grazing in the church enclosure. three-quarters of a mile to the right of the church there was a copse like a dark blur--it was count koltonovitch's. and beyond the church vlassitch's estate began. from behind the church and the count's copse a huge black storm-cloud was rising, and there were ashes of white lightning. "here it is!" thought pyotr mihalitch. "lord help us, lord help us!" the horse was soon tired after its quick gallop, and pyotr mihalitch was tired too. the storm-cloud looked at him angrily and seemed to advise him to go home. he felt a little scared. "i will prove to them they are wrong," he tried to reassure himself. "they will say that it is free-love, individual freedom; but freedom means self-control and not subjection to passion. it's not liberty but license!" he reached the count's big pond; it looked dark blue and frowning under the cloud, and a smell of damp and slime rose from it. near the dam, two willows, one old and one young, drooped tenderly towards one another. pyotr mihalitch and vlassitch had been walking near this very spot only a fortnight before, humming a students' song: "'youth is wasted, life is nought, when the heart is cold and loveless.'" a wretched song! it was thundering as pyotr mihalitch rode through the copse, and the trees were bending and rustling in the wind. he had to make haste. it was only three-quarters of a mile through a meadow from the copse to vlassitch's house. here there were old birch-trees on each side of the road. they had the same melancholy and unhappy air as their owner vlassitch, and looked as tall and lanky as he. big drops of rain pattered on the birches and on the grass; the wind had suddenly dropped, and there was a smell of wet earth and poplars. before him he saw vlassitch's fence with a row of yellow acacias, which were tall and lanky too; where the fence was broken he could see the neglected orchard. pyotr mihalitch was not thinking now of the horsewhip or of a slap in the face, and did not know what he would do at vlassitch's. he felt nervous. he felt frightened on his own account and on his sister's, and was terrified at the thought of seeing her. how would she behave with her brother? what would they both talk about? and had he not better go back before it was too late? as he made these reflections, he galloped up the avenue of lime-trees to the house, rode round the big clumps of lilacs, and suddenly saw vlassitch. vlassitch, wearing a cotton shirt, and top-boots, bending forward, with no hat on in the rain, was coming from the corner of the house to the front door. he was followed by a workman with a hammer and a box of nails. they must have been mending a shutter which had been banging in the wind. seeing pyotr mihalitch, vlassitch stopped. "it's you!" he said, smiling. "that's nice." "yes, i've come, as you see," said pyotr mihalitch, brushing the rain off himself with both hands. "well, that's capital! i'm very glad," said vlassitch, but he did not hold out his hand: evidently he did not venture, but waited for pyotr mihalitch to hold out his. "it will do the oats good," he said, looking at the sky. "yes." they went into the house in silence. to the right of the hall was a door leading to another hall and then to the drawing-room, and on the left was a little room which in winter was used by the steward. pyotr mihalitch and vlassitch went into this little room. "where were you caught in the rain?" "not far off, quite close to the house." pyotr mihalitch sat down on the bed. he was glad of the noise of the rain and the darkness of the room. it was better: it made it less dreadful, and there was no need to see his companion's face. there was no anger in his heart now, nothing but fear and vexation with himself. he felt he had made a bad beginning, and that nothing would come of this visit. both were silent for some time and affected to be listening to the rain. "thank you, petrusha," vlassitch began, clearing his throat. "i am very grateful to you for coming. it's generous and noble of you. i understand it, and, believe me, i appreciate it. believe me." he looked out of the window and went on, standing in the middle of the room: "everything happened so secretly, as though we were concealing it all from you. the feeling that you might be wounded and angry has been a blot on our happiness all these days. but let me justify myself. we kept it secret not because we did not trust you. to begin with, it all happened suddenly, by a kind of inspiration; there was no time to discuss it. besides, it's such a private, delicate matter, and it was awkward to bring a third person in, even some one as intimate as you. above all, in all this we reckoned on your generosity. you are a very noble and generous person. i am infinitely grateful to you. if you ever need my life, come and take it." vlassitch talked in a quiet, hollow bass, always on the same droning note; he was evidently agitated. pyotr mihalitch felt it was his turn to speak, and that to listen and keep silent would really mean playing the part of a generous and noble simpleton, and that had not been his idea in coming. he got up quickly and said, breathlessly in an undertone: "listen, grigory. you know i liked you and could have desired no better husband for my sister; but what has happened is awful! it's terrible to think of it!" "why is it terrible?" asked vlassitch, with a quiver in his voice. "it would be terrible if we had done wrong, but that isn't so." "listen, grigory. you know i have no prejudices; but, excuse my frankness, to my mind you have both acted selfishly. of course, i shan't say so to my sister--it will distress her; but you ought to know: mother is miserable beyond all description." "yes, that's sad," sighed vlassitch. "we foresaw that, petrusha, but what could we have done? because one's actions hurt other people, it doesn't prove that they are wrong. what's to be done! every important step one takes is bound to distress somebody. if you went to fight for freedom, that would distress your mother, too. what's to be done! any one who puts the peace of his family before everything has to renounce the life of ideas completely." there was a vivid flash of lightning at the window, and the lightning seemed to change the course of vlassitch's thoughts. he sat down beside pyotr mihalitch and began saying what was utterly beside the point. "i have such a reverence for your sister, petrusha," he said. "when i used to come and see you, i felt as though i were going to a holy shrine, and i really did worship zina. now my reverence for her grows every day. for me she is something higher than a wife--yes, higher!" vlassitch waved his hands. "she is my holy of holies. since she is living with me, i enter my house as though it were a temple. she is an extraordinary, rare, most noble woman!" "well, he's off now!" thought pyotr mihalitch; he disliked the word "woman." "why shouldn't you be married properly?" he asked. "how much does your wife want for a divorce?" "seventy-five thousand." "it's rather a lot. but if we were to negotiate with her?" "she won't take a farthing less. she is an awful woman, brother," sighed vlassitch. "i've never talked to you about her before--it was unpleasant to think of her; but now that the subject has come up, i'll tell you about her. i married her on the impulse of the moment--a fine, honourable impulse. an officer in command of a battalion of our regiment--if you care to hear the details--had an affair with a girl of eighteen; that is, to put it plainly, he seduced her, lived with her for two months, and abandoned her. she was in an awful position, brother. she was ashamed to go home to her parents; besides, they wouldn't have received her. her lover had abandoned her; there was nothing left for her but to go to the barracks and sell herself. the other officers in the regiment were indignant. they were by no means saints themselves, but the baseness of it was so striking. besides, no one in the regiment could endure the man. and to spite him, you understand, the indignant lieutenants and ensigns began getting up a subscription for the unfortunate girl. and when we subalterns met together and began to subscribe five or ten roubles each, i had a sudden inspiration. i felt it was an opportunity to do something fine. i hastened to the girl and warmly expressed my sympathy. and while i was on my way to her, and while i was talking to her, i loved her fervently as a woman insulted and injured. yes. . . . well, a week later i made her an offer. the colonel and my comrades thought my marriage out of keeping with the dignity of an officer. that roused me more than ever. i wrote a long letter, do you know, in which i proved that my action ought to be inscribed in the annals of the regiment in letters of gold, and so on. i sent the letter to my colonel and copies to my comrades. well, i was excited, and, of course, i could not avoid being rude. i was asked to leave the regiment. i have a rough copy of it put away somewhere; i'll give it to you to read sometime. it was written with great feeling. you will see what lofty and noble sentiments i was experiencing. i resigned my commission and came here with my wife. my father had left a few debts, i had no money, and from the first day my wife began making acquaintances, dressing herself smartly, and playing cards, and i was obliged to mortgage the estate. she led a bad life, you understand, and you are the only one of the neighbours who hasn't been her lover. after two years i gave her all i had to set me free and she went off to town. yes. . . . and now i pay her twelve hundred roubles a year. she is an awful woman! there is a fly, brother, which lays an egg in the back of a spider so that the spider can't shake it off: the grub fastens upon the spider and drinks its heart's blood. that was how this woman fastened upon me and sucks the blood of my heart. she hates and despises me for being so stupid; that is, for marrying a woman like her. my chivalry seems to her despicable. 'a wise man cast me off,' she says, 'and a fool picked me up.' to her thinking no one but a pitiful idiot could have behaved as i did. and that is insufferably bitter to me, brother. altogether, i may say in parenthesis, fate has been hard upon me, very hard." pyotr mihalitch listened to vlassitch and wondered in perplexity what it was in this man that had so charmed his sister. he was not young--he was forty-one--lean and lanky, narrow-chested, with a long nose, and grey hairs in his beard. he talked in a droning voice, had a sickly smile, and waved his hands awkwardly as he talked. he had neither health, nor pleasant, manly manners, nor _savoir-faire_, nor gaiety, and in all his exterior there was something colourless and indefinite. he dressed without taste, his surroundings were depressing, he did not care for poetry or painting because "they have no answer to give to the questions of the day" --that is, he did not understand them; music did not touch him. he was a poor farmer. his estate was in a wretched condition and was mortgaged; he was paying twelve percent on the second mortgage and owed ten thousand on personal securities as well. when the time came to pay the interest on the mortgage or to send money to his wife, he asked every one to lend him money with as much agitation as though his house were on fire, and, at the same time losing his head, he would sell the whole of his winter store of fuel for five roubles and a stack of straw for three roubles, and then have his garden fence or old cucumber-frames chopped up to heat his stoves. his meadows were ruined by pigs, the peasants' cattle strayed in the undergrowth in his woods, and every year the old trees were fewer and fewer: beehives and rusty pails lay about in his garden and kitchen-garden. he had neither talents nor abilities, nor even ordinary capacity for living like other people. in practical life he was a weak, naïve man, easy to deceive and to cheat, and the peasants with good reason called him "simple." he was a liberal, and in the district was regarded as a "red," but even his progressiveness was a bore. there was no originality nor moving power about his independent views: he was revolted, indignant, and delighted always on the same note; it was always spiritless and ineffective. even in moments of strong enthusiasm he never raised his head or stood upright. but the most tiresome thing of all was that he managed to express even his best and finest ideas so that they seemed in him commonplace and out of date. it reminded one of something old one had read long ago, when slowly and with an air of profundity he would begin discoursing of his noble, lofty moments, of his best years; or when he went into raptures over the younger generation, which has always been, and still is, in advance of society; or abused russians for donning their dressing-gowns at thirty and forgetting the principles of their _alma mater_. if you stayed the night with him, he would put pissarev or darwin on your bedroom table; if you said you had read it, he would go and bring dobrolubov. in the district this was called free-thinking, and many people looked upon this free-thinking as an innocent and harmless eccentricity; it made him profoundly unhappy, however. it was for him the maggot of which he had just been speaking; it had fastened upon him and was sucking his life-blood. in his past there had been the strange marriage in the style of dostoevsky; long letters and copies written in a bad, unintelligible hand-writing, but with great feeling, endless misunderstandings, explanations, disappointments, then debts, a second mortgage, the allowance to his wife, the monthly borrowing of money--and all this for no benefit to any one, either himself or others. and in the present, as in the past, he was still in a nervous flurry, on the lookout for heroic actions, and poking his nose into other people's affairs; as before, at every favourable opportunity there were long letters and copies, wearisome, stereotyped conversations about the village community, or the revival of handicrafts or the establishment of cheese factories--conversations as like one another as though he had prepared them, not in his living brain, but by some mechanical process. and finally this scandal with zina of which one could not see the end! and meanwhile zina was young--she was only twenty-two--good-looking, elegant, gay; she was fond of laughing, chatter, argument, a passionate musician; she had good taste in dress, in furniture, in books, and in her own home she would not have put up with a room like this, smelling of boots and cheap vodka. she, too, had advanced ideas, but in her free-thinking one felt the overflow of energy, the vanity of a young, strong, spirited girl, passionately eager to be better and more original than others. . . . how had it happened that she had fallen in love with vlassitch? "he is a quixote, an obstinate fanatic, a maniac," thought pyotr mihalitch, "and she is as soft, yielding, and weak in character as i am. . . . she and i give in easily, without resistance. she loves him; but, then, i, too, love him in spite of everything." pyotr mihalitch considered vlassitch a good, straightforward man, but narrow and one-sided. in his perturbations and his sufferings, and in fact in his whole life, he saw no lofty aims, remote or immediate; he saw nothing but boredom and incapacity for life. his self-sacrifice and all that vlassitch himself called heroic actions or noble impulses seemed to him a useless waste of force, unnecessary blank shots which consumed a great deal of powder. and vlassitch's fanatical belief in the extraordinary loftiness and faultlessness of his own way of thinking struck him as naïve and even morbid; and the fact that vlassitch all his life had contrived to mix the trivial with the exalted, that he had made a stupid marriage and looked upon it as an act of heroism, and then had affairs with other women and regarded that as a triumph of some idea or other was simply incomprehensible. nevertheless, pyotr mihalitch was fond of vlassitch; he was conscious of a sort of power in him, and for some reason he had never had the heart to contradict him. vlassitch sat down quite close to him for a talk in the dark, to the accompaniment of the rain, and he had cleared his throat as a prelude to beginning on something lengthy, such as the history of his marriage. but it was intolerable for pyotr mihalitch to listen to him; he was tormented by the thought that he would see his sister directly. "yes, you've had bad luck," he said gently; "but, excuse me, we've been wandering from the point. that's not what we are talking about." "yes, yes, quite so. well, let us come back to the point," said vlassitch, and he stood up. "i tell you, petrusha, our conscience is clear. we are not married, but there is no need for me to prove to you that our marriage is perfectly legitimate. you are as free in your ideas as i am, and, happily, there can be no disagreement between us on that point. as for our future, that ought not to alarm you. i'll work in the sweat of my brow, i'll work day and night-- in fact, i will strain every nerve to make zina happy. her life will be a splendid one! you may ask, am i able to do it. i am, brother! when a man devotes every minute to one thought, it's not difficult for him to attain his object. but let us go to zina; it will be a joy to her to see you." pyotr mihalitch's heart began to beat. he got up and followed vlassitch into the hall, and from there into the drawing-room. there was nothing in the huge gloomy room but a piano and a long row of old chairs ornamented with bronze, on which no one ever sat. there was a candle alight on the piano. from the drawing-room they went in silence into the dining-room. this room, too, was large and comfortless; in the middle of the room there was a round table with two leaves with six thick legs, and only one candle. a clock in a large mahogany case like an ikon stand pointed to half-past two. vlassitch opened the door into the next room and said: "zina, here is petrusha come to see us!" at once there was the sound of hurried footsteps and zina came into the dining-room. she was tall, plump, and very pale, and, just as when he had seen her for the last time at home, she was wearing a black skirt and a red blouse, with a large buckle on her belt. she flung one arm round her brother and kissed him on the temple. "what a storm!" she said. "grigory went off somewhere and i was left quite alone in the house." she was not embarrassed, and looked at her brother as frankly and candidly as at home; looking at her, pyotr mihalitch, too, lost his embarrassment. "but you are not afraid of storms," he said, sitting down at the table. "no," she said, "but here the rooms are so big, the house is so old, and when there is thunder it all rattles like a cupboard full of crockery. it's a charming house altogether," she went on, sitting down opposite her brother. "there's some pleasant memory in every room. in my room, only fancy, grigory's grandfather shot himself." "in august we shall have the money to do up the lodge in the garden," said vlassitch. "for some reason when it thunders i think of that grandfather," zina went on. "and in this dining-room somebody was flogged to death." "that's an actual fact," said vlassitch, and he looked with wide-open eyes at pyotr mihalitch. "sometime in the forties this place was let to a frenchman called olivier. the portrait of his daughter is lying in an attic now--a very pretty girl. this olivier, so my father told me, despised russians for their ignorance and treated them with cruel derision. thus, for instance, he insisted on the priest walking without his hat for half a mile round his house, and on the church bells being rung when the olivier family drove through the village. the serfs and altogether the humble of this world, of course, he treated with even less ceremony. once there came along this road one of the simple-hearted sons of wandering russia, somewhat after the style of gogol's divinity student, homa brut. he asked for a night's lodging, pleased the bailiffs, and was given a job at the office of the estate. there are many variations of the story. some say the divinity student stirred up the peasants, others that olivier' s daughter fell in love with him. i don't know which is true, only one fine evening olivier called him in here and cross-examined him, then ordered him to be beaten. do you know, he sat here at this table drinking claret while the stable-boys beat the man. he must have tried to wring something out of him. towards morning the divinity student died of the torture and his body was hidden. they say it was thrown into koltovitch's pond. there was an inquiry, but the frenchman paid some thousands to some one in authority and went away to alsace. his lease was up just then, and so the matter ended." "what scoundrels!" said zina, shuddering. "my father remembered olivier and his daughter well. he used to say she was remarkably beautiful and eccentric. i imagine the divinity student had done both--stirred up the peasants and won the daughter's heart. perhaps he wasn't a divinity student at all, but some one travelling incognito." zina grew thoughtful; the story of the divinity student and the beautiful french girl had evidently carried her imagination far away. it seemed to pyotr mihalitch that she had not changed in the least during the last week, except that she was a little paler. she looked calm and just as usual, as though she had come with her brother to visit vlassitch. but pyotr mihalitch felt that some change had taken place in himself. before, when she was living at home, he could have spoken to her about anything, and now he did not feel equal to asking her the simple question, "how do you like being here?" the question seemed awkward and unnecessary. probably the same change had taken place in her. she was in no haste to turn the conversation to her mother, to her home, to her relations with vlassitch; she did not defend herself, she did not say that free unions are better than marriages in the church; she was not agitated, and calmly brooded over the story of olivier. . . . and why had they suddenly begun talking of olivier? "you are both of you wet with the rain," said zina, and she smiled joyfully; she was touched by this point of resemblance between her brother and vlassitch. and pyotr mihalitch felt all the bitterness and horror of his position. he thought of his deserted home, the closed piano, and zina's bright little room into which no one went now; he thought there were no prints of little feet on the garden-paths, and that before tea no one went off, laughing gaily, to bathe. what he had clung to more and more from his childhood upwards, what he had loved thinking about when he used to sit in the stuffy class-room or the lecture theatre--brightness, purity, and joy, everything that filled the house with life and light, had gone never to return, had vanished, and was mixed up with a coarse, clumsy story of some battalion officer, a chivalrous lieutenant, a depraved woman and a grandfather who had shot himself. . . . and to begin to talk about his mother or to think that the past could ever return would mean not understanding what was clear. pyotr mihalitch's eyes filled with tears and his hand began to tremble as it lay on the table. zina guessed what he was thinking about, and her eyes, too, glistened and looked red. "grigory, come here," she said to vlassitch. they walked away to the window and began talking of something in a whisper. from the way that vlassitch stooped down to her and the way she looked at him, pyotr mihalitch realised again that everything was irreparably over, and that it was no use to talk of anything. zina went out of the room. "well, brother!" vlassitch began, after a brief silence, rubbing his hands and smiling. "i called our life happiness just now, but that was, so to speak, poetical license. in reality, there has not been a sense of happiness so far. zina has been thinking all the time of you, of her mother, and has been worrying; looking at her, i, too, felt worried. hers is a bold, free nature, but, you know, it's difficult when you're not used to it, and she is young, too. the servants call her 'miss'; it seems a trifle, but it upsets her. there it is, brother." zina brought in a plateful of strawberries. she was followed by a little maidservant, looking crushed and humble, who set a jug of milk on the table and made a very low bow: she had something about her that was in keeping with the old furniture, something petrified and dreary. the sound of the rain had ceased. pyotr mihalitch ate strawberries while vlassitch and zina looked at him in silence. the moment of the inevitable but useless conversation was approaching, and all three felt the burden of it. pyotr mihalitch's eyes filled with tears again; he pushed away his plate and said that he must be going home, or it would be getting late, and perhaps it would rain again. the time had come when common decency required zina to speak of those at home and of her new life. "how are things at home?" she asked rapidly, and her pale face quivered. "how is mother?" "you know mother . . ." said pyotr mihalitch, not looking at her. "petrusha, you've thought a great deal about what has happened," she said, taking hold of her brother's sleeve, and he knew how hard it was for her to speak. "you've thought a great deal: tell me, can we reckon on mother's accepting grigory . . . and the whole position, one day?" she stood close to her brother, face to face with him, and he was astonished that she was so beautiful, and that he seemed not to have noticed it before. and it seemed to him utterly absurd that his sister, so like his mother, pampered, elegant, should be living with vlassitch and in vlassitch's house, with the petrified servant, and the table with six legs--in the house where a man had been flogged to death, and that she was not going home with him, but was staying here to sleep. "you know mother," he said, not answering her question. "i think you ought to have . . . to do something, to ask her forgiveness or something. . . ." "but to ask her forgiveness would mean pretending we had done wrong. i'm ready to tell a lie to comfort mother, but it won't lead anywhere. i know mother. well, what will be, must be!" said zina, growing more cheerful now that the most unpleasant had been said. "we'll wait for five years, ten years, and be patient, and then god's will be done." she took her brother's arm, and when she walked through the dark hall she squeezed close to him. they went out on the steps. pyotr mihalitch said good-bye, got on his horse, and set off at a walk; zina and vlassitch walked a little way with him. it was still and warm, with a delicious smell of hay; stars were twinkling brightly between the clouds. vlassitch's old garden, which had seen so many gloomy stories in its time, lay slumbering in the darkness, and for some reason it was mournful riding through it. "zina and i to-day after dinner spent some really exalted moments," said vlassitch. "i read aloud to her an excellent article on the question of emigration. you must read it, brother! you really must. it's remarkable for its lofty tone. i could not resist writing a letter to the editor to be forwarded to the author. i wrote only a single line: 'i thank you and warmly press your noble hand.'" pyotr mihalitch was tempted to say, "don't meddle in what does not concern you," but he held his tongue. vlassitch walked by his right stirrup and zina by the left; both seemed to have forgotten that they had to go home. it was damp, and they had almost reached koltovitch's copse. pyotr mihalitch felt that they were expecting something from him, though they hardly knew what it was, and he felt unbearably sorry for them. now as they walked by the horse with submissive faces, lost in thought, he had a deep conviction that they were unhappy, and could not be happy, and their love seemed to him a melancholy, irreparable mistake. pity and the sense that he could do nothing to help them reduced him to that state of spiritual softening when he was ready to make any sacrifice to get rid of the painful feeling of sympathy. "i'll come over sometimes for a night," he said. but it sounded as though he were making a concession, and did not satisfy him. when they stopped near koltovitch's copse to say good-bye, he bent down to zina, touched her shoulder, and said: "you are right, zina! you have done well." to avoid saying more and bursting into tears, he lashed his horse and galloped into the wood. as he rode into the darkness, he looked round and saw vlassitch and zina walking home along the road--he taking long strides, while she walked with a hurried, jerky step beside him--talking eagerly about something. "i am an old woman!" thought pyotr mihalitch. "i went to solve the question and i have only made it more complicated--there it is!" he was heavy at heart. when he got out of the copse he rode at a walk and then stopped his horse near the pond. he wanted to sit and think without moving. the moon was rising and was reflected in a streak of red on the other side of the pond. there were low rumbles of thunder in the distance. pyotr mihalitch looked steadily at the water and imagined his sister's despair, her martyr-like pallor, the tearless eyes with which she would conceal her humiliation from others. he imagined her with child, imagined the death of their mother, her funeral, zina's horror. . . . the proud, superstitious old woman would be sure to die of grief. terrible pictures of the future rose before him on the background of smooth, dark water, and among pale feminine figures he saw himself, a weak, cowardly man with a guilty face. a hundred paces off on the right bank of the pond, something dark was standing motionless: was it a man or a tall post? pyotr mihalitch thought of the divinity student who had been killed and thrown into the pond. "olivier behaved inhumanly, but one way or another he did settle the question, while i have settled nothing and have only made it worse," he thought, gazing at the dark figure that looked like a ghost. "he said and did what he thought right while i say and do what i don't think right; and i don't know really what i do think. . . ." he rode up to the dark figure: it was an old rotten post, the relic of some shed. from koltovitch's copse and garden there came a strong fragrant scent of lilies of the valley and honey-laden flowers. pyotr mihalitch rode along the bank of the pond and looked mournfully into the water. and thinking about his life, he came to the conclusion he had never said or acted upon what he really thought, and other people had repaid him in the same way. and so the whole of life seemed to him as dark as this water in which the night sky was reflected and water-weeds grew in a tangle. and it seemed to him that nothing could ever set it right. at home i the don railway. a quiet, cheerless station, white and solitary in the steppe, with its walls baking in the sun, without a speck of shade, and, it seems, without a human being. the train goes on after leaving one here; the sound of it is scarcely audible and dies away at last. outside the station it is a desert, and there are no horses but one's own. one gets into the carriage--which is so pleasant after the train--and is borne along the road through the steppe, and by degrees there are unfolded before one views such as one does not see near moscow--immense, endless, fascinating in their monotony. the steppe, the steppe, and nothing more; in the distance an ancient barrow or a windmill; ox-waggons laden with coal trail by. . . . solitary birds fly low over the plain, and a drowsy feeling comes with the monotonous beat of their wings. it is hot. another hour or so passes, and still the steppe, the steppe, and still in the distance the barrow. the driver tells you something, some long unnecessary tale, pointing into the distance with his whip. and tranquillity takes possession of the soul; one is loth to think of the past. . . . a carriage with three horses had been sent to fetch vera ivanovna kardin. the driver put in her luggage and set the harness to rights. "everything just as it always has been," said vera, looking about her. "i was a little girl when i was here last, ten years ago. i remember old boris came to fetch me then. is he still living, i wonder?" the driver made no reply, but, like a little russian, looked at her angrily and clambered on to the box. it was a twenty-mile drive from the station, and vera, too, abandoned herself to the charm of the steppe, forgot the past, and thought only of the wide expanse, of the freedom. healthy, clever, beautiful, and young--she was only three-and-twenty--she had hitherto lacked nothing in her life but just this space and freedom. the steppe, the steppe. . . . the horses trotted, the sun rose higher and higher; and it seemed to vera that never in her childhood had the steppe been so rich, so luxuriant in june; the wild flowers were green, yellow, lilac, white, and a fragrance rose from them and from the warmed earth; and there were strange blue birds along the roadside. . . . vera had long got out of the habit of praying, but now, struggling with drowsiness, she murmured: "lord, grant that i may be happy here." and there was peace and sweetness in her soul, and she felt as though she would have been glad to drive like that all her life, looking at the steppe. suddenly there was a deep ravine overgrown with oak saplings and alder-trees; there was a moist feeling in the air--there must have been a spring at the bottom. on the near side, on the very edge of the ravine, a covey of partridges rose noisily. vera remembered that in old days they used to go for evening walks to this ravine; so it must be near home! and now she could actually see the poplars, the barn, black smoke rising on one side--they were burning old straw. and there was auntie dasha coming to meet her and waving her handkerchief; grandfather was on the terrace. oh dear, how happy she was! "my darling, my darling!" cried her aunt, shrieking as though she were in hysterics. "our real mistress has come! you must understand you are our mistress, you are our queen! here everything is yours! my darling, my beauty, i am not your aunt, but your willing slave!" vera had no relations but her aunt and her grandfather; her mother had long been dead; her father, an engineer, had died three months before at kazan, on his way from siberia. her grandfather had a big grey beard. he was stout, red-faced, and asthmatic, and walked leaning on a cane and sticking his stomach out. her aunt, a lady of forty-two, drawn in tightly at the waist and fashionably dressed with sleeves high on the shoulder, evidently tried to look young and was still anxious to be charming; she walked with tiny steps with a wriggle of her spine. "will you love us?" she said, embracing vera, "you are not proud?" at her grandfather's wish there was a thanksgiving service, then they spent a long while over dinner--and vera's new life began. she was given the best room. all the rugs in the house had been put in it, and a great many flowers; and when at night she lay down in her snug, wide, very soft bed and covered herself with a silk quilt that smelt of old clothes long stored away, she laughed with pleasure. auntie dasha came in for a minute to wish her good-night. "here you are home again, thank god," she said, sitting down on the bed. "as you see, we get along very well and have everything we want. there's only one thing: your grandfather is in a poor way! a terribly poor way! he is short of breath and he has begun to lose his memory. and you remember how strong, how vigorous, he used to be! there was no doing anything with him. . . . in old days, if the servants didn't please him or anything else went wrong, he would jump up at once and shout: 'twenty-five strokes! the birch!' but now he has grown milder and you never hear him. and besides, times are changed, my precious; one mayn't beat them nowadays. of course, they oughtn't to be beaten, but they need looking after." "and are they beaten now, auntie?" asked vera. "the steward beats them sometimes, but i never do, bless their hearts! and your grandfather sometimes lifts his stick from old habit, but he never beats them." auntie dasha yawned and crossed herself over her mouth and her right ear. "it's not dull here?" vera inquired. "what shall i say? there are no landowners living here now, but there have been works built near, darling, and there are lots of engineers, doctors, and mine managers. of course, we have theatricals and concerts, but we play cards more than anything. they come to us, too. dr. neshtchapov from the works comes to see us--such a handsome, interesting man! he fell in love with your photograph. i made up my mind: he is verotchka's destiny, i thought. he's young, handsome, he has means--a good match, in fact. and of course you're a match for any one. you're of good family. the place is mortgaged, it's true, but it's in good order and not neglected; there is my share in it, but it will all come to you; i am your willing slave. and my brother, your father, left you fifteen thousand roubles. . . . but i see you can't keep your eyes open. sleep, my child." next day vera spent a long time walking round the house. the garden, which was old and unattractive, lying inconveniently upon the slope, had no paths, and was utterly neglected; probably the care of it was regarded as an unnecessary item in the management. there were numbers of grass-snakes. hoopoes flew about under the trees calling "oo-too-toot!" as though they were trying to remind her of something. at the bottom of the hill there was a river overgrown with tall reeds, and half a mile beyond the river was the village. from the garden vera went out into the fields; looking into the distance, thinking of her new life in her own home, she kept trying to grasp what was in store for her. the space, the lovely peace of the steppe, told her that happiness was near at hand, and perhaps was here already; thousands of people, in fact, would have said: "what happiness to be young, healthy, well-educated, to be living on one's own estate!" and at the same time the endless plain, all alike, without one living soul, frightened her, and at moments it was clear to her that its peaceful green vastness would swallow up her life and reduce it to nothingness. she was very young, elegant, fond of life; she had finished her studies at an aristocratic boarding-school, had learnt three languages, had read a great deal, had travelled with her father--and could all this have been meant to lead to nothing but settling down in a remote country-house in the steppe, and wandering day after day from the garden into the fields and from the fields into the garden to while away the time, and then sitting at home listening to her grandfather's breathing? but what could she do? where could she go? she could find no answer, and as she was returning home she doubted whether she would be happy here, and thought that driving from the station was far more interesting than living here. dr. neshtchapov drove over from the works. he was a doctor, but three years previously he had taken a share in the works, and had become one of the partners; and now he no longer looked upon medicine as his chief vocation, though he still practised. in appearance he was a pale, dark man in a white waistcoat, with a good figure; but to guess what there was in his heart and his brain was difficult. he kissed auntie dasha's hand on greeting her, and was continually leaping up to set a chair or give his seat to some one. he was very silent and grave all the while, and, when he did speak, it was for some reason impossible to hear and understand his first sentence, though he spoke correctly and not in a low voice. "you play the piano?" he asked vera, and immediately leapt up, as she had dropped her handkerchief. he stayed from midday to midnight without speaking, and vera found him very unattractive. she thought that a white waistcoat in the country was bad form, and his elaborate politeness, his manners, and his pale, serious face with dark eyebrows, were mawkish; and it seemed to her that he was perpetually silent, probably because he was stupid. when he had gone her aunt said enthusiastically: "well? isn't he charming?" ii auntie dasha looked after the estate. tightly laced, with jingling bracelets on her wrists, she went into the kitchen, the granary, the cattle-yard, tripping along with tiny steps, wriggling her spine; and whenever she talked to the steward or to the peasants, she used, for some reason, to put on a pince-nez. vera's grandfather always sat in the same place, playing patience or dozing. he ate a very great deal at dinner and supper; they gave him the dinner cooked to-day and what was left from yesterday, and cold pie left from sunday, and salt meat from the servants' dinner, and he ate it all greedily. and every dinner left on vera such an impression, that when she saw afterwards a flock of sheep driven by, or flour being brought from the mill, she thought, "grandfather will eat that." for the most part he was silent, absorbed in eating or in patience; but it sometimes happened at dinner that at the sight of vera he would be touched and say tenderly: "my only grandchild! verotchka!" and tears would glisten in his eyes. or his face would turn suddenly crimson, his neck would swell, he would look with fury at the servants, and ask, tapping with his stick: "why haven't you brought the horse-radish?" in winter he led a perfectly inactive existence; in summer he sometimes drove out into the fields to look at the oats and the hay; and when he came back he would flourish his stick and declare that everything was neglected now that he was not there to look after it. "your grandfather is out of humour," auntie dasha would whisper. "but it's nothing now to what it used to be in the old days: 'twenty-five strokes! the birch!'" her aunt complained that every one had grown lazy, that no one did anything, and that the estate yielded no profit. indeed, there was no systematic farming; they ploughed and sowed a little simply from habit, and in reality did nothing and lived in idleness. meanwhile there was a running to and fro, reckoning and worrying all day long; the bustle in the house began at five o'clock in the morning; there were continual sounds of "bring it," "fetch it," "make haste," and by the evening the servants were utterly exhausted. auntie dasha changed her cooks and her housemaids every week; sometimes she discharged them for immorality; sometimes they went of their own accord, complaining that they were worked to death. none of the village people would come to the house as servants; auntie dasha had to hire them from a distance. there was only one girl from the village living in the house, alyona, and she stayed because her whole family--old people and children--were living upon her wages. this alyona, a pale, rather stupid little thing, spent the whole day turning out the rooms, waiting at table, heating the stoves, sewing, washing; but it always seemed as though she were only pottering about, treading heavily with her boots, and were nothing but a hindrance in the house. in her terror that she might be dismissed and sent home, she often dropped and broke the crockery, and they stopped the value of it out of her wages, and then her mother and grandmother would come and bow down at auntie dasha's feet. once a week or sometimes oftener visitors would arrive. her aunt would come to vera and say: "you should sit a little with the visitors, or else they'll think that you are stuck up." vera would go in to the visitors and play _vint_ with them for hours together, or play the piano for the visitors to dance; her aunt, in high spirits and breathless from dancing, would come up and whisper to her: "be nice to marya nikiforovna." on the sixth of december, st. nikolay's day, a large party of about thirty arrived all at once; they played _vint_ until late at night, and many of them stayed the night. in the morning they sat down to cards again, then they had dinner, and when vera went to her room after dinner to rest from conversation and tobacco smoke, there were visitors there too, and she almost wept in despair. and when they began to get ready to go in the evening, she was so pleased they were going at last, that she said: "do stay a little longer." she felt exhausted by the visitors and constrained by their presence; yet every day, as soon as it began to grow dark, something drew her out of the house, and she went out to pay visits either at the works or at some neighbours', and then there were cards, dancing, forfeits, suppers. . . .the young people in the works or in the mines sometimes sang little russian songs, and sang them very well. it made one sad to hear them sing. or they all gathered together in one room and talked in the dusk of the mines, of the treasures that had once been buried in the steppes, of saur's grave. . . . later on, as they talked, a shout of "help!" sometimes reached them. it was a drunken man going home, or some one was being robbed by the pit near by. or the wind howled in the chimneys, the shutters banged; then, soon afterwards, they would hear the uneasy church bell, as the snow-storm began. at all the evening parties, picnics, and dinners, auntie dasha was invariably the most interesting woman and the doctor the most interesting man. there was very little reading either at the works or at the country-houses; they played only marches and polkas; and the young people always argued hotly about things they did not understand, and the effect was crude. the discussions were loud and heated, but, strange to say, vera had nowhere else met people so indifferent and careless as these. they seemed to have no fatherland, no religion, no public interests. when they talked of literature or debated some abstract question, it could be seen from dr. neshtchapov's face that the question had no interest for him whatever, and that for long, long years he had read nothing and cared to read nothing. serious and expressionless, like a badly painted portrait, for ever in his white waistcoat, he was silent and incomprehensible as before; but the ladies, young and old, thought him interesting and were enthusiastic over his manners. they envied vera, who appeared to attract him very much. and vera always came away from the visits with a feeling of vexation, vowing inwardly to remain at home; but the day passed, the evening came, and she hurried off to the works again, and it was like that almost all the winter. she ordered books and magazines, and used to read them in her room. and she read at night, lying in bed. when the clock in the corridor struck two or three, and her temples were beginning to ache from reading, she sat up in bed and thought, "what am i to do? where am i to go?" accursed, importunate question, to which there were a number of ready-made answers, and in reality no answer at all. oh, how noble, how holy, how picturesque it must be to serve the people, to alleviate their sufferings, to enlighten them! but she, vera, did not know the people. and how could she go to them? they were strange and uninteresting to her; she could not endure the stuffy smell of the huts, the pot-house oaths, the unwashed children, the women's talk of illnesses. to walk over the snow-drifts, to feel cold, then to sit in a stifling hut, to teach children she disliked--no, she would rather die! and to teach the peasants' children while auntie dasha made money out of the pot-houses and fined the peasants--it was too great a farce! what a lot of talk there was of schools, of village libraries, of universal education; but if all these engineers, these mine-owners and ladies of her acquaintance, had not been hypocrites, and really had believed that enlightenment was necessary, they would not have paid the schoolmasters fifteen roubles a month as they did now, and would not have let them go hungry. and the schools and the talk about ignorance--it was all only to stifle the voice of conscience because they were ashamed to own fifteen or thirty thousand acres and to be indifferent to the peasants' lot. here the ladies said about dr. neshtchapov that he was a kind man and had built a school at the works. yes, he had built a school out of the old bricks at the works for some eight hundred roubles, and they sang the prayer for "long life" to him when the building was opened, but there was no chance of his giving up his shares, and it certainly never entered his head that the peasants were human beings like himself, and that they, too, needed university teaching, and not merely lessons in these wretched schools. and vera felt full of anger against herself and every one else. she took up a book again and tried to read it, but soon afterwards sat down and thought again. to become a doctor? but to do that one must pass an examination in latin; besides, she had an invincible repugnance to corpses and disease. it would be nice to become a mechanic, a judge, a commander of a steamer, a scientist; to do something into which she could put all her powers, physical and spiritual, and to be tired out and sleep soundly at night; to give up her life to something that would make her an interesting person, able to attract interesting people, to love, to have a real family of her own. . . . but what was she to do? how was she to begin? one sunday in lent her aunt came into her room early in the morning to fetch her umbrella. vera was sitting up in bed clasping her head in her hands, thinking. "you ought to go to church, darling," said her aunt, "or people will think you are not a believer." vera made no answer. "i see you are dull, poor child," said auntie dasha, sinking on her knees by the bedside; she adored vera. "tell me the truth, are you bored?" "dreadfully." "my beauty, my queen, i am your willing slave, i wish you nothing but good and happiness. . . . tell me, why don't you want to marry nestchapov? what more do you want, my child? you must forgive me, darling; you can't pick and choose like this, we are not princes . . . . time is passing, you are not seventeen. . . . and i don't understand it! he loves you, idolises you!" "oh, mercy!" said vera with vexation. "how can i tell? he sits dumb and never says a word." "he's shy, darling. . . . he's afraid you'll refuse him!" and when her aunt had gone away, vera remained standing in the middle of her room uncertain whether to dress or to go back to bed. the bed was hateful; if one looked out of the window there were the bare trees, the grey snow, the hateful jackdaws, the pigs that her grandfather would eat. . . . "yes, after all, perhaps i'd better get married!" she thought. iii for two days auntie dasha went about with a tear-stained and heavily powdered face, and at dinner she kept sighing and looking towards the ikon. and it was impossible to make out what was the matter with her. but at last she made up her mind, went in to vera, and said in a casual way: "the fact is, child, we have to pay interest on the bank loan, and the tenant hasn't paid his rent. will you let me pay it out of the fifteen thousand your papa left you?" all day afterwards auntie dasha spent in making cherry jam in the garden. alyona, with her cheeks flushed with the heat, ran to and from the garden to the house and back again to the cellar. when auntie dasha was making jam with a very serious face as though she were performing a religious rite, and her short sleeves displayed her strong, little, despotic hands and arms, and when the servants ran about incessantly, bustling about the jam which they would never taste, there was always a feeling of martyrdom in the air. . . . the garden smelt of hot cherries. the sun had set, the charcoal stove had been carried away, but the pleasant, sweetish smell still lingered in the air. vera sat on a bench in the garden and watched a new labourer, a young soldier, not of the neighbourhood, who was, by her express orders, making new paths. he was cutting the turf with a spade and heaping it up on a barrow. "where were you serving?" vera asked him. "at berdyansk." "and where are you going now? home?" "no," answered the labourer. "i have no home." "but where were you born and brought up?" "in the province of oryol. till i went into the army i lived with my mother, in my step-father's house; my mother was the head of the house, and people looked up to her, and while she lived i was cared for. but while i was in the army i got a letter telling me my mother was dead. . . . and now i don't seem to care to go home. it's not my own father, so it's not like my own home." "then your father is dead?" "i don't know. i am illegitimate." at that moment auntie dasha appeared at the window and said: "_il ne faut pas parler aux gens . . . ._ go into the kitchen, my good man. you can tell your story there," she said to the soldier. and then came as yesterday and every day supper, reading, a sleepless night, and endless thinking about the same thing. at three o'clock the sun rose; alyona was already busy in the corridor, and vera was not asleep yet and was trying to read. she heard the creak of the barrow: it was the new labourer at work in the garden. . . . vera sat at the open window with a book, dozed, and watched the soldier making the paths for her, and that interested her. the paths were as even and level as a leather strap, and it was pleasant to imagine what they would be like when they were strewn with yellow sand. she could see her aunt come out of the house soon after five o'clock, in a pink wrapper and curl-papers. she stood on the steps for three minutes without speaking, and then said to the soldier: "take your passport and go in peace. i can't have any one illegitimate in my house." an oppressive, angry feeling sank like a stone on vera's heart. she was indignant with her aunt, she hated her; she was so sick of her aunt that her heart was full of misery and loathing. but what was she to do? to stop her mouth? to be rude to her? but what would be the use? suppose she struggled with her, got rid of her, made her harmless, prevented her grandfather from flourishing his stick-- what would be the use of it? it would be like killing one mouse or one snake in the boundless steppe. the vast expanse, the long winters, the monotony and dreariness of life, instil a sense of helplessness; the position seems hopeless, and one wants to do nothing--everything is useless. alyona came in, and bowing low to vera, began carrying out the arm-chairs to beat the dust out of them. "you have chosen a time to clean up," said vera with annoyance. "go away." alyona was overwhelmed, and in her terror could not understand what was wanted of her. she began hurriedly tidying up the dressing-table. "go out of the room, i tell you," vera shouted, turning cold; she had never had such an oppressive feeling before. "go away!" alyona uttered a sort of moan, like a bird, and dropped vera's gold watch on the carpet. "go away!" vera shrieked in a voice not her own, leaping up and trembling all over. "send her away; she worries me to death!" she went on, walking rapidly after alyona down the passage, stamping her feet. "go away! birch her! beat her!" then suddenly she came to herself, and just as she was, unwashed, uncombed, in her dressing-gown and slippers, she rushed out of the house. she ran to the familiar ravine and hid herself there among the sloe-trees, so that she might see no one and be seen by no one. lying there motionless on the grass, she did not weep, she was not horror-stricken, but gazing at the sky open-eyed, she reflected coldly and clearly that something had happened which she could never forget and for which she could never forgive herself all her life. "no, i can't go on like this," she thought. "it's time to take myself in hand, or there'll be no end to it. . . . i can't go on like this. . . ." at midday dr. neshtchapov drove by the ravine on his way to the house. she saw him and made up her mind that she would begin a new life, and that she would make herself begin it, and this decision calmed her. and following with her eyes the doctor's well-built figure, she said, as though trying to soften the crudity of her decision: "he's a nice man. . . . we shall get through life somehow." she returned home. while she was dressing, auntie dasha came into the room, and said: "alyona upset you, darling; i've sent her home to the village. her mother's given her a good beating and has come here, crying." "auntie," said vera quickly, "i'm going to marry dr. neshtchapov. only talk to him yourself . . . i can't." and again she went out into the fields. and wandering aimlessly about, she made up her mind that when she was married she would look after the house, doctor the peasants, teach in the school, that she would do all the things that other women of her circle did. and this perpetual dissatisfaction with herself and every one else, this series of crude mistakes which stand up like a mountain before one whenever one looks back upon one's past, she would accept as her real life to which she was fated, and she would expect nothing better. . . . of course there was nothing better! beautiful nature, dreams, music, told one story, but reality another. evidently truth and happiness existed somewhere outside real life. . . . one must give up one's own life and merge oneself into this luxuriant steppe, boundless and indifferent as eternity, with its flowers, its ancient barrows, and its distant horizon, and then it would be well with one. . . . a month later vera was living at the works. expensive lessons for a cultivated man to be ignorant of foreign languages is a great inconvenience. vorotov became acutely conscious of it when, after taking his degree, he began upon a piece of research work. "it's awful," he said, breathing hard (although he was only twenty-six he was fat, heavy, and suffered from shortness of breath). "it's awful! without languages i'm like a bird without wings. i might just as well give up the work." and he made up his mind at all costs to overcome his innate laziness, and to learn french and german; and began to look out for a teacher. one winter noon, as vorotov was sitting in his study at work, the servant told him that a young lady was inquiring for him. "ask her in," said vorotov. and a young lady elaborately dressed in the last fashion walked in. she introduced herself as a teacher of french, alice osipovna enquête, and told vorotov that she had been sent to him by one of his friends. "delighted! please sit down," said vorotov, breathing hard and putting his hand over the collar of his nightshirt (to breathe more freely he always wore a nightshirt at work instead of a stiff linen one with collar). "it was pyotr sergeitch sent you? yes, yes . . . i asked him about it. delighted!" as he talked to mdlle. enquête he looked at her shyly and with curiosity. she was a genuine frenchwoman, very elegant and still quite young. judging from her pale, languid face, her short curly hair, and her unnaturally slim waist, she might have been eighteen; but looking at her broad, well-developed shoulders, the elegant lines of her back and her severe eyes, vorotov thought that she was not less than three-and-twenty and might be twenty-five; but then again he began to think she was not more than eighteen. her face looked as cold and business-like as the face of a person who has come to speak about money. she did not once smile or frown, and only once a look of perplexity flitted over her face when she learnt that she was not required to teach children, but a stout grown-up man. "so, alice osipovna," said vorotov, "we'll have a lesson every evening from seven to eight. as regards your terms--a rouble a lesson--i've nothing to say against that. by all means let it be a rouble. . . ." and he asked her if she would not have some tea or coffee, whether it was a fine day, and with a good-natured smile, stroking the baize of the table, he inquired in a friendly voice who she was, where she had studied, and what she lived on. with a cold, business-like expression, alice osipovna answered that she had completed her studies at a private school and had the diploma of a private teacher, that her father had died lately of scarlet fever, that her mother was alive and made artificial flowers; that she, mdlle. enquête, taught in a private school till dinnertime, and after dinner was busy till evening giving lessons in different good families. she went away leaving behind her the faint fragrance of a woman's clothes. for a long time afterwards vorotov could not settle to work, but, sitting at the table stroking its green baize surface, he meditated. "it's very pleasant to see a girl working to earn her own living," he thought. "on the other hand, it's very unpleasant to think that poverty should not spare such elegant and pretty girls as alice osipovna, and that she, too, should have to struggle for existence. it's a sad thing!" having never seen virtuous frenchwomen before, he reflected also that this elegantly dressed young lady with her well-developed shoulders and exaggeratedly small waist in all probability followed another calling as well as giving french lessons. the next evening when the clock pointed to five minutes to seven, mdlle. enquête appeared, rosy from the frost. she opened margot, which she had brought with her, and without introduction began: "french grammar has twenty-six letters. the first letter is called _a_, the second _b_ . . ." "excuse me," vorotov interrupted, smiling. "i must warn you, mademoiselle, that you must change your method a little in my case. you see, i know russian, greek, and latin well. . . . i've studied comparative philology, and i think we might omit margot and pass straight to reading some author." and he explained to the french girl how grown-up people learn languages. "a friend of mine," he said, "wanting to learn modern languages, laid before him the french, german, and latin gospels, and read them side by side, carefully analysing each word, and would you believe it, he attained his object in less than a year. let us do the same. we'll take some author and read him." the french girl looked at him in perplexity. evidently the suggestion seemed to her very naïve and ridiculous. if this strange proposal had been made to her by a child, she would certainly have been angry and have scolded it, but as he was a grown-up man and very stout and she could not scold him, she only shrugged her shoulders hardly perceptibly and said: "as you please." vorotov rummaged in his bookcase and picked out a dog's-eared french book. "will this do?" "it's all the same," she said. "in that case let us begin, and good luck to it! let's begin with the title . . . 'mémoires.'" "reminiscences," mdlle. enquête translated. with a good-natured smile, breathing hard, he spent a quarter of an hour over the word "mémoires," and as much over the word _de_, and this wearied the young lady. she answered his questions languidly, grew confused, and evidently did not understand her pupil well, and did not attempt to understand him. vorotov asked her questions, and at the same time kept looking at her fair hair and thinking: "her hair isn't naturally curly; she curls it. it's a strange thing! she works from morning to night, and yet she has time to curl her hair." at eight o'clock precisely she got up, and saying coldly and dryly, "au revoir, monsieur," walked out of the study, leaving behind her the same tender, delicate, disturbing fragrance. for a long time again her pupil did nothing; he sat at the table meditating. during the days that followed he became convinced that his teacher was a charming, conscientious, and precise young lady, but that she was very badly educated, and incapable of teaching grown-up people, and he made up his mind not to waste his time, to get rid of her, and to engage another teacher. when she came the seventh time he took out of his pocket an envelope with seven roubles in it, and holding it in his hand, became very confused and began: "excuse me, alice osipovna, but i ought to tell you . . . i'm under painful necessity . . ." seeing the envelope, the french girl guessed what was meant, and for the first time during their lessons her face quivered and her cold, business-like expression vanished. she coloured a little, and dropping her eyes, began nervously fingering her slender gold chain. and vorotov, seeing her perturbation, realised how much a rouble meant to her, and how bitter it would be to her to lose what she was earning. "i ought to tell you," he muttered, growing more and more confused, and quavering inwardly; he hurriedly stuffed the envelope into his pocket and went on: "excuse me, i . . . i must leave you for ten minutes." and trying to appear as though he had not in the least meant to get rid of her, but only to ask her permission to leave her for a short time, he went into the next room and sat there for ten minutes. and then he returned more embarrassed than ever: it struck him that she might have interpreted his brief absence in some way of her own, and he felt awkward. the lessons began again. yorotov felt no interest in them. realising that he would gain nothing from the lessons, he gave the french girl liberty to do as she liked, asking her nothing and not interrupting her. she translated away as she pleased ten pages during a lesson, and he did not listen, breathed hard, and having nothing better to do, gazed at her curly head, or her soft white hands or her neck and sniffed the fragrance of her clothes. he caught himself thinking very unsuitable thoughts, and felt ashamed, or he was moved to tenderness, and then he felt vexed and wounded that she was so cold and business-like with him, and treated him as a pupil, never smiling and seeming afraid that he might accidentally touch her. he kept wondering how to inspire her with confidence and get to know her better, and to help her, to make her understand how badly she taught, poor thing. one day mdlle. enquête came to the lesson in a smart pink dress, slightly _décolleté_, and surrounded by such a fragrance that she seemed to be wrapped in a cloud, and, if one blew upon her, ready to fly away into the air or melt away like smoke. she apologised and said she could stay only half an hour for the lesson, as she was going straight from the lesson to a dance. he looked at her throat and the back of her bare neck, and thought he understood why frenchwomen had the reputation of frivolous creatures easily seduced; he was carried away by this cloud of fragrance, beauty, and bare flesh, while she, unconscious of his thoughts and probably not in the least interested in them, rapidly turned over the pages and translated at full steam: "'he was walking the street and meeting a gentleman his friend and saying, "where are you striving to seeing your face so pale it makes me sad."'" the "mémoires" had long been finished, and now alice was translating some other book. one day she came an hour too early for the lesson, apologizing and saying that she wanted to leave at seven and go to the little theatre. seeing her out after the lesson, vorotov dressed and went to the theatre himself. he went, and fancied that he was going simply for change and amusement, and that he was not thinking about alice at all. he could not admit that a serious man, preparing for a learned career, lethargic in his habits, could fling up his work and go to the theatre simply to meet there a girl he knew very little, who was unintelligent and utterly unintellectual. yet for some reason his heart was beating during the intervals, and without realizing what he was doing, he raced about the corridors and foyer like a boy impatiently looking for some one, and he was disappointed when the interval was over. and when he saw the familiar pink dress and the handsome shoulders under the tulle, his heart quivered as though with a foretaste of happiness; he smiled joyfully, and for the first time in his life experienced the sensation of jealousy. alice was walking with two unattractive-looking students and an officer. she was laughing, talking loudly, and obviously flirting. vorotov had never seen her like that. she was evidently happy, contented, warm, sincere. what for? why? perhaps because these men were her friends and belonged to her own circle. and vorotov felt there was a terrible gulf between himself and that circle. he bowed to his teacher, but she gave him a chilly nod and walked quickly by; she evidently did not care for her friends to know that she had pupils, and that she had to give lessons to earn money. after the meeting at the theatre vorotov realised that he was in love. . . . during the subsequent lessons he feasted his eyes on his elegant teacher, and without struggling with himself, gave full rein to his imaginations, pure and impure. mdlle. enquête's face did not cease to be cold; precisely at eight o'clock every evening she said coldly, "au revoir, monsieur," and he felt she cared nothing about him, and never would care anything about him, and that his position was hopeless. sometimes in the middle of a lesson he would begin dreaming, hoping, making plans. he inwardly composed declarations of love, remembered that frenchwomen were frivolous and easily won, but it was enough for him to glance at the face of his teacher for his ideas to be extinguished as a candle is blown out when you bring it into the wind on the verandah. once, overcome, forgetting himself as though in delirium, he could not restrain himself, and barred her way as she was going from the study into the entry after the lesson, and, gasping for breath and stammering, began to declare his love: "you are dear to me! i . . . i love you! allow me to speak." and alice turned pale--probably from dismay, reflecting that after this declaration she could not come here again and get a rouble a lesson. with a frightened look in her eyes she said in a loud whisper: "ach, you mustn't! don't speak, i entreat you! you mustn't!" and vorotov did not sleep all night afterwards; he was tortured by shame; he blamed himself and thought intensely. it seemed to him that he had insulted the girl by his declaration, that she would not come to him again. he resolved to find out her address from the address bureau in the morning, and to write her a letter of apology. but alice came without a letter. for the first minute she felt uncomfortable, then she opened a book and began briskly and rapidly translating as usual: "'oh, young gentleman, don't tear those flowers in my garden which i want to be giving to my ill daughter. . . .'" she still comes to this day. four books have already been translated, but vorotov knows no french but the word "mémoires," and when he is asked about his literary researches, he waves his hand, and without answering, turns the conversation to the weather. the princess a carriage with four fine sleek horses drove in at the big so-called red gate of the n--- monastery. while it was still at a distance, the priests and monks who were standing in a group round the part of the hostel allotted to the gentry, recognised by the coachman and horses that the lady in the carriage was princess vera gavrilovna, whom they knew very well. an old man in livery jumped off the box and helped the princess to get out of the carriage. she raised her dark veil and moved in a leisurely way up to the priests to receive their blessing; then she nodded pleasantly to the rest of the monks and went into the hostel. "well, have you missed your princess?" she said to the monk who brought in her things. "it's a whole month since i've been to see you. but here i am; behold your princess. and where is the father superior? my goodness, i am burning with impatience! wonderful, wonderful old man! you must be proud of having such a superior." when the father superior came in, the princess uttered a shriek of delight, crossed her arms over her bosom, and went up to receive his blessing. "no, no, let me kiss your hand," she said, snatching it and eagerly kissing it three times. "how glad i am to see you at last, holy father! i'm sure you've forgotten your princess, but my thoughts have been in your dear monastery every moment. how delightful it is here! this living for god far from the busy, giddy world has a special charm of its own, holy father, which i feel with my whole soul although i cannot express it!" the princess's cheeks glowed and tears came into her eyes. she talked incessantly, fervently, while the father superior, a grave, plain, shy old man of seventy, remained mute or uttered abruptly, like a soldier on duty, phrases such as: "certainly, your excellency. . . . quite so. i understand." "has your excellency come for a long stay?" he inquired. "i shall stay the night here, and to-morrow i'm going on to klavdia nikolaevna's--it's a long time since i've seen her--and the day after to-morrow i'll come back to you and stay three or four days. i want to rest my soul here among you, holy father. . . ." the princess liked being at the monastery at n---. for the last two years it had been a favourite resort of hers; she used to go there almost every month in the summer and stay two or three days, even sometimes a week. the shy novices, the stillness, the low ceilings, the smell of cypress, the modest fare, the cheap curtains on the windows--all this touched her, softened her, and disposed her to contemplation and good thoughts. it was enough for her to be half an hour in the hostel for her to feel that she, too, was timid and modest, and that she, too, smelt of cypress-wood. the past retreated into the background, lost its significance, and the princess began to imagine that in spite of her twenty-nine years she was very much like the old father superior, and that, like him, she was created not for wealth, not for earthly grandeur and love, but for a peaceful life secluded from the world, a life in twilight like the hostel. it happens that a ray of light gleams in the dark cell of the anchorite absorbed in prayer, or a bird alights on the window and sings its song; the stern anchorite will smile in spite of himself, and a gentle, sinless joy will pierce through the load of grief over his sins, like water flowing from under a stone. the princess fancied she brought from the outside world just such comfort as the ray of light or the bird. her gay, friendly smile, her gentle eyes, her voice, her jests, her whole personality in fact, her little graceful figure always dressed in simple black, must arouse in simple, austere people a feeling of tenderness and joy. every one, looking at her, must think: "god has sent us an angel. . . ." and feeling that no one could help thinking this, she smiled still more cordially, and tried to look like a bird. after drinking tea and resting, she went for a walk. the sun was already setting. from the monastery garden came a moist fragrance of freshly watered mignonette, and from the church floated the soft singing of men's voices, which seemed very pleasant and mournful in the distance. it was the evening service. in the dark windows where the little lamps glowed gently, in the shadows, in the figure of the old monk sitting at the church door with a collecting-box, there was such unruffled peace that the princess felt moved to tears. outside the gate, in the walk between the wall and the birch-trees where there were benches, it was quite evening. the air grew rapidly darker and darker. the princess went along the walk, sat on a seat, and sank into thought. she thought how good it would be to settle down for her whole life in this monastery where life was as still and unruffled as a summer evening; how good it would be to forget the ungrateful, dissipated prince; to forget her immense estates, the creditors who worried her every day, her misfortunes, her maid dasha, who had looked at her impertinently that morning. it would be nice to sit here on the bench all her life and watch through the trunks of the birch-trees the evening mist gathering in wreaths in the valley below; the rooks flying home in a black cloud like a veil far, far away above the forest; two novices, one astride a piebald horse, another on foot driving out the horses for the night and rejoicing in their freedom, playing pranks like little children; their youthful voices rang out musically in the still air, and she could distinguish every word. it is nice to sit and listen to the silence: at one moment the wind blows and stirs the tops of the birch-trees, then a frog rustles in last year's leaves, then the clock on the belfry strikes the quarter. . . . one might sit without moving, listen and think, and think. . . . an old woman passed by with a wallet on her back. the princess thought that it would be nice to stop the old woman and to say something friendly and cordial to her, to help her. . . . but the old woman turned the corner without once looking round. not long afterwards a tall man with a grey beard and a straw hat came along the walk. when he came up to the princess, he took off his hat and bowed. from the bald patch on his head and his sharp, hooked nose the princess recognised him as the doctor, mihail ivanovitch, who had been in her service at dubovki. she remembered that some one had told her that his wife had died the year before, and she wanted to sympathise with him, to console him. "doctor, i expect you don't recognise me?" she said with an affable smile. "yes, princess, i recognised you," said the doctor, taking off his hat again. "oh, thank you; i was afraid that you, too, had forgotten your princess. people only remember their enemies, but they forget their friends. have you, too, come to pray?" "i am the doctor here, and i have to spend the night at the monastery every saturday." "well, how are you?" said the princess, sighing. "i hear that you have lost your wife. what a calamity!" "yes, princess, for me it is a great calamity." "there's nothing for it! we must bear our troubles with resignation. not one hair of a man's head is lost without the divine will." "yes, princess." to the princess's friendly, gentle smile and her sighs the doctor responded coldly and dryly: "yes, princess." and the expression of his face was cold and dry. "what else can i say to him?" she wondered. "how long it is since we met!" she said. "five years! how much water has flowed under the bridge, how many changes in that time; it quite frightens one to think of it! you know, i am married. . . . i am not a countess now, but a princess. and by now i am separated from my husband too." "yes, i heard so." "god has sent me many trials. no doubt you have heard, too, that i am almost ruined. my dubovki, sofyino, and kiryakovo have all been sold for my unhappy husband's debts. and i have only baranovo and mihaltsevo left. it's terrible to look back: how many changes and misfortunes of all kinds, how many mistakes!" "yes, princess, many mistakes." the princess was a little disconcerted. she knew her mistakes; they were all of such a private character that no one but she could think or speak of them. she could not resist asking: "what mistakes are you thinking about?" "you referred to them, so you know them . . ." answered the doctor, and he smiled. "why talk about them!" "no; tell me, doctor. i shall be very grateful to you. and please don't stand on ceremony with me. i love to hear the truth." "i am not your judge, princess." "not my judge! what a tone you take! you must know something about me. tell me!" "if you really wish it, very well. only i regret to say i'm not clever at talking, and people can't always understand me." the doctor thought a moment and began: "a lot of mistakes; but the most important of them, in my opinion, was the general spirit that prevailed on all your estates. you see, i don't know how to express myself. i mean chiefly the lack of love, the aversion for people that was felt in absolutely everything. your whole system of life was built upon that aversion. aversion for the human voice, for faces, for heads, steps . . . in fact, for everything that makes up a human being. at all the doors and on the stairs there stand sleek, rude, and lazy grooms in livery to prevent badly dressed persons from entering the house; in the hall there are chairs with high backs so that the footmen waiting there, during balls and receptions, may not soil the walls with their heads; in every room there are thick carpets that no human step may be heard; every one who comes in is infallibly warned to speak as softly and as little as possible, and to say nothing that might have a disagreeable effect on the nerves or the imagination. and in your room you don't shake hands with any one or ask him to sit down-- just as you didn't shake hands with me or ask me to sit down. . . ." "by all means, if you like," said the princess, smiling and holding out her hand. "really, to be cross about such trifles. . . ." "but i am not cross," laughed the doctor, but at once he flushed, took off his hat, and waving it about, began hotly: "to be candid, i've long wanted an opportunity to tell you all i think. . . . that is, i want to tell you that you look upon the mass of mankind from the napoleonic standpoint as food for the cannon. but napoleon had at least some idea; you have nothing except aversion." "i have an aversion for people?" smiled the princess, shrugging her shoulders in astonishment. "i have!" "yes, you! you want facts? by all means. in mihaltsevo three former cooks of yours, who have gone blind in your kitchens from the heat of the stove, are living upon charity. all the health and strength and good looks that is found on your hundreds of thousands of acres is taken by you and your parasites for your grooms, your footmen, and your coachmen. all these two-legged cattle are trained to be flunkeys, overeat themselves, grow coarse, lose the 'image and likeness,' in fact. . . . young doctors, agricultural experts, teachers, intellectual workers generally--think of it!--are torn away from their honest work and forced for a crust of bread to take part in all sorts of mummeries which make every decent man feel ashamed! some young men cannot be in your service for three years without becoming hypocrites, toadies, sneaks. . . . is that a good thing? your polish superintendents, those abject spies, all those kazimers and kaetans, go hunting about on your hundreds of thousands of acres from morning to night, and to please you try to get three skins off one ox. excuse me, i speak disconnectedly, but that doesn't matter. you don't look upon the simple people as human beings. and even the princes, counts, and bishops who used to come and see you, you looked upon simply as decorative figures, not as living beings. but the worst of all, the thing that most revolts me, is having a fortune of over a million and doing nothing for other people, nothing!" the princess sat amazed, aghast, offended, not knowing what to say or how to behave. she had never before been spoken to in such a tone. the doctor's unpleasant, angry voice and his clumsy, faltering phrases made a harsh clattering noise in her ears and her head. then she began to feel as though the gesticulating doctor was hitting her on the head with his hat. "it's not true!" she articulated softly, in an imploring voice. "i've done a great deal of good for other people; you know it yourself!" "nonsense!" cried the doctor. "can you possibly go on thinking of your philanthropic work as something genuine and useful, and not a mere mummery? it was a farce from beginning to end; it was playing at loving your neighbour, the most open farce which even children and stupid peasant women saw through! take for instance your-- what was it called?--house for homeless old women without relations, of which you made me something like a head doctor, and of which you were the patroness. mercy on us! what a charming institution it was! a house was built with parquet floors and a weathercock on the roof; a dozen old women were collected from the villages and made to sleep under blankets and sheets of dutch linen, and given toffee to eat." the doctor gave a malignant chuckle into his hat, and went on speaking rapidly and stammering: "it was a farce! the attendants kept the sheets and the blankets under lock and key, for fear the old women should soil them--'let the old devil's pepper-pots sleep on the floor.' the old women did not dare to sit down on the beds, to put on their jackets, to walk over the polished floors. everything was kept for show and hidden away from the old women as though they were thieves, and the old women were clothed and fed on the sly by other people's charity, and prayed to god night and day to be released from their prison and from the canting exhortations of the sleek rascals to whose care you committed them. and what did the managers do? it was simply charming! about twice a week there would be thirty-five thousand messages to say that the princess--that is, you--were coming to the home next day. that meant that next day i had to abandon my patients, dress up and be on parade. very good; i arrive. the old women, in everything clean and new, are already drawn up in a row, waiting. near them struts the old garrison rat--the superintendent with his mawkish, sneaking smile. the old women yawn and exchange glances, but are afraid to complain. we wait. the junior steward gallops up. half an hour later the senior steward; then the superintendent of the accounts' office, then another, and then another of them . . . they keep arriving endlessly. they all have mysterious, solemn faces. we wait and wait, shift from one leg to another, look at the clock--all this in monumental silence because we all hate each other like poison. one hour passes, then a second, and then at last the carriage is seen in the distance, and . . . and . . ." the doctor went off into a shrill laugh and brought out in a shrill voice: "you get out of the carriage, and the old hags, at the word of command from the old garrison rat, begin chanting: 'the glory of our lord in zion the tongue of man cannot express. . .' a pretty scene, wasn't it?" the doctor went off into a bass chuckle, and waved his hand as though to signify that he could not utter another word for laughing. he laughed heavily, harshly, with clenched teeth, as ill-natured people laugh; and from his voice, from his face, from his glittering, rather insolent eyes it could be seen that he had a profound contempt for the princess, for the home, and for the old women. there was nothing amusing or laughable in all that he described so clumsily and coarsely, but he laughed with satisfaction, even with delight. "and the school?" he went on, panting from laughter. "do you remember how you wanted to teach peasant children yourself? you must have taught them very well, for very soon the children all ran away, so that they had to be thrashed and bribed to come and be taught. and you remember how you wanted to feed with your own hands the infants whose mothers were working in the fields. you went about the village crying because the infants were not at your disposal, as the mothers would take them to the fields with them. then the village foreman ordered the mothers by turns to leave their infants behind for your entertainment. a strange thing! they all ran away from your benevolence like mice from a cat! and why was it? it's very simple. not because our people are ignorant and ungrateful, as you always explained it to yourself, but because in all your fads, if you'll excuse the word, there wasn't a ha'p'orth of love and kindness! there was nothing but the desire to amuse yourself with living puppets, nothing else. . . . a person who does not feel the difference between a human being and a lap-dog ought not to go in for philanthropy. i assure you, there's a great difference between human beings and lap-dogs!" the princess's heart was beating dreadfully; there was a thudding in her ears, and she still felt as though the doctor were beating her on the head with his hat. the doctor talked quickly, excitedly, and uncouthly, stammering and gesticulating unnecessarily. all she grasped was that she was spoken to by a coarse, ill-bred, spiteful, and ungrateful man; but what he wanted of her and what he was talking about, she could not understand. "go away!" she said in a tearful voice, putting up her hands to protect her head from the doctor's hat; "go away!" "and how you treat your servants!" the doctor went on, indignantly. "you treat them as the lowest scoundrels, and don't look upon them as human beings. for example, allow me to ask, why did you dismiss me? for ten years i worked for your father and afterwards for you, honestly, without vacations or holidays. i gained the love of all for more than seventy miles round, and suddenly one fine day i am informed that i am no longer wanted. what for? i've no idea to this day. i, a doctor of medicine, a gentleman by birth, a student of the moscow university, father of a family--am such a petty, insignificant insect that you can kick me out without explaining the reason! why stand on ceremony with me! i heard afterwards that my wife went without my knowledge three times to intercede with you for me--you wouldn't receive her. i am told she cried in your hall. and i shall never forgive her for it, never!" the doctor paused and clenched his teeth, making an intense effort to think of something more to say, very unpleasant and vindictive. he thought of something, and his cold, frowning face suddenly brightened. "take your attitude to this monastery!" he said with avidity. "you've never spared any one, and the holier the place, the more chance of its suffering from your loving-kindness and angelic sweetness. why do you come here? what do you want with the monks here, allow me to ask you? what is hecuba to you or you to hecuba? it's another farce, another amusement for you, another sacrilege against human dignity, and nothing more. why, you don't believe in the monks' god; you've a god of your own in your heart, whom you've evolved for yourself at spiritualist séances. you look with condescension upon the ritual of the church; you don't go to mass or vespers; you sleep till midday. . . . why do you come here? . . . you come with a god of your own into a monastery you have nothing to do with, and you imagine that the monks look upon it as a very great honour. to be sure they do! you'd better ask, by the way, what your visits cost the monastery. you were graciously pleased to arrive here this evening, and a messenger from your estate arrived on horseback the day before yesterday to warn them of your coming. they were the whole day yesterday getting the rooms ready and expecting you. this morning your advance-guard arrived--an insolent maid, who keeps running across the courtyard, rustling her skirts, pestering them with questions, giving orders. . . . i can't endure it! the monks have been on the lookout all day, for if you were not met with due ceremony, there would be trouble! you'd complain to the bishop! 'the monks don't like me, your holiness; i don't know what i've done to displease them. it's true i'm a great sinner, but i'm so unhappy!' already one monastery has been in hot water over you. the father superior is a busy, learned man; he hasn't a free moment, and you keep sending for him to come to your rooms. not a trace of respect for age or for rank! if at least you were a bountiful giver to the monastery, one wouldn't resent it so much, but all this time the monks have not received a hundred roubles from you!" whenever people worried the princess, misunderstood her, or mortified her, and when she did not know what to say or do, she usually began to cry. and on this occasion, too, she ended by hiding her face in her hands and crying aloud in a thin treble like a child. the doctor suddenly stopped and looked at her. his face darkened and grew stern. "forgive me, princess," he said in a hollow voice. "i've given way to a malicious feeling and forgotten myself. it was not right." and coughing in an embarrassed way, he walked away quickly, without remembering to put his hat on. stars were already twinkling in the sky. the moon must have been rising on the further side of the monastery, for the sky was clear, soft, and transparent. bats were flitting noiselessly along the white monastery wall. the clock slowly struck three quarters, probably a quarter to nine. the princess got up and walked slowly to the gate. she felt wounded and was crying, and she felt that the trees and the stars and even the bats were pitying her, and that the clock struck musically only to express its sympathy with her. she cried and thought how nice it would be to go into a monastery for the rest of her life. on still summer evenings she would walk alone through the avenues, insulted, injured, misunderstood by people, and only god and the starry heavens would see the martyr's tears. the evening service was still going on in the church. the princess stopped and listened to the singing; how beautiful the singing sounded in the still darkness! how sweet to weep and suffer to the sound of that singing! going into her rooms, she looked at her tear-stained face in the glass and powdered it, then she sat down to supper. the monks knew that she liked pickled sturgeon, little mushrooms, malaga and plain honey-cakes that left a taste of cypress in the mouth, and every time she came they gave her all these dishes. as she ate the mushrooms and drank the malaga, the princess dreamed of how she would be finally ruined and deserted--how all her stewards, bailiffs, clerks, and maid-servants for whom she had done so much, would be false to her, and begin to say rude things; how people all the world over would set upon her, speak ill of her, jeer at her. she would renounce her title, would renounce society and luxury, and would go into a convent without one word of reproach to any one; she would pray for her enemies--and then they would all understand her and come to beg her forgiveness, but by that time it would be too late. . . . after supper she knelt down in the corner before the ikon and read two chapters of the gospel. then her maid made her bed and she got into it. stretching herself under the white quilt, she heaved a sweet, deep sigh, as one sighs after crying, closed her eyes, and began to fall asleep. in the morning she waked up and glanced at her watch. it was half-past nine. on the carpet near the bed was a bright, narrow streak of sunlight from a ray which came in at the window and dimly lighted up the room. flies were buzzing behind the black curtain at the window. "it's early," thought the princess, and she closed her eyes. stretching and lying snug in her bed, she recalled her meeting yesterday with the doctor and all the thoughts with which she had gone to sleep the night before: she remembered she was unhappy. then she thought of her husband living in petersburg, her stewards, doctors, neighbours, the officials of her acquaintance . . . a long procession of familiar masculine faces passed before her imagination. she smiled and thought, if only these people could see into her heart and understand her, they would all be at her feet. at a quarter past eleven she called her maid. "help me to dress, dasha," she said languidly. "but go first and tell them to get out the horses. i must set off for klavdia nikolaevna's." going out to get into the carriage, she blinked at the glaring daylight and laughed with pleasure: it was a wonderfully fine day! as she scanned from her half-closed eyes the monks who had gathered round the steps to see her off, she nodded graciously and said: "good-bye, my friends! till the day after tomorrow." it was an agreeable surprise to her that the doctor was with the monks by the steps. his face was pale and severe. "princess," he said with a guilty smile, taking off his hat, "i've been waiting here a long time to see you. forgive me, for god's sake. . . . i was carried away yesterday by an evil, vindictive feeling and i talked . . . nonsense. in short, i beg your pardon." the princess smiled graciously, and held out her hand for him to kiss. he kissed it, turning red. trying to look like a bird, the princess fluttered into the carriage and nodded in all directions. there was a gay, warm, serene feeling in her heart, and she felt herself that her smile was particularly soft and friendly. as the carriage rolled towards the gates, and afterwards along the dusty road past huts and gardens, past long trains of waggons and strings of pilgrims on their way to the monastery, she still screwed up her eyes and smiled softly. she was thinking there was no higher bliss than to bring warmth, light, and joy wherever one went, to forgive injuries, to smile graciously on one's enemies. the peasants she passed bowed to her, the carriage rustled softly, clouds of dust rose from under the wheels and floated over the golden rye, and it seemed to the princess that her body was swaying not on carriage cushions but on clouds, and that she herself was like a light, transparent little cloud. . . . "how happy i am!" she murmured, shutting her eyes. "how happy i am!" the chemist's wife the little town of b----, consisting of two or three crooked streets, was sound asleep. there was a complete stillness in the motionless air. nothing could be heard but far away, outside the town no doubt, the barking of a dog in a thin, hoarse tenor. it was close upon daybreak. everything had long been asleep. the only person not asleep was the young wife of tchernomordik, a qualified dispenser who kept a chemist's shop at b----. she had gone to bed and got up again three times, but could not sleep, she did not know why. she sat at the open window in her nightdress and looked into the street. she felt bored, depressed, vexed . . . so vexed that she felt quite inclined to cry--again she did not know why. there seemed to be a lump in her chest that kept rising into her throat. . . . a few paces behind her tchernomordik lay curled up close to the wall, snoring sweetly. a greedy flea was stabbing the bridge of his nose, but he did not feel it, and was positively smiling, for he was dreaming that every one in the town had a cough, and was buying from him the king of denmark's cough-drops. he could not have been wakened now by pinpricks or by cannon or by caresses. the chemist's shop was almost at the extreme end of the town, so that the chemist's wife could see far into the fields. she could see the eastern horizon growing pale by degrees, then turning crimson as though from a great fire. a big broad-faced moon peeped out unexpectedly from behind bushes in the distance. it was red (as a rule when the moon emerges from behind bushes it appears to be blushing). suddenly in the stillness of the night there came the sounds of footsteps and a jingle of spurs. she could hear voices. "that must be the officers going home to the camp from the police captain's," thought the chemist's wife. soon afterwards two figures wearing officers' white tunics came into sight: one big and tall, the other thinner and shorter. . . . they slouched along by the fence, dragging one leg after the other and talking loudly together. as they passed the chemist's shop, they walked more slowly than ever, and glanced up at the windows. "it smells like a chemist's," said the thin one. "and so it is! ah, i remember. . . . i came here last week to buy some castor-oil. there's a chemist here with a sour face and the jawbone of an ass! such a jawbone, my dear fellow! it must have been a jawbone like that samson killed the philistines with." "m'yes," said the big one in a bass voice. "the pharmacist is asleep. and his wife is asleep too. she is a pretty woman, obtyosov." "i saw her. i liked her very much. . . . tell me, doctor, can she possibly love that jawbone of an ass? can she?" "no, most likely she does not love him," sighed the doctor, speaking as though he were sorry for the chemist. "the little woman is asleep behind the window, obtyosov, what? tossing with the heat, her little mouth half open . . . and one little foot hanging out of bed. i bet that fool the chemist doesn't realise what a lucky fellow he is. . . . no doubt he sees no difference between a woman and a bottle of carbolic!" "i say, doctor," said the officer, stopping. "let us go into the shop and buy something. perhaps we shall see her." "what an idea--in the night!" "what of it? they are obliged to serve one even at night. my dear fellow, let us go in!" "if you like. . . ." the chemist's wife, hiding behind the curtain, heard a muffled ring. looking round at her husband, who was smiling and snoring sweetly as before, she threw on her dress, slid her bare feet into her slippers, and ran to the shop. on the other side of the glass door she could see two shadows. the chemist's wife turned up the lamp and hurried to the door to open it, and now she felt neither vexed nor bored nor inclined to cry, though her heart was thumping. the big doctor and the slender obtyosov walked in. now she could get a view of them. the doctor was corpulent and swarthy; he wore a beard and was slow in his movements. at the slightest motion his tunic seemed as though it would crack, and perspiration came on to his face. the officer was rosy, clean-shaven, feminine-looking, and as supple as an english whip. "what may i give you?" asked the chemist's wife, holding her dress across her bosom. "give us . . . er-er . . . four pennyworth of peppermint lozenges!" without haste the chemist's wife took down a jar from a shelf and began weighing out lozenges. the customers stared fixedly at her back; the doctor screwed up his eyes like a well-fed cat, while the lieutenant was very grave. "it's the first time i've seen a lady serving in a chemist's shop," observed the doctor. "there's nothing out of the way in it," replied the chemist's wife, looking out of the corner of her eye at the rosy-cheeked officer. "my husband has no assistant, and i always help him." "to be sure. . . . you have a charming little shop! what a number of different . . . jars! and you are not afraid of moving about among the poisons? brrr!" the chemist's wife sealed up the parcel and handed it to the doctor. obtyosov gave her the money. half a minute of silence followed. . . . the men exchanged glances, took a step towards the door, then looked at one another again. "will you give me two pennyworth of soda?" said the doctor. again the chemist's wife slowly and languidly raised her hand to the shelf. "haven't you in the shop anything . . . such as . . ." muttered obtyosov, moving his fingers, "something, so to say, allegorical . . . revivifying . . . seltzer-water, for instance. have you any seltzer-water?" "yes," answered the chemist's wife. "bravo! you're a fairy, not a woman! give us three bottles!" the chemist's wife hurriedly sealed up the soda and vanished through the door into the darkness. "a peach!" said the doctor, with a wink. "you wouldn't find a pineapple like that in the island of madeira! eh? what do you say? do you hear the snoring, though? that's his worship the chemist enjoying sweet repose." a minute later the chemist's wife came back and set five bottles on the counter. she had just been in the cellar, and so was flushed and rather excited. "sh-sh! . . . quietly!" said obtyosov when, after uncorking the bottles, she dropped the corkscrew. "don't make such a noise; you'll wake your husband." "well, what if i do wake him?" "he is sleeping so sweetly . . . he must be dreaming of you. . . . to your health!" "besides," boomed the doctor, hiccupping after the seltzer-water, "husbands are such a dull business that it would be very nice of them to be always asleep. how good a drop of red wine would be in this water!" "what an idea!" laughed the chemist's wife. "that would be splendid. what a pity they don't sell spirits in chemist's shops! though you ought to sell wine as a medicine. have you any _vinum gallicum rubrum_?" "yes." "well, then, give us some! bring it here, damn it!" "how much do you want?" "_quantum satis_. . . . give us an ounce each in the water, and afterwards we'll see. . . . obtyosov, what do you say? first with water and afterwards _per se_. . . ." the doctor and obtyosov sat down to the counter, took off their caps, and began drinking the wine. "the wine, one must admit, is wretched stuff! _vinum nastissimum!_ though in the presence of . . . er . . . it tastes like nectar. you are enchanting, madam! in imagination i kiss your hand." "i would give a great deal to do so not in imagination," said obtyosov. "on my honour, i'd give my life." "that's enough," said madame tchernomordik, flushing and assuming a serious expression. "what a flirt you are, though!" the doctor laughed softly, looking slyly at her from under his brows. "your eyes seem to be firing shot: piff-paff! i congratulate you: you've conquered! we are vanquished!" the chemist's wife looked at their ruddy faces, listened to their chatter, and soon she, too, grew quite lively. oh, she felt so gay! she entered into the conversation, she laughed, flirted, and even, after repeated requests from the customers, drank two ounces of wine. "you officers ought to come in oftener from the camp," she said; "it's awful how dreary it is here. i'm simply dying of it." "i should think so!" said the doctor indignantly. "such a peach, a miracle of nature, thrown away in the wilds! how well griboyedov said, 'into the wilds, to saratov'! it's time for us to be off, though. delighted to have made your acquaintance . . . very. how much do we owe you?" the chemist's wife raised her eyes to the ceiling and her lips moved for some time. "twelve roubles forty-eight kopecks," she said. obtyosov took out of his pocket a fat pocket-book, and after fumbling for some time among the notes, paid. "your husband's sleeping sweetly . . . he must be dreaming," he muttered, pressing her hand at parting. "i don't like to hear silly remarks. . . ." "what silly remarks? on the contrary, it's not silly at all . . . even shakespeare said: 'happy is he who in his youth is young.'" "let go of my hand." at last after much talk and after kissing the lady's hand at parting, the customers went out of the shop irresolutely, as though they were wondering whether they had not forgotten something. she ran quickly into the bedroom and sat down in the same place. she saw the doctor and the officer, on coming out of the shop, walk lazily away a distance of twenty paces; then they stopped and began whispering together. what about? her heart throbbed, there was a pulsing in her temples, and why she did not know. . . . her heart beat violently as though those two whispering outside were deciding her fate. five minutes later the doctor parted from obtyosov and walked on, while obtyosov came back. he walked past the shop once and a second time. . . . he would stop near the door and then take a few steps again. at last the bell tinkled discreetly. "what? who is there?" the chemist's wife heard her husband's voice suddenly. "there's a ring at the bell, and you don't hear it," he said severely. "is that the way to do things?" he got up, put on his dressing-gown, and staggering, half asleep, flopped in his slippers to the shop. "what . . . is it?" he asked obtyosov. "give me . . . give me four pennyworth of peppermint lozenges." sniffing continually, yawning, dropping asleep as he moved, and knocking his knees against the counter, the chemist went to the shelf and reached down the jar. two minutes later the chemist's wife saw obtyosov go out of the shop, and, after he had gone some steps, she saw him throw the packet of peppermints on the dusty road. the doctor came from behind a corner to meet him. . . . they met and, gesticulating, vanished in the morning mist. "how unhappy i am!" said the chemist's wife, looking angrily at her husband, who was undressing quickly to get into bed again. "oh, how unhappy i am!" she repeated, suddenly melting into bitter tears. "and nobody knows, nobody knows. . . ." "i forgot fourpence on the counter," muttered the chemist, pulling the quilt over him. "put it away in the till, please. . . ." and at once he fell asleep again. the tales of chekhov volume the lady with the dog and other stories by anton tchekhov translated by constance garnett contents the lady with the dog a doctor's visit an upheaval ionitch the head of the family the black monk volodya an anonymous story the husband the lady with the dog i it was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog. dmitri dmitritch gurov, who had by then been a fortnight at yalta, and so was fairly at home there, had begun to take an interest in new arrivals. sitting in verney's pavilion, he saw, walking on the sea-front, a fair-haired young lady of medium height, wearing a _béret_; a white pomeranian dog was running behind her. and afterwards he met her in the public gardens and in the square several times a day. she was walking alone, always wearing the same _béret_, and always with the same white dog; no one knew who she was, and every one called her simply "the lady with the dog." "if she is here alone without a husband or friends, it wouldn't be amiss to make her acquaintance," gurov reflected. he was under forty, but he had a daughter already twelve years old, and two sons at school. he had been married young, when he was a student in his second year, and by now his wife seemed half as old again as he. she was a tall, erect woman with dark eyebrows, staid and dignified, and, as she said of herself, intellectual. she read a great deal, used phonetic spelling, called her husband, not dmitri, but dimitri, and he secretly considered her unintelligent, narrow, inelegant, was afraid of her, and did not like to be at home. he had begun being unfaithful to her long ago--had been unfaithful to her often, and, probably on that account, almost always spoke ill of women, and when they were talked about in his presence, used to call them "the lower race." it seemed to him that he had been so schooled by bitter experience that he might call them what he liked, and yet he could not get on for two days together without "the lower race." in the society of men he was bored and not himself, with them he was cold and uncommunicative; but when he was in the company of women he felt free, and knew what to say to them and how to behave; and he was at ease with them even when he was silent. in his appearance, in his character, in his whole nature, there was something attractive and elusive which allured women and disposed them in his favour; he knew that, and some force seemed to draw him, too, to them. experience often repeated, truly bitter experience, had taught him long ago that with decent people, especially moscow people--always slow to move and irresolute--every intimacy, which at first so agreeably diversifies life and appears a light and charming adventure, inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long run the situation becomes unbearable. but at every fresh meeting with an interesting woman this experience seemed to slip out of his memory, and he was eager for life, and everything seemed simple and amusing. one evening he was dining in the gardens, and the lady in the _béret_ came up slowly to take the next table. her expression, her gait, her dress, and the way she did her hair told him that she was a lady, that she was married, that she was in yalta for the first time and alone, and that she was dull there.... the stories told of the immorality in such places as yalta are to a great extent untrue; he despised them, and knew that such stories were for the most part made up by persons who would themselves have been glad to sin if they had been able; but when the lady sat down at the next table three paces from him, he remembered these tales of easy conquests, of trips to the mountains, and the tempting thought of a swift, fleeting love affair, a romance with an unknown woman, whose name he did not know, suddenly took possession of him. he beckoned coaxingly to the pomeranian, and when the dog came up to him he shook his finger at it. the pomeranian growled: gurov shook his finger at it again. the lady looked at him and at once dropped her eyes. "he doesn't bite," she said, and blushed. "may i give him a bone?" he asked; and when she nodded he asked courteously, "have you been long in yalta?" "five days." "and i have already dragged out a fortnight here." there was a brief silence. "time goes fast, and yet it is so dull here!" she said, not looking at him. "that's only the fashion to say it is dull here. a provincial will live in belyov or zhidra and not be dull, and when he comes here it's 'oh, the dulness! oh, the dust!' one would think he came from grenada." she laughed. then both continued eating in silence, like strangers, but after dinner they walked side by side; and there sprang up between them the light jesting conversation of people who are free and satisfied, to whom it does not matter where they go or what they talk about. they walked and talked of the strange light on the sea: the water was of a soft warm lilac hue, and there was a golden streak from the moon upon it. they talked of how sultry it was after a hot day. gurov told her that he came from moscow, that he had taken his degree in arts, but had a post in a bank; that he had trained as an opera-singer, but had given it up, that he owned two houses in moscow.... and from her he learnt that she had grown up in petersburg, but had lived in s---- since her marriage two years before, that she was staying another month in yalta, and that her husband, who needed a holiday too, might perhaps come and fetch her. she was not sure whether her husband had a post in a crown department or under the provincial council--and was amused by her own ignorance. and gurov learnt, too, that she was called anna sergeyevna. afterwards he thought about her in his room at the hotel--thought she would certainly meet him next day; it would be sure to happen. as he got into bed he thought how lately she had been a girl at school, doing lessons like his own daughter; he recalled the diffidence, the angularity, that was still manifest in her laugh and her manner of talking with a stranger. this must have been the first time in her life she had been alone in surroundings in which she was followed, looked at, and spoken to merely from a secret motive which she could hardly fail to guess. he recalled her slender, delicate neck, her lovely grey eyes. "there's something pathetic about her, anyway," he thought, and fell asleep. ii a week had passed since they had made acquaintance. it was a holiday. it was sultry indoors, while in the street the wind whirled the dust round and round, and blew people's hats off. it was a thirsty day, and gurov often went into the pavilion, and pressed anna sergeyevna to have syrup and water or an ice. one did not know what to do with oneself. in the evening when the wind had dropped a little, they went out on the groyne to see the steamer come in. there were a great many people walking about the harbour; they had gathered to welcome some one, bringing bouquets. and two peculiarities of a well-dressed yalta crowd were very conspicuous: the elderly ladies were dressed like young ones, and there were great numbers of generals. owing to the roughness of the sea, the steamer arrived late, after the sun had set, and it was a long time turning about before it reached the groyne. anna sergeyevna looked through her lorgnette at the steamer and the passengers as though looking for acquaintances, and when she turned to gurov her eyes were shining. she talked a great deal and asked disconnected questions, forgetting next moment what she had asked; then she dropped her lorgnette in the crush. the festive crowd began to disperse; it was too dark to see people's faces. the wind had completely dropped, but gurov and anna sergeyevna still stood as though waiting to see some one else come from the steamer. anna sergeyevna was silent now, and sniffed the flowers without looking at gurov. "the weather is better this evening," he said. "where shall we go now? shall we drive somewhere?" she made no answer. then he looked at her intently, and all at once put his arm round her and kissed her on the lips, and breathed in the moisture and the fragrance of the flowers; and he immediately looked round him, anxiously wondering whether any one had seen them. "let us go to your hotel," he said softly. and both walked quickly. the room was close and smelt of the scent she had bought at the japanese shop. gurov looked at her and thought: "what different people one meets in the world!" from the past he preserved memories of careless, good-natured women, who loved cheerfully and were grateful to him for the happiness he gave them, however brief it might be; and of women like his wife who loved without any genuine feeling, with superfluous phrases, affectedly, hysterically, with an expression that suggested that it was not love nor passion, but something more significant; and of two or three others, very beautiful, cold women, on whose faces he had caught a glimpse of a rapacious expression--an obstinate desire to snatch from life more than it could give, and these were capricious, unreflecting, domineering, unintelligent women not in their first youth, and when gurov grew cold to them their beauty excited his hatred, and the lace on their linen seemed to him like scales. but in this case there was still the diffidence, the angularity of inexperienced youth, an awkward feeling; and there was a sense of consternation as though some one had suddenly knocked at the door. the attitude of anna sergeyevna--"the lady with the dog"--to what had happened was somehow peculiar, very grave, as though it were her fall--so it seemed, and it was strange and inappropriate. her face dropped and faded, and on both sides of it her long hair hung down mournfully; she mused in a dejected attitude like "the woman who was a sinner" in an old-fashioned picture. "it's wrong," she said. "you will be the first to despise me now." there was a water-melon on the table. gurov cut himself a slice and began eating it without haste. there followed at least half an hour of silence. anna sergeyevna was touching; there was about her the purity of a good, simple woman who had seen little of life. the solitary candle burning on the table threw a faint light on her face, yet it was clear that she was very unhappy. "how could i despise you?" asked gurov. "you don't know what you are saying." "god forgive me," she said, and her eyes filled with tears. "it's awful." "you seem to feel you need to be forgiven." "forgiven? no. i am a bad, low woman; i despise myself and don't attempt to justify myself. it's not my husband but myself i have deceived. and not only just now; i have been deceiving myself for a long time. my husband may be a good, honest man, but he is a flunkey! i don't know what he does there, what his work is, but i know he is a flunkey! i was twenty when i was married to him. i have been tormented by curiosity; i wanted something better. 'there must be a different sort of life,' i said to myself. i wanted to live! to live, to live!... i was fired by curiosity ... you don't understand it, but, i swear to god, i could not control myself; something happened to me: i could not be restrained. i told my husband i was ill, and came here.... and here i have been walking about as though i were dazed, like a mad creature; ... and now i have become a vulgar, contemptible woman whom any one may despise." gurov felt bored already, listening to her. he was irritated by the naïve tone, by this remorse, so unexpected and inopportune; but for the tears in her eyes, he might have thought she was jesting or playing a part. "i don't understand," he said softly. "what is it you want?" she hid her face on his breast and pressed close to him. "believe me, believe me, i beseech you ..." she said. "i love a pure, honest life, and sin is loathsome to me. i don't know what i am doing. simple people say: 'the evil one has beguiled me.' and i may say of myself now that the evil one has beguiled me." "hush, hush!..." he muttered. he looked at her fixed, scared eyes, kissed her, talked softly and affectionately, and by degrees she was comforted, and her gaiety returned; they both began laughing. afterwards when they went out there was not a soul on the sea-front. the town with its cypresses had quite a deathlike air, but the sea still broke noisily on the shore; a single barge was rocking on the waves, and a lantern was blinking sleepily on it. they found a cab and drove to oreanda. "i found out your surname in the hall just now: it was written on the board--von diderits," said gurov. "is your husband a german?" "no; i believe his grandfather was a german, but he is an orthodox russian himself." at oreanda they sat on a seat not far from the church, looked down at the sea, and were silent. yalta was hardly visible through the morning mist; white clouds stood motionless on the mountain-tops. the leaves did not stir on the trees, grasshoppers chirruped, and the monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spoke of the peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us. so it must have sounded when there was no yalta, no oreanda here; so it sounds now, and it will sound as indifferently and monotonously when we are all no more. and in this constancy, in this complete indifference to the life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a pledge of our eternal salvation, of the unceasing movement of life upon earth, of unceasing progress towards perfection. sitting beside a young woman who in the dawn seemed so lovely, soothed and spellbound in these magical surroundings--the sea, mountains, clouds, the open sky--gurov thought how in reality everything is beautiful in this world when one reflects: everything except what we think or do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the higher aims of our existence. a man walked up to them--probably a keeper--looked at them and walked away. and this detail seemed mysterious and beautiful, too. they saw a steamer come from theodosia, with its lights out in the glow of dawn. "there is dew on the grass," said anna sergeyevna, after a silence. "yes. it's time to go home." they went back to the town. then they met every day at twelve o'clock on the sea-front, lunched and dined together, went for walks, admired the sea. she complained that she slept badly, that her heart throbbed violently; asked the same questions, troubled now by jealousy and now by the fear that he did not respect her sufficiently. and often in the square or gardens, when there was no one near them, he suddenly drew her to him and kissed her passionately. complete idleness, these kisses in broad daylight while he looked round in dread of some one's seeing them, the heat, the smell of the sea, and the continual passing to and fro before him of idle, well-dressed, well-fed people, made a new man of him; he told anna sergeyevna how beautiful she was, how fascinating. he was impatiently passionate, he would not move a step away from her, while she was often pensive and continually urged him to confess that he did not respect her, did not love her in the least, and thought of her as nothing but a common woman. rather late almost every evening they drove somewhere out of town, to oreanda or to the waterfall; and the expedition was always a success, the scenery invariably impressed them as grand and beautiful. they were expecting her husband to come, but a letter came from him, saying that there was something wrong with his eyes, and he entreated his wife to come home as quickly as possible. anna sergeyevna made haste to go. "it's a good thing i am going away," she said to gurov. "it's the finger of destiny!" she went by coach and he went with her. they were driving the whole day. when she had got into a compartment of the express, and when the second bell had rung, she said: "let me look at you once more ... look at you once again. that's right." she did not shed tears, but was so sad that she seemed ill, and her face was quivering. "i shall remember you ... think of you," she said. "god be with you; be happy. don't remember evil against me. we are parting forever--it must be so, for we ought never to have met. well, god be with you." the train moved off rapidly, its lights soon vanished from sight, and a minute later there was no sound of it, as though everything had conspired together to end as quickly as possible that sweet delirium, that madness. left alone on the platform, and gazing into the dark distance, gurov listened to the chirrup of the grasshoppers and the hum of the telegraph wires, feeling as though he had only just waked up. and he thought, musing, that there had been another episode or adventure in his life, and it, too, was at an end, and nothing was left of it but a memory.... he was moved, sad, and conscious of a slight remorse. this young woman whom he would never meet again had not been happy with him; he was genuinely warm and affectionate with her, but yet in his manner, his tone, and his caresses there had been a shade of light irony, the coarse condescension of a happy man who was, besides, almost twice her age. all the time she had called him kind, exceptional, lofty; obviously he had seemed to her different from what he really was, so he had unintentionally deceived her.... here at the station was already a scent of autumn; it was a cold evening. "it's time for me to go north," thought gurov as he left the platform. "high time!" iii at home in moscow everything was in its winter routine; the stoves were heated, and in the morning it was still dark when the children were having breakfast and getting ready for school, and the nurse would light the lamp for a short time. the frosts had begun already. when the first snow has fallen, on the first day of sledge-driving it is pleasant to see the white earth, the white roofs, to draw soft, delicious breath, and the season brings back the days of one's youth. the old limes and birches, white with hoar-frost, have a good-natured expression; they are nearer to one's heart than cypresses and palms, and near them one doesn't want to be thinking of the sea and the mountains. gurov was moscow born; he arrived in moscow on a fine frosty day, and when he put on his fur coat and warm gloves, and walked along petrovka, and when on saturday evening he heard the ringing of the bells, his recent trip and the places he had seen lost all charm for him. little by little he became absorbed in moscow life, greedily read three newspapers a day, and declared he did not read the moscow papers on principle! he already felt a longing to go to restaurants, clubs, dinner-parties, anniversary celebrations, and he felt flattered at entertaining distinguished lawyers and artists, and at playing cards with a professor at the doctors' club. he could already eat a whole plateful of salt fish and cabbage. in another month, he fancied, the image of anna sergeyevna would be shrouded in a mist in his memory, and only from time to time would visit him in his dreams with a touching smile as others did. but more than a month passed, real winter had come, and everything was still clear in his memory as though he had parted with anna sergeyevna only the day before. and his memories glowed more and more vividly. when in the evening stillness he heard from his study the voices of his children, preparing their lessons, or when he listened to a song or the organ at the restaurant, or the storm howled in the chimney, suddenly everything would rise up in his memory: what had happened on the groyne, and the early morning with the mist on the mountains, and the steamer coming from theodosia, and the kisses. he would pace a long time about his room, remembering it all and smiling; then his memories passed into dreams, and in his fancy the past was mingled with what was to come. anna sergeyevna did not visit him in dreams, but followed him about everywhere like a shadow and haunted him. when he shut his eyes he saw her as though she were living before him, and she seemed to him lovelier, younger, tenderer than she was; and he imagined himself finer than he had been in yalta. in the evenings she peeped out at him from the bookcase, from the fireplace, from the corner--he heard her breathing, the caressing rustle of her dress. in the street he watched the women, looking for some one like her. he was tormented by an intense desire to confide his memories to some one. but in his home it was impossible to talk of his love, and he had no one outside; he could not talk to his tenants nor to any one at the bank. and what had he to talk of? had he been in love, then? had there been anything beautiful, poetical, or edifying or simply interesting in his relations with anna sergeyevna? and there was nothing for him but to talk vaguely of love, of woman, and no one guessed what it meant; only his wife twitched her black eyebrows, and said: "the part of a lady-killer does not suit you at all, dimitri." one evening, coming out of the doctors' club with an official with whom he had been playing cards, he could not resist saying: "if only you knew what a fascinating woman i made the acquaintance of in yalta!" the official got into his sledge and was driving away, but turned suddenly and shouted: "dmitri dmitritch!" "what?" "you were right this evening: the sturgeon was a bit too strong!" these words, so ordinary, for some reason moved gurov to indignation, and struck him as degrading and unclean. what savage manners, what people! what senseless nights, what uninteresting, uneventful days! the rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, the continual talk always about the same thing. useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it--just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison. gurov did not sleep all night, and was filled with indignation. and he had a headache all next day. and the next night he slept badly; he sat up in bed, thinking, or paced up and down his room. he was sick of his children, sick of the bank; he had no desire to go anywhere or to talk of anything. in the holidays in december he prepared for a journey, and told his wife he was going to petersburg to do something in the interests of a young friend--and he set off for s----. what for? he did not very well know himself. he wanted to see anna sergeyevna and to talk with her--to arrange a meeting, if possible. he reached s---- in the morning, and took the best room at the hotel, in which the floor was covered with grey army cloth, and on the table was an inkstand, grey with dust and adorned with a figure on horseback, with its hat in its hand and its head broken off. the hotel porter gave him the necessary information; von diderits lived in a house of his own in old gontcharny street--it was not far from the hotel: he was rich and lived in good style, and had his own horses; every one in the town knew him. the porter pronounced the name "dridirits." gurov went without haste to old gontcharny street and found the house. just opposite the house stretched a long grey fence adorned with nails. "one would run away from a fence like that," thought gurov, looking from the fence to the windows of the house and back again. he considered: to-day was a holiday, and the husband would probably be at home. and in any case it would be tactless to go into the house and upset her. if he were to send her a note it might fall into her husband's hands, and then it might ruin everything. the best thing was to trust to chance. and he kept walking up and down the street by the fence, waiting for the chance. he saw a beggar go in at the gate and dogs fly at him; then an hour later he heard a piano, and the sounds were faint and indistinct. probably it was anna sergeyevna playing. the front door suddenly opened, and an old woman came out, followed by the familiar white pomeranian. gurov was on the point of calling to the dog, but his heart began beating violently, and in his excitement he could not remember the dog's name. he walked up and down, and loathed the grey fence more and more, and by now he thought irritably that anna sergeyevna had forgotten him, and was perhaps already amusing herself with some one else, and that that was very natural in a young woman who had nothing to look at from morning till night but that confounded fence. he went back to his hotel room and sat for a long while on the sofa, not knowing what to do, then he had dinner and a long nap. "how stupid and worrying it is!" he thought when he woke and looked at the dark windows: it was already evening. "here i've had a good sleep for some reason. what shall i do in the night?" he sat on the bed, which was covered by a cheap grey blanket, such as one sees in hospitals, and he taunted himself in his vexation: "so much for the lady with the dog ... so much for the adventure.... you're in a nice fix...." that morning at the station a poster in large letters had caught his eye. "the geisha" was to be performed for the first time. he thought of this and went to the theatre. "it's quite possible she may go to the first performance," he thought. the theatre was full. as in all provincial theatres, there was a fog above the chandelier, the gallery was noisy and restless; in the front row the local dandies were standing up before the beginning of the performance, with their hands behind them; in the governor's box the governor's daughter, wearing a boa, was sitting in the front seat, while the governor himself lurked modestly behind the curtain with only his hands visible; the orchestra was a long time tuning up; the stage curtain swayed. all the time the audience were coming in and taking their seats gurov looked at them eagerly. anna sergeyevna, too, came in. she sat down in the third row, and when gurov looked at her his heart contracted, and he understood clearly that for him there was in the whole world no creature so near, so precious, and so important to him; she, this little woman, in no way remarkable, lost in a provincial crowd, with a vulgar lorgnette in her hand, filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy, the one happiness that he now desired for himself, and to the sounds of the inferior orchestra, of the wretched provincial violins, he thought how lovely she was. he thought and dreamed. a young man with small side-whiskers, tall and stooping, came in with anna sergeyevna and sat down beside her; he bent his head at every step and seemed to be continually bowing. most likely this was the husband whom at yalta, in a rush of bitter feeling, she had called a flunkey. and there really was in his long figure, his side-whiskers, and the small bald patch on his head, something of the flunkey's obsequiousness; his smile was sugary, and in his buttonhole there was some badge of distinction like the number on a waiter. during the first interval the husband went away to smoke; she remained alone in her stall. gurov, who was sitting in the stalls, too, went up to her and said in a trembling voice, with a forced smile: "good-evening." she glanced at him and turned pale, then glanced again with horror, unable to believe her eyes, and tightly gripped the fan and the lorgnette in her hands, evidently struggling with herself not to faint. both were silent. she was sitting, he was standing, frightened by her confusion and not venturing to sit down beside her. the violins and the flute began tuning up. he felt suddenly frightened; it seemed as though all the people in the boxes were looking at them. she got up and went quickly to the door; he followed her, and both walked senselessly along passages, and up and down stairs, and figures in legal, scholastic, and civil service uniforms, all wearing badges, flitted before their eyes. they caught glimpses of ladies, of fur coats hanging on pegs; the draughts blew on them, bringing a smell of stale tobacco. and gurov, whose heart was beating violently, thought: "oh, heavens! why are these people here and this orchestra!..." and at that instant he recalled how when he had seen anna sergeyevna off at the station he had thought that everything was over and they would never meet again. but how far they were still from the end! on the narrow, gloomy staircase over which was written "to the amphitheatre," she stopped. "how you have frightened me!" she said, breathing hard, still pale and overwhelmed. "oh, how you have frightened me! i am half dead. why have you come? why?" "but do understand, anna, do understand ..." he said hastily in a low voice. "i entreat you to understand...." she looked at him with dread, with entreaty, with love; she looked at him intently, to keep his features more distinctly in her memory. "i am so unhappy," she went on, not heeding him. "i have thought of nothing but you all the time; i live only in the thought of you. and i wanted to forget, to forget you; but why, oh, why, have you come?" on the landing above them two schoolboys were smoking and looking down, but that was nothing to gurov; he drew anna sergeyevna to him, and began kissing her face, her cheeks, and her hands. "what are you doing, what are you doing!" she cried in horror, pushing him away. "we are mad. go away to-day; go away at once.... i beseech you by all that is sacred, i implore you.... there are people coming this way!" some one was coming up the stairs. "you must go away," anna sergeyevna went on in a whisper. "do you hear, dmitri dmitritch? i will come and see you in moscow. i have never been happy; i am miserable now, and i never, never shall be happy, never! don't make me suffer still more! i swear i'll come to moscow. but now let us part. my precious, good, dear one, we must part!" she pressed his hand and began rapidly going downstairs, looking round at him, and from her eyes he could see that she really was unhappy. gurov stood for a little while, listened, then, when all sound had died away, he found his coat and left the theatre. iv and anna sergeyevna began coming to see him in moscow. once in two or three months she left s----, telling her husband that she was going to consult a doctor about an internal complaint--and her husband believed her, and did not believe her. in moscow she stayed at the slaviansky bazaar hotel, and at once sent a man in a red cap to gurov. gurov went to see her, and no one in moscow knew of it. once he was going to see her in this way on a winter morning (the messenger had come the evening before when he was out). with him walked his daughter, whom he wanted to take to school: it was on the way. snow was falling in big wet flakes. "it's three degrees above freezing-point, and yet it is snowing," said gurov to his daughter. "the thaw is only on the surface of the earth; there is quite a different temperature at a greater height in the atmosphere." "and why are there no thunderstorms in the winter, father?" he explained that, too. he talked, thinking all the while that he was going to see her, and no living soul knew of it, and probably never would know. he had two lives: one, open, seen and known by all who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relative falsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another life running its course in secret. and through some strange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everything that was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything in which he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything that made the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people; and all that was false in him, the sheath in which he hid himself to conceal the truth--such, for instance, as his work in the bank, his discussions at the club, his "lower race," his presence with his wife at anniversary festivities--all that was open. and he judged of others by himself, not believing in what he saw, and always believing that every man had his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy and under the cover of night. all personal life rested on secrecy, and possibly it was partly on that account that civilised man was so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected. after leaving his daughter at school, gurov went on to the slaviansky bazaar. he took off his fur coat below, went upstairs, and softly knocked at the door. anna sergeyevna, wearing his favourite grey dress, exhausted by the journey and the suspense, had been expecting him since the evening before. she was pale; she looked at him, and did not smile, and he had hardly come in when she fell on his breast. their kiss was slow and prolonged, as though they had not met for two years. "well, how are you getting on there?" he asked. "what news?" "wait; i'll tell you directly.... i can't talk." she could not speak; she was crying. she turned away from him, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. "let her have her cry out. i'll sit down and wait," he thought, and he sat down in an arm-chair. then he rang and asked for tea to be brought him, and while he drank his tea she remained standing at the window with her back to him. she was crying from emotion, from the miserable consciousness that their life was so hard for them; they could only meet in secret, hiding themselves from people, like thieves! was not their life shattered? "come, do stop!" he said. it was evident to him that this love of theirs would not soon be over, that he could not see the end of it. anna sergeyevna grew more and more attached to him. she adored him, and it was unthinkable to say to her that it was bound to have an end some day; besides, she would not have believed it! he went up to her and took her by the shoulders to say something affectionate and cheering, and at that moment he saw himself in the looking-glass. his hair was already beginning to turn grey. and it seemed strange to him that he had grown so much older, so much plainer during the last few years. the shoulders on which his hands rested were warm and quivering. he felt compassion for this life, still so warm and lovely, but probably already not far from beginning to fade and wither like his own. why did she love him so much? he always seemed to women different from what he was, and they loved in him not himself, but the man created by their imagination, whom they had been eagerly seeking all their lives; and afterwards, when they noticed their mistake, they loved him all the same. and not one of them had been happy with him. time passed, he had made their acquaintance, got on with them, parted, but he had never once loved; it was anything you like, but not love. and only now when his head was grey he had fallen properly, really in love--for the first time in his life. anna sergeyevna and he loved each other like people very close and akin, like husband and wife, like tender friends; it seemed to them that fate itself had meant them for one another, and they could not understand why he had a wife and she a husband; and it was as though they were a pair of birds of passage, caught and forced to live in different cages. they forgave each other for what they were ashamed of in their past, they forgave everything in the present, and felt that this love of theirs had changed them both. in moments of depression in the past he had comforted himself with any arguments that came into his mind, but now he no longer cared for arguments; he felt profound compassion, he wanted to be sincere and tender.... "don't cry, my darling," he said. "you've had your cry; that's enough.... let us talk now, let us think of some plan." then they spent a long while taking counsel together, talked of how to avoid the necessity for secrecy, for deception, for living in different towns and not seeing each other for long at a time. how could they be free from this intolerable bondage? "how? how?" he asked, clutching his head. "how?" and it seemed as though in a little while the solution would be found, and then a new and splendid life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that they had still a long, long road before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning. a doctor's visit the professor received a telegram from the lyalikovs' factory; he was asked to come as quickly as possible. the daughter of some madame lyalikov, apparently the owner of the factory, was ill, and that was all that one could make out of the long, incoherent telegram. and the professor did not go himself, but sent instead his assistant, korolyov. it was two stations from moscow, and there was a drive of three miles from the station. a carriage with three horses had been sent to the station to meet korolyov; the coachman wore a hat with a peacock's feather on it, and answered every question in a loud voice like a soldier: "no, sir!" "certainly, sir!" it was saturday evening; the sun was setting, the workpeople were coming in crowds from the factory to the station, and they bowed to the carriage in which korolyov was driving. and he was charmed with the evening, the farmhouses and villas on the road, and the birch-trees, and the quiet atmosphere all around, when the fields and woods and the sun seemed preparing, like the workpeople now on the eve of the holiday, to rest, and perhaps to pray.... he was born and had grown up in moscow; he did not know the country, and he had never taken any interest in factories, or been inside one, but he had happened to read about factories, and had been in the houses of manufacturers and had talked to them; and whenever he saw a factory far or near, he always thought how quiet and peaceable it was outside, but within there was always sure to be impenetrable ignorance and dull egoism on the side of the owners, wearisome, unhealthy toil on the side of the workpeople, squabbling, vermin, vodka. and now when the workpeople timidly and respectfully made way for the carriage, in their faces, their caps, their walk, he read physical impurity, drunkenness, nervous exhaustion, bewilderment. they drove in at the factory gates. on each side he caught glimpses of the little houses of workpeople, of the faces of women, of quilts and linen on the railings. "look out!" shouted the coachman, not pulling up the horses. it was a wide courtyard without grass, with five immense blocks of buildings with tall chimneys a little distance one from another, warehouses and barracks, and over everything a sort of grey powder as though from dust. here and there, like oases in the desert, there were pitiful gardens, and the green and red roofs of the houses in which the managers and clerks lived. the coachman suddenly pulled up the horses, and the carriage stopped at the house, which had been newly painted grey; here was a flower garden, with a lilac bush covered with dust, and on the yellow steps at the front door there was a strong smell of paint. "please come in, doctor," said women's voices in the passage and the entry, and at the same time he heard sighs and whisperings. "pray walk in.... we've been expecting you so long ... we're in real trouble. here, this way." madame lyalikov--a stout elderly lady wearing a black silk dress with fashionable sleeves, but, judging from her face, a simple uneducated woman--looked at the doctor in a flutter, and could not bring herself to hold out her hand to him; she did not dare. beside her stood a personage with short hair and a pince-nez; she was wearing a blouse of many colours, and was very thin and no longer young. the servants called her christina dmitryevna, and korolyov guessed that this was the governess. probably, as the person of most education in the house, she had been charged to meet and receive the doctor, for she began immediately, in great haste, stating the causes of the illness, giving trivial and tiresome details, but without saying who was ill or what was the matter. the doctor and the governess were sitting talking while the lady of the house stood motionless at the door, waiting. from the conversation korolyov learned that the patient was madame lyalikov's only daughter and heiress, a girl of twenty, called liza; she had been ill for a long time, and had consulted various doctors, and the previous night she had suffered till morning from such violent palpitations of the heart, that no one in the house had slept, and they had been afraid she might die. "she has been, one may say, ailing from a child," said christina dmitryevna in a sing-song voice, continually wiping her lips with her hand. "the doctors say it is nerves; when she was a little girl she was scrofulous, and the doctors drove it inwards, so i think it may be due to that." they went to see the invalid. fully grown up, big and tall, but ugly like her mother, with the same little eyes and disproportionate breadth of the lower part of the face, lying with her hair in disorder, muffled up to the chin, she made upon korolyov at the first minute the impression of a poor, destitute creature, sheltered and cared for here out of charity, and he could hardly believe that this was the heiress of the five huge buildings. "i am the doctor come to see you," said korolyov. "good evening." he mentioned his name and pressed her hand, a large, cold, ugly hand; she sat up, and, evidently accustomed to doctors, let herself be sounded, without showing the least concern that her shoulders and chest were uncovered. "i have palpitations of the heart," she said, "it was so awful all night.... i almost died of fright! do give me something." "i will, i will; don't worry yourself." korolyov examined her and shrugged his shoulders. "the heart is all right," he said; "it's all going on satisfactorily; everything is in good order. your nerves must have been playing pranks a little, but that's so common. the attack is over by now, one must suppose; lie down and go to sleep." at that moment a lamp was brought into the bed-room. the patient screwed up her eyes at the light, then suddenly put her hands to her head and broke into sobs. and the impression of a destitute, ugly creature vanished, and korolyov no longer noticed the little eyes or the heavy development of the lower part of the face. he saw a soft, suffering expression which was intelligent and touching: she seemed to him altogether graceful, feminine, and simple; and he longed to soothe her, not with drugs, not with advice, but with simple, kindly words. her mother put her arms round her head and hugged her. what despair, what grief was in the old woman's face! she, her mother, had reared her and brought her up, spared nothing, and devoted her whole life to having her daughter taught french, dancing, music: had engaged a dozen teachers for her; had consulted the best doctors, kept a governess. and now she could not make out the reason of these tears, why there was all this misery, she could not understand, and was bewildered; and she had a guilty, agitated, despairing expression, as though she had omitted something very important, had left something undone, had neglected to call in somebody--and whom, she did not know. "lizanka, you are crying again ... again," she said, hugging her daughter to her. "my own, my darling, my child, tell me what it is! have pity on me! tell me." both wept bitterly. korolyov sat down on the side of the bed and took liza's hand. "come, give over; it's no use crying," he said kindly. "why, there is nothing in the world that is worth those tears. come, we won't cry; that's no good...." and inwardly he thought: "it's high time she was married...." "our doctor at the factory gave her kalibromati," said the governess, "but i notice it only makes her worse. i should have thought that if she is given anything for the heart it ought to be drops.... i forget the name.... convallaria, isn't it?" and there followed all sorts of details. she interrupted the doctor, preventing his speaking, and there was a look of effort on her face, as though she supposed that, as the woman of most education in the house, she was duty bound to keep up a conversation with the doctor, and on no other subject but medicine. korolyov felt bored. "i find nothing special the matter," he said, addressing the mother as he went out of the bedroom. "if your daughter is being attended by the factory doctor, let him go on attending her. the treatment so far has been perfectly correct, and i see no reason for changing your doctor. why change? it's such an ordinary trouble; there's nothing seriously wrong." he spoke deliberately as he put on his gloves, while madame lyalikov stood without moving, and looked at him with her tearful eyes. "i have half an hour to catch the ten o'clock train," he said. "i hope i am not too late." "and can't you stay?" she asked, and tears trickled down her cheeks again. "i am ashamed to trouble you, but if you would be so good.... for god's sake," she went on in an undertone, glancing towards the door, "do stay to-night with us! she is all i have ... my only daughter.... she frightened me last night; i can't get over it.... don't go away, for goodness' sake!..." he wanted to tell her that he had a great deal of work in moscow, that his family were expecting him home; it was disagreeable to him to spend the evening and the whole night in a strange house quite needlessly; but he looked at her face, heaved a sigh, and began taking off his gloves without a word. all the lamps and candles were lighted in his honour in the drawing-room and the dining-room. he sat down at the piano and began turning over the music. then he looked at the pictures on the walls, at the portraits. the pictures, oil-paintings in gold frames, were views of the crimea--a stormy sea with a ship, a catholic monk with a wineglass; they were all dull, smooth daubs, with no trace of talent in them. there was not a single good-looking face among the portraits, nothing but broad cheekbones and astonished-looking eyes. lyalikov, liza's father, had a low forehead and a self-satisfied expression; his uniform sat like a sack on his bulky plebeian figure; on his breast was a medal and a red cross badge. there was little sign of culture, and the luxury was senseless and haphazard, and was as ill fitting as that uniform. the floors irritated him with their brilliant polish, the lustres on the chandelier irritated him, and he was reminded for some reason of the story of the merchant who used to go to the baths with a medal on his neck.... he heard a whispering in the entry; some one was softly snoring. and suddenly from outside came harsh, abrupt, metallic sounds, such as korolyov had never heard before, and which he did not understand now; they roused strange, unpleasant echoes in his soul. "i believe nothing would induce me to remain here to live ..." he thought, and went back to the music-books again. "doctor, please come to supper!" the governess called him in a low voice. he went into supper. the table was large and laid with a vast number of dishes and wines, but there were only two to supper: himself and christina dmitryevna. she drank madeira, ate rapidly, and talked, looking at him through her pince-nez: "our workpeople are very contented. we have performances at the factory every winter; the workpeople act themselves. they have lectures with a magic lantern, a splendid tea-room, and everything they want. they are very much attached to us, and when they heard that lizanka was worse they had a service sung for her. though they have no education, they have their feelings, too." "it looks as though you have no man in the house at all," said korolyov. "not one. pyotr nikanoritch died a year and a half ago, and left us alone. and so there are the three of us. in the summer we live here, and in winter we live in moscow, in polianka. i have been living with them for eleven years--as one of the family." at supper they served sterlet, chicken rissoles, and stewed fruit; the wines were expensive french wines. "please don't stand on ceremony, doctor," said christina dmitryevna, eating and wiping her mouth with her fist, and it was evident she found her life here exceedingly pleasant. "please have some more." after supper the doctor was shown to his room, where a bed had been made up for him, but he did not feel sleepy. the room was stuffy and it smelt of paint; he put on his coat and went out. it was cool in the open air; there was already a glimmer of dawn, and all the five blocks of buildings, with their tall chimneys, barracks, and warehouses, were distinctly outlined against the damp air. as it was a holiday, they were not working, and the windows were dark, and in only one of the buildings was there a furnace burning; two windows were crimson, and fire mixed with smoke came from time to time from the chimney. far away beyond the yard the frogs were croaking and the nightingales singing. looking at the factory buildings and the barracks, where the workpeople were asleep, he thought again what he always thought when he saw a factory. they may have performances for the workpeople, magic lanterns, factory doctors, and improvements of all sorts, but, all the same, the workpeople he had met that day on his way from the station did not look in any way different from those he had known long ago in his childhood, before there were factory performances and improvements. as a doctor accustomed to judging correctly of chronic complaints, the radical cause of which was incomprehensible and incurable, he looked upon factories as something baffling, the cause of which also was obscure and not removable, and all the improvements in the life of the factory hands he looked upon not as superfluous, but as comparable with the treatment of incurable illnesses. "there is something baffling in it, of course ..." he thought, looking at the crimson windows. "fifteen hundred or two thousand workpeople are working without rest in unhealthy surroundings, making bad cotton goods, living on the verge of starvation, and only waking from this nightmare at rare intervals in the tavern; a hundred people act as overseers, and the whole life of that hundred is spent in imposing fines, in abuse, in injustice, and only two or three so-called owners enjoy the profits, though they don't work at all, and despise the wretched cotton. but what are the profits, and how do they enjoy them? madame lyalikov and her daughter are unhappy--it makes one wretched to look at them; the only one who enjoys her life is christina dmitryevna, a stupid, middle-aged maiden lady in pince-nez. and so it appears that all these five blocks of buildings are at work, and inferior cotton is sold in the eastern markets, simply that christina dmitryevna may eat sterlet and drink madeira." suddenly there came a strange noise, the same sound korolyov had heard before supper. some one was striking on a sheet of metal near one of the buildings; he struck a note, and then at once checked the vibrations, so that short, abrupt, discordant sounds were produced, rather like "dair ... dair ... dair...." then there was half a minute of stillness, and from another building there came sounds equally abrupt and unpleasant, lower bass notes: "drin ... drin ... drin ..." eleven times. evidently it was the watchman striking the hour. near the third building he heard: "zhuk ... zhuk ... zhuk...." and so near all the buildings, and then behind the barracks and beyond the gates. and in the stillness of the night it seemed as though these sounds were uttered by a monster with crimson eyes--the devil himself, who controlled the owners and the work-people alike, and was deceiving both. korolyov went out of the yard into the open country. "who goes there?" some one called to him at the gates in an abrupt voice. "it's just like being in prison," he thought, and made no answer. here the nightingales and the frogs could be heard more distinctly, and one could feel it was a night in may. from the station came the noise of a train; somewhere in the distance drowsy cocks were crowing; but, all the same, the night was still, the world was sleeping tranquilly. in a field not far from the factory there could be seen the framework of a house and heaps of building material. korolyov sat down on the planks and went on thinking. "the only person who feels happy here is the governess, and the factory hands are working for her gratification. but that's only apparent: she is only the figurehead. the real person, for whom everything is being done, is the devil." and he thought about the devil, in whom he did not believe, and he looked round at the two windows where the fires were gleaming. it seemed to him that out of those crimson eyes the devil himself was looking at him--that unknown force that had created the mutual relation of the strong and the weak, that coarse blunder which one could never correct. the strong must hinder the weak from living--such was the law of nature; but only in a newspaper article or in a school book was that intelligible and easily accepted. in the hotchpotch which was everyday life, in the tangle of trivialities out of which human relations were woven, it was no longer a law, but a logical absurdity, when the strong and the weak were both equally victims of their mutual relations, unwillingly submitting to some directing force, unknown, standing outside life, apart from man. so thought korolyov, sitting on the planks, and little by little he was possessed by a feeling that this unknown and mysterious force was really close by and looking at him. meanwhile the east was growing paler, time passed rapidly; when there was not a soul anywhere near, as though everything were dead, the five buildings and their chimneys against the grey background of the dawn had a peculiar look--not the same as by day; one forgot altogether that inside there were steam motors, electricity, telephones, and kept thinking of lake-dwellings, of the stone age, feeling the presence of a crude, unconscious force.... and again there came the sound: "dair ... dair ... dair ... dair ..." twelve times. then there was stillness, stillness for half a minute, and at the other end of the yard there rang out. "drin ... drin ... drin...." "horribly disagreeable," thought korolyov. "zhuk ... zhuk ..." there resounded from a third place, abruptly, sharply, as though with annoyance--"zhuk ... zhuk...." and it took four minutes to strike twelve. then there was a hush; and again it seemed as though everything were dead. korolyov sat a little longer, then went to the house, but sat up for a good while longer. in the adjoining rooms there was whispering, there was a sound of shuffling slippers and bare feet. "is she having another attack?" thought korolyov. he went out to have a look at the patient. by now it was quite light in the rooms, and a faint glimmer of sunlight, piercing through the morning mist, quivered on the floor and on the wall of the drawing-room. the door of liza's room was open, and she was sitting in a low chair beside her bed, with her hair down, wearing a dressing-gown and wrapped in a shawl. the blinds were down on the windows. "how do you feel?" asked korolyov. "well, thank you." he touched her pulse, then straightened her hair, that had fallen over her forehead. "you are not asleep," he said. "it's beautiful weather outside. it's spring. the nightingales are singing, and you sit in the dark and think of something." she listened and looked into his face; her eyes were sorrowful and intelligent, and it was evident she wanted to say something to him. "does this happen to you often?" he said. she moved her lips, and answered: "often, i feel wretched almost every night." at that moment the watchman in the yard began striking two o'clock. they heard: "dair ... dair ..." and she shuddered. "do those knockings worry you?" he asked. "i don't know. everything here worries me," she answered, and pondered. "everything worries me. i hear sympathy in your voice; it seemed to me as soon as i saw you that i could tell you all about it." "tell me, i beg you." "i want to tell you of my opinion. it seems to me that i have no illness, but that i am weary and frightened, because it is bound to be so and cannot be otherwise. even the healthiest person can't help being uneasy if, for instance, a robber is moving about under his window. i am constantly being doctored," she went on, looking at her knees, and she gave a shy smile. "i am very grateful, of course, and i do not deny that the treatment is a benefit; but i should like to talk, not with a doctor, but with some intimate friend who would understand me and would convince me that i was right or wrong." "have you no friends?" asked korolyov. "i am lonely. i have a mother; i love her, but, all the same, i am lonely. that's how it happens to be.... lonely people read a great deal, but say little and hear little. life for them is mysterious; they are mystics and often see the devil where he is not. lermontov's tamara was lonely and she saw the devil." "do you read a great deal?" "yes. you see, my whole time is free from morning till night. i read by day, and by night my head is empty; instead of thoughts there are shadows in it." "do you see anything at night?" asked korolyov. "no, but i feel...." she smiled again, raised her eyes to the doctor, and looked at him so sorrowfully, so intelligently; and it seemed to him that she trusted him, and that she wanted to speak frankly to him, and that she thought the same as he did. but she was silent, perhaps waiting for him to speak. and he knew what to say to her. it was clear to him that she needed as quickly as possible to give up the five buildings and the million if she had it--to leave that devil that looked out at night; it was clear to him, too, that she thought so herself, and was only waiting for some one she trusted to confirm her. but he did not know how to say it. how? one is shy of asking men under sentence what they have been sentenced for; and in the same way it is awkward to ask very rich people what they want so much money for, why they make such a poor use of their wealth, why they don't give it up, even when they see in it their unhappiness; and if they begin a conversation about it themselves, it is usually embarrassing, awkward, and long. "how is one to say it?" korolyov wondered. "and is it necessary to speak?" and he said what he meant in a roundabout way: "you in the position of a factory owner and a wealthy heiress are dissatisfied; you don't believe in your right to it; and here now you can't sleep. that, of course, is better than if you were satisfied, slept soundly, and thought everything was satisfactory. your sleeplessness does you credit; in any case, it is a good sign. in reality, such a conversation as this between us now would have been unthinkable for our parents. at night they did not talk, but slept sound; we, our generation, sleep badly, are restless, but talk a great deal, and are always trying to settle whether we are right or not. for our children or grandchildren that question--whether they are right or not--will have been settled. things will be clearer for them than for us. life will be good in fifty years' time; it's only a pity we shall not last out till then. it would be interesting to have a peep at it." "what will our children and grandchildren do?" asked liza. "i don't know.... i suppose they will throw it all up and go away." "go where?" "where?... why, where they like," said korolyov; and he laughed. "there are lots of places a good, intelligent person can go to." he glanced at his watch. "the sun has risen, though," he said. "it is time you were asleep. undress and sleep soundly. very glad to have made your acquaintance," he went on, pressing her hand. "you are a good, interesting woman. good-night!" he went to his room and went to bed. in the morning when the carriage was brought round they all came out on to the steps to see him off. liza, pale and exhausted, was in a white dress as though for a holiday, with a flower in her hair; she looked at him, as yesterday, sorrowfully and intelligently, smiled and talked, and all with an expression as though she wanted to tell him something special, important--him alone. they could hear the larks trilling and the church bells pealing. the windows in the factory buildings were sparkling gaily, and, driving across the yard and afterwards along the road to the station, korolyov thought neither of the workpeople nor of lake dwellings, nor of the devil, but thought of the time, perhaps close at hand, when life would be as bright and joyous as that still sunday morning; and he thought how pleasant it was on such a morning in the spring to drive with three horses in a good carriage, and to bask in the sunshine. an upheaval mashenka pavletsky, a young girl who had only just finished her studies at a boarding school, returning from a walk to the house of the kushkins, with whom she was living as a governess, found the household in a terrible turmoil. mihailo, the porter who opened the door to her, was excited and red as a crab. loud voices were heard from upstairs. "madame kushkin is in a fit, most likely, or else she has quarrelled with her husband," thought mashenka. in the hall and in the corridor she met maid-servants. one of them was crying. then mashenka saw, running out of her room, the master of the house himself, nikolay sergeitch, a little man with a flabby face and a bald head, though he was not old. he was red in the face and twitching all over. he passed the governess without noticing her, and throwing up his arms, exclaimed: "oh, how horrible it is! how tactless! how stupid! how barbarous! abominable!" mashenka went into her room, and then, for the first time in her life, it was her lot to experience in all its acuteness the feeling that is so familiar to persons in dependent positions, who eat the bread of the rich and powerful, and cannot speak their minds. there was a search going on in her room. the lady of the house, fedosya vassilyevna, a stout, broad-shouldered, uncouth woman with thick black eyebrows, a faintly perceptible moustache, and red hands, who was exactly like a plain, illiterate cook in face and manners, was standing, without her cap on, at the table, putting back into mashenka's workbag balls of wool, scraps of materials, and bits of paper.... evidently the governess's arrival took her by surprise, since, on looking round and seeing the girl's pale and astonished face, she was a little taken aback, and muttered: "_pardon_. i ... i upset it accidentally.... my sleeve caught in it ..." and saying something more, madame kushkin rustled her long skirts and went out. mashenka looked round her room with wondering eyes, and, unable to understand it, not knowing what to think, shrugged her shoulders, and turned cold with dismay. what had fedosya vassilyevna been looking for in her work-bag? if she really had, as she said, caught her sleeve in it and upset everything, why had nikolay sergeitch dashed out of her room so excited and red in the face? why was one drawer of the table pulled out a little way? the money-box, in which the governess put away ten kopeck pieces and old stamps, was open. they had opened it, but did not know how to shut it, though they had scratched the lock all over. the whatnot with her books on it, the things on the table, the bed--all bore fresh traces of a search. her linen-basket, too. the linen had been carefully folded, but it was not in the same order as mashenka had left it when she went out. so the search had been thorough, most thorough. but what was it for? why? what had happened? mashenka remembered the excited porter, the general turmoil which was still going on, the weeping servant-girl; had it not all some connection with the search that had just been made in her room? was not she mixed up in something dreadful? mashenka turned pale, and feeling cold all over, sank on to her linen-basket. a maid-servant came into the room. "liza, you don't know why they have been rummaging in my room?" the governess asked her. "mistress has lost a brooch worth two thousand," said liza. "yes, but why have they been rummaging in my room?" "they've been searching every one, miss. they've searched all my things, too. they stripped us all naked and searched us.... god knows, miss, i never went near her toilet-table, let alone touching the brooch. i shall say the same at the police-station." "but ... why have they been rummaging here?" the governess still wondered. "a brooch has been stolen, i tell you. the mistress has been rummaging in everything with her own hands. she even searched mihailo, the porter, herself. it's a perfect disgrace! nikolay sergeitch simply looks on and cackles like a hen. but you've no need to tremble like that, miss. they found nothing here. you've nothing to be afraid of if you didn't take the brooch." "but, liza, it's vile ... it's insulting," said mashenka, breathless with indignation. "it's so mean, so low! what right had she to suspect me and to rummage in my things?" "you are living with strangers, miss," sighed liza. "though you are a young lady, still you are ... as it were ... a servant.... it's not like living with your papa and mamma." mashenka threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly. never in her life had she been subjected to such an outrage, never had she been so deeply insulted.... she, well-educated, refined, the daughter of a teacher, was suspected of theft; she had been searched like a street-walker! she could not imagine a greater insult. and to this feeling of resentment was added an oppressive dread of what would come next. all sorts of absurd ideas came into her mind. if they could suspect her of theft, then they might arrest her, strip her naked, and search her, then lead her through the street with an escort of soldiers, cast her into a cold, dark cell with mice and woodlice, exactly like the dungeon in which princess tarakanov was imprisoned. who would stand up for her? her parents lived far away in the provinces; they had not the money to come to her. in the capital she was as solitary as in a desert, without friends or kindred. they could do what they liked with her. "i will go to all the courts and all the lawyers," mashenka thought, trembling. "i will explain to them, i will take an oath.... they will believe that i could not be a thief!" mashenka remembered that under the sheets in her basket she had some sweetmeats, which, following the habits of her schooldays, she had put in her pocket at dinner and carried off to her room. she felt hot all over, and was ashamed at the thought that her little secret was known to the lady of the house; and all this terror, shame, resentment, brought on an attack of palpitation of the heart, which set up a throbbing in her temples, in her heart, and deep down in her stomach. "dinner is ready," the servant summoned mashenka. "shall i go, or not?" mashenka brushed her hair, wiped her face with a wet towel, and went into the dining-room. there they had already begun dinner. at one end of the table sat fedosya vassilyevna with a stupid, solemn, serious face; at the other end nikolay sergeitch. at the sides there were the visitors and the children. the dishes were handed by two footmen in swallowtails and white gloves. every one knew that there was an upset in the house, that madame kushkin was in trouble, and every one was silent. nothing was heard but the sound of munching and the rattle of spoons on the plates. the lady of the house, herself, was the first to speak. "what is the third course?" she asked the footman in a weary, injured voice. "_esturgeon à la russe_," answered the footman. "i ordered that, fenya," nikolay sergeitch hastened to observe. "i wanted some fish. if you don't like it, _ma chère_, don't let them serve it. i just ordered it...." fedosya vassilyevna did not like dishes that she had not ordered herself, and now her eyes filled with tears. "come, don't let us agitate ourselves," mamikov, her household doctor, observed in a honeyed voice, just touching her arm, with a smile as honeyed. "we are nervous enough as it is. let us forget the brooch! health is worth more than two thousand roubles!" "it's not the two thousand i regret," answered the lady, and a big tear rolled down her cheek. "it's the fact itself that revolts me! i cannot put up with thieves in my house. i don't regret it--i regret nothing; but to steal from me is such ingratitude! that's how they repay me for my kindness...." they all looked into their plates, but mashenka fancied after the lady's words that every one was looking at her. a lump rose in her throat; she began crying and put her handkerchief to her lips. "_pardon_," she muttered. "i can't help it. my head aches. i'll go away." and she got up from the table, scraping her chair awkwardly, and went out quickly, still more overcome with confusion. "it's beyond everything!" said nikolay sergeitch, frowning. "what need was there to search her room? how out of place it was!" "i don't say she took the brooch," said fedosya vassilyevna, "but can you answer for her? to tell the truth, i haven't much confidence in these learned paupers." "it really was unsuitable, fenya.... excuse me, fenya, but you've no kind of legal right to make a search." "i know nothing about your laws. all i know is that i've lost my brooch. and i will find the brooch!" she brought her fork down on the plate with a clatter, and her eyes flashed angrily. "and you eat your dinner, and don't interfere in what doesn't concern you!" nikolay sergeitch dropped his eyes mildly and sighed. meanwhile mashenka, reaching her room, flung herself on her bed. she felt now neither alarm nor shame, but she felt an intense longing to go and slap the cheeks of this hard, arrogant, dull-witted, prosperous woman. lying on her bed she breathed into her pillow and dreamed of how nice it would be to go and buy the most expensive brooch and fling it into the face of this bullying woman. if only it were god's will that fedosya vassilyevna should come to ruin and wander about begging, and should taste all the horrors of poverty and dependence, and that mashenka, whom she had insulted, might give her alms! oh, if only she could come in for a big fortune, could buy a carriage, and could drive noisily past the windows so as to be envied by that woman! but all these were only dreams, in reality there was only one thing left to do--to get away as quickly as possible, not to stay another hour in this place. it was true it was terrible to lose her place, to go back to her parents, who had nothing; but what could she do? mashenka could not bear the sight of the lady of the house nor of her little room; she felt stifled and wretched here. she was so disgusted with fedosya vassilyevna, who was so obsessed by her illnesses and her supposed aristocratic rank, that everything in the world seemed to have become coarse and unattractive because this woman was living in it. mashenka jumped up from the bed and began packing. "may i come in?" asked nikolay sergeitch at the door; he had come up noiselessly to the door, and spoke in a soft, subdued voice. "may i?" "come in." he came in and stood still near the door. his eyes looked dim and his red little nose was shiny. after dinner he used to drink beer, and the fact was perceptible in his walk, in his feeble, flabby hands. "what's this?" he asked, pointing to the basket. "i am packing. forgive me, nikolay sergeitch, but i cannot remain in your house. i feel deeply insulted by this search!" "i understand.... only you are wrong to go. why should you? they've searched your things, but you ... what does it matter to you? you will be none the worse for it." mashenka was silent and went on packing. nikolay sergeitch pinched his moustache, as though wondering what he should say next, and went on in an ingratiating voice: "i understand, of course, but you must make allowances. you know my wife is nervous, headstrong; you mustn't judge her too harshly." mashenka did not speak. "if you are so offended," nikolay sergeitch went on, "well, if you like, i'm ready to apologise. i ask your pardon." mashenka made no answer, but only bent lower over her box. this exhausted, irresolute man was of absolutely no significance in the household. he stood in the pitiful position of a dependent and hanger-on, even with the servants, and his apology meant nothing either. "h'm!... you say nothing! that's not enough for you. in that case, i will apologise for my wife. in my wife's name.... she behaved tactlessly, i admit it as a gentleman...." nikolay sergeitch walked about the room, heaved a sigh, and went on: "then you want me to have it rankling here, under my heart.... you want my conscience to torment me...." "i know it's not your fault, nikolay sergeitch," said mashenka, looking him full in the face with her big tear-stained eyes. "why should you worry yourself?" "of course, no.... but still, don't you ... go away. i entreat you." mashenka shook her head. nikolay sergeitch stopped at the window and drummed on the pane with his finger-tips. "such misunderstandings are simply torture to me," he said. "why, do you want me to go down on my knees to you, or what? your pride is wounded, and here you've been crying and packing up to go; but i have pride, too, and you do not spare it! or do you want me to tell you what i would not tell as confession? do you? listen; you want me to tell you what i won't tell the priest on my deathbed?" mashenka made no answer. "i took my wife's brooch," nikolay sergeitch said quickly. "is that enough now? are you satisfied? yes, i ... took it.... but, of course, i count on your discretion.... for god's sake, not a word, not half a hint to any one!" mashenka, amazed and frightened, went on packing; she snatched her things, crumpled them up, and thrust them anyhow into the box and the basket. now, after this candid avowal on the part of nikolay sergeitch, she could not remain another minute, and could not understand how she could have gone on living in the house before. "and it's nothing to wonder at," nikolay sergeitch went on after a pause. "it's an everyday story! i need money, and she ... won't give it to me. it was my father's money that bought this house and everything, you know! it's all mine, and the brooch belonged to my mother, and ... it's all mine! and she took it, took possession of everything.... i can't go to law with her, you'll admit.... i beg you most earnestly, overlook it ... stay on. _tout comprendre, tout pardonner._ will you stay?" "no!" said mashenka resolutely, beginning to tremble. "let me alone, i entreat you!" "well, god bless you!" sighed nikolay sergeitch, sitting down on the stool near the box. "i must own i like people who still can feel resentment, contempt, and so on. i could sit here forever and look at your indignant face.... so you won't stay, then? i understand.... it's bound to be so ... yes, of course.... it's all right for you, but for me--wo-o-o-o!... i can't stir a step out of this cellar. i'd go off to one of our estates, but in every one of them there are some of my wife's rascals ... stewards, experts, damn them all! they mortgage and remortgage.... you mustn't catch fish, must keep off the grass, mustn't break the trees." "nikolay sergeitch!" his wife's voice called from the drawing-room. "agnia, call your master!" "then you won't stay?" asked nikolay sergeitch, getting up quickly and going towards the door. "you might as well stay, really. in the evenings i could come and have a talk with you. eh? stay! if you go, there won't be a human face left in the house. it's awful!" nikolay sergeitch's pale, exhausted face besought her, but mashenka shook her head, and with a wave of his hand he went out. half an hour later she was on her way. ionitch i when visitors to the provincial town s---- complained of the dreariness and monotony of life, the inhabitants of the town, as though defending themselves, declared that it was very nice in s----, that there was a library, a theatre, a club; that they had balls; and, finally, that there were clever, agreeable, and interesting families with whom one could make acquaintance. and they used to point to the family of the turkins as the most highly cultivated and talented. this family lived in their own house in the principal street, near the governor's. ivan petrovitch turkin himself--a stout, handsome, dark man with whiskers--used to get up amateur performances for benevolent objects, and used to take the part of an elderly general and cough very amusingly. he knew a number of anecdotes, charades, proverbs, and was fond of being humorous and witty, and he always wore an expression from which it was impossible to tell whether he were joking or in earnest. his wife, vera iosifovna--a thin, nice-looking lady who wore a pince-nez--used to write novels and stories, and was very fond of reading them aloud to her visitors. the daughter, ekaterina ivanovna, a young girl, used to play on the piano. in short, every member of the family had a special talent. the turkins welcomed visitors, and good-humouredly displayed their talents with genuine simplicity. their stone house was roomy and cool in summer; half of the windows looked into a shady old garden, where nightingales used to sing in the spring. when there were visitors in the house, there was a clatter of knives in the kitchen and a smell of fried onions in the yard--and that was always a sure sign of a plentiful and savoury supper to follow. and as soon as dmitri ionitch startsev was appointed the district doctor, and took up his abode at dyalizh, six miles from s----, he, too, was told that as a cultivated man it was essential for him to make the acquaintance of the turkins. in the winter he was introduced to ivan petrovitch in the street; they talked about the weather, about the theatre, about the cholera; an invitation followed. on a holiday in the spring--it was ascension day--after seeing his patients, startsev set off for town in search of a little recreation and to make some purchases. he walked in a leisurely way (he had not yet set up his carriage), humming all the time: "'before i'd drunk the tears from life's goblet....'" in town he dined, went for a walk in the gardens, then ivan petrovitch's invitation came into his mind, as it were of itself, and he decided to call on the turkins and see what sort of people they were. "how do you do, if you please?" said ivan petrovitch, meeting him on the steps. "delighted, delighted to see such an agreeable visitor. come along; i will introduce you to my better half. i tell him, verotchka," he went on, as he presented the doctor to his wife--"i tell him that he has no human right to sit at home in a hospital; he ought to devote his leisure to society. oughtn't he, darling?" "sit here," said vera iosifovna, making her visitor sit down beside her. "you can dance attendance on me. my husband is jealous--he is an othello; but we will try and behave so well that he will notice nothing." "ah, you spoilt chicken!" ivan petrovitch muttered tenderly, and he kissed her on the forehead. "you have come just in the nick of time," he said, addressing the doctor again. "my better half has written a 'hugeous' novel, and she is going to read it aloud to-day." "petit jean," said vera iosifovna to her husband, "dites que l'on nous donne du thé." startsev was introduced to ekaterina ivanovna, a girl of eighteen, very much like her mother, thin and pretty. her expression was still childish and her figure was soft and slim; and her developed girlish bosom, healthy and beautiful, was suggestive of spring, real spring. then they drank tea with jam, honey, and sweetmeats, and with very nice cakes, which melted in the mouth. as the evening came on, other visitors gradually arrived, and ivan petrovitch fixed his laughing eyes on each of them and said: "how do you do, if you please?" then they all sat down in the drawing-room with very serious faces, and vera iosifovna read her novel. it began like this: "the frost was intense...." the windows were wide open; from the kitchen came the clatter of knives and the smell of fried onions.... it was comfortable in the soft deep arm-chair; the lights had such a friendly twinkle in the twilight of the drawing-room, and at the moment on a summer evening when sounds of voices and laughter floated in from the street and whiffs of lilac from the yard, it was difficult to grasp that the frost was intense, and that the setting sun was lighting with its chilly rays a solitary wayfarer on the snowy plain. vera iosifovna read how a beautiful young countess founded a school, a hospital, a library, in her village, and fell in love with a wandering artist; she read of what never happens in real life, and yet it was pleasant to listen--it was comfortable, and such agreeable, serene thoughts kept coming into the mind, one had no desire to get up. "not badsome ..." ivan petrovitch said softly. and one of the visitors hearing, with his thoughts far away, said hardly audibly: "yes ... truly...." one hour passed, another. in the town gardens close by a band was playing and a chorus was singing. when vera iosifovna shut her manuscript book, the company was silent for five minutes, listening to "lutchina" being sung by the chorus, and the song gave what was not in the novel and is in real life. "do you publish your stories in magazines?" startsev asked vera iosifovna. "no," she answered. "i never publish. i write it and put it away in my cupboard. why publish?" she explained. "we have enough to live on." and for some reason every one sighed. "and now, kitten, you play something," ivan petrovitch said to his daughter. the lid of the piano was raised and the music lying ready was opened. ekaterina ivanovna sat down and banged on the piano with both hands, and then banged again with all her might, and then again and again; her shoulders and bosom shook. she obstinately banged on the same notes, and it sounded as if she would not leave off until she had hammered the keys into the piano. the drawing-room was filled with the din; everything was resounding; the floor, the ceiling, the furniture.... ekaterina ivanovna was playing a difficult passage, interesting simply on account of its difficulty, long and monotonous, and startsev, listening, pictured stones dropping down a steep hill and going on dropping, and he wished they would leave off dropping; and at the same time ekaterina ivanovna, rosy from the violent exercise, strong and vigorous, with a lock of hair falling over her forehead, attracted him very much. after the winter spent at dyalizh among patients and peasants, to sit in a drawing-room, to watch this young, elegant, and, in all probability, pure creature, and to listen to these noisy, tedious but still cultured sounds, was so pleasant, so novel.... "well, kitten, you have played as never before," said ivan petrovitch, with tears in his eyes, when his daughter had finished and stood up. "die, denis; you won't write anything better." all flocked round her, congratulated her, expressed astonishment, declared that it was long since they had heard such music, and she listened in silence with a faint smile, and her whole figure was expressive of triumph. "splendid, superb!" "splendid," said startsev, too, carried away by the general enthusiasm. "where have you studied?" he asked ekaterina ivanovna. "at the conservatoire?" "no, i am only preparing for the conservatoire, and till now have been working with madame zavlovsky." "have you finished at the high school here?" "oh, no," vera iosifovna answered for her, "we have teachers for her at home; there might be bad influences at the high school or a boarding school, you know. while a young girl is growing up, she ought to be under no influence but her mother's." "all the same, i'm going to the conservatoire," said ekaterina ivanovna. "no. kitten loves her mamma. kitten won't grieve papa and mamma." "no, i'm going, i'm going," said ekaterina ivanovna, with playful caprice and stamping her foot. and at supper it was ivan petrovitch who displayed his talents. laughing only with his eyes, he told anecdotes, made epigrams, asked ridiculous riddles and answered them himself, talking the whole time in his extraordinary language, evolved in the course of prolonged practice in witticism and evidently now become a habit: "badsome," "hugeous," "thank you most dumbly," and so on. but that was not all. when the guests, replete and satisfied, trooped into the hall, looking for their coats and sticks, there bustled about them the footman pavlusha, or, as he was called in the family, pava--a lad of fourteen with shaven head and chubby cheeks. "come, pava, perform!" ivan petrovitch said to him. pava struck an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic tone: "unhappy woman, die!" and every one roared with laughter. "it's entertaining," thought startsev, as he went out into the street. he went to a restaurant and drank some beer, then set off to walk home to dyalizh; he walked all the way singing: "'thy voice to me so languid and caressing....'" on going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the six miles' walk. on the contrary, he felt as though he could with pleasure have walked another twenty. "not badsome," he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep. ii startsev kept meaning to go to the turkins' again, but there was a great deal of work in the hospital, and he was unable to find free time. in this way more than a year passed in work and solitude. but one day a letter in a light blue envelope was brought him from the town. vera iosifovna had been suffering for some time from migraine, but now since kitten frightened her every day by saying that she was going away to the conservatoire, the attacks began to be more frequent. all the doctors of the town had been at the turkins'; at last it was the district doctor's turn. vera iosifovna wrote him a touching letter in which she begged him to come and relieve her sufferings. startsev went, and after that he began to be often, very often at the turkins'.... he really did something for vera iosifovna, and she was already telling all her visitors that he was a wonderful and exceptional doctor. but it was not for the sake of her migraine that he visited the turkins' now.... it was a holiday. ekaterina ivanovna finished her long, wearisome exercises on the piano. then they sat a long time in the dining-room, drinking tea, and ivan petrovitch told some amusing story. then there was a ring and he had to go into the hall to welcome a guest; startsev took advantage of the momentary commotion, and whispered to ekaterina ivanovna in great agitation: "for god's sake, i entreat you, don't torment me; let us go into the garden!" she shrugged her shoulders, as though perplexed and not knowing what he wanted of her, but she got up and went. "you play the piano for three or four hours," he said, following her; "then you sit with your mother, and there is no possibility of speaking to you. give me a quarter of an hour at least, i beseech you." autumn was approaching, and it was quiet and melancholy in the old garden; the dark leaves lay thick in the walks. it was already beginning to get dark early. "i haven't seen you for a whole week," startsev went on, "and if you only knew what suffering it is! let us sit down. listen to me." they had a favourite place in the garden; a seat under an old spreading maple. and now they sat down on this seat. "what do you want?" said ekaterina ivanovna drily, in a matter-of-fact tone. "i have not seen you for a whole week; i have not heard you for so long. i long passionately, i thirst for your voice. speak." she fascinated him by her freshness, the naïve expression of her eyes and cheeks. even in the way her dress hung on her, he saw something extraordinarily charming, touching in its simplicity and naïve grace; and at the same time, in spite of this naïveté, she seemed to him intelligent and developed beyond her years. he could talk with her about literature, about art, about anything he liked; could complain to her of life, of people, though it sometimes happened in the middle of serious conversation she would laugh inappropriately or run away into the house. like almost all girls of her neighbourhood, she had read a great deal (as a rule, people read very little in s----, and at the lending library they said if it were not for the girls and the young jews, they might as well shut up the library). this afforded startsev infinite delight; he used to ask her eagerly every time what she had been reading the last few days, and listened enthralled while she told him. "what have you been reading this week since i saw you last?" he asked now. "do please tell me." "i have been reading pisemsky." "what exactly?" "'a thousand souls,'" answered kitten. "and what a funny name pisemsky had--alexey feofilaktitch!" "where are you going?" cried startsev in horror, as she suddenly got up and walked towards the house. "i must talk to you; i want to explain myself.... stay with me just five minutes, i supplicate you!" she stopped as though she wanted to say something, then awkwardly thrust a note into his hand, ran home and sat down to the piano again. "be in the cemetery," startsev read, "at eleven o'clock to-night, near the tomb of demetti." "well, that's not at all clever," he thought, coming to himself. "why the cemetery? what for?" it was clear: kitten was playing a prank. who would seriously dream of making an appointment at night in the cemetery far out of the town, when it might have been arranged in the street or in the town gardens? and was it in keeping with him--a district doctor, an intelligent, staid man--to be sighing, receiving notes, to hang about cemeteries, to do silly things that even schoolboys think ridiculous nowadays? what would this romance lead to? what would his colleagues say when they heard of it? such were startsev's reflections as he wandered round the tables at the club, and at half-past ten he suddenly set off for the cemetery. by now he had his own pair of horses, and a coachman called panteleimon, in a velvet waistcoat. the moon was shining. it was still warm, warm as it is in autumn. dogs were howling in the suburb near the slaughter-house. startsev left his horses in one of the side-streets at the end of the town, and walked on foot to the cemetery. "we all have our oddities," he thought. "kitten is odd, too; and--who knows?--perhaps she is not joking, perhaps she will come"; and he abandoned himself to this faint, vain hope, and it intoxicated him. he walked for half a mile through the fields; the cemetery showed as a dark streak in the distance, like a forest or a big garden. the wall of white stone came into sight, the gate.... in the moonlight he could read on the gate: "the hour cometh." startsev went in at the little gate, and before anything else he saw the white crosses and monuments on both sides of the broad avenue, and the black shadows of them and the poplars; and for a long way round it was all white and black, and the slumbering trees bowed their branches over the white stones. it seemed as though it were lighter here than in the fields; the maple-leaves stood out sharply like paws on the yellow sand of the avenue and on the stones, and the inscriptions on the tombs could be clearly read. for the first moments startsev was struck now by what he saw for the first time in his life, and what he would probably never see again; a world not like anything else, a world in which the moonlight was as soft and beautiful, as though slumbering here in its cradle, where there was no life, none whatever; but in every dark poplar, in every tomb, there was felt the presence of a mystery that promised a life peaceful, beautiful, eternal. the stones and faded flowers, together with the autumn scent of the leaves, all told of forgiveness, melancholy, and peace. all was silence around; the stars looked down from the sky in the profound stillness, and startsev's footsteps sounded loud and out of place, and only when the church clock began striking and he imagined himself dead, buried there for ever, he felt as though some one were looking at him, and for a moment he thought that it was not peace and tranquillity, but stifled despair, the dumb dreariness of non-existence.... demetti's tomb was in the form of a shrine with an angel at the top. the italian opera had once visited s---- and one of the singers had died; she had been buried here, and this monument put up to her. no one in the town remembered her, but the lamp at the entrance reflected the moonlight, and looked as though it were burning. there was no one, and, indeed, who would come here at midnight? but startsev waited, and as though the moonlight warmed his passion, he waited passionately, and, in imagination, pictured kisses and embraces. he sat near the monument for half an hour, then paced up and down the side avenues, with his hat in his hand, waiting and thinking of the many women and girls buried in these tombs who had been beautiful and fascinating, who had loved, at night burned with passion, yielding themselves to caresses. how wickedly mother nature jested at man's expense, after all! how humiliating it was to recognise it! startsev thought this, and at the same time he wanted to cry out that he wanted love, that he was eager for it at all costs. to his eyes they were not slabs of marble, but fair white bodies in the moonlight; he saw shapes hiding bashfully in the shadows of the trees, felt their warmth, and the languor was oppressive.... and as though a curtain were lowered, the moon went behind a cloud, and suddenly all was darkness. startsev could scarcely find the gate--by now it was as dark as it is on an autumn night. then he wandered about for an hour and a half, looking for the side-street in which he had left his horses. "i am tired; i can scarcely stand on my legs," he said to panteleimon. and settling himself with relief in his carriage, he thought: "och! i ought not to get fat!" iii the following evening he went to the turkins' to make an offer. but it turned out to be an inconvenient moment, as ekaterina ivanovna was in her own room having her hair done by a hair-dresser. she was getting ready to go to a dance at the club. he had to sit a long time again in the dining-room drinking tea. ivan petrovitch, seeing that his visitor was bored and preoccupied, drew some notes out of his waistcoat pocket, read a funny letter from a german steward, saying that all the ironmongery was ruined and the plasticity was peeling off the walls. "i expect they will give a decent dowry," thought startsev, listening absent-mindedly. after a sleepless night, he found himself in a state of stupefaction, as though he had been given something sweet and soporific to drink; there was fog in his soul, but joy and warmth, and at the same time a sort of cold, heavy fragment of his brain was reflecting: "stop before it is too late! is she the match for you? she is spoilt, whimsical, sleeps till two o'clock in the afternoon, while you are a deacon's son, a district doctor...." "what of it?" he thought. "i don't care." "besides, if you marry her," the fragment went on, "then her relations will make you give up the district work and live in the town." "after all," he thought, "if it must be the town, the town it must be. they will give a dowry; we can establish ourselves suitably." at last ekaterina ivanovna came in, dressed for the ball, with a low neck, looking fresh and pretty; and startsev admired her so much, and went into such ecstasies, that he could say nothing, but simply stared at her and laughed. she began saying good-bye, and he--he had no reason for staying now--got up, saying that it was time for him to go home; his patients were waiting for him. "well, there's no help for that," said ivan petrovitch. "go, and you might take kitten to the club on the way." it was spotting with rain; it was very dark, and they could only tell where the horses were by panteleimon's husky cough. the hood of the carriage was put up. "i stand upright; you lie down right; he lies all right," said ivan petrovitch as he put his daughter into the carriage. they drove off. "i was at the cemetery yesterday," startsev began. "how ungenerous and merciless it was on your part!..." "you went to the cemetery?" "yes, i went there and waited almost till two o'clock. i suffered...." "well, suffer, if you cannot understand a joke." ekaterina ivanovna, pleased at having so cleverly taken in a man who was in love with her, and at being the object of such intense love, burst out laughing and suddenly uttered a shriek of terror, for, at that very minute, the horses turned sharply in at the gate of the club, and the carriage almost tilted over. startsev put his arm round ekaterina ivanovna's waist; in her fright she nestled up to him, and he could not restrain himself, and passionately kissed her on the lips and on the chin, and hugged her more tightly. "that's enough," she said drily. and a minute later she was not in the carriage, and a policeman near the lighted entrance of the club shouted in a detestable voice to panteleimon: "what are you stopping for, you crow? drive on." startsev drove home, but soon afterwards returned. attired in another man's dress suit and a stiff white tie which kept sawing at his neck and trying to slip away from the collar, he was sitting at midnight in the club drawing-room, and was saying with enthusiasm to ekaterina ivanovna. "ah, how little people know who have never loved! it seems to me that no one has ever yet written of love truly, and i doubt whether this tender, joyful, agonising feeling can be described, and any one who has once experienced it would not attempt to put it into words. what is the use of preliminaries and introductions? what is the use of unnecessary fine words? my love is immeasurable. i beg, i beseech you," startsev brought out at last, "be my wife!" "dmitri ionitch," said ekaterina ivanovna, with a very grave face, after a moment's thought--"dmitri ionitch, i am very grateful to you for the honour. i respect you, but ..." she got up and continued standing, "but, forgive me, i cannot be your wife. let us talk seriously. dmitri ionitch, you know i love art beyond everything in life. i adore music; i love it frantically; i have dedicated my whole life to it. i want to be an artist; i want fame, success, freedom, and you want me to go on living in this town, to go on living this empty, useless life, which has become insufferable to me. to become a wife--oh, no, forgive me! one must strive towards a lofty, glorious goal, and married life would put me in bondage for ever. dmitri ionitch" (she faintly smiled as she pronounced his name; she thought of "alexey feofilaktitch")--"dmitri ionitch, you are a good, clever, honourable man; you are better than any one...." tears came into her eyes. "i feel for you with my whole heart, but ... but you will understand...." and she turned away and went out of the drawing-room to prevent herself from crying. startsev's heart left off throbbing uneasily. going out of the club into the street, he first of all tore off the stiff tie and drew a deep breath. he was a little ashamed and his vanity was wounded--he had not expected a refusal--and could not believe that all his dreams, his hopes and yearnings, had led him up to such a stupid end, just as in some little play at an amateur performance, and he was sorry for his feeling, for that love of his, so sorry that he felt as though he could have burst into sobs or have violently belaboured panteleimon's broad back with his umbrella. for three days he could not get on with anything, he could not eat nor sleep; but when the news reached him that ekaterina ivanovna had gone away to moscow to enter the conservatoire, he grew calmer and lived as before. afterwards, remembering sometimes how he had wandered about the cemetery or how he had driven all over the town to get a dress suit, he stretched lazily and said: "what a lot of trouble, though!" iv four years had passed. startsev already had a large practice in the town. every morning he hurriedly saw his patients at dyalizh, then he drove in to see his town patients. by now he drove, not with a pair, but with a team of three with bells on them, and he returned home late at night. he had grown broader and stouter, and was not very fond of walking, as he was somewhat asthmatic. and panteleimon had grown stout, too, and the broader he grew, the more mournfully he sighed and complained of his hard luck: he was sick of driving! startsev used to visit various households and met many people, but did not become intimate with any one. the inhabitants irritated him by their conversation, their views of life, and even their appearance. experience taught him by degrees that while he played cards or lunched with one of these people, the man was a peaceable, friendly, and even intelligent human being; that as soon as one talked of anything not eatable, for instance, of politics or science, he would be completely at a loss, or would expound a philosophy so stupid and ill-natured that there was nothing else to do but wave one's hand in despair and go away. even when startsev tried to talk to liberal citizens, saying, for instance, that humanity, thank god, was progressing, and that one day it would be possible to dispense with passports and capital punishment, the liberal citizen would look at him askance and ask him mistrustfully: "then any one could murder any one he chose in the open street?" and when, at tea or supper, startsev observed in company that one should work, and that one ought not to live without working, every one took this as a reproach, and began to get angry and argue aggressively. with all that, the inhabitants did nothing, absolutely nothing, and took no interest in anything, and it was quite impossible to think of anything to say. and startsev avoided conversation, and confined himself to eating and playing _vint_; and when there was a family festivity in some household and he was invited to a meal, then he sat and ate in silence, looking at his plate. and everything that was said at the time was uninteresting, unjust, and stupid; he felt irritated and disturbed, but held his tongue, and, because he sat glumly silent and looked at his plate, he was nicknamed in the town "the haughty pole," though he never had been a pole. all such entertainments as theatres and concerts he declined, but he played _vint_ every evening for three hours with enjoyment. he had another diversion to which he took imperceptibly, little by little: in the evening he would take out of his pockets the notes he had gained by his practice, and sometimes there were stuffed in his pockets notes--yellow and green, and smelling of scent and vinegar and incense and fish oil--up to the value of seventy roubles; and when they amounted to some hundreds he took them to the mutual credit bank and deposited the money there to his account. he was only twice at the turkins' in the course of the four years after ekaterina ivanovna had gone away, on each occasion at the invitation of vera iosifovna, who was still undergoing treatment for migraine. every summer ekaterina ivanovna came to stay with her parents, but he did not once see her; it somehow never happened. but now four years had passed. one still, warm morning a letter was brought to the hospital. vera iosifovna wrote to dmitri ionitch that she was missing him very much, and begged him to come and see them, and to relieve her sufferings; and, by the way, it was her birthday. below was a postscript: "i join in mother's request.--k." startsev considered, and in the evening he went to the turkins'. "how do you do, if you please?" ivan petrovitch met him, smiling with his eyes only. "bongjour." vera iosifovna, white-haired and looking much older, shook startsev's hand, sighed affectedly, and said: "you don't care to pay attentions to me, doctor. you never come and see us; i am too old for you. but now some one young has come; perhaps she will be more fortunate." and kitten? she had grown thinner, paler, had grown handsomer and more graceful; but now she was ekaterina ivanovna, not kitten; she had lost the freshness and look of childish naïveté. and in her expression and manners there was something new--guilty and diffident, as though she did not feel herself at home here in the turkins' house. "how many summers, how many winters!" she said, giving startsev her hand, and he could see that her heart was beating with excitement; and looking at him intently and curiously, she went on: "how much stouter you are! you look sunburnt and more manly, but on the whole you have changed very little." now, too, he thought her attractive, very attractive, but there was something lacking in her, or else something superfluous--he could not himself have said exactly what it was, but something prevented him from feeling as before. he did not like her pallor, her new expression, her faint smile, her voice, and soon afterwards he disliked her clothes, too, the low chair in which she was sitting; he disliked something in the past when he had almost married her. he thought of his love, of the dreams and the hopes which had troubled him four years before--and he felt awkward. they had tea with cakes. then vera iosifovna read aloud a novel; she read of things that never happen in real life, and startsev listened, looked at her handsome grey head, and waited for her to finish. "people are not stupid because they can't write novels, but because they can't conceal it when they do," he thought. "not badsome," said ivan petrovitch. then ekaterina ivanovna played long and noisily on the piano, and when she finished she was profusely thanked and warmly praised. "it's a good thing i did not marry her," thought startsev. she looked at him, and evidently expected him to ask her to go into the garden, but he remained silent. "let us have a talk," she said, going up to him. "how are you getting on? what are you doing? how are things? i have been thinking about you all these days," she went on nervously. "i wanted to write to you, wanted to come myself to see you at dyalizh. i quite made up my mind to go, but afterwards i thought better of it. god knows what your attitude is towards me now; i have been looking forward to seeing you to-day with such emotion. for goodness' sake let us go into the garden." they went into the garden and sat down on the seat under the old maple, just as they had done four years before. it was dark. "how are you getting on?" asked ekaterina ivanovna. "oh, all right; i am jogging along," answered startsev. and he could think of nothing more. they were silent. "i feel so excited!" said ekaterina ivanovna, and she hid her face in her hands. "but don't pay attention to it. i am so happy to be at home; i am so glad to see every one. i can't get used to it. so many memories! i thought we should talk without stopping till morning." now he saw her face near, her shining eyes, and in the darkness she looked younger than in the room, and even her old childish expression seemed to have come back to her. and indeed she was looking at him with naïve curiosity, as though she wanted to get a closer view and understanding of the man who had loved her so ardently, with such tenderness, and so unsuccessfully; her eyes thanked him for that love. and he remembered all that had been, every minute detail; how he had wandered about the cemetery, how he had returned home in the morning exhausted, and he suddenly felt sad and regretted the past. a warmth began glowing in his heart. "do you remember how i took you to the dance at the club?" he asked. "it was dark and rainy then ..." the warmth was glowing now in his heart, and he longed to talk, to rail at life.... "ech!" he said with a sigh. "you ask how i am living. how do we live here? why, not at all. we grow old, we grow stout, we grow slack. day after day passes; life slips by without colour, without expressions, without thoughts.... in the daytime working for gain, and in the evening the club, the company of card-players, alcoholic, raucous-voiced gentlemen whom i can't endure. what is there nice in it?" "well, you have work--a noble object in life. you used to be so fond of talking of your hospital. i was such a queer girl then; i imagined myself such a great pianist. nowadays all young ladies play the piano, and i played, too, like everybody else, and there was nothing special about me. i am just such a pianist as my mother is an authoress. and of course i didn't understand you then, but afterwards in moscow i often thought of you. i thought of no one but you. what happiness to be a district doctor; to help the suffering; to be serving the people! what happiness!" ekaterina ivanovna repeated with enthusiasm. "when i thought of you in moscow, you seemed to me so ideal, so lofty...." startsev thought of the notes he used to take out of his pockets in the evening with such pleasure, and the glow in his heart was quenched. he got up to go into the house. she took his arm. "you are the best man i've known in my life," she went on. "we will see each other and talk, won't we? promise me. i am not a pianist; i am not in error about myself now, and i will not play before you or talk of music." when they had gone into the house, and when startsev saw in the lamplight her face, and her sad, grateful, searching eyes fixed upon him, he felt uneasy and thought again: "it's a good thing i did not marry her then." he began taking leave. "you have no human right to go before supper," said ivan petrovitch as he saw him off. "it's extremely perpendicular on your part. well, now, perform!" he added, addressing pava in the hall. pava, no longer a boy, but a young man with moustaches, threw himself into an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic voice: "unhappy woman, die!" all this irritated startsev. getting into his carriage, and looking at the dark house and garden which had once been so precious and so dear, he thought of everything at once--vera iosifovna's novels and kitten's noisy playing, and ivan petrovitch's jokes and pava's tragic posturing, and thought if the most talented people in the town were so futile, what must the town be? three days later pava brought a letter from ekaterina ivanovna. "you don't come and see us--why?" she wrote to him. "i am afraid that you have changed towards us. i am afraid, and i am terrified at the very thought of it. reassure me; come and tell me that everything is well. "i must talk to you.--your e. i." * * * * * he read this letter, thought a moment, and said to pava: "tell them, my good fellow, that i can't come to-day; i am very busy. say i will come in three days or so." but three days passed, a week passed; he still did not go. happening once to drive past the turkins' house, he thought he must go in, if only for a moment, but on second thoughts ... did not go in. and he never went to the turkins' again. v several more years have passed. startsev has grown stouter still, has grown corpulent, breathes heavily, and already walks with his head thrown back. when stout and red in the face, he drives with his bells and his team of three horses, and panteleimon, also stout and red in the face with his thick beefy neck, sits on the box, holding his arms stiffly out before him as though they were made of wood, and shouts to those he meets: "keep to the ri-i-ight!" it is an impressive picture; one might think it was not a mortal, but some heathen deity in his chariot. he has an immense practice in the town, no time to breathe, and already has an estate and two houses in the town, and he is looking out for a third more profitable; and when at the mutual credit bank he is told of a house that is for sale, he goes to the house without ceremony, and, marching through all the rooms, regardless of half-dressed women and children who gaze at him in amazement and alarm, he prods at the doors with his stick, and says: "is that the study? is that a bedroom? and what's here?" and as he does so he breathes heavily and wipes the sweat from his brow. he has a great deal to do, but still he does not give up his work as district doctor; he is greedy for gain, and he tries to be in all places at once. at dyalizh and in the town he is called simply "ionitch": "where is ionitch off to?" or "should not we call in ionitch to a consultation?" probably because his throat is covered with rolls of fat, his voice has changed; it has become thin and sharp. his temper has changed, too: he has grown ill-humoured and irritable. when he sees his patients he is usually out of temper; he impatiently taps the floor with his stick, and shouts in his disagreeable voice: "be so good as to confine yourself to answering my questions! don't talk so much!" he is solitary. he leads a dreary life; nothing interests him. during all the years he had lived at dyalizh his love for kitten had been his one joy, and probably his last. in the evenings he plays _vint_ at the club, and then sits alone at a big table and has supper. ivan, the oldest and most respectable of the waiters, serves him, hands him lafitte no. , and every one at the club--the members of the committee, the cook and waiters--know what he likes and what he doesn't like and do their very utmost to satisfy him, or else he is sure to fly into a rage and bang on the floor with his stick. as he eats his supper, he turns round from time to time and puts in his spoke in some conversation: "what are you talking about? eh? whom?" and when at a neighbouring table there is talk of the turkins, he asks: "what turkins are you speaking of? do you mean the people whose daughter plays on the piano?" that is all that can be said about him. and the turkins? ivan petrovitch has grown no older; he is not changed in the least, and still makes jokes and tells anecdotes as of old. vera iosifovna still reads her novels aloud to her visitors with eagerness and touching simplicity. and kitten plays the piano for four hours every day. she has grown visibly older, is constantly ailing, and every autumn goes to the crimea with her mother. when ivan petrovitch sees them off at the station, he wipes his tears as the train starts, and shouts: "good-bye, if you please." and he waves his handkerchief. the head of the family it is, as a rule, after losing heavily at cards or after a drinking-bout when an attack of dyspepsia is setting in that stepan stepanitch zhilin wakes up in an exceptionally gloomy frame of mind. he looks sour, rumpled, and dishevelled; there is an expression of displeasure on his grey face, as though he were offended or disgusted by something. he dresses slowly, sips his vichy water deliberately, and begins walking about the rooms. "i should like to know what b-b-beast comes in here and does not shut the door!" he grumbles angrily, wrapping his dressing-gown about him and spitting loudly. "take away that paper! why is it lying about here? we keep twenty servants, and the place is more untidy than a pot-house. who was that ringing? who the devil is that?" "that's anfissa, the midwife who brought our fedya into the world," answers his wife. "always hanging about ... these cadging toadies!" "there's no making you out, stepan stepanitch. you asked her yourself, and now you scold." "i am not scolding; i am speaking. you might find something to do, my dear, instead of sitting with your hands in your lap trying to pick a quarrel. upon my word, women are beyond my comprehension! beyond my comprehension! how can they waste whole days doing nothing? a man works like an ox, like a b-beast, while his wife, the partner of his life, sits like a pretty doll, sits and does nothing but watch for an opportunity to quarrel with her husband by way of diversion. it's time to drop these schoolgirlish ways, my dear. you are not a schoolgirl, not a young lady; you are a wife and mother! you turn away? aha! it's not agreeable to listen to the bitter truth!" "it's strange that you only speak the bitter truth when your liver is out of order." "that's right; get up a scene." "have you been out late? or playing cards?" "what if i have? is that anybody's business? am i obliged to give an account of my doings to any one? it's my own money i lose, i suppose? what i spend as well as what is spent in this house belongs to me--me. do you hear? to me!" and so on, all in the same style. but at no other time is stepan stepanitch so reasonable, virtuous, stern or just as at dinner, when all his household are sitting about him. it usually begins with the soup. after swallowing the first spoonful zhilin suddenly frowns and puts down his spoon. "damn it all!" he mutters; "i shall have to dine at a restaurant, i suppose." "what's wrong?" asks his wife anxiously. "isn't the soup good?" "one must have the taste of a pig to eat hogwash like that! there's too much salt in it; it smells of dirty rags ... more like bugs than onions.... it's simply revolting, anfissa ivanovna," he says, addressing the midwife. "every day i give no end of money for housekeeping.... i deny myself everything, and this is what they provide for my dinner! i suppose they want me to give up the office and go into the kitchen to do the cooking myself." "the soup is very good to-day," the governess ventures timidly. "oh, you think so?" says zhilin, looking at her angrily from under his eyelids. "every one to his taste, of course. it must be confessed our tastes are very different, varvara vassilyevna. you, for instance, are satisfied with the behaviour of this boy" (zhilin with a tragic gesture points to his son fedya); "you are delighted with him, while i ... i am disgusted. yes!" fedya, a boy of seven with a pale, sickly face, leaves off eating and drops his eyes. his face grows paler still. "yes, you are delighted, and i am disgusted. which of us is right, i cannot say, but i venture to think as his father, i know my own son better than you do. look how he is sitting! is that the way decently brought up children sit? sit properly." fedya tilts his chin up, cranes his neck, and fancies that he is holding himself better. tears come into his eyes. "eat your dinner! hold your spoon properly! you wait. i'll show you, you horrid boy! don't dare to whimper! look straight at me!" fedya tries to look straight at him, but his face is quivering and his eyes fill with tears. "a-ah!... you cry? you are naughty and then you cry? go and stand in the corner, you beast!" "but ... let him have his dinner first," his wife intervenes. "no dinner for him! such bla ... such rascals don't deserve dinner!" fedya, wincing and quivering all over, creeps down from his chair and goes into the corner. "you won't get off with that!" his parent persists. "if nobody else cares to look after your bringing up, so be it; i must begin.... i won't let you be naughty and cry at dinner, my lad! idiot! you must do your duty! do you understand? do your duty! your father works and you must work, too! no one must eat the bread of idleness! you must be a man! a m-man!" "for god's sake, leave off," says his wife in french. "don't nag at us before outsiders, at least.... the old woman is all ears; and now, thanks to her, all the town will hear of it." "i am not afraid of outsiders," answers zhilin in russian. "anfissa ivanovna sees that i am speaking the truth. why, do you think i ought to be pleased with the boy? do you know what he costs me? do you know, you nasty boy, what you cost me? or do you imagine that i coin money, that i get it for nothing? don't howl! hold your tongue! do you hear what i say? do you want me to whip you, you young ruffian?" fedya wails aloud and begins to sob. "this is insufferable," says his mother, getting up from the table and flinging down her dinner-napkin. "you never let us have dinner in peace! your bread sticks in my throat." and putting her handkerchief to her eyes, she walks out of the dining-room. "now she is offended," grumbles zhilin, with a forced smile. "she's been spoilt.... that's how it is, anfissa ivanovna; no one likes to hear the truth nowadays.... it's all my fault, it seems." several minutes of silence follow. zhilin looks round at the plates, and noticing that no one has yet touched their soup, heaves a deep sigh, and stares at the flushed and uneasy face of the governess. "why don't you eat, varvara vassilyevna?" he asks. "offended, i suppose? i see.... you don't like to be told the truth. you must forgive me, it's my nature; i can't be a hypocrite.... i always blurt out the plain truth" (a sigh). "but i notice that my presence is unwelcome. no one can eat or talk while i am here.... well, you should have told me, and i would have gone away.... i will go." zhilin gets up and walks with dignity to the door. as he passes the weeping fedya he stops. "after all that has passed here, you are free," he says to fedya, throwing back his head with dignity. "i won't meddle in your bringing up again. i wash my hands of it! i humbly apologise that as a father, from a sincere desire for your welfare, i have disturbed you and your mentors. at the same time, once for all i disclaim all responsibility for your future...." fedya wails and sobs more loudly than ever. zhilin turns with dignity to the door and departs to his bedroom. when he wakes from his after-dinner nap he begins to feel the stings of conscience. he is ashamed to face his wife, his son, anfissa ivanovna, and even feels very wretched when he recalls the scene at dinner, but his amour-propre is too much for him; he has not the manliness to be frank, and he goes on sulking and grumbling. waking up next morning, he feels in excellent spirits, and whistles gaily as he washes. going into the dining-room to breakfast, he finds there fedya, who, at the sight of his father, gets up and looks at him helplessly. "well, young man?" zhilin greets him good-humouredly, sitting down to the table. "what have you got to tell me, young man? are you all right? well, come, chubby; give your father a kiss." with a pale, grave face fedya goes up to his father and touches his cheek with his quivering lips, then walks away and sits down in his place without a word. the black monk i andrey vassilitch kovrin, who held a master's degree at the university, had exhausted himself, and had upset his nerves. he did not send for a doctor, but casually, over a bottle of wine, he spoke to a friend who was a doctor, and the latter advised him to spend the spring and summer in the country. very opportunely a long letter came from tanya pesotsky, who asked him to come and stay with them at borissovka. and he made up his mind that he really must go. to begin with--that was in april--he went to his own home, kovrinka, and there spent three weeks in solitude; then, as soon as the roads were in good condition, he set off, driving in a carriage, to visit pesotsky, his former guardian, who had brought him up, and was a horticulturist well known all over russia. the distance from kovrinka to borissovka was reckoned only a little over fifty miles. to drive along a soft road in may in a comfortable carriage with springs was a real pleasure. pesotsky had an immense house with columns and lions, off which the stucco was peeling, and with a footman in swallow-tails at the entrance. the old park, laid out in the english style, gloomy and severe, stretched for almost three-quarters of a mile to the river, and there ended in a steep, precipitous clay bank, where pines grew with bare roots that looked like shaggy paws; the water shone below with an unfriendly gleam, and the peewits flew up with a plaintive cry, and there one always felt that one must sit down and write a ballad. but near the house itself, in the courtyard and orchard, which together with the nurseries covered ninety acres, it was all life and gaiety even in bad weather. such marvellous roses, lilies, camellias; such tulips of all possible shades, from glistening white to sooty black--such a wealth of flowers, in fact, kovrin had never seen anywhere as at pesotsky's. it was only the beginning of spring, and the real glory of the flower-beds was still hidden away in the hot-houses. but even the flowers along the avenues, and here and there in the flower-beds, were enough to make one feel, as one walked about the garden, as though one were in a realm of tender colours, especially in the early morning when the dew was glistening on every petal. what was the decorative part of the garden, and what pesotsky contemptuously spoke of as rubbish, had at one time in his childhood given kovrin an impression of fairyland. every sort of caprice, of elaborate monstrosity and mockery at nature was here. there were espaliers of fruit-trees, a pear-tree in the shape of a pyramidal poplar, spherical oaks and lime-trees, an apple-tree in the shape of an umbrella, plum-trees trained into arches, crests, candelabra, and even into the number --the year when pesotsky first took up horticulture. one came across, too, lovely, graceful trees with strong, straight stems like palms, and it was only by looking intently that one could recognise these trees as gooseberries or currants. but what made the garden most cheerful and gave it a lively air, was the continual coming and going in it, from early morning till evening; people with wheelbarrows, shovels, and watering-cans swarmed round the trees and bushes, in the avenues and the flower-beds, like ants.... kovrin arrived at pesotsky's at ten o'clock in the evening. he found tanya and her father, yegor semyonitch, in great anxiety. the clear starlight sky and the thermometer foretold a frost towards morning, and meanwhile ivan karlovitch, the gardener, had gone to the town, and they had no one to rely upon. at supper they talked of nothing but the morning frost, and it was settled that tanya should not go to bed, and between twelve and one should walk through the garden, and see that everything was done properly, and yegor semyonitch should get up at three o'clock or even earlier. kovrin sat with tanya all the evening, and after midnight went out with her into the garden. it was cold. there was a strong smell of burning already in the garden. in the big orchard, which was called the commercial garden, and which brought yegor semyonitch several thousand clear profit, a thick, black, acrid smoke was creeping over the ground and, curling around the trees, was saving those thousands from the frost. here the trees were arranged as on a chessboard, in straight and regular rows like ranks of soldiers, and this severe pedantic regularity, and the fact that all the trees were of the same size, and had tops and trunks all exactly alike, made them look monotonous and even dreary. kovrin and tanya walked along the rows where fires of dung, straw, and all sorts of refuse were smouldering, and from time to time they were met by labourers who wandered in the smoke like shadows. the only trees in flower were the cherries, plums, and certain sorts of apples, but the whole garden was plunged in smoke, and it was only near the nurseries that kovrin could breathe freely. "even as a child i used to sneeze from the smoke here," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "but to this day i don't understand how smoke can keep off frost." "smoke takes the place of clouds when there are none ..." answered tanya. "and what do you want clouds for?" "in overcast and cloudy weather there is no frost." "you don't say so." he laughed and took her arm. her broad, very earnest face, chilled with the frost, with her delicate black eyebrows, the turned-up collar of her coat, which prevented her moving her head freely, and the whole of her thin, graceful figure, with her skirts tucked up on account of the dew, touched him. "good heavens! she is grown up," he said. "when i went away from here last, five years ago, you were still a child. you were such a thin, longlegged creature, with your hair hanging on your shoulders; you used to wear short frocks, and i used to tease you, calling you a heron.... what time does!" "yes, five years!" sighed tanya. "much water has flowed since then. tell me, andryusha, honestly," she began eagerly, looking him in the face: "do you feel strange with us now? but why do i ask you? you are a man, you live your own interesting life, you are somebody.... to grow apart is so natural! but however that may be, andryusha, i want you to think of us as your people. we have a right to that." "i do, tanya." "on your word of honour?" "yes, on my word of honour." "you were surprised this evening that we have so many of your photographs. you know my father adores you. sometimes it seems to me that he loves you more than he does me. he is proud of you. you are a clever, extraordinary man, you have made a brilliant career for yourself, and he is persuaded that you have turned out like this because he brought you up. i don't try to prevent him from thinking so. let him." dawn was already beginning, and that was especially perceptible from the distinctness with which the coils of smoke and the tops of the trees began to stand out in the air. "it's time we were asleep, though," said tanya, "and it's cold, too." she took his arm. "thank you for coming, andryusha. we have only uninteresting acquaintances, and not many of them. we have only the garden, the garden, the garden, and nothing else. standards, half-standards," she laughed. "aports, reinettes, borovinkas, budded stocks, grafted stocks.... all, all our life has gone into the garden. i never even dream of anything but apples and pears. of course, it is very nice and useful, but sometimes one longs for something else for variety. i remember that when you used to come to us for the summer holidays, or simply a visit, it always seemed to be fresher and brighter in the house, as though the covers had been taken off the lustres and the furniture. i was only a little girl then, but yet i understood it." she talked a long while and with great feeling. for some reason the idea came into his head that in the course of the summer he might grow fond of this little, weak, talkative creature, might be carried away and fall in love; in their position it was so possible and natural! this thought touched and amused him; he bent down to her sweet, preoccupied face and hummed softly: "'onyegin, i won't conceal it; i madly love tatiana....'" by the time they reached the house, yegor semyonitch had got up. kovrin did not feel sleepy; he talked to the old man and went to the garden with him. yegor semyonitch was a tall, broad-shouldered, corpulent man, and he suffered from asthma, yet he walked so fast that it was hard work to hurry after him. he had an extremely preoccupied air; he was always hurrying somewhere, with an expression that suggested that if he were one minute late all would be ruined! "here is a business, brother ..." he began, standing still to take breath. "on the surface of the ground, as you see, is frost; but if you raise the thermometer on a stick fourteen feet above the ground, there it is warm.... why is that?" "i really don't know," said kovrin, and he laughed. "h'm!... one can't know everything, of course.... however large the intellect may be, you can't find room for everything in it. i suppose you still go in chiefly for philosophy?" "yes, i lecture in psychology; i am working at philosophy in general." "and it does not bore you?" "on the contrary, it's all i live for." "well, god bless you!..." said yegor semyonitch, meditatively stroking his grey whiskers. "god bless you!... i am delighted about you ... delighted, my boy...." but suddenly he listened, and, with a terrible face, ran off and quickly disappeared behind the trees in a cloud of smoke. "who tied this horse to an apple-tree?" kovrin heard his despairing, heart-rending cry. "who is the low scoundrel who has dared to tie this horse to an apple-tree? my god, my god! they have ruined everything; they have spoilt everything; they have done everything filthy, horrible, and abominable. the orchard's done for, the orchard's ruined. my god!" when he came back to kovrin, his face looked exhausted and mortified. "what is one to do with these accursed people?" he said in a tearful voice, flinging up his hands. "styopka was carting dung at night, and tied the horse to an apple-tree! he twisted the reins round it, the rascal, as tightly as he could, so that the bark is rubbed off in three places. what do you think of that! i spoke to him and he stands like a post and only blinks his eyes. hanging is too good for him." growing calmer, he embraced kovrin and kissed him on the cheek. "well, god bless you!... god bless you!..." he muttered. "i am very glad you have come. unutterably glad.... thank you." then, with the same rapid step and preoccupied face, he made the round of the whole garden, and showed his former ward all his greenhouses and hot-houses, his covered-in garden, and two apiaries which he called the marvel of our century. while they were walking the sun rose, flooding the garden with brilliant light. it grew warm. foreseeing a long, bright, cheerful day, kovrin recollected that it was only the beginning of may, and that he had before him a whole summer as bright, cheerful, and long; and suddenly there stirred in his bosom a joyous, youthful feeling, such as he used to experience in his childhood, running about in that garden. and he hugged the old man and kissed him affectionately. both of them, feeling touched, went indoors and drank tea out of old-fashioned china cups, with cream and satisfying krendels made with milk and eggs; and these trifles reminded kovrin again of his childhood and boyhood. the delightful present was blended with the impressions of the past that stirred within him; there was a tightness at his heart; yet he was happy. he waited till tanya was awake and had coffee with her, went for a walk, then went to his room and sat down to work. he read attentively, making notes, and from time to time raised his eyes to look out at the open windows or at the fresh, still dewy flowers in the vases on the table; and again he dropped his eyes to his book, and it seemed to him as though every vein in his body was quivering and fluttering with pleasure. ii in the country he led just as nervous and restless a life as in town. he read and wrote a great deal, he studied italian, and when he was out for a walk, thought with pleasure that he would soon sit down to work again. he slept so little that every one wondered at him; if he accidentally dozed for half an hour in the daytime, he would lie awake all night, and, after a sleepless night, would feel cheerful and vigorous as though nothing had happened. he talked a great deal, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. very often, almost every day, young ladies of neighbouring families would come to the pesotskys', and would sing and play the piano with tanya; sometimes a young neighbour who was a good violinist would come, too. kovrin listened with eagerness to the music and singing, and was exhausted by it, and this showed itself by his eyes closing and his head falling to one side. one day he was sitting on the balcony after evening tea, reading. at the same time, in the drawing-room, tanya taking soprano, one of the young ladies a contralto, and the young man with his violin, were practising a well-known serenade of braga's. kovrin listened to the words--they were russian--and could not understand their meaning. at last, leaving his book and listening attentively, he understood: a maiden, full of sick fancies, heard one night in her garden mysterious sounds, so strange and lovely that she was obliged to recognise them as a holy harmony which is unintelligible to us mortals, and so flies back to heaven. kovrin's eyes began to close. he got up, and in exhaustion walked up and down the drawing-room, and then the dining-room. when the singing was over he took tanya's arm, and with her went out on the balcony. "i have been all day thinking of a legend," he said. "i don't remember whether i have read it somewhere or heard it, but it is a strange and almost grotesque legend. to begin with, it is somewhat obscure. a thousand years ago a monk, dressed in black, wandered about the desert, somewhere in syria or arabia.... some miles from where he was, some fisherman saw another black monk, who was moving slowly over the surface of a lake. this second monk was a mirage. now forget all the laws of optics, which the legend does not recognise, and listen to the rest. from that mirage there was cast another mirage, then from that other a third, so that the image of the black monk began to be repeated endlessly from one layer of the atmosphere to another. so that he was seen at one time in africa, at another in spain, then in italy, then in the far north.... then he passed out of the atmosphere of the earth, and now he is wandering all over the universe, still never coming into conditions in which he might disappear. possibly he may be seen now in mars or in some star of the southern cross. but, my dear, the real point on which the whole legend hangs lies in the fact that, exactly a thousand years from the day when the monk walked in the desert, the mirage will return to the atmosphere of the earth again and will appear to men. and it seems that the thousand years is almost up.... according to the legend, we may look out for the black monk to-day or to-morrow." "a queer mirage," said tanya, who did not like the legend. "but the most wonderful part of it all," laughed kovrin, "is that i simply cannot recall where i got this legend from. have i read it somewhere? have i heard it? or perhaps i dreamed of the black monk. i swear i don't remember. but the legend interests me. i have been thinking about it all day." letting tanya go back to her visitors, he went out of the house, and, lost in meditation, walked by the flower-beds. the sun was already setting. the flowers, having just been watered, gave forth a damp, irritating fragrance. indoors they began singing again, and in the distance the violin had the effect of a human voice. kovrin, racking his brains to remember where he had read or heard the legend, turned slowly towards the park, and unconsciously went as far as the river. by a little path that ran along the steep bank, between the bare roots, he went down to the water, disturbed the peewits there and frightened two ducks. the last rays of the setting sun still threw light here and there on the gloomy pines, but it was quite dark on the surface of the river. kovrin crossed to the other side by the narrow bridge. before him lay a wide field covered with young rye not yet in blossom. there was no living habitation, no living soul in the distance, and it seemed as though the little path, if one went along it, would take one to the unknown, mysterious place where the sun had just gone down, and where the evening glow was flaming in immensity and splendour. "how open, how free, how still it is here!" thought kovrin, walking along the path. "and it feels as though all the world were watching me, hiding and waiting for me to understand it...." but then waves began running across the rye, and a light evening breeze softly touched his uncovered head. a minute later there was another gust of wind, but stronger--the rye began rustling, and he heard behind him the hollow murmur of the pines. kovrin stood still in amazement. from the horizon there rose up to the sky, like a whirlwind or a waterspout, a tall black column. its outline was indistinct, but from the first instant it could be seen that it was not standing still, but moving with fearful rapidity, moving straight towards kovrin, and the nearer it came the smaller and the more distinct it was. kovrin moved aside into the rye to make way for it, and only just had time to do so. a monk, dressed in black, with a grey head and black eyebrows, his arms crossed over his breast, floated by him.... his bare feet did not touch the earth. after he had floated twenty feet beyond him, he looked round at kovrin, and nodded to him with a friendly but sly smile. but what a pale, fearfully pale, thin face! beginning to grow larger again, he flew across the river, collided noiselessly with the clay bank and pines, and passing through them, vanished like smoke. "why, you see," muttered kovrin, "there must be truth in the legend." without trying to explain to himself the strange apparition, glad that he had succeeded in seeing so near and so distinctly, not only the monk's black garments, but even his face and eyes, agreeably excited, he went back to the house. in the park and in the garden people were moving about quietly, in the house they were playing--so he alone had seen the monk. he had an intense desire to tell tanya and yegor semyonitch, but he reflected that they would certainly think his words the ravings of delirium, and that would frighten them; he had better say nothing. he laughed aloud, sang, and danced the mazurka; he was in high spirits, and all of them, the visitors and tanya, thought he had a peculiar look, radiant and inspired, and that he was very interesting. iii after supper, when the visitors had gone, he went to his room and lay down on the sofa: he wanted to think about the monk. but a minute later tanya came in. "here, andryusha; read father's articles," she said, giving him a bundle of pamphlets and proofs. "they are splendid articles. he writes capitally." "capitally, indeed!" said yegor semyonitch, following her and smiling constrainedly; he was ashamed. "don't listen to her, please; don't read them! though, if you want to go to sleep, read them by all means; they are a fine soporific." "i think they are splendid articles," said tanya, with deep conviction. "you read them, andryusha, and persuade father to write oftener. he could write a complete manual of horticulture." yegor semyonitch gave a forced laugh, blushed, and began uttering the phrases usually made use of by an embarrassed author. at last he began to give way. "in that case, begin with gaucher's article and these russian articles," he muttered, turning over the pamphlets with a trembling hand, "or else you won't understand. before you read my objections, you must know what i am objecting to. but it's all nonsense ... tiresome stuff. besides, i believe it's bedtime." tanya went away. yegor semyonitch sat down on the sofa by kovrin and heaved a deep sigh. "yes, my boy ..." he began after a pause. "that's how it is, my dear lecturer. here i write articles, and take part in exhibitions, and receive medals.... pesotsky, they say, has apples the size of a head, and pesotsky, they say, has made his fortune with his garden. in short, 'kotcheby is rich and glorious.' but one asks oneself: what is it all for? the garden is certainly fine, a model. it's not really a garden, but a regular institution, which is of the greatest public importance because it marks, so to say, a new era in russian agriculture and russian industry. but, what's it for? what's the object of it?" "the fact speaks for itself." "i do not mean in that sense. i meant to ask: what will happen to the garden when i die? in the condition in which you see it now, it would not be maintained for one month without me. the whole secret of success lies not in its being a big garden or a great number of labourers being employed in it, but in the fact that i love the work. do you understand? i love it perhaps more than myself. look at me; i do everything myself. i work from morning to night: i do all the grafting myself, the pruning myself, the planting myself. i do it all myself: when any one helps me i am jealous and irritable till i am rude. the whole secret lies in loving it--that is, in the sharp eye of the master; yes, and in the master's hands, and in the feeling that makes one, when one goes anywhere for an hour's visit, sit, ill at ease, with one's heart far away, afraid that something may have happened in the garden. but when i die, who will look after it? who will work? the gardener? the labourers? yes? but i will tell you, my dear fellow, the worst enemy in the garden is not a hare, not a cockchafer, and not the frost, but any outside person." "and tanya?" asked kovrin, laughing. "she can't be more harmful than a hare? she loves the work and understands it." "yes, she loves it and understands it. if after my death the garden goes to her and she is the mistress, of course nothing better could be wished. but if, which god forbid, she should marry," yegor semyonitch whispered, and looked with a frightened look at kovrin, "that's just it. if she marries and children come, she will have no time to think about the garden. what i fear most is: she will marry some fine gentleman, and he will be greedy, and he will let the garden to people who will run it for profit, and everything will go to the devil the very first year! in our work females are the scourge of god!" yegor semyonitch sighed and paused for a while. "perhaps it is egoism, but i tell you frankly: i don't want tanya to get married. i am afraid of it! there is one young dandy comes to see us, bringing his violin and scraping on it; i know tanya will not marry him, i know it quite well; but i can't bear to see him! altogether, my boy, i am very queer. i know that." yegor semyonitch got up and walked about the room in excitement, and it was evident that he wanted to say something very important, but could not bring himself to it. "i am very fond of you, and so i am going to speak to you openly," he decided at last, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "i deal plainly with certain delicate questions, and say exactly what i think, and i cannot endure so-called hidden thoughts. i will speak plainly: you are the only man to whom i should not be afraid to marry my daughter. you are a clever man with a good heart, and would not let my beloved work go to ruin; and the chief reason is that i love you as a son, and i am proud of you. if tanya and you could get up a romance somehow, then--well! i should be very glad and even happy. i tell you this plainly, without mincing matters, like an honest man." kovrin laughed. yegor semyonitch opened the door to go out, and stood in the doorway. "if tanya and you had a son, i would make a horticulturist of him," he said, after a moment's thought. "however, this is idle dreaming. goodnight." left alone, kovrin settled himself more comfortably on the sofa and took up the articles. the title of one was "on intercropping"; of another, "a few words on the remarks of monsieur z. concerning the trenching of the soil for a new garden"; a third, "additional matter concerning grafting with a dormant bud"; and they were all of the same sort. but what a restless, jerky tone! what nervous, almost hysterical passion! here was an article, one would have thought, with most peaceable and impersonal contents: the subject of it was the russian antonovsky apple. but yegor semyonitch began it with "audiatur altera pars," and finished it with "sapienti sat"; and between these two quotations a perfect torrent of venomous phrases directed "at the learned ignorance of our recognised horticultural authorities, who observe nature from the height of their university chairs," or at monsieur gaucher, "whose success has been the work of the vulgar and the dilettanti." and then followed an inappropriate, affected, and insincere regret that peasants who stole fruit and broke the branches could not nowadays be flogged. "it is beautiful, charming, healthy work, but even in this there is strife and passion," thought kovrin, "i suppose that everywhere and in all careers men of ideas are nervous, and marked by exaggerated sensitiveness. most likely it must be so." he thought of tanya, who was so pleased with yegor semyonitch's articles. small, pale, and so thin that her shoulder-blades stuck out, her eyes, wide and open, dark and intelligent, had an intent gaze, as though looking for something. she walked like her father with a little hurried step. she talked a great deal and was fond of arguing, accompanying every phrase, however insignificant, with expressive mimicry and gesticulation. no doubt she was nervous in the extreme. kovrin went on reading the articles, but he understood nothing of them, and flung them aside. the same pleasant excitement with which he had earlier in the evening danced the mazurka and listened to the music was now mastering him again and rousing a multitude of thoughts. he got up and began walking about the room, thinking about the black monk. it occurred to him that if this strange, supernatural monk had appeared to him only, that meant that he was ill and had reached the point of having hallucinations. this reflection frightened him, but not for long. "but i am all right, and i am doing no harm to any one; so there is no harm in my hallucinations," he thought; and he felt happy again. he sat down on the sofa and clasped his hands round his head. restraining the unaccountable joy which filled his whole being, he then paced up and down again, and sat down to his work. but the thought that he read in the book did not satisfy him. he wanted something gigantic, unfathomable, stupendous. towards morning he undressed and reluctantly went to bed: he ought to sleep. when he heard the footsteps of yegor semyonitch going out into the garden, kovrin rang the bell and asked the footman to bring him some wine. he drank several glasses of lafitte, then wrapped himself up, head and all; his consciousness grew clouded and he fell asleep. iv yegor semyonitch and tanya often quarrelled and said nasty things to each other. they quarrelled about something that morning. tanya burst out crying and went to her room. she would not come down to dinner nor to tea. at first yegor semyonitch went about looking sulky and dignified, as though to give every one to understand that for him the claims of justice and good order were more important than anything else in the world; but he could not keep it up for long, and soon sank into depression. he walked about the park dejectedly, continually sighing: "oh, my god! my god!" and at dinner did not eat a morsel. at last, guilty and conscience-stricken, he knocked at the locked door and called timidly: "tanya! tanya!" and from behind the door came a faint voice, weak with crying but still determined: "leave me alone, if you please." the depression of the master and mistress was reflected in the whole household, even in the labourers working in the garden. kovrin was absorbed in his interesting work, but at last he, too, felt dreary and uncomfortable. to dissipate the general ill-humour in some way, he made up his mind to intervene, and towards evening he knocked at tanya's door. he was admitted. "fie, fie, for shame!" he began playfully, looking with surprise at tanya's tear-stained, woebegone face, flushed in patches with crying. "is it really so serious? fie, fie!" "but if you knew how he tortures me!" she said, and floods of scalding tears streamed from her big eyes. "he torments me to death," she went on, wringing her hands. "i said nothing to him ... nothing ... i only said that there was no need to keep ... too many labourers ... if we could hire them by the day when we wanted them. you know ... you know the labourers have been doing nothing for a whole week.... i ... i ... only said that, and he shouted and ... said ... a lot of horrible insulting things to me. what for?" "there, there," said kovrin, smoothing her hair. "you've quarrelled with each other, you've cried, and that's enough. you must not be angry for long--that's wrong ... all the more as he loves you beyond everything." "he has ... has spoiled my whole life," tanya went on, sobbing. "i hear nothing but abuse and ... insults. he thinks i am of no use in the house. well! he is right. i shall go away to-morrow; i shall become a telegraph clerk.... i don't care...." "come, come, come.... you mustn't cry, tanya. you mustn't, dear.... you are both hot-tempered and irritable, and you are both to blame. come along; i will reconcile you." kovrin talked affectionately and persuasively, while she went on crying, twitching her shoulders and wringing her hands, as though some terrible misfortune had really befallen her. he felt all the sorrier for her because her grief was not a serious one, yet she suffered extremely. what trivialities were enough to make this little creature miserable for a whole day, perhaps for her whole life! comforting tanya, kovrin thought that, apart from this girl and her father, he might hunt the world over and would not find people who would love him as one of themselves, as one of their kindred. if it had not been for those two he might very likely, having lost his father and mother in early childhood, never to the day of his death have known what was meant by genuine affection and that naïve, uncritical love which is only lavished on very close blood relations; and he felt that the nerves of this weeping, shaking girl responded to his half-sick, overstrained nerves like iron to a magnet. he never could have loved a healthy, strong, rosy-cheeked woman, but pale, weak, unhappy tanya attracted him. and he liked stroking her hair and her shoulders, pressing her hand and wiping away her tears.... at last she left off crying. she went on for a long time complaining of her father and her hard, insufferable life in that house, entreating kovrin to put himself in her place; then she began, little by little, smiling, and sighing that god had given her such a bad temper. at last, laughing aloud, she called herself a fool, and ran out of the room. when a little later kovrin went into the garden, yegor semyonitch and tanya were walking side by side along an avenue as though nothing had happened, and both were eating rye bread with salt on it, as both were hungry. v glad that he had been so successful in the part of peacemaker, kovrin went into the park. sitting on a garden seat, thinking, he heard the rattle of a carriage and a feminine laugh--visitors were arriving. when the shades of evening began falling on the garden, the sounds of the violin and singing voices reached him indistinctly, and that reminded him of the black monk. where, in what land or in what planet, was that optical absurdity moving now? hardly had he recalled the legend and pictured in his imagination the dark apparition he had seen in the rye-field, when, from behind a pine-tree exactly opposite, there came out noiselessly, without the slightest rustle, a man of medium height with uncovered grey head, all in black, and barefooted like a beggar, and his black eyebrows stood out conspicuously on his pale, death-like face. nodding his head graciously, this beggar or pilgrim came noiselessly to the seat and sat down, and kovrin recognised him as the black monk. for a minute they looked at one another, kovrin with amazement, and the monk with friendliness, and, just as before, a little slyness, as though he were thinking something to himself. "but you are a mirage," said kovrin. "why are you here and sitting still? that does not fit in with the legend." "that does not matter," the monk answered in a low voice, not immediately turning his face towards him. "the legend, the mirage, and i are all the products of your excited imagination. i am a phantom." "then you don't exist?" said kovrin. "you can think as you like," said the monk, with a faint smile. "i exist in your imagination, and your imagination is part of nature, so i exist in nature." "you have a very old, wise, and extremely expressive face, as though you really had lived more than a thousand years," said kovrin. "i did not know that my imagination was capable of creating such phenomena. but why do you look at me with such enthusiasm? do you like me?" "yes, you are one of those few who are justly called the chosen of god. you do the service of eternal truth. your thoughts, your designs, the marvellous studies you are engaged in, and all your life, bear the divine, the heavenly stamp, seeing that they are consecrated to the rational and the beautiful--that is, to what is eternal." "you said 'eternal truth.' ... but is eternal truth of use to man and within his reach, if there is no eternal life?" "there is eternal life," said the monk. "do you believe in the immortality of man?" "yes, of course. a grand, brilliant future is in store for you men. and the more there are like you on earth, the sooner will this future be realised. without you who serve the higher principle and live in full understanding and freedom, mankind would be of little account; developing in a natural way, it would have to wait a long time for the end of its earthly history. you will lead it some thousands of years earlier into the kingdom of eternal truth--and therein lies your supreme service. you are the incarnation of the blessing of god, which rests upon men." "and what is the object of eternal life?" asked kovrin. "as of all life--enjoyment. true enjoyment lies in knowledge, and eternal life provides innumerable and inexhaustible sources of knowledge, and in that sense it has been said: 'in my father's house there are many mansions.'" "if only you knew how pleasant it is to hear you!" said kovrin, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. "i am very glad." "but i know that when you go away i shall be worried by the question of your reality. you are a phantom, an hallucination. so i am mentally deranged, not normal?" "what if you are? why trouble yourself? you are ill because you have overworked and exhausted yourself, and that means that you have sacrificed your health to the idea, and the time is near at hand when you will give up life itself to it. what could be better? that is the goal towards which all divinely endowed, noble natures strive." "if i know i am mentally affected, can i trust myself?" "and are you sure that the men of genius, whom all men trust, did not see phantoms, too? the learned say now that genius is allied to madness. my friend, healthy and normal people are only the common herd. reflections upon the neurasthenia of the age, nervous exhaustion and degeneracy, et cetera, can only seriously agitate those who place the object of life in the present--that is, the common herd." "the romans used to say: _mens sana in corpore sano._" "not everything the greeks and the romans said is true. exaltation, enthusiasm, ecstasy--all that distinguishes prophets, poets, martyrs for the idea, from the common folk--is repellent to the animal side of man--that is, his physical health. i repeat, if you want to be healthy and normal, go to the common herd." "strange that you repeat what often comes into my mind," said kovrin. "it is as though you had seen and overheard my secret thoughts. but don't let us talk about me. what do you mean by 'eternal truth'?" the monk did not answer. kovrin looked at him and could not distinguish his face. his features grew blurred and misty. then the monk's head and arms disappeared; his body seemed merged into the seat and the evening twilight, and he vanished altogether. "the hallucination is over," said kovrin; and he laughed. "it's a pity." he went back to the house, light-hearted and happy. the little the monk had said to him had flattered, not his vanity, but his whole soul, his whole being. to be one of the chosen, to serve eternal truth, to stand in the ranks of those who could make mankind worthy of the kingdom of god some thousands of years sooner--that is, to free men from some thousands of years of unnecessary struggle, sin, and suffering; to sacrifice to the idea everything--youth, strength, health; to be ready to die for the common weal--what an exalted, what a happy lot! he recalled his past--pure, chaste, laborious; he remembered what he had learned himself and what he had taught to others, and decided that there was no exaggeration in the monk's words. tanya came to meet him in the park: she was by now wearing a different dress. "are you here?" she said. "and we have been looking and looking for you.... but what is the matter with you?" she asked in wonder, glancing at his radiant, ecstatic face and eyes full of tears. "how strange you are, andryusha!" "i am pleased, tanya," said kovrin, laying his hand on her shoulders. "i am more than pleased: i am happy. tanya, darling tanya, you are an extraordinary, nice creature. dear tanya, i am so glad, i am so glad!" he kissed both her hands ardently, and went on: "i have just passed through an exalted, wonderful, unearthly moment. but i can't tell you all about it or you would call me mad and not believe me. let us talk of you. dear, delightful tanya! i love you, and am used to loving you. to have you near me, to meet you a dozen times a day, has become a necessity of my existence; i don't know how i shall get on without you when i go back home." "oh," laughed tanya, "you will forget about us in two days. we are humble people and you are a great man." "no; let us talk in earnest!" he said. "i shall take you with me, tanya. yes? will you come with me? will you be mine?" "come," said tanya, and tried to laugh again, but the laugh would not come, and patches of colour came into her face. she began breathing quickly and walked very quickly, but not to the house, but further into the park. "i was not thinking of it ... i was not thinking of it," she said, wringing her hands in despair. and kovrin followed her and went on talking, with the same radiant, enthusiastic face: "i want a love that will dominate me altogether; and that love only you, tanya, can give me. i am happy! i am happy!" she was overwhelmed, and huddling and shrinking together, seemed ten years older all at once, while he thought her beautiful and expressed his rapture aloud: "how lovely she is!" vi learning from kovrin that not only a romance had been got up, but that there would even be a wedding, yegor semyonitch spent a long time in pacing from one corner of the room to the other, trying to conceal his agitation. his hands began trembling, his neck swelled and turned purple, he ordered his racing droshky and drove off somewhere. tanya, seeing how he lashed the horse, and seeing how he pulled his cap over his ears, understood what he was feeling, shut herself up in her room, and cried the whole day. in the hot-houses the peaches and plums were already ripe; the packing and sending off of these tender and fragile goods to moscow took a great deal of care, work, and trouble. owing to the fact that the summer was very hot and dry, it was necessary to water every tree, and a great deal of time and labour was spent on doing it. numbers of caterpillars made their appearance, which, to kovrin's disgust, the labourers and even yegor semyonitch and tanya squashed with their fingers. in spite of all that, they had already to book autumn orders for fruit and trees, and to carry on a great deal of correspondence. and at the very busiest time, when no one seemed to have a free moment, the work of the fields carried off more than half their labourers from the garden. yegor semyonitch, sunburnt, exhausted, ill-humoured, galloped from the fields to the garden and back again; cried that he was being torn to pieces, and that he should put a bullet through his brains. then came the fuss and worry of the trousseau, to which the pesotskys attached a good deal of importance. every one's head was in a whirl from the snipping of the scissors, the rattle of the sewing-machine, the smell of hot irons, and the caprices of the dressmaker, a huffy and nervous lady. and, as ill-luck would have it, visitors came every day, who had to be entertained, fed, and even put up for the night. but all this hard labour passed unnoticed as though in a fog. tanya felt that love and happiness had taken her unawares, though she had, since she was fourteen, for some reason been convinced that kovrin would marry her and no one else. she was bewildered, could not grasp it, could not believe herself.... at one minute such joy would swoop down upon her that she longed to fly away to the clouds and there pray to god, at another moment she would remember that in august she would have to part from her home and leave her father; or, goodness knows why, the idea would occur to her that she was worthless--insignificant and unworthy of a great man like kovrin--and she would go to her room, lock herself in, and cry bitterly for several hours. when there were visitors, she would suddenly fancy that kovrin looked extraordinarily handsome, and that all the women were in love with him and envying her, and her soul was filled with pride and rapture, as though she had vanquished the whole world; but he had only to smile politely at any young lady for her to be trembling with jealousy, to retreat to her room--and tears again. these new sensations mastered her completely; she helped her father mechanically, without noticing peaches, caterpillars or labourers, or how rapidly the time was passing. it was almost the same with yegor semyonitch. he worked from morning till night, was always in a hurry, was irritable, and flew into rages, but all of this was in a sort of spellbound dream. it seemed as though there were two men in him: one was the real yegor semyonitch, who was moved to indignation, and clutched his head in despair when he heard of some irregularity from ivan karlovitch the gardener; and another--not the real one--who seemed as though he were half drunk, would interrupt a business conversation at half a word, touch the gardener on the shoulder, and begin muttering: "say what you like, there is a great deal in blood. his mother was a wonderful woman, most high-minded and intelligent. it was a pleasure to look at her good, candid, pure face; it was like the face of an angel. she drew splendidly, wrote verses, spoke five foreign languages, sang.... poor thing! she died of consumption. the kingdom of heaven be hers." the unreal yegor semyonitch sighed, and after a pause went on: "when he was a boy and growing up in my house, he had the same angelic face, good and candid. the way he looks and talks and moves is as soft and elegant as his mother's. and his intellect! we were always struck with his intelligence. to be sure, it's not for nothing he's a master of arts! it's not for nothing! and wait a bit, ivan karlovitch, what will he be in ten years' time? he will be far above us!" but at this point the real yegor semyonitch, suddenly coming to himself, would make a terrible face, would clutch his head and cry: "the devils! they have spoilt everything! they have ruined everything! they have spoilt everything! the garden's done for, the garden's ruined!" kovrin, meanwhile, worked with the same ardour as before, and did not notice the general commotion. love only added fuel to the flames. after every talk with tanya he went to his room, happy and triumphant, took up his book or his manuscript with the same passion with which he had just kissed tanya and told her of his love. what the black monk had told him of the chosen of god, of eternal truth, of the brilliant future of mankind and so on, gave peculiar and extraordinary significance to his work, and filled his soul with pride and the consciousness of his own exalted consequence. once or twice a week, in the park or in the house, he met the black monk and had long conversations with him, but this did not alarm him, but, on the contrary, delighted him, as he was now firmly persuaded that such apparitions only visited the elect few who rise up above their fellows and devote themselves to the service of the idea. one day the monk appeared at dinner-time and sat in the dining-room window. kovrin was delighted, and very adroitly began a conversation with yegor semyonitch and tanya of what might be of interest to the monk; the black-robed visitor listened and nodded his head graciously, and yegor semyonitch and tanya listened, too, and smiled gaily without suspecting that kovrin was not talking to them but to his hallucination. imperceptibly the fast of the assumption was approaching, and soon after came the wedding, which, at yegor semyonitch's urgent desire, was celebrated with "a flourish"--that is, with senseless festivities that lasted for two whole days and nights. three thousand roubles' worth of food and drink was consumed, but the music of the wretched hired band, the noisy toasts, the scurrying to and fro of the footmen, the uproar and crowding, prevented them from appreciating the taste of the expensive wines and wonderful delicacies ordered from moscow. vii one long winter night kovrin was lying in bed, reading a french novel. poor tanya, who had headaches in the evenings from living in town, to which she was not accustomed, had been asleep a long while, and, from time to time, articulated some incoherent phrase in her restless dreams. it struck three o'clock. kovrin put out the light and lay down to sleep, lay for a long time with his eyes closed, but could not get to sleep because, as he fancied, the room was very hot and tanya talked in her sleep. at half-past four he lighted the candle again, and this time he saw the black monk sitting in an arm-chair near the bed. "good-morning," said the monk, and after a brief pause he asked: "what are you thinking of now?" "of fame," answered kovrin. "in the french novel i have just been reading, there is a description of a young _savant_, who does silly things and pines away through worrying about fame. i can't understand such anxiety." "because you are wise. your attitude towards fame is one of indifference, as towards a toy which no longer interests you." "yes, that is true." "renown does not allure you now. what is there flattering, amusing, or edifying in their carving your name on a tombstone, then time rubbing off the inscription together with the gilding? moreover, happily there are too many of you for the weak memory of mankind to be able to retain your names." "of course," assented kovrin. "besides, why should they be remembered? but let us talk of something else. of happiness, for instance. what is happiness?" when the clock struck five, he was sitting on the bed, dangling his feet to the carpet, talking to the monk: "in ancient times a happy man grew at last frightened of his happiness --it was so great!--and to propitiate the gods he brought as a sacrifice his favourite ring. do you know, i, too, like polykrates, begin to be uneasy of my happiness. it seems strange to me that from morning to night i feel nothing but joy; it fills my whole being and smothers all other feelings. i don't know what sadness, grief, or boredom is. here i am not asleep; i suffer from sleeplessness, but i am not dull. i say it in earnest; i begin to feel perplexed." "but why?" the monk asked in wonder. "is joy a supernatural feeling? ought it not to be the normal state of man? the more highly a man is developed on the intellectual and moral side, the more independent he is, the more pleasure life gives him. socrates, diogenes, and marcus aurelius, were joyful, not sorrowful. and the apostle tells us: 'rejoice continually'; 'rejoice and be glad.'" "but will the gods be suddenly wrathful?" kovrin jested; and he laughed. "if they take from me comfort and make me go cold and hungry, it won't be very much to my taste." meanwhile tanya woke up and looked with amazement and horror at her husband. he was talking, addressing the arm-chair, laughing and gesticulating; his eyes were gleaming, and there was something strange in his laugh. "andryusha, whom are you talking to?" she asked, clutching the hand he stretched out to the monk. "andryusha! whom?" "oh! whom?" said kovrin in confusion. "why, to him.... he is sitting here," he said, pointing to the black monk. "there is no one here ... no one! andryusha, you are ill!" tanya put her arm round her husband and held him tight, as though protecting him from the apparition, and put her hand over his eyes. "you are ill!" she sobbed, trembling all over. "forgive me, my precious, my dear one, but i have noticed for a long time that your mind is clouded in some way.... you are mentally ill, andryusha...." her trembling infected him, too. he glanced once more at the arm-chair, which was now empty, felt a sudden weakness in his arms and legs, was frightened, and began dressing. "it's nothing, tanya; it's nothing," he muttered, shivering. "i really am not quite well ... it's time to admit that." "i have noticed it for a long time ... and father has noticed it," she said, trying to suppress her sobs. "you talk to yourself, smile somehow strangely ... and can't sleep. oh, my god, my god, save us!" she said in terror. "but don't be frightened, andryusha; for god's sake don't be frightened...." she began dressing, too. only now, looking at her, kovrin realised the danger of his position--realised the meaning of the black monk and his conversations with him. it was clear to him now that he was mad. neither of them knew why they dressed and went into the dining-room: she in front and he following her. there they found yegor semyonitch standing in his dressing-gown and with a candle in his hand. he was staying with them, and had been awakened by tanya's sobs. "don't be frightened, andryusha," tanya was saying, shivering as though in a fever; "don't be frightened.... father, it will all pass over ... it will all pass over...." kovrin was too much agitated to speak. he wanted to say to his father-in-law in a playful tone: "congratulate me; it appears i have gone out of my mind"; but he could only move his lips and smile bitterly. at nine o'clock in the morning they put on his jacket and fur coat, wrapped him up in a shawl, and took him in a carriage to a doctor. viii summer had come again, and the doctor advised their going into the country. kovrin had recovered; he had left off seeing the black monk, and he had only to get up his strength. staying at his father-in-law's, he drank a great deal of milk, worked for only two hours out of the twenty-four, and neither smoked nor drank wine. on the evening before elijah's day they had an evening service in the house. when the deacon was handing the priest the censer the immense old room smelt like a graveyard, and kovrin felt bored. he went out into the garden. without noticing the gorgeous flowers, he walked about the garden, sat down on a seat, then strolled about the park; reaching the river, he went down and then stood lost in thought, looking at the water. the sullen pines with their shaggy roots, which had seen him a year before so young, so joyful and confident, were not whispering now, but standing mute and motionless, as though they did not recognise him. and, indeed, his head was closely cropped, his beautiful long hair was gone, his step was lagging, his face was fuller and paler than last summer. he crossed by the footbridge to the other side. where the year before there had been rye the oats stood, reaped, and lay in rows. the sun had set and there was a broad stretch of glowing red on the horizon, a sign of windy weather next day. it was still. looking in the direction from which the year before the black monk had first appeared, kovrin stood for twenty minutes, till the evening glow had begun to fade.... when, listless and dissatisfied, he returned home the service was over. yegor semyonitch and tanya were sitting on the steps of the verandah, drinking tea. they were talking of something, but, seeing kovrin, ceased at once, and he concluded from their faces that their talk had been about him. "i believe it is time for you to have your milk," tanya said to her husband. "no, it is not time yet ..." he said, sitting down on the bottom step. "drink it yourself; i don't want it." tanya exchanged a troubled glance with her father, and said in a guilty voice: "you notice yourself that milk does you good." "yes, a great deal of good!" kovrin laughed. "i congratulate you: i have gained a pound in weight since friday." he pressed his head tightly in his hands and said miserably: "why, why have you cured me? preparations of bromide, idleness, hot baths, supervision, cowardly consternation at every mouthful, at every step--all this will reduce me at last to idiocy. i went out of my mind, i had megalomania; but then i was cheerful, confident, and even happy; i was interesting and original. now i have become more sensible and stolid, but i am just like every one else: i am--mediocrity; i am weary of life.... oh, how cruelly you have treated me!... i saw hallucinations, but what harm did that do to any one? i ask, what harm did that do any one?" "goodness knows what you are saying!" sighed yegor semyonitch. "it's positively wearisome to listen to it." "then don't listen." the presence of other people, especially yegor semyonitch, irritated kovrin now; he answered him drily, coldly, and even rudely, never looked at him but with irony and hatred, while yegor semyonitch was overcome with confusion and cleared his throat guiltily, though he was not conscious of any fault in himself. at a loss to understand why their charming and affectionate relations had changed so abruptly, tanya huddled up to her father and looked anxiously in his face; she wanted to understand and could not understand, and all that was clear to her was that their relations were growing worse and worse every day, that of late her father had begun to look much older, and her husband had grown irritable, capricious, quarrelsome and uninteresting. she could not laugh or sing; at dinner she ate nothing; did not sleep for nights together, expecting something awful, and was so worn out that on one occasion she lay in a dead faint from dinner-time till evening. during the service she thought her father was crying, and now while the three of them were sitting together on the terrace she made an effort not to think of it. "how fortunate buddha, mahomed, and shakespeare were that their kind relations and doctors did not cure them of their ecstasy and their inspiration," said kovrin. "if mahomed had taken bromide for his nerves, had worked only two hours out of the twenty-four, and had drunk milk, that remarkable man would have left no more trace after him than his dog. doctors and kind relations will succeed in stupefying mankind, in making mediocrity pass for genius and in bringing civilisation to ruin. if only you knew," kovrin said with annoyance, "how grateful i am to you." he felt intense irritation, and to avoid saying too much, he got up quickly and went into the house. it was still, and the fragrance of the tobacco plant and the marvel of peru floated in at the open window. the moonlight lay in green patches on the floor and on the piano in the big dark dining-room. kovrin remembered the raptures of the previous summer when there had been the same scent of the marvel of peru and the moon had shone in at the window. to bring back the mood of last year he went quickly to his study, lighted a strong cigar, and told the footman to bring him some wine. but the cigar left a bitter and disgusting taste in his mouth, and the wine had not the same flavour as it had the year before. and so great is the effect of giving up a habit, the cigar and the two gulps of wine made him giddy, and brought on palpitations of the heart, so that he was obliged to take bromide. before going to bed, tanya said to him: "father adores you. you are cross with him about something, and it is killing him. look at him; he is ageing, not from day to day, but from hour to hour. i entreat you, andryusha, for god's sake, for the sake of your dead father, for the sake of my peace of mind, be affectionate to him." "i can't, i don't want to." "but why?" asked tanya, beginning to tremble all over. "explain why." "because he is antipathetic to me, that's all," said kovrin carelessly; and he shrugged his shoulders. "but we won't talk about him: he is your father." "i can't understand, i can't," said tanya, pressing her hands to her temples and staring at a fixed point. "something incomprehensible, awful, is going on in the house. you have changed, grown unlike yourself.... you, clever, extraordinary man as you are, are irritated over trifles, meddle in paltry nonsense.... such trivial things excite you, that sometimes one is simply amazed and can't believe that it is you. come, come, don't be angry, don't be angry," she went on, kissing his hands, frightened of her own words. "you are clever, kind, noble. you will be just to father. he is so good." "he is not good; he is just good-natured. burlesque old uncles like your father, with well-fed, good-natured faces, extraordinarily hospitable and queer, at one time used to touch me and amuse me in novels and in farces and in life; now i dislike them. they are egoists to the marrow of their bones. what disgusts me most of all is their being so well-fed, and that purely bovine, purely hoggish optimism of a full stomach." tanya sat down on the bed and laid her head on the pillow. "this is torture," she said, and from her voice it was evident that she was utterly exhausted, and that it was hard for her to speak. "not one moment of peace since the winter.... why, it's awful! my god! i am wretched." "oh, of course, i am herod, and you and your father are the innocents. of course." his face seemed to tanya ugly and unpleasant. hatred and an ironical expression did not suit him. and, indeed, she had noticed before that there was something lacking in his face, as though ever since his hair had been cut his face had changed, too. she wanted to say something wounding to him, but immediately she caught herself in this antagonistic feeling, she was frightened and went out of the bedroom. ix kovrin received a professorship at the university. the inaugural address was fixed for the second of december, and a notice to that effect was hung up in the corridor at the university. but on the day appointed he informed the students' inspector, by telegram, that he was prevented by illness from giving the lecture. he had hæmorrhage from the throat. he was often spitting blood, but it happened two or three times a month that there was a considerable loss of blood, and then he grew extremely weak and sank into a drowsy condition. this illness did not particularly frighten him, as he knew that his mother had lived for ten years or longer suffering from the same disease, and the doctors assured him that there was no danger, and had only advised him to avoid excitement, to lead a regular life, and to speak as little as possible. in january again his lecture did not take place owing to the same reason, and in february it was too late to begin the course. it had to be postponed to the following year. by now he was living not with tanya, but with another woman, who was two years older than he was, and who looked after him as though he were a baby. he was in a calm and tranquil state of mind; he readily gave in to her, and when varvara nikolaevna--that was the name of his friend--decided to take him to the crimea, he agreed, though he had a presentiment that no good would come of the trip. they reached sevastopol in the evening and stopped at an hotel to rest and go on the next day to yalta. they were both exhausted by the journey. varvara nikolaevna had some tea, went to bed and was soon asleep. but kovrin did not go to bed. an hour before starting for the station, he had received a letter from tanya, and had not brought himself to open it, and now it was lying in his coat pocket, and the thought of it excited him disagreeably. at the bottom of his heart he genuinely considered now that his marriage to tanya had been a mistake. he was glad that their separation was final, and the thought of that woman who in the end had turned into a living relic, still walking about though everything seemed dead in her except her big, staring, intelligent eyes--the thought of her roused in him nothing but pity and disgust with himself. the handwriting on the envelope reminded him how cruel and unjust he had been two years before, how he had worked off his anger at his spiritual emptiness, his boredom, his loneliness, and his dissatisfaction with life by revenging himself on people in no way to blame. he remembered, also, how he had torn up his dissertation and all the articles he had written during his illness, and how he had thrown them out of window, and the bits of paper had fluttered in the wind and caught on the trees and flowers. in every line of them he saw strange, utterly groundless pretension, shallow defiance, arrogance, megalomania; and they made him feel as though he were reading a description of his vices. but when the last manuscript had been torn up and sent flying out of window, he felt, for some reason, suddenly bitter and angry; he went to his wife and said a great many unpleasant things to her. my god, how he had tormented her! one day, wanting to cause her pain, he told her that her father had played a very unattractive part in their romance, that he had asked him to marry her. yegor semyonitch accidentally overheard this, ran into the room, and, in his despair, could not utter a word, could only stamp and make a strange, bellowing sound as though he had lost the power of speech, and tanya, looking at her father, had uttered a heart-rending shriek and had fallen into a swoon. it was hideous. all this came back into his memory as he looked at the familiar writing. kovrin went out on to the balcony; it was still warm weather and there was a smell of the sea. the wonderful bay reflected the moonshine and the lights, and was of a colour for which it was difficult to find a name. it was a soft and tender blending of dark blue and green; in places the water was like blue vitriol, and in places it seemed as though the moonlight were liquefied and filling the bay instead of water. and what harmony of colours, what an atmosphere of peace, calm, and sublimity! in the lower storey under the balcony the windows were probably open, for women's voices and laughter could be heard distinctly. apparently there was an evening party. kovrin made an effort, tore open the envelope, and, going back into his room, read: "my father is just dead. i owe that to you, for you have killed him. our garden is being ruined; strangers are managing it already--that is, the very thing is happening that poor father dreaded. that, too, i owe to you. i hate you with my whole soul, and i hope you may soon perish. oh, how wretched i am! insufferable anguish is burning my soul.... my curses on you. i took you for an extraordinary man, a genius; i loved you, and you have turned out a madman...." kovrin could read no more, he tore up the letter and threw it away. he was overcome by an uneasiness that was akin to terror. varvara nikolaevna was asleep behind the screen, and he could hear her breathing. from the lower storey came the sounds of laughter and women's voices, but he felt as though in the whole hotel there were no living soul but him. because tanya, unhappy, broken by sorrow, had cursed him in her letter and hoped for his perdition, he felt eerie and kept glancing hurriedly at the door, as though he were afraid that the uncomprehended force which two years before had wrought such havoc in his life and in the life of those near him might come into the room and master him once more. he knew by experience that when his nerves were out of hand the best thing for him to do was to work. he must sit down to the table and force himself, at all costs, to concentrate his mind on some one thought. he took from his red portfolio a manuscript containing a sketch of a small work of the nature of a compilation, which he had planned in case he should find it dull in the crimea without work. he sat down to the table and began working at this plan, and it seemed to him that his calm, peaceful, indifferent mood was coming back. the manuscript with the sketch even led him to meditation on the vanity of the world. he thought how much life exacts for the worthless or very commonplace blessings it can give a man. for instance, to gain, before forty, a university chair, to be an ordinary professor, to expound ordinary and second-hand thoughts in dull, heavy, insipid language--in fact, to gain the position of a mediocre learned man, he, kovrin, had had to study for fifteen years, to work day and night, to endure a terrible mental illness, to experience an unhappy marriage, and to do a great number of stupid and unjust things which it would have been pleasant not to remember. kovrin recognised clearly, now, that he was a mediocrity, and readily resigned himself to it, as he considered that every man ought to be satisfied with what he is. the plan of the volume would have soothed him completely, but the torn letter showed white on the floor and prevented him from concentrating his attention. he got up from the table, picked up the pieces of the letter and threw them out of window, but there was a light wind blowing from the sea, and the bits of paper were scattered on the windowsill. again he was overcome by uneasiness akin to terror, and he felt as though in the whole hotel there were no living soul but himself.... he went out on the balcony. the bay, like a living thing, looked at him with its multitude of light blue, dark blue, turquoise and fiery eyes, and seemed beckoning to him. and it really was hot and oppressive, and it would not have been amiss to have a bathe. suddenly in the lower storey under the balcony a violin began playing, and two soft feminine voices began singing. it was something familiar. the song was about a maiden, full of sick fancies, who heard one night in her garden mysterious sounds, so strange and lovely that she was obliged to recognise them as a holy harmony which is unintelligible to us mortals, and so flies back to heaven.... kovrin caught his breath and there was a pang of sadness at his heart, and a thrill of the sweet, exquisite delight he had so long forgotten began to stir in his breast. a tall black column, like a whirlwind or a waterspout, appeared on the further side of the bay. it moved with fearful rapidity across the bay, towards the hotel, growing smaller and darker as it came, and kovrin only just had time to get out of the way to let it pass.... the monk with bare grey head, black eyebrows, barefoot, his arms crossed over his breast, floated by him, and stood still in the middle of the room. "why did you not believe me?" he asked reproachfully, looking affectionately at kovrin. "if you had believed me then, that you were a genius, you would not have spent these two years so gloomily and so wretchedly." kovrin already believed that he was one of god's chosen and a genius; he vividly recalled his conversations with the monk in the past and tried to speak, but the blood flowed from his throat on to his breast, and not knowing what he was doing, he passed his hands over his breast, and his cuffs were soaked with blood. he tried to call varvara nikolaevna, who was asleep behind the screen; he made an effort and said: "tanya!" he fell on the floor, and propping himself on his arms, called again: "tanya!" he called tanya, called to the great garden with the gorgeous flowers sprinkled with dew, called to the park, the pines with their shaggy roots, the rye-field, his marvellous learning, his youth, courage, joy--called to life, which was so lovely. he saw on the floor near his face a great pool of blood, and was too weak to utter a word, but an unspeakable, infinite happiness flooded his whole being. below, under the balcony, they were playing the serenade, and the black monk whispered to him that he was a genius, and that he was dying only because his frail human body had lost its balance and could no longer serve as the mortal garb of genius. when varvara nikolaevna woke up and came out from behind the screen, kovrin was dead, and a blissful smile was set upon his face. volodya at five o'clock one sunday afternoon in summer, volodya, a plain, shy, sickly-looking lad of seventeen, was sitting in the arbour of the shumihins' country villa, feeling dreary. his despondent thought flowed in three directions. in the first place, he had next day, monday, an examination in mathematics; he knew that if he did not get through the written examination on the morrow, he would be expelled, for he had already been two years in the sixth form and had two and three-quarter marks for algebra in his annual report. in the second place, his presence at the villa of the shumihins, a wealthy family with aristocratic pretensions, was a continual source of mortification to his _amour-propre_. it seemed to him that madame shumihin looked upon him and his maman as poor relations and dependents, that they laughed at his _maman_ and did not respect her. he had on one occasion accidently overheard madame shumihin, in the verandah, telling her cousin anna fyodorovna that his _maman_ still tried to look young and got herself up, that she never paid her losses at cards, and had a partiality for other people's shoes and tobacco. every day volodya besought his _maman_ not to go to the shumihins', and drew a picture of the humiliating part she played with these gentlefolk. he tried to persuade her, said rude things, but she--a frivolous, pampered woman, who had run through two fortunes, her own and her husband's, in her time, and always gravitated towards acquaintances of high rank--did not understand him, and twice a week volodya had to accompany her to the villa he hated. in the third place, the youth could not for one instant get rid of a strange, unpleasant feeling which was absolutely new to him.... it seemed to him that he was in love with anna fyodorovna, the shumihins' cousin, who was staying with them. she was a vivacious, loud-voiced, laughter-loving, healthy, and vigorous lady of thirty, with rosy cheeks, plump shoulders, a plump round chin and a continual smile on her thin lips. she was neither young nor beautiful--volodya knew that perfectly well; but for some reason he could not help thinking of her, looking at her while she shrugged her plump shoulders and moved her flat back as she played croquet, or after prolonged laughter and running up and down stairs, sank into a low chair, and, half closing her eyes and gasping for breath, pretended that she was stifling and could not breathe. she was married. her husband, a staid and dignified architect, came once a week to the villa, slept soundly, and returned to town. volodya's strange feeling had begun with his conceiving an unaccountable hatred for the architect, and feeling relieved every time he went back to town. now, sitting in the arbour, thinking of his examination next day, and of his _maman_, at whom they laughed, he felt an intense desire to see nyuta (that was what the shumihins called anna fyodorovna), to hear her laughter and the rustle of her dress.... this desire was not like the pure, poetic love of which he read in novels and about which he dreamed every night when he went to bed; it was strange, incomprehensible; he was ashamed of it, and afraid of it as of something very wrong and impure, something which it was disagreeable to confess even to himself. "it's not love," he said to himself. "one can't fall in love with women of thirty who are married. it is only a little intrigue.... yes, an intrigue...." pondering on the "intrigue," he thought of his uncontrollable shyness, his lack of moustache, his freckles, his narrow eyes, and put himself in his imagination side by side with nyuta, and the juxtaposition seemed to him impossible; then he made haste to imagine himself bold, handsome, witty, dressed in the latest fashion. when his dreams were at their height, as he sat huddled together and looking at the ground in a dark corner of the arbour, he heard the sound of light footsteps. some one was coming slowly along the avenue. soon the steps stopped and something white gleamed in the entrance. "is there any one here?" asked a woman's voice. volodya recognised the voice, and raised his head in a fright. "who is here?" asked nyuta, going into the arbour. "ah, it is you, volodya? what are you doing here? thinking? and how can you go on thinking, thinking, thinking?... that's the way to go out of your mind!" volodya got up and looked in a dazed way at nyuta. she had only just come back from bathing. over her shoulder there was hanging a sheet and a rough towel, and from under the white silk kerchief on her head he could see the wet hair sticking to her forehead. there was the cool damp smell of the bath-house and of almond soap still hanging about her. she was out of breath from running quickly. the top button of her blouse was undone, so that the boy saw her throat and bosom. "why don't you say something?" said nyuta, looking volodya up and down. "it's not polite to be silent when a lady talks to you. what a clumsy seal you are though, volodya! you always sit, saying nothing, thinking like some philosopher. there's not a spark of life or fire in you! you are really horrid!... at your age you ought to be living, skipping, and jumping, chattering, flirting, falling in love." volodya looked at the sheet that was held by a plump white hand, and thought.... "he's mute," said nyuta, with wonder; "it is strange, really.... listen! be a man! come, you might smile at least! phew, the horrid philosopher!" she laughed. "but do you know, volodya, why you are such a clumsy seal? because you don't devote yourself to the ladies. why don't you? it's true there are no girls here, but there is nothing to prevent your flirting with the married ladies! why don't you flirt with me, for instance?" volodya listened and scratched his forehead in acute and painful irresolution. "it's only very proud people who are silent and love solitude," nyuta went on, pulling his hand away from his forehead. "you are proud, volodya. why do you look at me like that from under your brows? look me straight in the face, if you please! yes, now then, clumsy seal!" volodya made up his mind to speak. wanting to smile, he twitched his lower lip, blinked, and again put his hand to his forehead. "i ... i love you," he said. nyuta raised her eyebrows in surprise, and laughed. "what do i hear?" she sang, as prima-donnas sing at the opera when they hear something awful. "what? what did you say? say it again, say it again...." "i ... i love you!" repeated volodya. and without his will's having any part in his action, without reflection or understanding, he took half a step towards nyuta and clutched her by the arm. everything was dark before his eyes, and tears came into them. the whole world was turned into one big, rough towel which smelt of the bathhouse. "bravo, bravo!" he heard a merry laugh. "why don't you speak? i want you to speak! well?" seeing that he was not prevented from holding her arm, volodya glanced at nyuta's laughing face, and clumsily, awkwardly, put both arms round her waist, his hands meeting behind her back. he held her round the waist with both arms, while, putting her hands up to her head, showing the dimples in her elbows, she set her hair straight under the kerchief and said in a calm voice: "you must be tactful, polite, charming, and you can only become that under feminine influence. but what a wicked, angry face you have! you must talk, laugh.... yes, volodya, don't be surly; you are young and will have plenty of time for philosophising. come, let go of me; i am going. let go." without effort she released her waist, and, humming something, walked out of the arbour. volodya was left alone. he smoothed his hair, smiled, and walked three times to and fro across the arbour, then he sat down on the bench and smiled again. he felt insufferably ashamed, so much so that he wondered that human shame could reach such a pitch of acuteness and intensity. shame made him smile, gesticulate, and whisper some disconnected words. he was ashamed that he had been treated like a small boy, ashamed of his shyness, and, most of all, that he had had the audacity to put his arms round the waist of a respectable married woman, though, as it seemed to him, he had neither through age nor by external quality, nor by social position any right to do so. he jumped up, went out of the arbour, and, without looking round, walked into the recesses of the garden furthest from the house. "ah! only to get away from here as soon as possible," he thought, clutching his head. "my god! as soon as possible." the train by which volodya was to go back with his _maman_ was at eight-forty. there were three hours before the train started, but he would with pleasure have gone to the station at once without waiting for his _maman_. at eight o'clock he went to the house. his whole figure was expressive of determination: what would be, would be! he made up his mind to go in boldly, to look them straight in the face, to speak in a loud voice, regardless of everything. he crossed the terrace, the big hall and the drawing-room, and there stopped to take breath. he could hear them in the dining-room, drinking tea. madame shumihin, _maman_, and nyuta were talking and laughing about something. volodya listened. "i assure you!" said nyuta. "i could not believe my eyes! when he began declaring his passion and--just imagine!--put his arms round my waist, i should not have recognised him. and you know he has a way with him! when he told me he was in love with me, there was something brutal in his face, like a circassian." "really!" gasped _maman_, going off into a peal of laughter. "really! how he does remind me of his father!" volodya ran back and dashed out into the open air. "how could they talk of it aloud!" he wondered in agony, clasping his hands and looking up to the sky in horror. "they talk aloud in cold blood ... and _maman_ laughed!... _maman!_ my god, why didst thou give me such a mother? why?" but he had to go to the house, come what might. he walked three times up and down the avenue, grew a little calmer, and went into the house. "why didn't you come in in time for tea?" madame shumihin asked sternly. "i am sorry, it's ... it's time for me to go," he muttered, not raising his eyes. "_maman_, it's eight o'clock!" "you go alone, my dear," said his _maman_ languidly. "i am staying the night with lili. goodbye, my dear.... let me make the sign of the cross over you." she made the sign of the cross over her son, and said in french, turning to nyuta: "he's rather like lermontov ... isn't he?" saying good-bye after a fashion, without looking any one in the face, volodya went out of the dining-room. ten minutes later he was walking along the road to the station, and was glad of it. now he felt neither frightened nor ashamed; he breathed freely and easily. about half a mile from the station, he sat down on a stone by the side of the road, and gazed at the sun, which was half hidden behind a barrow. there were lights already here and there at the station, and one green light glimmered dimly, but the train was not yet in sight. it was pleasant to volodya to sit still without moving, and to watch the evening coming little by little. the darkness of the arbour, the footsteps, the smell of the bath-house, the laughter, and the waist--all these rose with amazing vividness before his imagination, and all this was no longer so terrible and important as before. "it's of no consequence.... she did not pull her hand away, and laughed when i held her by the waist," he thought. "so she must have liked it. if she had disliked it she would have been angry...." and now volodya felt sorry that he had not had more boldness there in the arbour. he felt sorry that he was so stupidly going away, and he was by now persuaded that if the same thing happened again he would be bolder and look at it more simply. and it would not be difficult for the opportunity to occur again. they used to stroll about for a long time after supper at the shumihins'. if volodya went for a walk with nyuta in the dark garden, there would be an opportunity! "i will go back," he thought, "and will go by the morning train to-morrow.... i will say i have missed the train." and he turned back.... madame shumihin, _maman_, nyuta, and one of the nieces were sitting on the verandah, playing _vint_. when volodya told them the lie that he had missed the train, they were uneasy that he might be late for the examination day, and advised him to get up early. all the while they were playing he sat on one side, greedily watching nyuta and waiting.... he already had a plan prepared in his mind: he would go up to nyuta in the dark, would take her by the hand, then would embrace her; there would be no need to say anything, as both of them would understand without words. but after supper the ladies did not go for a walk in the garden, but went on playing cards. they played till one o'clock at night, and then broke up to go to bed. "how stupid it all is!" volodya thought with vexation as he got into bed. "but never mind; i'll wait till to-morrow ... to-morrow in the arbour. it doesn't matter...." he did not attempt to go to sleep, but sat in bed, hugging his knees and thinking. all thought of the examination was hateful to him. he had already made up his mind that they would expel him, and that there was nothing terrible about his being expelled. on the contrary, it was a good thing--a very good thing, in fact. next day he would be as free as a bird; he would put on ordinary clothes instead of his school uniform, would smoke openly, come out here, and make love to nyuta when he liked; and he would not be a schoolboy but "a young man." and as for the rest of it, what is called a career, a future, that was clear; volodya would go into the army or the telegraph service, or he would go into a chemist's shop and work his way up till he was a dispenser.... there were lots of callings. an hour or two passed, and he was still sitting and thinking.... towards three o'clock, when it was beginning to get light, the door creaked cautiously and his _maman_ came into the room. "aren't you asleep?" she asked, yawning. "go to sleep; i have only come in for a minute.... i am only fetching the drops...." "what for?" "poor lili has got spasms again. go to sleep, my child, your examination's to-morrow...." she took a bottle of something out of the cupboard, went to the window, read the label, and went away. "marya leontyevna, those are not the drops!" volodya heard a woman's voice, a minute later. "that's convallaria, and lili wants morphine. is your son asleep? ask him to look for it...." it was nyuta's voice. volodya turned cold. he hurriedly put on his trousers, flung his coat over his shoulders, and went to the door. "do you understand? morphine," nyuta explained in a whisper. "there must be a label in latin. wake volodya; he will find it." _maman_ opened the door and volodya caught sight of nyuta. she was wearing the same loose wrapper in which she had gone to bathe. her hair hung loose and disordered on her shoulders, her face looked sleepy and dark in the half-light.... "why, volodya is not asleep," she said. "volodya, look in the cupboard for the morphine, there's a dear! what a nuisance lili is! she has always something the matter." _maman_ muttered something, yawned, and went away. "look for it," said nyuta. "why are you standing still?" volodya went to the cupboard, knelt down, and began looking through the bottles and boxes of medicine. his hands were trembling, and he had a feeling in his chest and stomach as though cold waves were running all over his inside. he felt suffocated and giddy from the smell of ether, carbolic acid, and various drugs, which he quite unnecessarily snatched up with his trembling fingers and spilled in so doing. "i believe _maman_ has gone," he thought. "that's a good thing ... a good thing...." "will you be quick?" said nyuta, drawling. "in a minute.... here, i believe this is morphine," said volodya, reading on one of the labels the word "morph...." "here it is!" nyuta was standing in the doorway in such a way that one foot was in his room and one was in the passage. she was tidying her hair, which was difficult to put in order because it was so thick and long, and looked absent-mindedly at volodya. in her loose wrap, with her sleepy face and her hair down, in the dim light that came into the white sky not yet lit by the sun, she seemed to volodya captivating, magnificent.... fascinated, trembling all over, and remembering with relish how he had held that exquisite body in his arms in the arbour, he handed her the bottle and said: "how wonderful you are!" "what?" she came into the room. "what?" she asked, smiling. he was silent and looked at her, then, just as in the arbour, he took her hand, and she looked at him with a smile and waited for what would happen next. "i love you," he whispered. she left off smiling, thought a minute, and said: "wait a little; i think somebody is coming. oh, these schoolboys!" she said in an undertone, going to the door and peeping out into the passage. "no, there is no one to be seen...." she came back. then it seemed to volodya that the room, nyuta, the sunrise and himself--all melted together in one sensation of acute, extraordinary, incredible bliss, for which one might give up one's whole life and face eternal torments.... but half a minute passed and all that vanished. volodya saw only a fat, plain face, distorted by an expression of repulsion, and he himself suddenly felt a loathing for what had happened. "i must go away, though," said nyuta, looking at volodya with disgust. "what a wretched, ugly ... fie, ugly duckling!" how unseemly her long hair, her loose wrap, her steps, her voice seemed to volodya now!... "'ugly duckling' ..." he thought after she had gone away. "i really am ugly ... everything is ugly." the sun was rising, the birds were singing loudly; he could hear the gardener walking in the garden and the creaking of his wheelbarrow ... and soon afterwards he heard the lowing of the cows and the sounds of the shepherd's pipe. the sunlight and the sounds told him that somewhere in this world there is a pure, refined, poetical life. but where was it? volodya had never heard a word of it from his _maman_ or any of the people round about him. when the footman came to wake him for the morning train, he pretended to be asleep.... "bother it! damn it all!" he thought. he got up between ten and eleven. combing his hair before the looking-glass, and looking at his ugly face, pale from his sleepless night, he thought: "it's perfectly true ... an ugly duckling!" when _maman_ saw him and was horrified that he was not at his examination, volodya said: "i overslept myself, _maman_.... but don't worry, i will get a medical certificate." madame shumihin and nyuta waked up at one o'clock. volodya heard madame shumihin open her window with a bang, heard nyuta go off into a peal of laughter in reply to her coarse voice. he saw the door open and a string of nieces and other toadies (among the latter was his _maman_) file into lunch, caught a glimpse of nyuta's freshly washed laughing face, and, beside her, the black brows and beard of her husband the architect, who had just arrived. nyuta was wearing a little russian dress which did not suit her at all, and made her look clumsy; the architect was making dull and vulgar jokes. the rissoles served at lunch had too much onion in them--so it seemed to volodya. it also seemed to him that nyuta laughed loudly on purpose, and kept glancing in his direction to give him to understand that the memory of the night did not trouble her in the least, and that she was not aware of the presence at table of the "ugly duckling." at four o'clock volodya drove to the station with his _maman_. foul memories, the sleepless night, the prospect of expulsion from school, the stings of conscience--all roused in him now an oppressive, gloomy anger. he looked at _maman_'s sharp profile, at her little nose, and at the raincoat which was a present from nyuta, and muttered: "why do you powder? it's not becoming at your age! you make yourself up, don't pay your debts at cards, smoke other people's tobacco.... it's hateful! i don't love you ... i don't love you!" he was insulting her, and she moved her little eyes about in alarm, flung up her hands, and whispered in horror: "what are you saying, my dear! good gracious! the coachman will hear! be quiet or the coachman will hear! he can overhear everything." "i don't love you ... i don't love you!" he went on breathlessly. "you've no soul and no morals.... don't dare to wear that raincoat! do you hear? or else i will tear it into rags...." "control yourself, my child," _maman_ wept; "the coachman can hear!" "and where is my father's fortune? where is your money? you have wasted it all. i am not ashamed of being poor, but i am ashamed of having such a mother.... when my schoolfellows ask questions about you, i always blush." in the train they had to pass two stations before they reached the town. volodya spent all the time on the little platform between two carriages and shivered all over. he did not want to go into the compartment because there the mother he hated was sitting. he hated himself, hated the ticket collectors, the smoke from the engine, the cold to which he attributed his shivering. and the heavier the weight on his heart, the more strongly he felt that somewhere in the world, among some people, there was a pure, honourable, warm, refined life, full of love, affection, gaiety, and serenity.... he felt this and was so intensely miserable that one of the passengers, after looking in his face attentively, actually asked: "you have the toothache, i suppose?" in the town _maman_ and volodya lived with marya petrovna, a lady of noble rank, who had a large flat and let rooms to boarders. _maman_ had two rooms, one with windows and two pictures in gold frames hanging on the walls, in which her bed stood and in which she lived, and a little dark room opening out of it in which volodya lived. here there was a sofa on which he slept, and, except that sofa, there was no other furniture; the rest of the room was entirely filled up with wicker baskets full of clothes, cardboard hat-boxes, and all sorts of rubbish, which _maman_ preserved for some reason or other. volodya prepared his lessons either in his mother's room or in the "general room," as the large room in which the boarders assembled at dinner-time and in the evening was called. on reaching home he lay down on his sofa and put the quilt over him to stop his shivering. the cardboard hat-boxes, the wicker baskets, and the other rubbish, reminded him that he had not a room of his own, that he had no refuge in which he could get away from his mother, from her visitors, and from the voices that were floating up from the "general room." the satchel and the books lying about in the corners reminded him of the examination he had missed.... for some reason there came into his mind, quite inappropriately, mentone, where he had lived with his father when he was seven years old; he thought of biarritz and two little english girls with whom he ran about on the sand.... he tried to recall to his memory the colour of the sky, the sea, the height of the waves, and his mood at the time, but he could not succeed. the english girls flitted before his imagination as though they were living; all the rest was a medley of images that floated away in confusion.... "no; it's cold here," thought volodya. he got up, put on his overcoat, and went into the "general room." there they were drinking tea. there were three people at the samovar: _maman_; an old lady with tortoiseshell pince-nez, who gave music lessons; and avgustin mihalitch, an elderly and very stout frenchman, who was employed at a perfumery factory. "i have had no dinner to-day," said _maman_. "i ought to send the maid to buy some bread." "dunyasha!" shouted the frenchman. it appeared that the maid had been sent out somewhere by the lady of the house. "oh, that's of no consequence," said the frenchman, with a broad smile. "i will go for some bread myself at once. oh, it's nothing." he laid his strong, pungent cigar in a conspicuous place, put on his hat and went out. after he had gone away _maman_ began telling the music teacher how she had been staying at the shumihins', and how warmly they welcomed her. "lili shumihin is a relation of mine, you know," she said. "her late husband, general shumihin, was a cousin of my husband. and she was a baroness kolb by birth...." "_maman_, that's false!" said volodya irritably. "why tell lies?" he knew perfectly well that what his mother said was true; in what she was saying about general shumihin and about baroness kolb there was not a word of lying, but nevertheless he felt that she was lying. there was a suggestion of falsehood in her manner of speaking, in the expression of her face, in her eyes, in everything. "you are lying," repeated volodya; and he brought his fist down on the table with such force that all the crockery shook and _maman_'s tea was spilt over. "why do you talk about generals and baronesses? it's all lies!" the music teacher was disconcerted, and coughed into her handkerchief, affecting to sneeze, and _maman_ began to cry. "where can i go?" thought volodya. he had been in the street already; he was ashamed to go to his schoolfellows. again, quite incongruously, he remembered the two little english girls.... he paced up and down the "general room," and went into avgustin mihalitch's room. here there was a strong smell of ethereal oils and glycerine soap. on the table, in the window, and even on the chairs, there were a number of bottles, glasses, and wineglasses containing fluids of various colours. volodya took up from the table a newspaper, opened it and read the title _figaro_ ... there was a strong and pleasant scent about the paper. then he took a revolver from the table.... "there, there! don't take any notice of it." the music teacher was comforting _maman_ in the next room. "he is young! young people of his age never restrain themselves. one must resign oneself to that." "no, yevgenya andreyevna; he's too spoilt," said _maman_ in a singsong voice. "he has no one in authority over him, and i am weak and can do nothing. oh, i am unhappy!" volodya put the muzzle of the revolver to his mouth, felt something like a trigger or spring, and pressed it with his finger.... then felt something else projecting, and once more pressed it. taking the muzzle out of his mouth, he wiped it with the lapel of his coat, looked at the lock. he had never in his life taken a weapon in his hand before.... "i believe one ought to raise this ..." he reflected. "yes, it seems so." avgustin mihalitch went into the "general room," and with a laugh began telling them about something. volodya put the muzzle in his mouth again, pressed it with his teeth, and pressed something with his fingers. there was a sound of a shot.... something hit volodya in the back of his head with terrible violence, and he fell on the table with his face downwards among the bottles and glasses. then he saw his father, as in mentone, in a top-hat with a wide black band on it, wearing mourning for some lady, suddenly seize him by both hands, and they fell headlong into a very deep, dark pit. then everything was blurred and vanished. an anonymous story i through causes which it is not the time to go into in detail, i had to enter the service of a petersburg official called orlov, in the capacity of a footman. he was about five and thirty, and was called georgy* ivanitch. *both _g's_ hard, as in "gorgon"; _e_ like _ai_ in _rain_. i entered this orlov's service on account of his father, a prominent political man, whom i looked upon as a serious enemy of my cause. i reckoned that, living with the son, i should--from the conversations i should hear, and from the letters and papers i should find on the table--learn every detail of the father's plans and intentions. as a rule at eleven o'clock in the morning the electric bell rang in my footman's quarters to let me know that my master was awake. when i went into the bedroom with his polished shoes and brushed clothes, georgy ivanitch would be sitting in his bed with a face that looked, not drowsy, but rather exhausted by sleep, and he would gaze off in one direction without any sign of satisfaction at having waked. i helped him to dress, and he let me do it with an air of reluctance without speaking or noticing my presence; then with his head wet with washing, smelling of fresh scent, he used to go into the dining-room to drink his coffee. he used to sit at the table, sipping his coffee and glancing through the newspapers, while the maid polya and i stood respectfully at the door gazing at him. two grown-up persons had to stand watching with the gravest attention a third drinking coffee and munching rusks. it was probably ludicrous and grotesque, but i saw nothing humiliating in having to stand near the door, though i was quite as well born and well educated as orlov himself. i was in the first stage of consumption, and was suffering from something else, possibly even more serious than consumption. i don't know whether it was the effect of my illness or of an incipient change in my philosophy of life of which i was not conscious at the time, but i was, day by day, more possessed by a passionate, irritating longing for ordinary everyday life. i yearned for mental tranquillity, health, fresh air, good food. i was becoming a dreamer, and, like a dreamer, i did not know exactly what i wanted. sometimes i felt inclined to go into a monastery, to sit there for days together by the window and gaze at the trees and the fields; sometimes i fancied i would buy fifteen acres of land and settle down as a country gentleman; sometimes i inwardly vowed to take up science and become a professor at some provincial university. i was a retired navy lieutenant; i dreamed of the sea, of our squadron, and of the corvette in which i had made the cruise round the world. i longed to experience again the indescribable feeling when, walking in the tropical forest or looking at the sunset in the bay of bengal, one is thrilled with ecstasy and at the same time homesick. i dreamed of mountains, women, music, and, with the curiosity of a child, i looked into people's faces, listened to their voices. and when i stood at the door and watched orlov sipping his coffee, i felt not a footman, but a man interested in everything in the world, even in orlov. in appearance orlov was a typical petersburger, with narrow shoulders, a long waist, sunken temples, eyes of an indefinite colour, and scanty, dingy-coloured hair, beard and moustaches. his face had a stale, unpleasant look, though it was studiously cared for. it was particularly unpleasant when he was asleep or lost in thought. it is not worth while describing a quite ordinary appearance; besides, petersburg is not spain, and a man's appearance is not of much consequence even in love affairs, and is only of value to a handsome footman or coachman. i have spoken of orlov's face and hair only because there was something in his appearance worth mentioning. when orlov took a newspaper or book, whatever it might be, or met people, whoever they be, an ironical smile began to come into his eyes, and his whole countenance assumed an expression of light mockery in which there was no malice. before reading or hearing anything he always had his irony in readiness, as a savage has his shield. it was an habitual irony, like some old liquor brewed years ago, and now it came into his face probably without any participation of his will, as it were by reflex action. but of that later. soon after midday he took his portfolio, full of papers, and drove to his office. he dined away from home and returned after eight o'clock. i used to light the lamp and candles in his study, and he would sit down in a low chair with his legs stretched out on another chair, and, reclining in that position, would begin reading. almost every day he brought in new books with him or received parcels of them from the shops, and there were heaps of books in three languages, to say nothing of russian, which he had read and thrown away, in the corners of my room and under my bed. he read with extraordinary rapidity. they say: "tell me what you read, and i'll tell you who you are." that may be true, but it was absolutely impossible to judge of orlov by what he read. it was a regular hotchpotch. philosophy, french novels, political economy, finance, new poets, and publications of the firm _posrednik_*--and he read it all with the same rapidity and with the same ironical expression in his eyes. * i.e., tchertkov and others, publishers of tolstoy, who issued good literature for peasants' reading. after ten o'clock he carefully dressed, often in evening dress, very rarely in his _kammer-junker_'s uniform, and went out, returning in the morning. our relations were quiet and peaceful, and we never had any misunderstanding. as a rule he did not notice my presence, and when he talked to me there was no expression of irony on his face--he evidently did not look upon me as a human being. i only once saw him angry. one day--it was a week after i had entered his service--he came back from some dinner at nine o'clock; his face looked ill-humoured and exhausted. when i followed him into his study to light the candles, he said to me: "there's a nasty smell in the flat." "no, the air is fresh," i answered. "i tell you, there's a bad smell," he answered irritably. "i open the movable panes every day." "don't argue, blockhead!" he shouted. i was offended, and was on the point of answering, and goodness knows how it would have ended if polya, who knew her master better than i did, had not intervened. "there really is a disagreeable smell," she said, raising her eyebrows. "what can it be from? stepan, open the pane in the drawing-room, and light the fire." with much bustle and many exclamations, she went through all the rooms, rustling her skirts and squeezing the sprayer with a hissing sound. and orlov was still out of humour; he was obviously restraining himself not to vent his ill-temper aloud. he was sitting at the table and rapidly writing a letter. after writing a few lines he snorted angrily and tore it up, then he began writing again. "damn them all!" he muttered. "they expect me to have an abnormal memory!" at last the letter was written; he got up from the table and said, turning to me: "go to znamensky street and deliver this letter to zinaida fyodorovna krasnovsky in person. but first ask the porter whether her husband --that is, mr. krasnovsky--has returned yet. if he has returned, don't deliver the letter, but come back. wait a minute!... if she asks whether i have any one here, tell her that there have been two gentlemen here since eight o'clock, writing something." i drove to znamensky street. the porter told me that mr. krasnovsky had not yet come in, and i made my way up to the third storey. the door was opened by a tall, stout, drab-coloured flunkey with black whiskers, who in a sleepy, churlish, and apathetic voice, such as only flunkeys use in addressing other flunkeys, asked me what i wanted. before i had time to answer, a lady dressed in black came hurriedly into the hall. she screwed up her eyes and looked at me. "is zinaida fyodorovna at home?" i asked. "that is me," said the lady. "a letter from georgy ivanitch." she tore the letter open impatiently, and holding it in both hands, so that i saw her sparkling diamond rings, she began reading. i made out a pale face with soft lines, a prominent chin, and long dark lashes. from her appearance i should not have judged the lady to be more than five and twenty. "give him my thanks and my greetings," she said when she had finished the letter. "is there any one with georgy ivanitch?" she asked softly, joyfully, and as though ashamed of her mistrust. "two gentlemen," i answered. "they're writing something." "give him my greetings and thanks," she repeated, bending her head sideways, and, reading the letter as she walked, she went noiselessly out. i saw few women at that time, and this lady of whom i had a passing glimpse made an impression on me. as i walked home i recalled her face and the delicate fragrance about her, and fell to dreaming. by the time i got home orlov had gone out. ii and so my relations with my employer were quiet and peaceful, but still the unclean and degrading element which i so dreaded on becoming a footman was conspicuous and made itself felt every day. i did not get on with polya. she was a well-fed and pampered hussy who adored orlov because he was a gentleman and despised me because i was a footman. probably, from the point of view of a real flunkey or cook, she was fascinating, with her red cheeks, her turned-up nose, her coquettish glances, and the plumpness, one might almost say fatness, of her person. she powdered her face, coloured her lips and eyebrows, laced herself in, and wore a bustle, and a bangle made of coins. she walked with little ripping steps; as she walked she swayed, or, as they say, wriggled her shoulders and back. the rustle of her skirts, the creaking of her stays, the jingle her bangle and the vulgar smell of lip salve, toilet vinegar, and scent stolen from her master, aroused in me whilst i was doing the rooms with her in the morning a sensation as though i were taking part with her in some abomination. either because i did not steal as she did, or because i displayed no desire to become her lover, which she probably looked upon as an insult, or perhaps because she felt that i was a man of a different order, she hated me from the first day. my inexperience, my appearance--so unlike a flunkey--and my illness, seemed to her pitiful and excited her disgust. i had a bad cough at that time, and sometimes at night i prevented her from sleeping, as our rooms were only divided by a wooden partition, and every morning she said to me: "again you didn't let me sleep. you ought to be in hospital instead of in service." she so genuinely believed that i was hardly a human being, but something infinitely below her, that, like the roman matrons who were not ashamed to bathe before their slaves, she sometimes went about in my presence in nothing but her chemise. once when i was in a happy, dreamy mood, i asked her at dinner (we had soup and roast meat sent in from a restaurant every day): "polya, do you believe in god?" "why, of course!" "then," i went on, "you believe there will be a day of judgment, and that we shall have to answer to god for every evil action?" she gave me no reply, but simply made a contemptuous grimace, and, looking that time at her cold eyes and over-fed expression, i realised that for her complete and finished personality no god, no conscience, no laws existed, and that if i had had to set fire to the house, to murder or to rob, i could not have hired a better accomplice. in my novel surroundings i felt very uncomfortable for the first week at orlov's before i got used to being addressed as "thou," and being constantly obliged to tell lies (saying "my master is not at home" when he was). in my flunkey's swallow-tail i felt as though i were in armour. but i grew accustomed to it in time. like a genuine footman, i waited at table, tidied the rooms, ran and drove about on errands of all sorts. when orlov did not want to keep an appointment with zinaida fyodorovna, or when he forgot that he had promised to go and see her, i drove to znamensky street, put a letter into her hands and told a lie. and the result of it all was quite different from what i had expected when i became a footman. every day of this new life of mine was wasted for me and my cause, as orlov never spoke of his father, nor did his visitors, and all i could learn of the stateman's doings was, as before, what i could glean from the newspapers or from correspondence with my comrades. the hundreds of notes and papers i used to find in the study and read had not the remotest connection with what i was looking for. orlov was absolutely uninterested in his father's political work, and looked as though he had never heard of it, or as though his father had long been dead. iii every thursday we had visitors. i ordered a piece of roast beef from the restaurant and telephoned to eliseyev's to send us caviare, cheese, oysters, and so on. i bought playing-cards. polya was busy all day getting ready the tea-things and the dinner service. to tell the truth, this spurt of activity came as a pleasant change in our idle life, and thursdays were for us the most interesting days. only three visitors used to come. the most important and perhaps the most interesting was the one called pekarsky--a tall, lean man of five and forty, with a long hooked nose, with a big black beard, and a bald patch on his head. his eyes were large and prominent, and his expression was grave and thoughtful like that of a greek philosopher. he was on the board of management of some railway, and also had some post in a bank; he was a consulting lawyer in some important government institution, and had business relations with a large number of private persons as a trustee, chairman of committees, and so on. he was of quite a low grade in the service, and modestly spoke of himself as a lawyer, but he had a vast influence. a note or card from him was enough to make a celebrated doctor, a director of a railway, or a great dignitary see any one without waiting; and it was said that through his protection one might obtain even a post of the fourth class, and get any sort of unpleasant business hushed up. he was looked upon as a very intelligent man, but his was a strange, peculiar intelligence. he was able to multiply by in his head instantaneously, or turn english pounds into german marks without help of pencil or paper; he understood finance and railway business thoroughly, and the machinery of russian administration had no secrets for him; he was a most skilful pleader in civil suits, and it was not easy to get the better of him at law. but that exceptional intelligence could not grasp many things which are understood even by some stupid people. for instance, he was absolutely unable to understand why people are depressed, why they weep, shoot themselves, and even kill others; why they fret about things that do not affect them personally, and why they laugh when they read gogol or shtchedrin.... everything abstract, everything belonging to the domain of thought and feeling, was to him boring and incomprehensible, like music to one who has no ear. he looked at people simply from the business point of view, and divided them into competent and incompetent. no other classification existed for him. honesty and rectitude were only signs of competence. drinking, gambling, and debauchery were permissible, but must not be allowed to interfere with business. believing in god was rather stupid, but religion ought be safeguarded, as the common people must have some principle to restrain them, otherwise they would not work. punishment is only necessary as deterrent. there was no need to go away for holidays, as it was just as nice in town. and so on. he was a widower and had no children, but lived on a large scale, as though he had a family, and paid three thousand roubles a year for his flat. the second visitor, kukushkin, an actual civil councillor though a young man, was short, and was conspicuous for his extremely unpleasant appearance, which was due to the disproportion between his fat, puffy body and his lean little face. his lips were puckered up suavely, and his little trimmed moustaches looked as though they had been fixed on with glue. he was a man with the manners of a lizard. he did not walk, but, as it were, crept along with tiny steps, squirming and sniggering, and when he laughed he showed his teeth. he was a clerk on special commissions, and did nothing, though he received a good salary, especially in the summer, when special and lucrative jobs were found for him. he was a man of personal ambition, not only to the marrow of his bones, but more fundamentally--to the last drop of his blood; but even in his ambitions he was petty and did not rely on himself, but was building his career on the chance favour flung him by his superiors. for the sake of obtaining some foreign decoration, or for the sake of having his name mentioned in the newspapers as having been present at some special service in the company of other great personages, he was ready to submit to any kind of humiliation, to beg, to flatter, to promise. he flattered orlov and pekarsky from cowardice, because he thought they were powerful; he flattered polya and me because we were in the service of a powerful man. whenever i took off his fur coat he tittered and asked me: "stepan, are you married?" and then unseemly vulgarities followed--by way of showing me special attention. kukushkin flattered orlov's weaknesses, humoured his corrupted and blasé ways; to please him he affected malicious raillery and atheism, in his company criticised persons before whom in other places he would slavishly grovel. when at supper they talked of love and women, he pretended to be a subtle and perverse voluptuary. as a rule, one may say, petersburg rakes are fond of talking of their abnormal tastes. some young actual civil councillor is perfectly satisfied with the embraces of his cook or of some unhappy street-walker on the nevsky prospect, but to listen to him you would think he was contaminated by all the vices of east and west combined, that he was an honourary member of a dozen iniquitous secret societies and was already marked by the police. kukushkin lied about himself in an unconscionable way, and they did not exactly disbelieve him, but paid little heed to his incredible stories. the third guest was gruzin, the son of a worthy and learned general; a man of orlov's age, with long hair, short-sighted eyes, and gold spectacles. i remember his long white fingers, that looked like a pianist's; and, indeed, there was something of a musician, of a virtuoso, about his whole figure. the first violins in orchestras look just like that. he used to cough, suffered from migraine, and seemed invalidish and delicate. probably at home he was dressed and undressed like a baby. he had finished at the college of jurisprudence, and had at first served in the department of justice, then he was transferred to the senate; he left that, and through patronage had received a post in the department of crown estates, and had soon afterwards given that up. in my time he was serving in orlov's department; he was his head-clerk, but he said that he should soon exchange into the department of justice again. he took his duties and his shifting about from one post to another with exceptional levity, and when people talked before him seriously of grades in the service, decorations, salaries, he smiled good-naturedly and repeated prutkov's aphorism: "it's only in the government service you learn the truth." he had a little wife with a wrinkled face, who was very jealous of him, and five weedy-looking children. he was unfaithful to his wife, he was only fond of his children when he saw them, and on the whole was rather indifferent to his family, and made fun of them. he and his family existed on credit, borrowing wherever they could at every opportunity, even from his superiors in the office and porters in people's houses. his was a flabby nature; he was so lazy that he did not care what became of himself, and drifted along heedless where or why he was going. he went where he was taken. if he was taken to some low haunt, he went; if wine was set before him, he drank--if it were not put before him, he abstained; if wives were abused in his presence, he abused his wife, declaring she had ruined his life--when wives were praised, he praised his and said quite sincerely: "i am very fond of her, poor thing!" he had no fur coat and always wore a rug which smelt of the nursery. when at supper he rolled balls of bread and drank a great deal of red wine, absorbed in thought, strange to say, i used to feel almost certain that there was something in him of which perhaps he had a vague sense, though in the bustle and vulgarity of his daily life he had not time to understand and appreciate it. he played a little on the piano. sometimes he would sit down at the piano, play a chord or two, and begin singing softly: "what does the coming day bring to me?" but at once, as though afraid, he would get up and walk from the piano. the visitors usually arrived about ten o'clock. they played cards in orlov's study, and polya and i handed them tea. it was only on these occasions that i could gauge the full sweetness of a flunkey's life. standing for four or five hours at the door, watching that no one's glass should be empty, changing the ash-trays, running to the table to pick up the chalk or a card when it was dropped, and, above all, standing, waiting, being attentive without venturing to speak, to cough, to smile--is harder, i assure you, is harder than the hardest of field labour. i have stood on watch at sea for four hours at a stretch on stormy winter nights, and to my thinking it is an infinitely easier duty. they used to play cards till two, sometimes till three o'clock at night, and then, stretching, they would go into the dining-room to supper, or, as orlov said, for a snack of something. at supper there was conversation. it usually began by orlov's speaking with laughing eyes of some acquaintance, of some book he had lately been reading, of a new appointment or government scheme. kukushkin, always ingratiating, would fall into his tone, and what followed was to me, in my mood at that time, a revolting exhibition. the irony of orlov and his friends knew no bounds, and spared no one and nothing. if they spoke of religion, it was with irony; they spoke of philosophy, of the significance and object of life--irony again, if any one began about the peasantry, it was with irony. there is in petersburg a species of men whose specialty it is to jeer at every aspect of life; they cannot even pass by a starving man or a suicide without saying something vulgar. but orlov and his friends did not jeer or make jokes, they talked ironically. they used to say that there was no god, and personality was completely lost at death; the immortals only existed in the french academy. real good did not and could not possibly exist, as its existence was conditional upon human perfection, which was a logical absurdity. russia was a country as poor and dull as persia. the intellectual class was hopeless; in pekarsky's opinion the overwhelming majority in it were incompetent persons, good for nothing. the people were drunken, lazy, thievish, and degenerate. we had no science, our literature was uncouth, our commerce rested on swindling--"no selling without cheating." and everything was in that style, and everything was a subject for laughter. towards the end of supper the wine made them more good-humoured, and they passed to more lively conversation. they laughed over gruzin's family life, over kukushkin's conquests, or at pekarsky, who had, they said, in his account book one page headed _charity_ and another _physiological necessities_. they said that no wife was faithful; that there was no wife from whom one could not, with practice, obtain caresses without leaving her drawing-room while her husband was sitting in his study close by; that girls in their teens were perverted and knew everything. orlov had preserved a letter of a schoolgirl of fourteen: on her way home from school she had "hooked an officer on the nevsky," who had, it appears, taken her home with him, and had only let her go late in the evening; and she hastened to write about this to her school friend to share her joy with her. they maintained that there was not and never had been such a thing as moral purity, and that evidently it was unnecessary; mankind had so far done very well without it. the harm done by so-called vice was undoubtedly exaggerated. vices which are punished by our legal code had not prevented diogenes from being a philosopher and a teacher. cæsar and cicero were profligates and at the same time great men. cato in his old age married a young girl, and yet he was regarded as a great ascetic and a pillar of morality. at three or four o'clock the party broke up or they went off together out of town, or to officers' street, to the house of a certain varvara ossipovna, while i retired to my quarters, and was kept awake a long while by coughing and headache. iv three weeks after i entered orlov's service--it was sunday morning, i remember--somebody rang the bell. it was not yet eleven, and orlov was still asleep. i went to open the door. you can imagine my astonishment when i found a lady in a veil standing at the door on the landing. "is georgy ivanitch up?" she asked. from her voice i recognised zinaida fyodorovna, to whom i had taken letters in znamensky street. i don't remember whether i had time or self-possession to answer her--i was taken aback at seeing her. and, indeed, she did not need my answer. in a flash she had darted by me, and, filling the hall with the fragrance of her perfume, which i remember to this day, she went on, and her footsteps died away. for at least half an hour afterwards i heard nothing. but again some one rang. this time it was a smartly dressed girl, who looked like a maid in a wealthy family, accompanied by our house porter. both were out of breath, carrying two trunks and a dress-basket. "these are for zinaida fyodorovna," said the girl. and she went down without saying another word. all this was mysterious, and made polya, who had a deep admiration for the pranks of her betters, smile slyly to herself; she looked as though she would like to say, "so that's what we're up to," and she walked about the whole time on tiptoe. at last we heard footsteps; zinaida fyodorovna came quickly into the hall, and seeing me at the door of my room, said: "stepan, take georgy ivanitch his things." when i went in to orlov with his clothes and his boots, he was sitting on the bed with his feet on the bearskin rug. there was an air of embarrassment about his whole figure. he did not notice me, and my menial opinion did not interest him; he was evidently perturbed and embarrassed before himself, before his inner eye. he dressed, washed, and used his combs and brushes silently and deliberately, as though allowing himself time to think over his position and to reflect, and even from his back one could see he was troubled and dissatisfied with himself. they drank coffee together. zinaida fyodorovna poured out coffee for herself and for orlov, then she put her elbows on the table and laughed. "i still can't believe it," she said. "when one has been a long while on one's travels and reaches a hotel at last, it's difficult to believe that one hasn't to go on. it is pleasant to breathe freely." with the expression of a child who very much wants to be mischievous, she sighed with relief and laughed again. "you will excuse me," said orlov, nodding towards the coffee. "reading at breakfast is a habit i can't get over. but i can do two things at once--read and listen." "read away.... you shall keep your habits and your freedom. but why do you look so solemn? are you always like that in the morning, or is it only to-day? aren't you glad?" "yes, i am. but i must own i am a little overwhelmed." "why? you had plenty of time to prepare yourself for my descent upon you. i've been threatening to come every day." "yes, but i didn't expect you to carry out your threat to-day." "i didn't expect it myself, but that's all the better. it's all the better, my dear. it's best to have an aching tooth out and have done with it." "yes, of course." "oh, my dear," she said, closing her eyes, "all is well that ends well; but before this happy ending, what suffering there has been! my laughing means nothing; i am glad, i am happy, but i feel more like crying than laughing. yesterday i had to fight a regular battle," she went on in french. "god alone knows how wretched i was. but i laugh because i can't believe in it. i keep fancying that my sitting here drinking coffee with you is not real, but a dream." then, still speaking french, she described how she had broken with her husband the day before and her eyes were alternately full of tears and of laughter while she gazed with rapture at orlov. she told him her husband had long suspected her, but had avoided explanations; they had frequent quarrels, and usually at the most heated moment he would suddenly subside into silence and depart to his study for fear that in his exasperation he might give utterance to his suspicions or she might herself begin to speak openly. and she had felt guilty, worthless, incapable of taking a bold and serious step, and that had made her hate herself and her husband more every day, and she had suffered the torments of hell. but the day before, when during a quarrel he had cried out in a tearful voice, "my god, when will it end?" and had walked off to his study, she had run after him like a cat after a mouse, and, preventing him from shutting the door, she had cried that she hated him with her whole soul. then he let her come into the study and she had told him everything, had confessed that she loved some one else, that that some one else was her real, most lawful husband, and that she thought it her true duty to go away to him that very day, whatever might happen, if she were to be shot for it. "there's a very romantic streak in you," orlov interrupted, keeping his eyes fixed on the newspaper. she laughed and went on talking without touching her coffee. her cheeks glowed and she was a little embarrassed by it, and she looked in confusion at polya and me. from what she went on to say i learnt that her husband had answered her with threats, reproaches, and finally tears, and that it would have been more accurate to say that she, and not he, had been the attacking party. "yes, my dear, so long as i was worked up, everything went all right," she told orlov; "but as night came on, my spirits sank. you don't believe in god, _george_, but i do believe a little, and i fear retribution. god requires of us patience, magnanimity, self-sacrifice, and here i am refusing to be patient and want to remodel my life to suit myself. is that right? what if from the point of view of god it's wrong? at two o'clock in the night my husband came to me and said: 'you dare not go away. i'll fetch you back through the police and make a scandal.' and soon afterwards i saw him like a shadow at my door. 'have mercy on me! your elopement may injure me in the service.' those words had a coarse effect upon me and made me feel stiff all over. i felt as though the retribution were beginning already; i began crying and trembling with terror. i felt as though the ceiling would fall upon me, that i should be dragged off to the police-station at once, that you would grow cold to me--all sorts of things, in fact! i thought i would go into a nunnery or become a nurse, and give up all thought of happiness, but then i remembered that you loved me, and that i had no right to dispose of myself without your knowledge; and everything in my mind was in a tangle--i was in despair and did not know what to do or think. but the sun rose and i grew happier. as soon as it was morning i dashed off to you. ah, what i've been through, dear one! i haven't slept for two nights!" she was tired out and excited. she was sleepy, and at the same time she wanted to talk endlessly, to laugh and to cry, and to go to a restaurant to lunch that she might feel her freedom. "you have a cosy flat, but i am afraid it may be small for the two of us," she said, walking rapidly through all the rooms when they had finished breakfast. "what room will you give me? i like this one because it is next to your study." at one o'clock she changed her dress in the room next to the study, which from that time she called hers, and she went off with orlov to lunch. they dined, too, at a restaurant, and spent the long interval between lunch and dinner in shopping. till late at night i was opening the door to messengers and errand-boys from the shops. they bought, among other things, a splendid pier-glass, a dressing-table, a bedstead, and a gorgeous tea service which we did not need. they bought a regular collection of copper saucepans, which we set in a row on the shelf in our cold, empty kitchen. as we were unpacking the tea service polya's eyes gleamed, and she looked at me two or three times with hatred and fear that i, not she, would be the first to steal one of these charming cups. a lady's writing-table, very expensive and inconvenient, came too. it was evident that zinaida fyodorovna contemplated settling with us for good, and meant to make the flat her home. she came back with orlov between nine and ten. full of proud consciousness that she had done something bold and out of the common, passionately in love, and, as she imagined, passionately loved, exhausted, looking forward to a sweet sound sleep, zinaida fyodorovna was revelling in her new life. she squeezed her hands together in the excess of her joy, declared that everything was delightful, and swore that she would love orlov for ever; and these vows, and the naïve, almost childish confidence that she too was deeply loved and would be loved forever, made her at least five years younger. she talked charming nonsense and laughed at herself. "there's no other blessing greater than freedom!" she said, forcing herself to say something serious and edifying. "how absurd it is when you think of it! we attach no value to our own opinion even when it is wise, but tremble before the opinion of all sorts of stupid people. up to the last minute i was afraid of what other people would say, but as soon as i followed my own instinct and made up my mind to go my own way, my eyes were opened, i overcame my silly fears, and now i am happy and wish every one could be as happy!" but her thoughts immediately took another turn, and she began talking of another flat, of wallpapers, horses, a trip to switzerland and italy. orlov was tired by the restaurants and the shops, and was still suffering from the same uneasiness that i had noticed in the morning. he smiled, but more from politeness than pleasure, and when she spoke of anything seriously, he agreed ironically: "oh, yes." "stepan, make haste and find us a good cook," she said to me. "there's no need to be in a hurry over the kitchen arrangements," said orlov, looking at me coldly. "we must first move into another flat." we had never had cooking done at home nor kept horses, because, as he said, "he did not like disorder about him," and only put up with having polya and me in his flat from necessity. the so-called domestic hearth with its everyday joys and its petty cares offended his taste as vulgarity; to be with child, or to have children and talk about them, was bad form, like a petty bourgeois. and i began to feel very curious to see how these two creatures would get on together in one flat--she, domestic and home-loving with her copper saucepans and her dreams of a good cook and horses; and he, fond of saying to his friends that a decent and orderly man's flat ought, like a warship, to have nothing in it superfluous--no women, no children, no rags, no kitchen utensils. v then i will tell you what happened the following thursday. that day zinaida fyodorovna dined at content's or donon's. orlov returned home alone, and zinaida fyodorovna, as i learnt afterwards, went to the petersburg side to spend with her old governess the time visitors were with us. orlov did not care to show her to his friends. i realised that at breakfast, when he began assuring her that for the sake of her peace of mind it was essential to give up his thursday evenings. as usual the visitors arrived at almost the same time. "is your mistress at home, too?" kukushkin asked me in a whisper. "no, sir," i answered. he went in with a sly, oily look in his eyes, smiling mysteriously, rubbing his hands, which were cold from the frost. "i have the honour to congratulate you," he said to orlov, shaking all over with ingratiating, obsequious laughter. "may you increase and multiply like the cedars of lebanon." the visitors went into the bedroom, and were extremely jocose on the subject of a pair of feminine slippers, the rug that had been put down between the two beds, and a grey dressing-jacket that hung at the foot of the bedstead. they were amused that the obstinate man who despised all the common place details of love had been caught in feminine snares in such a simple and ordinary way. "he who pointed the finger of scorn is bowing the knee in homage," kukushkin repeated several times. he had, i may say in parenthesis, an unpleasant habit of adorning his conversation with texts in church slavonic. "sh-sh!" he said as they went from the bedroom into the room next to the study. "sh-sh! here gretchen is dreaming of her faust." he went off into a peal of laughter as though he had said something very amusing. i watched gruzin, expecting that his musical soul would not endure this laughter, but i was mistaken. his thin, good-natured face beamed with pleasure. when they sat down to play cards, he, lisping and choking with laughter, said that all that "dear _george_" wanted to complete his domestic felicity was a cherry-wood pipe and a guitar. pekarsky laughed sedately, but from his serious expression one could see that orlov's new love affair was distasteful to him. he did not understand what had happened exactly. "but how about the husband?" he asked in perplexity, after they had played three rubbers. "i don't know," answered orlov. pekarsky combed his big beard with his fingers and sank into thought, and he did not speak again till supper-time. when they were seated at supper, he began deliberately, drawling every word: "altogether, excuse my saying so, i don't understand either of you. you might love each other and break the seventh commandment to your heart's content--that i understand. yes, that's comprehensible. but why make the husband a party to your secrets? was there any need for that?" "but does it make any difference?" "hm!...." pekarsky mused. "well, then, let me tell you this, my friend," he went on, evidently thinking hard: "if i ever marry again and you take it into your head to seduce my wife, please do it so that i don't notice it. it's much more honest to deceive a man than to break up his family life and injure his reputation. i understand. you both imagine that in living together openly you are doing something exceptionally honourable and advanced, but i can't agree with that ... what shall i call it?... romantic attitude?" orlov made no reply. he was out of humour and disinclined to talk. pekarsky, still perplexed, drummed on the table with his fingers, thought a little, and said: "i don't understand you, all the same. you are not a student and she is not a dressmaker. you are both of you people with means. i should have thought you might have arranged a separate flat for her." "no, i couldn't. read turgenev." "why should i read him? i have read him already." "turgenev teaches us in his novels that every exalted, noble-minded girl should follow the man she loves to the ends of the earth, and should serve his idea," said orlov, screwing up his eyes ironically. "the ends of the earth are poetic license; the earth and all its ends can be reduced to the flat of the man she loves.... and so not to live in the same flat with the woman who loves you is to deny her her exalted vocation and to refuse to share her ideals. yes, my dear fellow, turgenev wrote, and i have to suffer for it." "what turgenev has got to do with it i don't understand," said gruzin softly, and he shrugged his shoulders. "do you remember, _george_, how in 'three meetings' he is walking late in the evening somewhere in italy, and suddenly hears, _'vieni pensando a me segretamente,'_" gruzin hummed. "it's fine." "but she hasn't come to settle with you by force," said pekarsky. "it was your own wish." "what next! far from wishing it, i never imagined that this would ever happen. when she said she was coming to live with me, i thought it was a charming joke on her part." everybody laughed. "i couldn't have wished for such a thing," said orlov in the tone of a man compelled to justify himself. "i am not a turgenev hero, and if i ever wanted to free bulgaria i shouldn't need a lady's company. i look upon love primarily as a necessity of my physical nature, degrading and antagonistic to my spirit; it must either be satisfied with discretion or renounced altogether, otherwise it will bring into one's life elements as unclean as itself. for it to be an enjoyment and not a torment, i will try to make it beautiful and to surround it with a mass of illusions. i should never go and see a woman unless i were sure beforehand that she would be beautiful and fascinating; and i should never go unless i were in the mood. and it is only in that way that we succeed in deceiving one another, and fancying that we are in love and happy. but can i wish for copper saucepans and untidy hair, or like to be seen myself when i am unwashed or out of humour? zinaida fyodorovna in the simplicity of her heart wants me to love what i have been shunning all my life. she wants my flat to smell of cooking and washing up; she wants all the fuss of moving into another flat, of driving about with her own horses; she wants to count over my linen and to look after my health; she wants to meddle in my personal life at every instant, and to watch over every step; and at the same time she assures me genuinely that my habits and my freedom will be untouched. she is persuaded that, like a young couple, we shall very soon go for a honeymoon--that is, she wants to be with me all the time in trains and hotels, while i like to read on the journey and cannot endure talking in trains." "you should give her a talking to," said pekarsky. "what! do you suppose she would understand me? why, we think so differently. in her opinion, to leave one's papa and mamma or one's husband for the sake of the man one loves is the height of civic virtue, while i look upon it as childish. to fall in love and run away with a man to her means beginning a new life, while to my mind it means nothing at all. love and man constitute the chief interest of her life, and possibly it is the philosophy of the unconscious at work in her. try and make her believe that love is only a simple physical need, like the need of food or clothes; that it doesn't mean the end of the world if wives and husbands are unsatisfactory; that a man may be a profligate and a libertine, and yet a man of honour and a genius; and that, on the other hand, one may abstain from the pleasures of love and at the same time be a stupid, vicious animal! the civilised man of to-day, even among the lower classes--for instance, the french workman--spends ten _sous_ on dinner, five _sous_ on his wine, and five or ten _sous_ on woman, and devotes his brain and nerves entirely to his work. but zinaida fyodorovna assigns to love not so many _sous_, but her whole soul. i might give her a talking to, but she would raise a wail in answer, and declare in all sincerity that i had ruined her, that she had nothing left to live for." "don't say anything to her," said pekarsky, "but simply take a separate flat for her, that's all." "that's easy to say." there was a brief silence. "but she is charming," said kukushkin. "she is exquisite. such women imagine that they will be in love for ever, and abandon themselves with tragic intensity." "but one must keep a head on one's shoulders," said orlov; "one must be reasonable. all experience gained from everyday life and handed down in innumerable novels and plays, uniformly confirms the fact that adultery and cohabitation of any sort between decent people never lasts longer than two or at most three years, however great the love may have been at the beginning. that she ought to know. and so all this business of moving, of saucepans, hopes of eternal love and harmony, are nothing but a desire to delude herself and me. she is charming and exquisite--who denies it? but she has turned my life upside down; what i have regarded as trivial and nonsensical till now she has forced me to raise to the level of a serious problem; i serve an idol whom i have never looked upon as god. she is charming--exquisite, but for some reason now when i am going home, i feel uneasy, as though i expected to meet with something inconvenient at home, such as workmen pulling the stove to pieces and blocking up the place with heaps of bricks. in fact, i am no longer giving up to love a _sous_, but part of my peace of mind and my nerves. and that's bad." "and she doesn't hear this villain!" sighed kukushkin. "my dear sir," he said theatrically, "i will relieve you from the burdensome obligation to love that adorable creature! i will wrest zinaida fyodorovna from you!" "you may ..." said orlov carelessly. for half a minute kukushkin laughed a shrill little laugh, shaking all over, then he said: "look out; i am in earnest! don't you play the othello afterwards!" they all began talking of kukushkin's indefatigable energy in love affairs, how irresistible he was to women, and what a danger he was to husbands; and how the devil would roast him in the other world for his immorality in this. he screwed up his eyes and remained silent, and when the names of ladies of their acquaintance were mentioned, he held up his little finger--as though to say they mustn't give away other people's secrets. orlov suddenly looked at his watch. his friends understood, and began to take their leave. i remember that gruzin, who was a little drunk, was wearisomely long in getting off. he put on his coat, which was cut like children's coats in poor families, pulled up the collar, and began telling some long-winded story; then, seeing he was not listened to, he flung the rug that smelt of the nursery over one shoulder, and with a guilty and imploring face begged me to find his hat. "_george_, my angel," he said tenderly. "do as i ask you, dear boy; come out of town with us!" "you can go, but i can't. i am in the position of a married man now." "she is a dear, she won't be angry. my dear chief, come along! it's glorious weather; there's snow and frost.... upon my word, you want shaking up a bit; you are out of humour. i don't know what the devil is the matter with you...." orlov stretched, yawned, and looked at pekarsky. "are you going?" he said, hesitating. "i don't know. perhaps." "shall i get drunk? all right, i'll come," said orlov after some hesitation. "wait a minute; i'll get some money." he went into the study, and gruzin slouched in, too, dragging his rug after him. a minute later both came back into the hall. gruzin, a little drunk and very pleased, was crumpling a ten-rouble note in his hands. "we'll settle up to-morrow," he said. "and she is kind, she won't be cross.... she is my lisotchka's godmother; i am fond of her, poor thing! ah, my dear fellow!" he laughed joyfully, and pressing his forehead on pekarsky's back. "ah, pekarsky, my dear soul! advocatissimus--as dry as a biscuit, but you bet he is fond of women...." "fat ones," said orlov, putting on his fur coat. "but let us get off, or we shall be meeting her on the doorstep." "_'vieni pensando a me segretamente,'_" hummed gruzin. at last they drove off: orlov did not sleep at home, and returned next day at dinner-time. vi zinaida fyodorovna had lost her gold watch, a present from her father. this loss surprised and alarmed her. she spent half a day going through the rooms, looking helplessly on all the tables and on all the windows. but the watch had disappeared completely. only three days afterwards zinaida fyodorovna, on coming in, left her purse in the hall. luckily for me, on that occasion it was not i but polya who helped her off with her coat. when the purse was missed, it could not be found in the hall. "strange," said zinaida fyodorovna in bewilderment. "i distinctly remember taking it out of my pocket to pay the cabman ... and then i put it here near the looking-glass. it's very odd!" i had not stolen it, but i felt as though i had stolen it and had been caught in the theft. tears actually came into my eyes. when they were seated at dinner, zinaida fyodorovna said to orlov in french: "there seem to be spirits in the flat. i lost my purse in the hall to-day, and now, lo and behold, it is on my table. but it's not quite a disinterested trick of the spirits. they took out a gold coin and twenty roubles in notes." "you are always losing something; first it's your watch and then it's your money ..." said orlov. "why is it nothing of the sort ever happens to me?" a minute later zinaida fyodorovna had forgotten the trick played by the spirits, and was telling with a laugh how the week before she had ordered some notepaper and had forgotten to give her new address, and the shop had sent the paper to her old home at her husband's, who had to pay twelve roubles for it. and suddenly she turned her eyes on polya and looked at her intently. she blushed as she did so, and was so confused that she began talking of something else. when i took in the coffee to the study, orlov was standing with his back to the fire and she was sitting in an arm-chair facing him. "i am not in a bad temper at all," she was saying in french. "but i have been putting things together, and now i see it clearly. i can give you the day and the hour when she stole my watch. and the purse? there can be no doubt about it. oh!" she laughed as she took the coffee from me. "now i understand why i am always losing my handkerchiefs and gloves. whatever you say, i shall dismiss the magpie to-morrow and send stepan for my sofya. she is not a thief and has not got such a repulsive appearance." "you are out of humour. to-morrow you will feel differently, and will realise that you can't discharge people simply because you suspect them." "it's not suspicion; it's certainty," said zinaida fyodorovna. "so long as i suspected that unhappy-faced, poor-looking valet of yours, i said nothing. it's too bad of you not to believe me, _george_." "if we think differently about anything, it doesn't follow that i don't believe you. you may be right," said orlov, turning round and flinging his cigarette-end into the fire, "but there is no need to be excited about it, anyway. in fact, i must say, i never expected my humble establishment would cause you so much serious worry and agitation. you've lost a gold coin: never mind--you may have a hundred of mine; but to change my habits, to pick up a new housemaid, to wait till she is used to the place--all that's a tedious, tiring business and does not suit me. our present maid certainly is fat, and has, perhaps, a weakness for gloves and handkerchiefs, but she is perfectly well behaved, well trained, and does not shriek when kukushkin pinches her." "you mean that you can't part with her?... why don't you say so?" "are you jealous?" "yes, i am," said zinaida fyodorovna, decidedly. "thank you." "yes, i am jealous," she repeated, and tears glistened in her eyes. "no, it's something worse ... which i find it difficult to find a name for." she pressed her hands on her temples, and went on impulsively. "you men are so disgusting! it's horrible!" "i see nothing horrible about it." "i've not seen it; i don't know; but they say that you men begin with housemaids as boys, and get so used to it that you feel no repugnance. i don't know, i don't know, but i have actually read.... _george_, of course you are right," she said, going up to orlov and changing to a caressing and imploring tone. "i really am out of humour to-day. but, you must understand, i can't help it. she disgusts me and i am afraid of her. it makes me miserable to see her." "surely you can rise above such paltriness?" said orlov, shrugging his shoulders in perplexity, and walking away from the fire. "nothing could be simpler: take no notice of her, and then she won't disgust you, and you won't need to make a regular tragedy out of a trifle." i went out of the study, and i don't know what answer orlov received. whatever it was, polya remained. after that zinaida fyodorovna never applied to her for anything, and evidently tried to dispense with her services. when polya handed her anything or even passed by her, jingling her bangle and rustling her skirts, she shuddered. i believe that if gruzin or pekarsky had asked orlov to dismiss polya he would have done so without the slightest hesitation, without troubling about any explanations. he was easily persuaded, like all indifferent people. but in his relations with zinaida fyodorovna he displayed for some reason, even in trifles, an obstinacy which sometimes was almost irrational. i knew beforehand that if zinaida fyodorovna liked anything, it would be certain not to please orlov. when on coming in from shopping she made haste to show him with pride some new purchase, he would glance at it and say coldly that the more unnecessary objects they had in the flat, the less airy it would be. it sometimes happened that after putting on his dress clothes to go out somewhere, and after saying good-bye to zinaida fyodorovna, he would suddenly change his mind and remain at home from sheer perversity. i used to think that he remained at home then simply in order to feel injured. "why are you staying?" said zinaida fyodorovna, with a show of vexation, though at the same time she was radiant with delight. "why do you? you are not accustomed to spending your evenings at home, and i don't want you to alter your habits on my account. do go out as usual, if you don't want me to feel guilty." "no one is blaming you," said orlov. with the air of a victim he stretched himself in his easy-chair in the study, and shading his eyes with his hand, took up a book. but soon the book dropped from his hand, he turned heavily in his chair, and again screened his eyes as though from the sun. now he felt annoyed that he had not gone out. "may i come in?" zinaida fyodorovna would say, coming irresolutely into the study. "are you reading? i felt dull by myself, and have come just for a minute ... to have a peep at you." i remember one evening she went in like that, irresolutely and inappropriately, and sank on the rug at orlov's feet, and from her soft, timid movements one could see that she did not understand his mood and was afraid. "you are always reading ..." she said cajolingly, evidently wishing to flatter him. "do you know, _george_, what is one of the secrets of your success? you are very clever and well-read. what book have you there?" orlov answered. a silence followed for some minutes which seemed to me very long. i was standing in the drawing-room, from which i could watch them, and was afraid of coughing. "there is something i wanted to tell you," said zinaida fyodorovna, and she laughed; "shall i? very likely you'll laugh and say that i flatter myself. you know i want, i want horribly to believe that you are staying at home to-night for my sake ... that we might spend the evening together. yes? may i think so?" "do," he said, screening his eyes. "the really happy man is he who thinks not only of what is, but of what is not." "that was a long sentence which i did not quite understand. you mean happy people live in their imagination. yes, that's true. i love to sit in your study in the evening and let my thoughts carry me far, far away.... it's pleasant sometimes to dream. let us dream aloud, _george_." "i've never been at a girls' boarding-school; i never learnt the art." "you are out of humour?" said zinaida fyodorovna, taking orlov's hand. "tell me why. when you are like that, i'm afraid. i don't know whether your head aches or whether you are angry with me...." again there was a silence lasting several long minutes. "why have you changed?" she said softly. "why are you never so tender or so gay as you used to be at znamensky street? i've been with you almost a month, but it seems to me as though we had not yet begun to live, and have not yet talked of anything as we ought to. you always answer me with jokes or else with a long cold lecture like a teacher. and there is something cold in your jokes.... why have you given up talking to me seriously?" "i always talk seriously." "well, then, let us talk. for god's sake, _george_.... shall we?" "certainly, but about what?" "let us talk of our life, of our future," said zinaida fyodorovna dreamily. "i keep making plans for our life, plans and plans--and i enjoy doing it so! _george_, i'll begin with the question, when are you going to give up your post?" "what for?" asked orlov, taking his hand from his forehead. "with your views you cannot remain in the service. you are out of place there." "my views?" orlov repeated. "my views? in conviction and temperament i am an ordinary official, one of shtchedrin's heroes. you take me for something different, i venture to assure you." "joking again, _george_!" "not in the least. the service does not satisfy me, perhaps; but, anyway, it is better for me than anything else. i am used to it, and in it i meet men of my own sort; i am in my place there and find it tolerable." "you hate the service and it revolts you." "indeed? if i resign my post, take to dreaming aloud and letting myself be carried away into another world, do you suppose that that world would be less hateful to me than the service?" "you are ready to libel yourself in order to contradict me." zinaida fyodorovna was offended and got up. "i am sorry i began this talk." "why are you angry? i am not angry with you for not being an official. every one lives as he likes best." "why, do you live as you like best? are you free? to spend your life writing documents that are opposed to your own ideas," zinaida fyodorovna went on, clasping her hands in despair: "to submit to authority, congratulate your superiors at the new year, and then cards and nothing but cards: worst of all, to be working for a system which must be distasteful to you--no, _george_, no! you should not make such horrid jokes. it's dreadful. you are a man of ideas, and you ought to be working for your ideas and nothing else." "you really take me for quite a different person from what i am," sighed orlov. "say simply that you don't want to talk to me. you dislike me, that's all," said zinaida fyodorovna through her tears. "look here, my dear," said orlov admonishingly, sitting up in his chair. "you were pleased to observe yourself that i am a clever, well-read man, and to teach one who knows does nothing but harm. i know very well all the ideas, great and small, which you mean when you call me a man of ideas. so if i prefer the service and cards to those ideas, you may be sure i have good grounds for it. that's one thing. secondly, you have, so far as i know, never been in the service, and can only have drawn your ideas of government service from anecdotes and indifferent novels. so it would not be amiss for us to make a compact, once for all, not to talk of things we know already or of things about which we are not competent to speak." "why do you speak to me like that?" said zinaida fyodorovna, stepping back as though in horror. "what for? _george_, for god's sake, think what you are saying!" her voice quivered and broke; she was evidently trying to restrain her tears, but she suddenly broke into sobs. "_george_, my darling, i am perishing!" she said in french, dropping down before orlov, and laying her head on his knees. "i am miserable, i am exhausted. i can't bear it, i can't bear it.... in my childhood my hateful, depraved stepmother, then my husband, now you ... you!... you meet my mad love with coldness and irony.... and that horrible, insolent servant," she went on, sobbing. "yes, yes, i see: i am not your wife nor your friend, but a woman you don't respect because she has become your mistress.... i shall kill myself!" i had not expected that her words and her tears would make such an impression on orlov. he flushed, moved uneasily in his chair, and instead of irony, his face wore a look of stupid, schoolboyish dismay. "my darling, you misunderstood me," he muttered helplessly, touching her hair and her shoulders. "forgive me, i entreat you. i was unjust and i hate myself." "i insult you with my whining and complaints. you are a true, generous ... rare man--i am conscious of it every minute; but i've been horribly depressed for the last few days ..." zinaida fyodorovna impulsively embraced orlov and kissed him on the cheek. "only please don't cry," he said. "no, no.... i've had my cry, and now i am better." "as for the servant, she shall be gone to-morrow," he said, still moving uneasily in his chair. "no, she must stay, _george!_ do you hear? i am not afraid of her now.... one must rise above trifles and not imagine silly things. you are right! you are a wonderful, rare person!" she soon left off crying. with tears glistening on her eyelashes, sitting on orlov's knee, she told him in a low voice something touching, something like a reminiscence of childhood and youth. she stroked his face, kissed him, and carefully examined his hands with the rings on them and the charms on his watch-chain. she was carried away by what she was saying, and by being near the man she loved, and probably because her tears had cleared and refreshed her soul, there was a note of wonderful candour and sincerity in her voice. and orlov played with her chestnut hair and kissed her hands, noiselessly pressing them to his lips. then they had tea in the study, and zinaida fyodorovna read aloud some letters. soon after midnight they went to bed. i had a fearful pain in my side that night, and i could not get warm or go to sleep till morning. i could hear orlov go from the bedroom into his study. after sitting there about an hour, he rang the bell. in my pain and exhaustion i forgot all the rules and conventions, and went to his study in my night attire, barefooted. orlov, in his dressing-gown and cap, was standing in the doorway, waiting for me. "when you are sent for you should come dressed," he said sternly. "bring some fresh candles." i was about to apologise, but suddenly broke into a violent cough, and clutched at the side of the door to save myself from falling. "are you ill?" said orlov. i believe it was the first time of our acquaintance that he addressed me not in the singular--goodness knows why. most likely, in my night clothes and with my face distorted by coughing, i played my part poorly, and was very little like a flunkey. "if you are ill, why do you take a place?" he said. "that i may not die of starvation," i answered. "how disgusting it all is, really!" he said softly, going up to his table. while hurriedly getting into my coat, i put up and lighted fresh candles. he was sitting at the table, with feet stretched out on a low chair, cutting a book. i left him deeply engrossed, and the book did not drop out of his hands as it had done in the evening. vii now that i am writing these lines i am restrained by that dread of appearing sentimental and ridiculous, in which i have been trained from childhood; when i want to be affectionate or to say anything tender, i don't know how to be natural. and it is that dread, together with lack of practice, that prevents me from being able to express with perfect clearness what was passing in my soul at that time. i was not in love with zinaida fyodorovna, but in the ordinary human feeling i had for her, there was far more youth, freshness, and joyousness than in orlov's love. as i worked in the morning, cleaning boots or sweeping the rooms, i waited with a thrill at my heart for the moment when i should hear her voice and her footsteps. to stand watching her as she drank her coffee in the morning or ate her lunch, to hold her fur coat for her in the hall, and to put the goloshes on her little feet while she rested her hand on my shoulder; then to wait till the hall porter rang up for me, to meet her at the door, cold, and rosy, powdered with the snow, to listen to her brief exclamations about the frost or the cabman--if only you knew how much all that meant to me! i longed to be in love, to have a wife and child of my own. i wanted my future wife to have just such a face, such a voice. i dreamed of it at dinner, and in the street when i was sent on some errand, and when i lay awake at night. orlov rejected with disgust children, cooking, copper saucepans, and feminine knicknacks and i gathered them all up, tenderly cherished them in my dreams, loved them, and begged them of destiny. i had visions of a wife, a nursery, a little house with garden paths.... i knew that if i did love her i could never dare hope for the miracle of her returning my love, but that reflection did not worry me. in my quiet, modest feeling akin to ordinary affection, there was no jealousy of orlov or even envy of him, since i realised that for a wreck like me happiness was only to be found in dreams. when zinaida fyodorovna sat up night after night for her _george_, looking immovably at a book of which she never turned a page, or when she shuddered and turned pale at polya's crossing the room, i suffered with her, and the idea occurred to me to lance this festering wound as quickly as possible by letting her know what was said here at supper on thursdays; but--how was it to be done? more and more often i saw her tears. for the first weeks she laughed and sang to herself, even when orlov was not at home, but by the second month there was a mournful stillness in our flat broken only on thursday evenings. she flattered orlov, and to wring from him a counterfeit smile or kiss, was ready to go on her knees to him, to fawn on him like a dog. even when her heart was heaviest, she could not resist glancing into a looking-glass if she passed one and straightening her hair. it seemed strange to me that she could still take an interest in clothes and go into ecstasies over her purchases. it did not seem in keeping with her genuine grief. she paid attention to the fashions and ordered expensive dresses. what for? on whose account? i particularly remember one dress which cost four hundred roubles. to give four hundred roubles for an unnecessary, useless dress while women for their hard day's work get only twenty kopecks a day without food, and the makers of venice and brussels lace are only paid half a franc a day on the supposition that they can earn the rest by immorality! and it seemed strange to me that zinaida fyodorovna was not conscious of it; it vexed me. but she had only to go out of the house for me to find excuses and explanations for everything, and to be waiting eagerly for the hall porter to ring for me. she treated me as a flunkey, a being of a lower order. one may pat a dog, and yet not notice it; i was given orders and asked questions, but my presence was not observed. my master and mistress thought it unseemly to say more to me than is usually said to servants; if when waiting at dinner i had laughed or put in my word in the conversation, they would certainly have thought i was mad and have dismissed me. zinaida fyodorovna was favourably disposed to me, all the same. when she was sending me on some errand or explaining to me the working of a new lamp or anything of that sort, her face was extraordinarily kind, frank, and cordial, and her eyes looked me straight in the face. at such moments i always fancied she remembered with gratitude how i used to bring her letters to znamensky street. when she rang the bell, polya, who considered me her favourite and hated me for it, used to say with a jeering smile: "go along, _your_ mistress wants you." zinaida fyodorovna considered me as a being of a lower order, and did not suspect that if any one in the house were in a humiliating position it was she. she did not know that i, a footman, was unhappy on her account, and used to ask myself twenty times a day what was in store for her and how it would all end. things were growing visibly worse day by day. after the evening on which they had talked of his official work, orlov, who could not endure tears, unmistakably began to avoid conversation with her; whenever zinaida fyodorovna began to argue, or to beseech him, or seemed on the point of crying, he seized some plausible excuse for retreating to his study or going out. he more and more rarely slept at home, and still more rarely dined there: on thursdays he was the one to suggest some expedition to his friends. zinaida fyodorovna was still dreaming of having the cooking done at home, of moving to a new flat, of travelling abroad, but her dreams remained dreams. dinner was sent in from the restaurant. orlov asked her not to broach the question of moving until after they had come back from abroad, and apropos of their foreign tour, declared that they could not go till his hair had grown long, as one could not go trailing from hotel to hotel and serving the idea without long hair. to crown it all, in orlov's absence, kukushkin began calling at the flat in the evening. there was nothing exceptional in his behaviour, but i could never forget the conversation in which he had offered to cut orlov out. he was regaled with tea and red wine, and he used to titter and, anxious to say something pleasant, would declare that a free union was superior in every respect to legal marriage, and that all decent people ought really to come to zinaida fyodorovna and fall at her feet. viii christmas was spent drearily in vague anticipations of calamity. on new year's eve orlov unexpectedly announced at breakfast that he was being sent to assist a senator who was on a revising commission in a certain province. "i don't want to go, but i can't find an excuse to get off," he said with vexation. "i must go; there's nothing for it." such news instantly made zinaida fyodorovna's eyes look red. "is it for long?" she asked. "five days or so." "i am glad, really, you are going," she said after a moment's thought. "it will be a change for you. you will fall in love with some one on the way, and tell me about it afterwards." at every opportunity she tried to make orlov feel that she did not restrict his liberty in any way, and that he could do exactly as he liked, and this artless, transparent strategy deceived no one, and only unnecessarily reminded orlov that he was not free. "i am going this evening," he said, and began reading the paper. zinaida fyodorovna wanted to see him off at the station, but he dissuaded her, saying that he was not going to america, and not going to be away five years, but only five days--possibly less. the parting took place between seven and eight. he put one arm round her, and kissed her on the lips and on the forehead. "be a good girl, and don't be depressed while i am away," he said in a warm, affectionate tone which touched even me. "god keep you!" she looked greedily into his face, to stamp his dear features on her memory, then she put her arms gracefully round his neck and laid her head on his breast. "forgive me our misunderstandings," she said in french. "husband and wife cannot help quarrelling if they love each other, and i love you madly. don't forget me.... wire to me often and fully." orlov kissed her once more, and, without saying a word, went out in confusion. when he heard the click of the lock as the door closed, he stood still in the middle of the staircase in hesitation and glanced upwards. it seemed to me that if a sound had reached him at that moment from above, he would have turned back. but all was quiet. he straightened his coat and went downstairs irresolutely. the sledges had been waiting a long while at the door. orlov got into one, i got into the other with two portmanteaus. it was a hard frost and there were fires smoking at the cross-roads. the cold wind nipped my face and hands, and took my breath away as we drove rapidly along; and, closing my eyes, i thought what a splendid woman she was. how she loved him! even useless rubbish is collected in the courtyards nowadays and used for some purpose, even broken glass is considered a useful commodity, but something so precious, so rare, as the love of a refined, young, intelligent, and good woman is utterly thrown away and wasted. one of the early sociologists regarded every evil passion as a force which might by judicious management be turned to good, while among us even a fine, noble passion springs up and dies away in impotence, turned to no account, misunderstood or vulgarised. why is it? the sledges stopped unexpectedly. i opened my eyes and i saw that we had come to a standstill in sergievsky street, near a big house where pekarsky lived. orlov got out of the sledge and vanished into the entry. five minutes later pekarsky's footman came out, bareheaded, and, angry with the frost, shouted to me: "are you deaf? pay the cabmen and go upstairs. you are wanted!" at a complete loss, i went to the first storey. i had been to pekarsky's flat before--that is, i had stood in the hall and looked into the drawing-room, and, after the damp, gloomy street, it always struck me by the brilliance of its picture-frames, its bronzes and expensive furniture. to-day in the midst of this splendour i saw gruzin, kukushkin, and, after a minute, orlov. "look here, stepan," he said, coming up to me. "i shall be staying here till friday or saturday. if any letters or telegrams come, you must bring them here every day. at home, of course you will say that i have gone, and send my greetings. now you can go." when i reached home zinaida fyodorovna was lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, eating a pear. there was only one candle burning in the candelabra. "did you catch the train?" asked zinaida fyodorovna. "yes, madam. his honour sends his greetings." i went into my room and i, too, lay down. i had nothing to do, and i did not want to read. i was not surprised and i was not indignant. i only racked my brains to think why this deception was necessary. it is only boys in their teens who deceive their mistresses like that. how was it that a man who had thought and read so much could not imagine anything more sensible? i must confess i had by no means a poor opinion of his intelligence. i believe if he had had to deceive his minister or any other influential person he would have put a great deal of skill and energy into doing so; but to deceive a woman, the first idea that occurred to him was evidently good enough. if it succeeded--well and good; if it did not, there would be no harm done--he could tell some other lie just as quickly and simply, with no mental effort. at midnight when the people on the floor overhead were moving their chairs and shouting hurrah to welcome the new year, zinaida fyodorovna rang for me from the room next to the study. languid from lying down so long, she was sitting at the table, writing something on a scrap of paper. "i must send a telegram," she said, with a smile. "go to the station as quick as you can and ask them to send it after him." going out into the street, i read on the scrap of paper: "may the new year bring new happiness. make haste and telegraph; i miss you dreadfully. it seems an eternity. i am only sorry i can't send a thousand kisses and my very heart by telegraph. enjoy yourself, my darling.--zina." i sent the telegram, and next morning i gave her the receipt. ix the worst of it was that orlov had thoughtlessly let polya, too, into the secret of his deception, telling her to bring his shirts to sergievsky street. after that, she looked at zinaida fyodorovna with a malignant joy and hatred i could not understand, and was never tired of snorting with delight to herself in her own room and in the hall. "she's outstayed her welcome; it's time she took herself off!" she would say with zest. "she ought to realise that herself...." she already divined by instinct that zinaida fyodorovna would not be with us much longer, and, not to let the chance slip, carried off everything she set her eyes on--smelling-bottles, tortoise-shell hairpins, handkerchiefs, shoes! on the day after new year's day, zinaida fyodorovna summoned me to her room and told me in a low voice that she missed her black dress. and then she walked through all the rooms, with a pale, frightened, and indignant face, talking to herself: "it's too much! it's beyond everything. why, it's unheard-of insolence!" at dinner she tried to help herself to soup, but could not--her hands were trembling. her lips were trembling, too. she looked helplessly at the soup and at the little pies, waiting for the trembling to pass off, and suddenly she could not resist looking at polya. "you can go, polya," she said. "stepan is enough by himself." "i'll stay; i don't mind," answered polya. "there's no need for you to stay. you go away altogether," zinaida fyodorovna went on, getting up in great agitation. "you may look out for another place. you can go at once." "i can't go away without the master's orders. he engaged me. it must be as he orders." "you can take orders from me, too! i am mistress here!" said zinaida fyodorovna, and she flushed crimson. "you may be the mistress, but only the master can dismiss me. it was he engaged me." "you dare not stay here another minute!" cried zinaida fyodorovna, and she struck the plate with her knife. "you are a thief! do you hear?" zinaida fyodorovna flung her dinner-napkin on the table, and with a pitiful, suffering face, went quickly out of the room. loudly sobbing and wailing something indistinct, polya, too, went away. the soup and the grouse got cold. and for some reason all the restaurant dainties on the table struck me as poor, thievish, like polya. two pies on a plate had a particularly miserable and guilty air. "we shall be taken back to the restaurant to-day," they seemed to be saying, "and to-morrow we shall be put on the table again for some official or celebrated singer." "she is a fine lady, indeed," i heard uttered in polya's room. "i could have been a lady like that long ago, but i have some self-respect! we'll see which of us will be the first to go!" zinaida fyodorovna rang the bell. she was sitting in her room, in the corner, looking as though she had been put in the corner as a punishment. "no telegram has come?" she asked. "no, madam." "ask the porter; perhaps there is a telegram. and don't leave the house," she called after me. "i am afraid to be left alone." after that i had to run down almost every hour to ask the porter whether a telegram had come. i must own it was a dreadful time! to avoid seeing polya, zinaida fyodorovna dined and had tea in her own room; it was here that she slept, too, on a short sofa like a half-moon, and she made her own bed. for the first days i took the telegrams; but, getting no answer, she lost her faith in me and began telegraphing herself. looking at her, i, too, began impatiently hoping for a telegram. i hoped he would contrive some deception, would make arrangements, for instance, that a telegram should be sent to her from some station. if he were too much engrossed with cards or had been attracted by some other woman, i thought that both gruzin and kukushkin would remind him of us. but our expectations were vain. five times a day i would go in to zinaida fyodorovna, intending to tell her the truth. but her eyes looked piteous as a fawn's, her shoulders seemed to droop, her lips were moving, and i went away again without saying a word. pity and sympathy seemed to rob me of all manliness. polya, as cheerful and well satisfied with herself as though nothing had happened, was tidying the master's study and the bedroom, rummaging in the cupboards, and making the crockery jingle, and when she passed zinaida fyodorovna's door, she hummed something and coughed. she was pleased that her mistress was hiding from her. in the evening she would go out somewhere, and rang at two or three o'clock in the morning, and i had to open the door to her and listen to remarks about my cough. immediately afterwards i would hear another ring; i would run to the room next to the study, and zinaida fyodorovna, putting her head out of the door, would ask, "who was it rung?" while she looked at my hands to see whether i had a telegram. when at last on saturday the bell rang below and she heard the familiar voice on the stairs, she was so delighted that she broke into sobs. she rushed to meet him, embraced him, kissed him on the breast and sleeves, said something one could not understand. the hall porter brought up the portmanteaus; polya's cheerful voice was heard. it was as though some one had come home for the holidays. "why didn't you wire?" asked zinaida fyodorovna, breathless with joy. "why was it? i have been in misery; i don't know how i've lived through it.... oh, my god!" "it was very simple! i returned with the senator to moscow the very first day, and didn't get your telegrams," said orlov. "after dinner, my love, i'll give you a full account of my doings, but now i must sleep and sleep.... i am worn out with the journey." it was evident that he had not slept all night; he had probably been playing cards and drinking freely. zinaida fyodorovna put him to bed, and we all walked about on tiptoe all that day. the dinner went off quite satisfactorily, but when they went into the study and had coffee the explanation began. zinaida fyodorovna began talking of something rapidly in a low voice; she spoke in french, and her words flowed like a stream. then i heard a loud sigh from orlov, and his voice. "my god!" he said in french. "have you really nothing fresher to tell me than this everlasting tale of your servant's misdeeds?" "but, my dear, she robbed me and said insulting things to me." "but why is it she doesn't rob me or say insulting things to me? why is it i never notice the maids nor the porters nor the footmen? my dear, you are simply capricious and refuse to know your own mind.... i really begin to suspect that you must be in a certain condition. when i offered to let her go, you insisted on her remaining, and now you want me to turn her away. i can be obstinate, too, in such cases. you want her to go, but i want her to remain. that's the only way to cure you of your nerves." "oh, very well, very well," said zinaida fyodorovna in alarm. "let us say no more about that.... let us put it off till to-morrow.... now tell me about moscow.... what is going on in moscow?" x after lunch next day--it was the seventh of january, st. john the baptist's day--orlov put on his black dress coat and his decoration to go to visit his father and congratulate him on his name day. he had to go at two o'clock, and it was only half-past one when he had finished dressing. what was he to do for that half-hour? he walked about the drawing-room, declaiming some congratulatory verses which he had recited as a child to his father and mother. zinaida fyodorovna, who was just going out to a dressmaker's or to the shops, was sitting, listening to him with a smile. i don't know how their conversation began, but when i took orlov his gloves, he was standing before her with a capricious, beseeching face, saying: "for god's sake, in the name of everything that's holy, don't talk of things that everybody knows! what an unfortunate gift our intellectual thoughtful ladies have for talking with enthusiasm and an air of profundity of things that every schoolboy is sick to death of! ah, if only you would exclude from our conjugal programme all these serious questions! how grateful i should be to you!" "we women may not dare, it seems, to have views of our own." "i give you full liberty to be as liberal as you like, and quote from any authors you choose, but make me one concession: don't hold forth in my presence on either of two subjects: the corruption of the upper classes and the evils of the marriage system. do understand me, at last. the upper class is always abused in contrast with the world of tradesmen, priests, workmen and peasants, sidors and nikitas of all sorts. i detest both classes, but if i had honestly to choose between the two, i should without hesitation, prefer the upper class, and there would be no falsity or affectation about it, since all my tastes are in that direction. our world is trivial and empty, but at any rate we speak french decently, read something, and don't punch each other in the ribs even in our most violent quarrels, while the sidors and the nikitas and their worships in trade talk about 'being quite agreeable,' 'in a jiffy,' 'blast your eyes,' and display the utmost license of pothouse manners and the most degrading superstition." "the peasant and the tradesman feed you." "yes, but what of it? that's not only to my discredit, but to theirs too. they feed me and take off their caps to me, so it seems they have not the intelligence and honesty to do otherwise. i don't blame or praise any one: i only mean that the upper class and the lower are as bad as one another. my feelings and my intelligence are opposed to both, but my tastes lie more in the direction of the former. well, now for the evils of marriage," orlov went on, glancing at his watch. "it's high time for you to understand that there are no evils in the system itself; what is the matter is that you don't know yourselves what you want from marriage. what is it you want? in legal and illegal cohabitation, in every sort of union and cohabitation, good or bad, the underlying reality is the same. you ladies live for that underlying reality alone: for you it's everything; your existence would have no meaning for you without it. you want nothing but that, and you get it; but since you've taken to reading novels you are ashamed of it: you rush from pillar to post, you recklessly change your men, and to justify this turmoil you have begun talking of the evils of marriage. so long as you can't and won't renounce what underlies it all, your chief foe, your devil--so long as you serve that slavishly, what use is there in discussing the matter seriously? everything you may say to me will be falsity and affectation. i shall not believe you." i went to find out from the hall porter whether the sledge was at the door, and when i came back i found it had become a quarrel. as sailors say, a squall had blown up. "i see you want to shock me by your cynicism today," said zinaida fyodorovna, walking about the drawing-room in great emotion. "it revolts me to listen to you. i am pure before god and man, and have nothing to repent of. i left my husband and came to you, and am proud of it. i swear, on my honour, i am proud of it!" "well, that's all right, then!" "if you are a decent, honest man, you, too, ought to be proud of what i did. it raises you and me above thousands of people who would like to do as we have done, but do not venture through cowardice or petty prudence. but you are not a decent man. you are afraid of freedom, and you mock the promptings of genuine feeling, from fear that some ignoramus may suspect you of being sincere. you are afraid to show me to your friends; there's no greater infliction for you than to go about with me in the street.... isn't that true? why haven't you introduced me to your father or your cousin all this time? why is it? no, i am sick of it at last," cried zinaida fyodorovna, stamping. "i demand what is mine by right. you must present me to your father." "if you want to know him, go and present yourself. he receives visitors every morning from ten till half-past." "how base you are!" said zinaida fyodorovna, wringing her hands in despair. "even if you are not sincere, and are not saying what you think, i might hate you for your cruelty. oh, how base you are!" "we keep going round and round and never reach the real point. the real point is that you made a mistake, and you won't acknowledge it aloud. you imagined that i was a hero, and that i had some extraordinary ideas and ideals, and it has turned out that i am a most ordinary official, a cardplayer, and have no partiality for ideas of any sort. i am a worthy representative of the rotten world from which you have run away because you were revolted with its triviality and emptiness. recognise it and be just: don't be indignant with me, but with yourself, as it is your mistake, and not mine." "yes, i admit i was mistaken." "well, that's all right, then. we've reached that point at last, thank god. now hear something more, if you please: i can't rise to your level--i am too depraved; you can't descend to my level, either, for you are too exalted. so there is only one thing left to do...." "what?" zinaida fyodorovna asked quickly, holding her breath and turning suddenly as white as a sheet of paper. "to call logic to our aid...." "georgy, why are you torturing me?" zinaida fyodorovna said suddenly in russian in a breaking voice. "what is it for? think of my misery...." orlov, afraid of tears, went quickly into his study, and i don't know why--whether it was that he wished to cause her extra pain, or whether he remembered it was usually done in such cases--he locked the door after him. she cried out and ran after him with a rustle of her skirt. "what does this mean?" she cried, knocking at his door. "what ... what does this mean?" she repeated in a shrill voice breaking with indignation. "ah, so this is what you do! then let me tell you i hate you, i despise you! everything is over between us now." i heard hysterical weeping mingled with laughter. something small in the drawing-room fell off the table and was broken. orlov went out into the hall by another door, and, looking round him nervously, he hurriedly put on his great-coat and went out. half an hour passed, an hour, and she was still weeping. i remembered that she had no father or mother, no relations, and here she was living between a man who hated her and polya, who robbed her--and how desolate her life seemed to me! i do not know why, but i went into the drawing-room to her. weak and helpless, looking with her lovely hair like an embodiment of tenderness and grace, she was in anguish, as though she were ill; she was lying on a couch, hiding her face, and quivering all over. "madam, shouldn't i fetch a doctor?" i asked gently. "no, there's no need ... it's nothing," she said, and she looked at me with her tear-stained eyes. "i have a little headache.... thank you." i went out, and in the evening she was writing letter after letter, and sent me out first to pekarsky, then to gruzin, then to kukushkin, and finally anywhere i chose, if only i could find orlov and give him the letter. every time i came back with the letter she scolded me, entreated me, thrust money into my hand--as though she were in a fever. and all the night she did not sleep, but sat in the drawing-room, talking to herself. orlov returned to dinner next day, and they were reconciled. the first thursday afterwards orlov complained to his friends of the intolerable life he led; he smoked a great deal, and said with irritation: "it is no life at all; it's the rack. tears, wailing, intellectual conversations, begging for forgiveness, again tears and wailing; and the long and the short of it is that i have no flat of my own now. i am wretched, and i make her wretched. surely i haven't to live another month or two like this? how can i? but yet i may have to." "why don't you speak, then?" said pekarsky. "i've tried, but i can't. one can boldly tell the truth, whatever it may be, to an independent, rational man; but in this case one has to do with a creature who has no will, no strength of character, and no logic. i cannot endure tears; they disarm me. when she cries, i am ready to swear eternal love and cry myself." pekarsky did not understand; he scratched his broad forehead in perplexity and said: "you really had better take another flat for her. it's so simple!" "she wants me, not the flat. but what's the good of talking?" sighed orlov. "i only hear endless conversations, but no way out of my position. it certainly is a case of 'being guilty without guilt.' i don't claim to be a mushroom, but it seems i've got to go into the basket. the last thing i've ever set out to be is a hero. i never could endure turgenev's novels; and now, all of a sudden, as though to spite me, i've heroism forced upon me. i assure her on my honour that i'm not a hero at all, i adduce irrefutable proofs of the same, but she doesn't believe me. why doesn't she believe me? i suppose i really must have something of the appearance of a hero." "you go off on a tour of inspection in the provinces," said kukushkin, laughing. "yes, that's the only thing left for me." a week after this conversation orlov announced that he was again ordered to attend the senator, and the same evening he went off with his portmanteaus to pekarsky. xi an old man of sixty, in a long fur coat reaching to the ground, and a beaver cap, was standing at the door. "is georgy ivanitch at home?" he asked. at first i thought it was one of the moneylenders, gruzin's creditors, who sometimes used to come to orlov for small payments on account; but when he came into the hall and flung open his coat, i saw the thick brows and the characteristically compressed lips which i knew so well from the photographs, and two rows of stars on the uniform. i recognised him: it was orlov's father, the distinguished statesman. i answered that georgy ivanitch was not at home. the old man pursed up his lips tightly and looked into space, reflecting, showing me his dried-up, toothless profile. "i'll leave a note," he said; "show me in." he left his goloshes in the hall, and, without taking off his long, heavy fur coat, went into the study. there he sat down before the table, and, before taking up the pen, for three minutes he pondered, shading his eyes with his hand as though from the sun--exactly as his son did when he was out of humour. his face was sad, thoughtful, with that look of resignation which i have only seen on the faces of the old and religious. i stood behind him, gazed at his bald head and at the hollow at the nape of his neck, and it was clear as daylight to me that this weak old man was now in my power. there was not a soul in the flat except my enemy and me. i had only to use a little physical violence, then snatch his watch to disguise the object of the crime, and to get off by the back way, and i should have gained infinitely more than i could have imagined possible when i took up the part of a footman. i thought that i could hardly get a better opportunity. but instead of acting, i looked quite unconcernedly, first at his bald patch and then at his fur, and calmly meditated on this man's relation to his only son, and on the fact that people spoiled by power and wealth probably don't want to die.... "have you been long in my son's service?" he asked, writing a large hand on the paper. "three months, your high excellency." he finished the letter and stood up. i still had time. i urged myself on and clenched my fists, trying to wring out of my soul some trace of my former hatred; i recalled what a passionate, implacable, obstinate hate i had felt for him only a little while before.... but it is difficult to strike a match against a crumbling stone. the sad old face and the cold glitter of his stars roused in me nothing but petty, cheap, unnecessary thoughts of the transitoriness of everything earthly, of the nearness of death.... "good-day, brother," said the old man. he put on his cap and went out. there could be no doubt about it: i had undergone a change; i had become different. to convince myself, i began to recall the past, but at once i felt uneasy, as though i had accidentally peeped into a dark, damp corner. i remembered my comrades and friends, and my first thought was how i should blush in confusion if ever i met any of them. what was i now? what had i to think of and to do? where was i to go? what was i living for? i could make nothing of it. i only knew one thing--that i must make haste to pack my things and be off. before the old man's visit my position as a flunkey had a meaning; now it was absurd. tears dropped into my open portmanteau; i felt insufferably sad; but how i longed to live! i was ready to embrace and include in my short life every possibility open to man. i wanted to speak, to read, and to hammer in some big factory, and to stand on watch, and to plough. i yearned for the nevsky prospect, for the sea and the fields--for every place to which my imagination travelled. when zinaida fyodorovna came in, i rushed to open the door for her, and with peculiar tenderness took off her fur coat. the last time! we had two other visitors that day besides the old man. in the evening when it was quite dark, gruzin came to fetch some papers for orlov. he opened the table-drawer, took the necessary papers, and, rolling them up, told me to put them in the hall beside his cap while he went in to see zinaida fyodorovna. she was lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, with her arms behind her head. five or six days had already passed since orlov went on his tour of inspection, and no one knew when he would be back, but this time she did not send telegrams and did not expect them. she did not seem to notice the presence of polya, who was still living with us. "so be it, then," was what i read on her passionless and very pale face. like orlov, she wanted to be unhappy out of obstinacy. to spite herself and everything in the world, she lay for days together on the sofa, desiring and expecting nothing but evil for herself. probably she was picturing to herself orlov's return and the inevitable quarrels with him; then his growing indifference to her, his infidelities; then how they would separate; and perhaps these agonising thoughts gave her satisfaction. but what would she have said if she found out the actual truth? "i love you, godmother," said gruzin, greeting her and kissing her hand. "you are so kind! and so dear _george_ has gone away," he lied. "he has gone away, the rascal!" he sat down with a sigh and tenderly stroked her hand. "let me spend an hour with you, my dear," he said. "i don't want to go home, and it's too early to go to the birshovs'. the birshovs are keeping their katya's birthday to-day. she is a nice child!" i brought him a glass of tea and a decanter of brandy. he slowly and with obvious reluctance drank the tea, and returning the glass to me, asked timidly: "can you give me ... something to eat, my friend? i have had no dinner." we had nothing in the flat. i went to the restaurant and brought him the ordinary rouble dinner. "to your health, my dear," he said to zinaida fyodorovna, and he tossed off a glass of vodka. "my little girl, your godchild, sends you her love. poor child! she's rickety. ah, children, children!" he sighed. "whatever you may say, godmother, it is nice to be a father. dear _george_ can't understand that feeling." he drank some more. pale and lean, with his dinner-napkin over his chest like a little pinafore, he ate greedily, and raising his eyebrows, kept looking guiltily, like a little boy, first at zinaida fyodorovna and then at me. it seemed as though he would have begun crying if i had not given him the grouse or the jelly. when he had satisfied his hunger he grew more lively, and began laughingly telling some story about the birshov household, but perceiving that it was tiresome and that zinaida fyodorovna was not laughing, he ceased. and there was a sudden feeling of dreariness. after he had finished his dinner they sat in the drawing-room by the light of a single lamp, and did not speak; it was painful to him to lie to her, and she wanted to ask him something, but could not make up her mind to. so passed half an hour. gruzin glanced at his watch. "i suppose it's time for me to go." "no, stay a little.... we must have a talk." again they were silent. he sat down to the piano, struck one chord, then began playing, and sang softly, "what does the coming day bring me?" but as usual he got up suddenly and tossed his head. "play something," zinaida fyodorovna asked him. "what shall i play?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders. "i have forgotten everything. i've given it up long ago." looking at the ceiling as though trying to remember, he played two pieces of tchaikovsky with exquisite expression, with such warmth, such insight! his face was just as usual--neither stupid nor intelligent--and it seemed to me a perfect marvel that a man whom i was accustomed to see in the midst of the most degrading, impure surroundings, was capable of such purity, of rising to a feeling so lofty, so far beyond my reach. zinaida fyodorovna's face glowed, and she walked about the drawing-room in emotion. "wait a bit, godmother; if i can remember it, i will play you something," he said; "i heard it played on the violoncello." beginning timidly and picking out the notes, and then gathering confidence, he played saint-saëns's "swan song." he played it through, and then played it a second time. "it's nice, isn't it?" he said. moved by the music, zinaida fyodorovna stood beside him and asked: "tell me honestly, as a friend, what do you think about me?" "what am i to say?" he said, raising his eyebrows. "i love you and think nothing but good of you. but if you wish that i should speak generally about the question that interests you," he went on, rubbing his sleeve near the elbow and frowning, "then, my dear, you know.... to follow freely the promptings of the heart does not always give good people happiness. to feel free and at the same time to be happy, it seems to me, one must not conceal from oneself that life is coarse, cruel, and merciless in its conservatism, and one must retaliate with what it deserves--that is, be as coarse and as merciless in one's striving for freedom. that's what i think." "that's beyond me," said zinaida fyodorovna, with a mournful smile. "i am exhausted already. i am so exhausted that i wouldn't stir a finger for my own salvation." "go into a nunnery." he said this in jest, but after he had said it, tears glistened in zinaida fyodorovna's eyes and then in his. "well," he said, "we've been sitting and sitting, and now we must go. good-bye, dear godmother. god give you health." he kissed both her hands, and stroking them tenderly, said that he should certainly come to see her again in a day or two. in the hall, as he was putting on his overcoat, that was so like a child's pelisse, he fumbled long in his pockets to find a tip for me, but found nothing there. "good-bye, my dear fellow," he said sadly, and went away. i shall never forget the feeling that this man left behind him. zinaida fyodorovna still walked about the room in her excitement. that she was walking about and not still lying down was so much to the good. i wanted to take advantage of this mood to speak to her openly and then to go away, but i had hardly seen gruzin out when i heard a ring. it was kukushkin. "is georgy ivanitch at home?" he said. "has he come back? you say no? what a pity! in that case, i'll go in and kiss your mistress's hand, and so away. zinaida fyodorovna, may i come in?" he cried. "i want to kiss your hand. excuse my being so late." he was not long in the drawing-room, not more than ten minutes, but i felt as though he were staying a long while and would never go away. i bit my lips from indignation and annoyance, and already hated zinaida fyodorovna. "why does she not turn him out?" i thought indignantly, though it was evident that she was bored by his company. when i held his fur coat for him he asked me, as a mark of special good-will, how i managed to get on without a wife. "but i don't suppose you waste your time," he said, laughingly. "i've no doubt polya and you are as thick as thieves.... you rascal!" in spite of my experience of life, i knew very little of mankind at that time, and it is very likely that i often exaggerated what was of little consequence and failed to observe what was important. it seemed to me it was not without motive that kukushkin tittered and flattered me. could it be that he was hoping that i, like a flunkey, would gossip in other kitchens and servants' quarters of his coming to see us in the evenings when orlov was away, and staying with zinaida fyodorovna till late at night? and when my tittle-tattle came to the ears of his acquaintance, he would drop his eyes in confusion and shake his little finger. and would not he, i thought, looking at his little honeyed face, this very evening at cards pretend and perhaps declare that he had already won zinaida fyodorovna from orlov? that hatred which failed me at midday when the old father had come, took possession of me now. kukushkin went away at last, and as i listened to the shuffle of his leather goloshes, i felt greatly tempted to fling after him, as a parting shot, some coarse word of abuse, but i restrained myself. and when the steps had died away on the stairs, i went back to the hall, and, hardly conscious of what i was doing, took up the roll of papers that gruzin had left behind, and ran headlong downstairs. without cap or overcoat, i ran down into the street. it was not cold, but big flakes of snow were falling and it was windy. "your excellency!" i cried, catching up kukushkin. "your excellency!" he stopped under a lamp-post and looked round with surprise. "your excellency!" i said breathless, "your excellency!" and not able to think of anything to say, i hit him two or three times on the face with the roll of paper. completely at a loss, and hardly wondering--i had so completely taken him by surprise--he leaned his back against the lamp-post and put up his hands to protect his face. at that moment an army doctor passed, and saw how i was beating the man, but he merely looked at us in astonishment and went on. i felt ashamed and i ran back to the house. xii with my head wet from the snow, and gasping for breath, i ran to my room, and immediately flung off my swallow-tails, put on a reefer jacket and an overcoat, and carried my portmanteau out into the passage; i must get away! but before going i hurriedly sat down and began writing to orlov: "i leave you my false passport," i began. "i beg you to keep it as a memento, you false man, you petersburg official! "to steal into another man's house under a false name, to watch under the mask of a flunkey this person's intimate life, to hear everything, to see everything in order later on, unasked, to accuse a man of lying--all this, you will say, is on a level with theft. yes, but i care nothing for fine feelings now. i have endured dozens of your dinners and suppers when you said and did what you liked, and i had to hear, to look on, and be silent. i don't want to make you a present of my silence. besides, if there is not a living soul at hand who dares to tell you the truth without flattery, let your flunkey stepan wash your magnificent countenance for you." i did not like this beginning, but i did not care to alter it. besides, what did it matter? the big windows with their dark curtains, the bed, the crumpled dress coat on the floor, and my wet footprints, looked gloomy and forbidding. and there was a peculiar stillness. possibly because i had run out into the street without my cap and goloshes i was in a high fever. my face burned, my legs ached.... my heavy head drooped over the table, and there was that kind of division in my thought when every idea in the brain seemed dogged by its shadow. "i am ill, weak, morally cast down," i went on; "i cannot write to you as i should like to. from the first moment i desired to insult and humiliate you, but now i do not feel that i have the right to do so. you and i have both fallen, and neither of us will ever rise up again; and even if my letter were eloquent, terrible, and passionate, it would still seem like beating on the lid of a coffin: however one knocks upon it, one will not wake up the dead! no efforts could warm your accursed cold blood, and you know that better than i do. why write? but my mind and heart are burning, and i go on writing; for some reason i am moved as though this letter still might save you and me. i am so feverish that my thoughts are disconnected, and my pen scratches the paper without meaning; but the question i want to put to you stands before me as clear as though in letters of flame. "why i am prematurely weak and fallen is not hard to explain. like samson of old, i have taken the gates of gaza on my shoulders to carry them to the top of the mountain, and only when i was exhausted, when youth and health were quenched in me forever, i noticed that that burden was not for my shoulders, and that i had deceived myself. i have been, moreover, in cruel and continual pain. i have endured cold, hunger, illness, and loss of liberty. of personal happiness i know and have known nothing. i have no home; my memories are bitter, and my conscience is often in dread of them. but why have you fallen--you? what fatal, diabolical causes hindered your life from blossoming into full flower? why, almost before beginning life, were you in such haste to cast off the image and likeness of god, and to become a cowardly beast who backs and scares others because he is afraid himself? you are afraid of life--as afraid of it as an oriental who sits all day on a cushion smoking his hookah. yes, you read a great deal, and a european coat fits you well, but yet with what tender, purely oriental, pasha-like care you protect yourself from hunger, cold, physical effort, from pain and uneasiness! how early your soul has taken to its dressing-gown! what a cowardly part you have played towards real life and nature, with which every healthy and normal man struggles! how soft, how snug, how warm, how comfortable--and how bored you are! yes, it is deathly boredom, unrelieved by one ray of light, as in solitary confinement; but you try to hide from that enemy, too, you play cards eight hours out of twenty-four. "and your irony? oh, but how well i understand it! free, bold, living thought is searching and dominating; for an indolent, sluggish mind it is intolerable. that it may not disturb your peace, like thousands of your contemporaries, you made haste in youth to put it under bar and bolt. your ironical attitude to life, or whatever you like to call it, is your armour; and your thought, fettered and frightened, dare not leap over the fence you have put round it; and when you jeer at ideas which you pretend to know all about, you are like the deserter fleeing from the field of battle, and, to stifle his shame, sneering at war and at valour. cynicism stifles pain. in some novel of dostoevsky's an old man tramples underfoot the portrait of his dearly loved daughter because he had been unjust to her, and you vent your foul and vulgar jeers upon the ideas of goodness and truth because you have not the strength to follow them. you are frightened of every honest and truthful hint at your degradation, and you purposely surround yourself with people who do nothing but flatter your weaknesses. and you may well, you may well dread the sight of tears! "by the way, your attitude to women. shamelessness has been handed down to us in our flesh and blood, and we are trained to shamelessness; but that is what we are men for--to subdue the beast in us. when you reached manhood and _all_ ideas became known to you, you could not have failed to see the truth; you knew it, but you did not follow it; you were afraid of it, and to deceive your conscience you began loudly assuring yourself that it was not you but woman that was to blame, that she was as degraded as your attitude to her. your cold, scabrous anecdotes, your coarse laughter, all your innumerable theories concerning the underlying reality of marriage and the definite demands made upon it, concerning the ten _sous_ the french workman pays his woman; your everlasting attacks on female logic, lying, weakness and so on--doesn't it all look like a desire at all costs to force woman down into the mud that she may be on the same level as your attitude to her? you are a weak, unhappy, unpleasant person!" zinaida fyodorovna began playing the piano in the drawing-room, trying to recall the song of saint saëns that gruzin had played. i went and lay on my bed, but remembering that it was time for me to go, i got up with an effort and with a heavy, burning head went to the table again. "but this is the question," i went on. "why are we worn out? why are we, at first so passionate, so bold, so noble, and so full of faith, complete bankrupts at thirty or thirty-five? why does one waste in consumption, another put a bullet through his brains, a third seeks forgetfulness in vodka and cards, while the fourth tries to stifle his fear and misery by cynically trampling underfoot the pure image of his fair youth? why is it that, having once fallen, we do not try to rise up again, and, losing one thing, do not seek something else? why is it? "the thief hanging on the cross could bring back the joy of life and the courage of confident hope, though perhaps he had not more than an hour to live. you have long years before you, and i shall probably not die so soon as one might suppose. what if by a miracle the present turned out to be a dream, a horrible nightmare, and we should wake up renewed, pure, strong, proud of our righteousness? sweet visions fire me, and i am almost breathless with emotion. i have a terrible longing to live. i long for our life to be holy, lofty, and majestic as the heavens above. let us live! the sun doesn't rise twice a day, and life is not given us again--clutch at what is left of your life and save it...." i did not write another word. i had a multitude of thoughts in my mind, but i could not connect them and get them on to paper. without finishing the letter, i signed it with my name and rank, and went into the study. it was dark. i felt for the table and put the letter on it. i must have stumbled against the furniture in the dark and made a noise. "who is there?" i heard an alarmed voice in the drawing-room. and the clock on the table softly struck one at the moment. xiii for at least half a minute i fumbled at the door in the dark, feeling for the handle; then i slowly opened it and walked into the drawing-room. zinaida fyodorovna was lying on the couch, and raising herself on her elbow, she looked towards me. unable to bring myself to speak, i walked slowly by, and she followed me with her eyes. i stood for a little time in the dining-room and then walked by her again, and she looked at me intently and with perplexity, even with alarm. at last i stood still and said with an effort: "he is not coming back." she quickly got on to her feet, and looked at me without understanding. "he is not coming back," i repeated, and my heart beat violently. "he will not come back, for he has not left petersburg. he is staying at pekarsky's." she understood and believed me--i saw that from her sudden pallor, and from the way she laid her arms upon her bosom in terror and entreaty. in one instant all that had happened of late flashed through her mind; she reflected, and with pitiless clarity she saw the whole truth. but at the same time she remembered that i was a flunkey, a being of a lower order.... a casual stranger, with hair ruffled, with face flushed with fever, perhaps drunk, in a common overcoat, was coarsely intruding into her intimate life, and that offended her. she said to me sternly: "it's not your business: go away." "oh, believe me!" i cried impetuously, holding out my hands to her. "i am not a footman; i am as free as you." i mentioned my name, and, speaking very rapidly that she might not interrupt me or go away, explained to her who i was and why i was living there. this new discovery struck her more than the first. till then she had hoped that her footman had lied or made a mistake or been silly, but now after my confession she had no doubts left. from the expression of her unhappy eyes and face, which suddenly lost its softness and beauty and looked old, i saw that she was insufferably miserable, and that the conversation would lead to no good; but i went on impetuously: "the senator and the tour of inspection were invented to deceive you. in january, just as now, he did not go away, but stayed at pekarsky's, and i saw him every day and took part in the deception. he was weary of you, he hated your presence here, he mocked at you.... if you could have heard how he and his friends here jeered at you and your love, you would not have remained here one minute! go away from here! go away." "well," she said in a shaking voice, and moved her hand over her hair. "well, so be it." her eyes were full of tears, her lips were quivering, and her whole face was strikingly pale and distorted with anger. orlov's coarse, petty lying revolted her and seemed to her contemptible, ridiculous: she smiled and i did not like that smile. "well," she repeated, passing her hand over her hair again, "so be it. he imagines that i shall die of humiliation, and instead of that i am ... amused by it. there's no need for him to hide." she walked away from the piano and said, shrugging her shoulders: "there's no need.... it would have been simpler to have it out with me instead of keeping in hiding in other people's flats. i have eyes; i saw it myself long ago.... i was only waiting for him to come back to have things out once for all." then she sat down on a low chair by the table, and, leaning her head on the arm of the sofa, wept bitterly. in the drawing-room there was only one candle burning in the candelabra, and the chair where she was sitting was in darkness; but i saw how her head and shoulders were quivering, and how her hair, escaping from her combs, covered her neck, her face, her arms.... her quiet, steady weeping, which was not hysterical but a woman's ordinary weeping, expressed a sense of insult, of wounded pride, of injury, and of something helpless, hopeless, which one could not set right and to which one could not get used. her tears stirred an echo in my troubled and suffering heart; i forgot my illness and everything else in the world; i walked about the drawing-room and muttered distractedly: "is this life?... oh, one can't go on living like this, one can't.... oh, it's madness, wickedness, not life." "what humiliation!" she said through her tears. "to live together, to smile at me at the very time when i was burdensome to him, ridiculous in his eyes! oh, how humiliating!" she lifted up her head, and looking at me with tear-stained eyes through her hair, wet with her tears, and pushing it back as it prevented her seeing me, she asked: "they laughed at me?" "to these men you were laughable--you and your love and turgenev; they said your head was full of him. and if we both die at once in despair, that will amuse them, too; they will make a funny anecdote of it and tell it at your requiem service. but why talk of them?" i said impatiently. "we must get away from here--i cannot stay here one minute longer." she began crying again, while i walked to the piano and sat down. "what are we waiting for?" i asked dejectedly. "it's two o'clock." "i am not waiting for anything," she said. "i am utterly lost." "why do you talk like that? we had better consider together what we are to do. neither you nor i can stay here. where do you intend to go?" suddenly there was a ring at the bell. my heart stood still. could it be orlov, to whom perhaps kukushkin had complained of me? how should we meet? i went to open the door. it was polya. she came in shaking the snow off her pelisse, and went into her room without saying a word to me. when i went back to the drawing-room, zinaida fyodorovna, pale as death, was standing in the middle of the room, looking towards me with big eyes. "who was it?" she asked softly. "polya," i answered. she passed her hand over her hair and closed her eyes wearily. "i will go away at once," she said. "will you be kind and take me to the petersburg side? what time is it now?" "a quarter to three." xiv when, a little afterwards, we went out of the house, it was dark and deserted in the street. wet snow was falling and a damp wind lashed in one's face. i remember it was the beginning of march; a thaw had set in, and for some days past the cabmen had been driving on wheels. under the impression of the back stairs, of the cold, of the midnight darkness, and the porter in his sheepskin who had questioned us before letting us out of the gate, zinaida fyodorovna was utterly cast down and dispirited. when we got into the cab and the hood was put up, trembling all over, she began hurriedly saying how grateful she was to me. "i do not doubt your good-will, but i am ashamed that you should be troubled," she muttered. "oh, i understand, i understand.... when gruzin was here to-day, i felt that he was lying and concealing something. well, so be it. but i am ashamed, anyway, that you should be troubled." she still had her doubts. to dispel them finally, i asked the cabman to drive through sergievsky street; stopping him at pekarsky's door, i got out of the cab and rang. when the porter came to the door, i asked aloud, that zinaida fyodorovna might hear, whether georgy ivanitch was at home. "yes," was the answer, "he came in half an hour ago. he must be in bed by now. what do you want?" zinaida fyodorovna could not refrain from putting her head out. "has georgy ivanitch been staying here long?" she asked. "going on for three weeks." "and he's not been away?" "no," answered the porter, looking at me with surprise. "tell him, early to-morrow," i said, "that his sister has arrived from warsaw. good-bye." then we drove on. the cab had no apron, the snow fell on us in big flakes, and the wind, especially on the neva, pierced us through and through. i began to feel as though we had been driving for a long time, that for ages we had been suffering, and that for ages i had been listening to zinaida fyodorovna's shuddering breath. in semi-delirium, as though half asleep, i looked back upon my strange, incoherent life, and for some reason recalled a melodrama, "the parisian beggars," which i had seen once or twice in my childhood. and when to shake off that semi-delirium i peeped out from the hood and saw the dawn, all the images of the past, all my misty thoughts, for some reason, blended in me into one distinct, overpowering thought: everything was irrevocably over for zinaida fyodorovna and for me. this was as certain a conviction as though the cold blue sky contained a prophecy, but a minute later i was already thinking of something else and believed differently. "what am i now?" said zinaida fyodorovna, in a voice husky with the cold and the damp. "where am i to go? what am i to do? gruzin told me to go into a nunnery. oh, i would! i would change my dress, my face, my name, my thoughts ... everything--everything, and would hide myself for ever. but they will not take me into a nunnery. i am with child." "we will go abroad together to-morrow," i said. "that's impossible. my husband won't give me a passport." "i will take you without a passport." the cabman stopped at a wooden house of two storeys, painted a dark colour. i rang. taking from me her small light basket--the only luggage we had brought with us--zinaida fyodorovna gave a wry smile and said: "these are my _bijoux_." but she was so weak that she could not carry these _bijoux_. it was a long while before the door was opened. after the third or fourth ring a light gleamed in the windows, and there was a sound of steps, coughing and whispering; at last the key grated in the lock, and a stout peasant woman with a frightened red face appeared at the door. some distance behind her stood a thin little old woman with short grey hair, carrying a candle in her hand. zinaida fyodorovna ran into the passage and flung her arms round the old woman's neck. "nina, i've been deceived," she sobbed loudly. "i've been coarsely, foully deceived! nina, nina!" i handed the basket to the peasant woman. the door was closed, but still i heard her sobs and the cry "nina!" i got into the cab and told the man to drive slowly to the nevsky prospect. i had to think of a night's lodging for myself. next day towards evening i went to see zinaida fyodorovna. she was terribly changed. there were no traces of tears on her pale, terribly sunken face, and her expression was different. i don't know whether it was that i saw her now in different surroundings, far from luxurious, and that our relations were by now different, or perhaps that intense grief had already set its mark upon her; she did not strike me as so elegant and well dressed as before. her figure seemed smaller; there was an abruptness and excessive nervousness about her as though she were in a hurry, and there was not the same softness even in her smile. i was dressed in an expensive suit which i had bought during the day. she looked first of all at that suit and at the hat in my hand, then turned an impatient, searching glance upon my face as though studying it. "your transformation still seems to me a sort of miracle," she said. "forgive me for looking at you with such curiosity. you are an extraordinary man, you know." i told her again who i was, and why i was living at orlov's, and i told her at greater length and in more detail than the day before. she listened with great attention, and said without letting me finish: "everything there is over for me. you know, i could not refrain from writing a letter. here is the answer." on the sheet which she gave there was written in orlov's hand: "i am not going to justify myself. but you must own that it was your mistake, not mine. i wish you happiness, and beg you to make haste and forget. "yours sincerely, "g. o. "p. s.--i am sending on your things." the trunks and baskets despatched by orlov were standing in the passage, and my poor little portmanteau was there beside them. "so ..." zinaida fyodorovna began, but she did not finish. we were silent. she took the note and held it for a couple of minutes before her eyes, and during that time her face wore the same haughty, contemptuous, proud, and harsh expression as the day before at the beginning of our explanation; tears came into her eyes--not timid, bitter tears, but proud, angry tears. "listen," she said, getting up abruptly and moving away to the window that i might not see her face. "i have made up my mind to go abroad with you tomorrow." "i am very glad. i am ready to go to-day." "accept me as a recruit. have you read balzac?" she asked suddenly, turning round. "have you? at the end of his novel 'père goriot' the hero looks down upon paris from the top of a hill and threatens the town: 'now we shall settle our account,' and after this he begins a new life. so when i look out of the train window at petersburg for the last time, i shall say, 'now we shall settle our account!'" saying this, she smiled at her jest, and for some reason shuddered all over. xv at venice i had an attack of pleurisy. probably i had caught cold in the evening when we were rowing from the station to the hotel bauer. i had to take to my bed and stay there for a fortnight. every morning while i was ill zinaida fyodorovna came from her room to drink coffee with me, and afterwards read aloud to me french and russian books, of which we had bought a number at vienna. these books were either long, long familiar to me or else had no interest for me, but i had the sound of a sweet, kind voice beside me, so that the meaning of all of them was summed up for me in the one thing--i was not alone. she would go out for a walk, come back in her light grey dress, her light straw hat, gay, warmed by the spring sun; and sitting by my bed, bending low down over me, would tell me something about venice or read me those books--and i was happy. at night i was cold, ill, and dreary, but by day i revelled in life--i can find no better expression for it. the brilliant warm sunshine beating in at the open windows and at the door upon the balcony, the shouts below, the splash of oars, the tinkle of bells, the prolonged boom of the cannon at midday, and the feeling of perfect, perfect freedom, did wonders with me; i felt as though i were growing strong, broad wings which were bearing me god knows whither. and what charm, what joy at times at the thought that another life was so close to mine! that i was the servant, the guardian, the friend, the indispensable fellow-traveller of a creature, young, beautiful, wealthy, but weak, lonely, and insulted! it is pleasant even to be ill when you know that there are people who are looking forward to your convalescence as to a holiday. one day i heard her whispering behind the door with my doctor, and then she came in to me with tear-stained eyes. it was a bad sign, but i was touched, and there was a wonderful lightness in my heart. but at last they allowed me to go out on the balcony. the sunshine and the breeze from the sea caressed and fondled my sick body. i looked down at the familiar gondolas, which glide with feminine grace smoothly and majestically as though they were alive, and felt all the luxury of this original, fascinating civilisation. there was a smell of the sea. some one was playing a stringed instrument and two voices were singing. how delightful it was! how unlike it was to that petersburg night when the wet snow was falling and beating so rudely on our faces. if one looks straight across the canal, one sees the sea, and on the wide expanse towards the horizon the sun glittered on the water so dazzlingly that it hurt one's eyes to look at it. my soul yearned towards that lovely sea, which was so akin to me and to which i had given up my youth. i longed to live--to live--and nothing more. a fortnight later i began walking freely. i loved to sit in the sun, and to listen to the gondoliers without understanding them, and for hours together to gaze at the little house where, they said, desdemona lived--a naïve, mournful little house with a demure expression, as light as lace, so light that it looked as though one could lift it from its place with one hand. i stood for a long time by the tomb of canova, and could not take my eyes off the melancholy lion. and in the palace of the doges i was always drawn to the corner where the portrait of the unhappy marino faliero was painted over with black. "it is fine to be an artist, a poet, a dramatist," i thought, "but since that is not vouchsafed to me, if only i could go in for mysticism! if only i had a grain of some faith to add to the unruffled peace and serenity that fills the soul!" in the evening we ate oysters, drank wine, and went out in a gondola. i remember our black gondola swayed softly in the same place while the water faintly gurgled under it. here and there the reflection of the stars and the lights on the bank quivered and trembled. not far from us in a gondola, hung with coloured lanterns which were reflected in the water, there were people singing. the sounds of guitars, of violins, of mandolins, of men's and women's voices, were audible in the dark. zinaida fyodorovna, pale, with a grave, almost stern face, was sitting beside me, compressing her lips and clenching her hands. she was thinking about something; she did not stir an eyelash, nor hear me. her face, her attitude, and her fixed, expressionless gaze, and her incredibly miserable, dreadful, and icy-cold memories, and around her the gondolas, the lights, the music, the song with its vigorous passionate cry of "_jam-mo! jam-mo!_"--what contrasts in life! when she sat like that, with tightly clasped hands, stony, mournful, i used to feel as though we were both characters in some novel in the old-fashioned style called "the ill-fated," "the abandoned," or something of the sort. both of us: she--the ill-fated, the abandoned; and i--the faithful, devoted friend, the dreamer, and, if you like it, a superfluous man, a failure capable of nothing but coughing and dreaming, and perhaps sacrificing myself. but who and what needed my sacrifices now? and what had i to sacrifice, indeed? when we came in in the evening we always drank tea in her room and talked. we did not shrink from touching on old, unhealed wounds--on the contrary, for some reason i felt a positive pleasure in telling her about my life at orlov's, or referring openly to relations which i knew and which could not have been concealed from me. "at moments i hated you," i said to her. "when he was capricious, condescending, told you lies, i marvelled how it was you did not see, did not understand, when it was all so clear! you kissed his hands, you knelt to him, you flattered him ..." "when i ... kissed his hands and knelt to him, i loved him ..." she said, blushing crimson. "can it have been so difficult to see through him? a fine sphinx! a sphinx indeed--a _kammer-junker!_ i reproach you for nothing, god forbid," i went on, feeling i was coarse, that i had not the tact, the delicacy which are so essential when you have to do with a fellow-creature's soul; in early days before i knew her i had not noticed this defect in myself. "but how could you fail to see what he was," i went on, speaking more softly and more diffidently, however. "you mean to say you despise my past, and you are right," she said, deeply stirred. "you belong to a special class of men who cannot be judged by ordinary standards; your moral requirements are exceptionally rigorous, and i understand you can't forgive things. i understand you, and if sometimes i say the opposite, it doesn't mean that i look at things differently from you; i speak the same old nonsense simply because i haven't had time yet to wear out my old clothes and prejudices. i, too, hate and despise my past, and orlov and my love.... what was that love? it's positively absurd now," she said, going to the window and looking down at the canal. "all this love only clouds the conscience and confuses the mind. the meaning of life is to be found only in one thing--fighting. to get one's heel on the vile head of the serpent and to crush it! that's the meaning of life. in that alone or in nothing." i told her long stories of my past, and described my really astounding adventures. but of the change that had taken place in me i did not say one word. she always listened to me with great attention, and at interesting places she rubbed her hands as though vexed that it had not yet been her lot to experience such adventures, such joys and terrors. then she would suddenly fall to musing and retreat into herself, and i could see from her face that she was not attending to me. i closed the windows that looked out on the canal and asked whether we should not have the fire lighted. "no, never mind. i am not cold," she said, smiling listlessly. "i only feel weak. do you know, i fancy i have grown much wiser lately. i have extraordinary, original ideas now. when i think of my past, of my life then ... people in general, in fact, it is all summed up for me in the image of my stepmother. coarse, insolent, soulless, false, depraved, and a morphia maniac too. my father, who was feeble and weak-willed, married my mother for her money and drove her into consumption; but his second wife, my stepmother, he loved passionately, insanely.... what i had to put up with! but what is the use of talking! and so, as i say, it is all summed up in her image.... and it vexes me that my stepmother is dead. i should like to meet her now!" "why?" "i don't know," she answered with a laugh and a graceful movement of her head. "good-night. you must get well. as soon as you are well, we'll take up our work ... it's time to begin." after i had said good-night and had my hand on the door-handle, she said: "what do you think? is polya still living there?" "probably." and i went off to my room. so we spent a whole month. one grey morning when we both stood at my window, looking at the clouds which were moving up from the sea, and at the darkening canal, expecting every minute that it would pour with rain, and when a thick, narrow streak of rain covered the sea as though with a muslin veil, we both felt suddenly dreary. the same day we both set off for florence. xvi it was autumn, at nice. one morning when i went into her room she was sitting on a low chair, bent together and huddled up, with her legs crossed and her face hidden in her hands. she was weeping bitterly, with sobs, and her long, unbrushed hair fell on her knees. the impression of the exquisite marvellous sea which i had only just seen and of which i wanted to tell her, left me all at once, and my heart ached. "what is it?" i asked; she took one hand from her face and motioned me to go away. "what is it?" i repeated, and for the first time during our acquaintance i kissed her hand. "no, it's nothing, nothing," she said quickly. "oh, it's nothing, nothing.... go away.... you see, i am not dressed." i went out overwhelmed. the calm and serene mood in which i had been for so long was poisoned by compassion. i had a passionate longing to fall at her feet, to entreat her not to weep in solitude, but to share her grief with me, and the monotonous murmur of the sea already sounded a gloomy prophecy in my ears, and i foresaw fresh tears, fresh troubles, and fresh losses in the future. "what is she crying about? what is it?" i wondered, recalling her face and her agonised look. i remembered she was with child. she tried to conceal her condition from other people, and also from herself. at home she went about in a loose wrapper or in a blouse with extremely full folds over the bosom, and when she went out anywhere she laced herself in so tightly that on two occasions she fainted when we were out. she never spoke to me of her condition, and when i hinted that it might be as well to see a doctor, she flushed crimson and said not a word. when i went to see her next time she was already dressed and had her hair done. "there, there," i said, seeing that she was ready to cry again. "we had better go to the sea and have a talk." "i can't talk. forgive me, i am in the mood now when one wants to be alone. and, if you please, vladimir ivanitch, another time you want to come into my room, be so good as to give a knock at the door." that "be so good" had a peculiar, unfeminine sound. i went away. my accursed petersburg mood came back, and all my dreams were crushed and crumpled up like leaves by the heat. i felt i was alone again and there was no nearness between us. i was no more to her than that cobweb to that palm-tree, which hangs on it by chance and which will be torn off and carried away by the wind. i walked about the square where the band was playing, went into the casino; there i looked at overdressed and heavily perfumed women, and every one of them glanced at me as though she would say: "you are alone; that's all right." then i went out on the terrace and looked for a long time at the sea. there was not one sail on the horizon. on the left bank, in the lilac-coloured mist, there were mountains, gardens, towers, and houses, the sun was sparkling over it all, but it was all alien, indifferent, an incomprehensible tangle. xvii she used as before to come into my room in the morning to coffee, but we no longer dined together, as she said she was not hungry; and she lived only on coffee, tea, and various trifles such as oranges and caramels. and we no longer had conversations in the evening. i don't know why it was like this. ever since the day when i had found her in tears she had treated me somehow lightly, at times casually, even ironically, and for some reason called me "my good sir." what had before seemed to her terrible, heroic, marvellous, and had stirred her envy and enthusiasm, did not touch her now at all, and usually after listening to me, she stretched and said: "yes, 'great things were done in days of yore,' my good sir." it sometimes happened even that i did not see her for days together. i would knock timidly and guiltily at her door and get no answer; i would knock again--still silence.... i would stand near the door and listen; then the chambermaid would pass and say coldly, "_madame est partie._" then i would walk about the passages of the hotel, walk and walk.... english people, full-bosomed ladies, waiters in swallow-tails.... and as i keep gazing at the long striped rug that stretches the whole length of the corridor, the idea occurs to me that i am playing in the life of this woman a strange, probably false part, and that it is beyond my power to alter that part. i run to my room and fall on my bed, and think and think, and can come to no conclusion; and all that is clear to me is that i want to live, and that the plainer and the colder and the harder her face grows, the nearer she is to me, and the more intensely and painfully i feel our kinship. never mind "my good sir," never mind her light careless tone, never mind anything you like, only don't leave me, my treasure. i am afraid to be alone. then i go out into the corridor again, listen in a tremor.... i have no dinner; i don't notice the approach of evening. at last about eleven i hear the familiar footstep, and at the turn near the stairs zinaida fyodorovna comes into sight. "are you taking a walk?" she would ask as she passes me. "you had better go out into the air.... good-night!" "but shall we not meet again to-day?" "i think it's late. but as you like." "tell me, where have you been?" i would ask, following her into the room. "where? to monte carlo." she took ten gold coins out of her pocket and said: "look, my good sir; i have won. that's at roulette." "nonsense! as though you would gamble." "why not? i am going again to-morrow." i imagined her with a sick and morbid face, in her condition, tightly laced, standing near the gaming-table in a crowd of cocottes, of old women in their dotage who swarm round the gold like flies round the honey. i remembered she had gone off to monte carlo for some reason in secret from me. "i don't believe you," i said one day. "you wouldn't go there." "don't agitate yourself. i can't lose much." "it's not the question of what you lose," i said with annoyance. "has it never occurred to you while you were playing there that the glitter of gold, all these women, young and old, the croupiers, all the surroundings--that it is all a vile, loathsome mockery at the toiler's labour, at his bloody sweat?" "if one doesn't play, what is one to do here?" she asked. "the toiler's labour and his bloody sweat--all that eloquence you can put off till another time; but now, since you have begun, let me go on. let me ask you bluntly, what is there for me to do here, and what am i to do?" "what are you to do?" i said, shrugging my shoulders. "that's a question that can't be answered straight off." "i beg you to answer me honestly, vladimir ivanitch," she said, and her face looked angry. "once i have brought myself to ask you this question, i am not going to listen to stock phrases. i am asking you," she went on, beating her hand on the table, as though marking time, "what ought i to do here? and not only here at nice, but in general?" i did not speak, but looked out of window to the sea. my heart was beating terribly. "vladimir ivanitch," she said softly and breathlessly; it was hard for her to speak--"vladimir ivanitch, if you do not believe in the cause yourself, if you no longer think of going back to it, why ... why did you drag me out of petersburg? why did you make me promises, why did you rouse mad hopes? your convictions have changed; you have become a different man, and nobody blames you for it--our convictions are not always in our power. but ... but, vladimir ivanitch, for god's sake, why are you not sincere?" she went on softly, coming up to me. "all these months when i have been dreaming aloud, raving, going into raptures over my plans, remodelling my life on a new pattern, why didn't you tell me the truth? why were you silent or encouraged me by your stories, and behaved as though you were in complete sympathy with me? why was it? why was it necessary?" "it's difficult to acknowledge one's bankruptcy," i said, turning round, but not looking at her. "yes, i have no faith; i am worn out. i have lost heart.... it is difficult to be truthful--very difficult, and i held my tongue. god forbid that any one should have to go through what i have been through." i felt that i was on the point of tears, and ceased speaking. "vladimir ivanitch," she said, and took me by both hands, "you have been through so much and seen so much of life, you know more than i do; think seriously, and tell me, what am i to do? teach me! if you haven't the strength to go forward yourself and take others with you, at least show me where to go. after all, i am a living, feeling, thinking being. to sink into a false position ... to play an absurd part ... is painful to me. i don't reproach you, i don't blame you; i only ask you." tea was brought in. "well?" said zinaida fyodorovna, giving me a glass. "what do you say to me?" "there is more light in the world than you see through your window," i answered. "and there are other people besides me, zinaida fyodorovna." "then tell me who they are," she said eagerly. "that's all i ask of you." "and i want to say, too," i went on, "one can serve an idea in more than one calling. if one has made a mistake and lost faith in one, one may find another. the world of ideas is large and cannot be exhausted." "the world of ideas!" she said, and she looked into my face sarcastically. "then we had better leave off talking. what's the use?..." she flushed. "the world of ideas!" she repeated. she threw her dinner-napkin aside, and an expression of indignation and contempt came into her face. "all your fine ideas, i see, lead up to one inevitable, essential step: i ought to become your mistress. that's what's wanted. to be taken up with ideas without being the mistress of an honourable, progressive man, is as good as not understanding the ideas. one has to begin with that ... that is, with being your mistress, and the rest will come of itself." "you are irritated, zinaida fyodorovna," i said. "no, i am sincere!" she cried, breathing hard. "i am sincere!" "you are sincere, perhaps, but you are in error, and it hurts me to hear you." "i am in error?" she laughed. "any one else might say that, but not you, my dear sir! i may seem to you indelicate, cruel, but i don't care: you love me? you love me, don't you?" i shrugged my shoulders. "yes, shrug your shoulders!" she went on sarcastically. "when you were ill i heard you in your delirium, and ever since these adoring eyes, these sighs, and edifying conversations about friendship, about spiritual kinship.... but the point is, why haven't you been sincere? why have you concealed what is and talked about what isn't? had you said from the beginning what ideas exactly led you to drag me from petersburg, i should have known. i should have poisoned myself then as i meant to, and there would have been none of this tedious farce.... but what's the use of talking!" with a wave of the hand she sat down. "you speak to me as though you suspected me of dishonourable intentions," i said, offended. "oh, very well. what's the use of talking! i don't suspect you of intentions, but of having no intentions. if you had any, i should have known them by now. you had nothing but ideas and love. for the present--ideas and love, and in prospect--me as your mistress. that's in the order of things both in life and in novels.... here you abused him," she said, and she slapped the table with her hand, "but one can't help agreeing with him. he has good reasons for despising these ideas." "he does not despise ideas; he is afraid of them," i cried. "he is a coward and a liar." "oh, very well. he is a coward and a liar, and deceived me. and you? excuse my frankness; what are you? he deceived me and left me to take my chance in petersburg, and you have deceived me and abandoned me here. but he did not mix up ideas with his deceit, and you ..." "for goodness' sake, why are you saying this?" i cried in horror, wringing my hands and going up to her quickly. "no, zinaida fyodorovna, this is cynicism. you must not be so despairing; listen to me," i went on, catching at a thought which flashed dimly upon me, and which seemed to me might still save us both. "listen. i have passed through so many experiences in my time that my head goes round at the thought of them, and i have realised with my mind, with my racked soul, that man finds his true destiny in nothing if not in self-sacrificing love for his neighbour. it is towards that we must strive, and that is our destination! that is my faith!" i wanted to go on to speak of mercy, of forgiveness, but there was an insincere note in my voice, and i was embarrassed. "i want to live!" i said genuinely. "to live, to live! i want peace, tranquillity; i want warmth--this sea here--to have you near. oh, how i wish i could rouse in you the same thirst for life! you spoke just now of love, but it would be enough for me to have you near, to hear your voice, to watch the look in your face ...!" she flushed crimson, and to hinder my speaking, said quickly: "you love life, and i hate it. so our ways lie apart." she poured herself out some tea, but did not touch it, went into the bedroom, and lay down. "i imagine it is better to cut short this conversation," she said to me from within. "everything is over for me, and i want nothing.... what more is there to say?" "no, it's not all over!" "oh, very well!... i know! i am sick of it.... that's enough." i got up, took a turn from one end of the room to the other, and went out into the corridor. when late at night i went to her door and listened, i distinctly heard her crying. next morning the waiter, handing me my clothes, informed me, with a smile, that the lady in number thirteen was confined. i dressed somehow, and almost fainting with terror ran to zinaida fyodorovna. in her room i found a doctor, a midwife, and an elderly russian lady from harkov, called darya milhailovna. there was a smell of ether. i had scarcely crossed the threshold when from the room where she was lying i heard a low, plaintive moan, and, as though it had been wafted me by the wind from russia, i thought of orlov, his irony, polya, the neva, the drifting snow, then the cab without an apron, the prediction i had read in the cold morning sky, and the despairing cry "nina! nina!" "go in to her," said the lady. i went in to see zinaida fyodorovna, feeling as though i were the father of the child. she was lying with her eyes closed, looking thin and pale, wearing a white cap edged with lace. i remember there were two expressions on her face: one--cold, indifferent, apathetic; the other--a look of childish helplessness given her by the white cap. she did not hear me come in, or heard, perhaps, but did not pay attention. i stood, looked at her, and waited. but her face was contorted with pain; she opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling, as though wondering what was happening to her.... there was a look of loathing on her face. "it's horrible ..." she whispered. "zinaida fyodorovna." i spoke her name softly. she looked at me indifferently, listlessly, and closed her eyes. i stood there a little while, then went away. at night, darya mihailovna informed me that the child, a girl, was born, but that the mother was in a dangerous condition. then i heard noise and bustle in the passage. darya mihailovna came to me again and with a face of despair, wringing her hands, said: "oh, this is awful! the doctor suspects that she has taken poison! oh, how badly russians do behave here!" and at twelve o'clock the next day zinaida fyodorovna died. xviii two years had passed. circumstances had changed; i had come to petersburg again and could live here openly. i was no longer afraid of being and seeming sentimental, and gave myself up entirely to the fatherly, or rather idolatrous feeling roused in me by sonya, zinaida fyodorovna's child. i fed her with my own hands, gave her her bath, put her to bed, never took my eyes off her for nights together, and screamed when it seemed to me that the nurse was just going to drop her. my thirst for normal ordinary life became stronger and more acute as time went on, but wider visions stopped short at sonya, as though i had found in her at last just what i needed. i loved the child madly. in her i saw the continuation of my life, and it was not exactly that i fancied, but i felt, i almost believed, that when i had cast off at last my long, bony, bearded frame, i should go on living in those little blue eyes, that silky flaxen hair, those dimpled pink hands which stroked my face so lovingly and were clasped round my neck. sonya's future made me anxious. orlov was her father; in her birth certificate she was called krasnovsky, and the only person who knew of her existence, and took interest in her--that is, i--was at death's door. i had to think about her seriously. the day after i arrived in petersburg i went to see orlov. the door was opened to me by a stout old fellow with red whiskers and no moustache, who looked like a german. polya, who was tidying the drawing-room, did not recognise me, but orlov knew me at once. "ah, mr. revolutionist!" he said, looking at me with curiosity, and laughing. "what fate has brought you?" he was not changed in the least: the same well-groomed, unpleasant face, the same irony. and a new book was lying on the table just as of old, with an ivory paper-knife thrust in it. he had evidently been reading before i came in. he made me sit down, offered me a cigar, and with a delicacy only found in well-bred people, concealing the unpleasant feeling aroused by my face and my wasted figure, observed casually that i was not in the least changed, and that he would have known me anywhere in spite of my having grown a beard. we talked of the weather, of paris. to dispose as quickly as possible of the oppressive, inevitable question, which weighed upon him and me, he asked: "zinaida fyodorovna is dead?" "yes," i answered. "in childbirth?" "yes, in childbirth. the doctor suspected another cause of death, but ... it is more comforting for you and for me to think that she died in childbirth." he sighed decorously and was silent. the angel of silence passed over us, as they say. "yes. and here everything is as it used to be--no changes," he said briskly, seeing that i was looking about the room. "my father, as you know, has left the service and is living in retirement; i am still in the same department. do you remember pekarsky? he is just the same as ever. gruzin died of diphtheria a year ago.... kukushkin is alive, and often speaks of you. by the way," said orlov, dropping his eyes with an air of reserve, "when kukushkin heard who you were, he began telling every one you had attacked him and tried to murder him ... and that he only just escaped with his life." i did not speak. "old servants do not forget their masters.... it's very nice of you," said orlov jocosely. "will you have some wine and some coffee, though? i will tell them to make some." "no, thank you. i have come to see you about a very important matter, georgy ivanitch." "i am not very fond of important matters, but i shall be glad to be of service to you. what do you want?" "you see," i began, growing agitated, "i have here with me zinaida fyodorovna's daughter.... hitherto i have brought her up, but, as you see, before many days i shall be an empty sound. i should like to die with the thought that she is provided for." orlov coloured a little, frowned a little, and took a cursory and sullen glance at me. he was unpleasantly affected, not so much by the "important matter" as by my words about death, about becoming an empty sound. "yes, it must be thought about," he said, screening his eyes as though from the sun. "thank you. you say it's a girl?" "yes, a girl. a wonderful child!" "yes. of course, it's not a lap-dog, but a human being. i understand we must consider it seriously. i am prepared to do my part, and am very grateful to you." he got up, walked about, biting his nails, and stopped before a picture. "we must think about it," he said in a hollow voice, standing with his back to me. "i shall go to pekarsky's to-day and will ask him to go to krasnovsky's. i don't think he will make much ado about consenting to take the child." "but, excuse me, i don't see what krasnovsky has got to do with it," i said, also getting up and walking to a picture at the other end of the room. "but she bears his name, of course!" said orlov. "yes, he may be legally obliged to accept the child--i don't know; but i came to you, georgy ivanitch, not to discuss the legal aspect." "yes, yes, you are right," he agreed briskly. "i believe i am talking nonsense. but don't excite yourself. we will decide the matter to our mutual satisfaction. if one thing won't do, we'll try another; and if that won't do, we'll try a third--one way or another this delicate question shall be settled. pekarsky will arrange it all. be so good as to leave me your address and i will let you know at once what we decide. where are you living?" orlov wrote down my address, sighed, and said with a smile: "oh, lord, what a job it is to be the father of a little daughter! but pekarsky will arrange it all. he is a sensible man. did you stay long in paris?" "two months." we were silent. orlov was evidently afraid i should begin talking of the child again, and to turn my attention in another direction, said: "you have probably forgotten your letter by now. but i have kept it. i understand your mood at the time, and, i must own, i respect that letter. 'damnable cold blood,' 'asiatic,' 'coarse laugh'--that was charming and characteristic," he went on with an ironical smile. "and the fundamental thought is perhaps near the truth, though one might dispute the question endlessly. that is," he hesitated, "not dispute the thought itself, but your attitude to the question--your temperament, so to say. yes, my life is abnormal, corrupted, of no use to any one, and what prevents me from beginning a new life is cowardice--there you are quite right. but that you take it so much to heart, are troubled, and reduced to despair by it--that's irrational; there you are quite wrong." "a living man cannot help being troubled and reduced to despair when he sees that he himself is going to ruin and others are going to ruin round him." "who doubts it! i am not advocating indifference; all i ask for is an objective attitude to life. the more objective, the less danger of falling into error. one must look into the root of things, and try to see in every phenomenon a cause of all the other causes. we have grown feeble, slack--degraded, in fact. our generation is entirely composed of neurasthenics and whimperers; we do nothing but talk of fatigue and exhaustion. but the fault is neither yours nor mine; we are of too little consequence to affect the destiny of a whole generation. we must suppose for that larger, more general causes with a solid _raison d'être_ from the biological point of view. we are neurasthenics, flabby, renegades, but perhaps it's necessary and of service for generations that will come after us. not one hair falls from the head without the will of the heavenly father--in other words, nothing happens by chance in nature and in human environment. everything has its cause and is inevitable. and if so, why should we worry and write despairing letters?" "that's all very well," i said, thinking a little. "i believe it will be easier and clearer for the generations to come; our experience will be at their service. but one wants to live apart from future generations and not only for their sake. life is only given us once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full consciousness and beauty. one wants to play a striking, independent, noble part; one wants to make history so that those generations may not have the right to say of each of us that we were nonentities or worse.... i believe what is going on about us is inevitable and not without a purpose, but what have i to do with that inevitability? why should my ego be lost?" "well, there's no help for it," sighed orlov, getting up and, as it were, giving me to understand that our conversation was over. i took my hat. "we've only been sitting here half an hour, and how many questions we have settled, when you come to think of it!" said orlov, seeing me into the hall. "so i will see to that matter.... i will see pekarsky to-day.... don't be uneasy." he stood waiting while i put on my coat, and was obviously relieved at the feeling that i was going away. "georgy ivanitch, give me back my letter," i said. "certainly." he went to his study, and a minute later returned with the letter. i thanked him and went away. the next day i got a letter from him. he congratulated me on the satisfactory settlement of the question. pekarsky knew a lady, he wrote, who kept a school, something like a kindergarten, where she took quite little children. the lady could be entirely depended upon, but before concluding anything with her it would be as well to discuss the matter with krasnovsky--it was a matter of form. he advised me to see pekarsky at once and to take the birth certificate with me, if i had it. "rest assured of the sincere respect and devotion of your humble servant...." i read this letter, and sonya sat on the table and gazed at me attentively without blinking, as though she knew her fate was being decided. the husband in the course of the manoeuvres the n---- cavalry regiment halted for a night at the district town of k----. such an event as the visit of officers always has the most exciting and inspiring effect on the inhabitants of provincial towns. the shopkeepers dream of getting rid of the rusty sausages and "best brand" sardines that have been lying for ten years on their shelves; the inns and restaurants keep open all night; the military commandant, his secretary, and the local garrison put on their best uniforms; the police flit to and fro like mad, while the effect on the ladies is beyond all description. the ladies of k----, hearing the regiment approaching, forsook their pans of boiling jam and ran into the street. forgetting their morning _deshabille_ and general untidiness, they rushed breathless with excitement to meet the regiment, and listened greedily to the band playing the march. looking at their pale, ecstatic faces, one might have thought those strains came from some heavenly choir rather than from a military brass band. "the regiment!" they cried joyfully. "the regiment is coming!" what could this unknown regiment that came by chance to-day and would depart at dawn to-morrow mean to them? afterwards, when the officers were standing in the middle of the square, and, with their hands behind them, discussing the question of billets, all the ladies were gathered together at the examining magistrate's and vying with one another in their criticisms of the regiment. they already knew, goodness knows how, that the colonel was married, but not living with his wife; that the senior officer's wife had a baby born dead every year; that the adjutant was hopelessly in love with some countess, and had even once attempted suicide. they knew everything. when a pock-marked soldier in a red shirt darted past the windows, they knew for certain that it was lieutenant rymzov's orderly running about the town, trying to get some english bitter ale on tick for his master. they had only caught a passing glimpse of the officers' backs, but had already decided that there was not one handsome or interesting man among them.... having talked to their hearts' content, they sent for the military commandant and the committee of the club, and instructed them at all costs to make arrangements for a dance. their wishes were carried out. at nine o'clock in the evening the military band was playing in the street before the club, while in the club itself the officers were dancing with the ladies of k----. the ladies felt as though they were on wings. intoxicated by the dancing, the music, and the clank of spurs, they threw themselves heart and soul into making the acquaintance of their new partners, and quite forgot their old civilian friends. their fathers and husbands, forced temporarily into the background, crowded round the meagre refreshment table in the entrance hall. all these government cashiers, secretaries, clerks, and superintendents--stale, sickly-looking, clumsy figures--were perfectly well aware of their inferiority. they did not even enter the ball-room, but contented themselves with watching their wives and daughters in the distance dancing with the accomplished and graceful officers. among the husbands was shalikov, the tax-collector--a narrow, spiteful soul, given to drink, with a big, closely cropped head, and thick, protruding lips. he had had a university education; there had been a time when he used to read progressive literature and sing students' songs, but now, as he said of himself, he was a tax-collector and nothing more. he stood leaning against the doorpost, his eyes fixed on his wife, anna pavlovna, a little brunette of thirty, with a long nose and a pointed chin. tightly laced, with her face carefully powdered, she danced without pausing for breath--danced till she was ready to drop exhausted. but though she was exhausted in body, her spirit was inexhaustible.... one could see as she danced that her thoughts were with the past, that faraway past when she used to dance at the "college for young ladies," dreaming of a life of luxury and gaiety, and never doubting that her husband was to be a prince or, at the worst, a baron. the tax-collector watched, scowling with spite.... it was not jealousy he was feeling. he was ill-humoured--first, because the room was taken up with dancing and there was nowhere he could play a game of cards; secondly, because he could not endure the sound of wind instruments; and, thirdly, because he fancied the officers treated the civilians somewhat too casually and disdainfully. but what above everything revolted him and moved him to indignation was the expression of happiness on his wife's face. "it makes me sick to look at her!" he muttered. "going on for forty, and nothing to boast of at any time, and she must powder her face and lace herself up! and frizzing her hair! flirting and making faces, and fancying she's doing the thing in style! ugh! you're a pretty figure, upon my soul!" anna pavlovna was so lost in the dance that she did not once glance at her husband. "of course not! where do we poor country bumpkins come in!" sneered the tax-collector. "we are at a discount now.... we're clumsy seals, unpolished provincial bears, and she's the queen of the ball! she has kept enough of her looks to please even officers ... they'd not object to making love to her, i dare say!" during the mazurka the tax-collector's face twitched with spite. a black-haired officer with prominent eyes and tartar cheekbones danced the mazurka with anna pavlovna. assuming a stern expression, he worked his legs with gravity and feeling, and so crooked his knees that he looked like a jack-a-dandy pulled by strings, while anna pavlovna, pale and thrilled, bending her figure languidly and turning her eyes up, tried to look as though she scarcely touched the floor, and evidently felt herself that she was not on earth, not at the local club, but somewhere far, far away--in the clouds. not only her face but her whole figure was expressive of beatitude.... the tax-collector could endure it no longer; he felt a desire to jeer at that beatitude, to make anna pavlovna feel that she had forgotten herself, that life was by no means so delightful as she fancied now in her excitement.... "you wait; i'll teach you to smile so blissfully," he muttered. "you are not a boarding-school miss, you are not a girl. an old fright ought to realise she is a fright!" petty feelings of envy, vexation, wounded vanity, of that small, provincial misanthropy engendered in petty officials by vodka and a sedentary life, swarmed in his heart like mice. waiting for the end of the mazurka, he went into the hall and walked up to his wife. anna pavlovna was sitting with her partner, and, flirting her fan and coquettishly dropping her eyelids, was describing how she used to dance in petersburg (her lips were pursed up like a rosebud, and she pronounced "at home in pütürsburg"). "anyuta, let us go home," croaked the tax-collector. seeing her husband standing before her, anna pavlovna started as though recalling the fact that she had a husband; then she flushed all over: she felt ashamed that she had such a sickly-looking, ill-humoured, ordinary husband. "let us go home," repeated the tax-collector. "why? it's quite early!" "i beg you to come home!" said the tax-collector deliberately, with a spiteful expression. "why? has anything happened?" anna pavlovna asked in a flutter. "nothing has happened, but i wish you to go home at once.... i wish it; that's enough, and without further talk, please." anna pavlovna was not afraid of her husband, but she felt ashamed on account of her partner, who was looking at her husband with surprise and amusement. she got up and moved a little apart with her husband. "what notion is this?" she began. "why go home? why, it's not eleven o'clock." "i wish it, and that's enough. come along, and that's all about it." "don't be silly! go home alone if you want to." "all right; then i shall make a scene." the tax-collector saw the look of beatitude gradually vanish from his wife's face, saw how ashamed and miserable she was--and he felt a little happier. "why do you want me at once?" asked his wife. "i don't want you, but i wish you to be at home. i wish it, that's all." at first anna pavlovna refused to hear of it, then she began entreating her husband to let her stay just another half-hour; then, without knowing why, she began to apologise, to protest--and all in a whisper, with a smile, that the spectators might not suspect that she was having a tiff with her husband. she began assuring him she would not stay long, only another ten minutes, only five minutes; but the tax-collector stuck obstinately to his point. "stay if you like," he said, "but i'll make a scene if you do." and as she talked to her husband anna pavlovna looked thinner, older, plainer. pale, biting her lips, and almost crying, she went out to the entry and began putting on her things. "you are not going?" asked the ladies in surprise. "anna pavlovna, you are not going, dear?" "her head aches," said the tax-collector for his wife. coming out of the club, the husband and wife walked all the way home in silence. the tax-collector walked behind his wife, and watching her downcast, sorrowful, humiliated little figure, he recalled the look of beatitude which had so irritated him at the club, and the consciousness that the beatitude was gone filled his soul with triumph. he was pleased and satisfied, and at the same time he felt the lack of something; he would have liked to go back to the club and make every one feel dreary and miserable, so that all might know how stale and worthless life is when you walk along the streets in the dark and hear the slush of the mud under your feet, and when you know that you will wake up next morning with nothing to look forward to but vodka and cards. oh, how awful it is! and anna pavlovna could scarcely walk.... she was still under the influence of the dancing, the music, the talk, the lights, and the noise; she asked herself as she walked along why god had thus afflicted her. she felt miserable, insulted, and choking with hate as she listened to her husband's heavy footsteps. she was silent, trying to think of the most offensive, biting, and venomous word she could hurl at her husband, and at the same time she was fully aware that no word could penetrate her tax-collector's hide. what did he care for words? her bitterest enemy could not have contrived for her a more helpless position. and meanwhile the band was playing and the darkness was full of the most rousing, intoxicating dance-tunes. the tales of chekhov volume the darling and other stories by anton tchekhov translated by constance garnett contents the darling ariadne polinka anyuta the two volodyas the trousseau the helpmate talent an artist's story three years the darling olenka, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, plemyanniakov, was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. it was hot, the flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to reflect that it would soon be evening. dark rainclouds were gathering from the east, and bringing from time to time a breath of moisture in the air. kukin, who was the manager of an open-air theatre called the tivoli, and who lived in the lodge, was standing in the middle of the garden looking at the sky. "again!" he observed despairingly. "it's going to rain again! rain every day, as though to spite me. i might as well hang myself! it's ruin! fearful losses every day." he flung up his hands, and went on, addressing olenka: "there! that's the life we lead, olga semyonovna. it's enough to make one cry. one works and does one's utmost, one wears oneself out, getting no sleep at night, and racks one's brain what to do for the best. and then what happens? to begin with, one's public is ignorant, boorish. i give them the very best operetta, a dainty masque, first rate music-hall artists. but do you suppose that's what they want! they don't understand anything of that sort. they want a clown; what they ask for is vulgarity. and then look at the weather! almost every evening it rains. it started on the tenth of may, and it's kept it up all may and june. it's simply awful! the public doesn't come, but i've to pay the rent just the same, and pay the artists." the next evening the clouds would gather again, and kukin would say with an hysterical laugh: "well, rain away, then! flood the garden, drown me! damn my luck in this world and the next! let the artists have me up! send me to prison!--to siberia!--the scaffold! ha, ha, ha!" and next day the same thing. olenka listened to kukin with silent gravity, and sometimes tears came into her eyes. in the end his misfortunes touched her; she grew to love him. he was a small thin man, with a yellow face, and curls combed forward on his forehead. he spoke in a thin tenor; as he talked his mouth worked on one side, and there was always an expression of despair on his face; yet he aroused a deep and genuine affection in her. she was always fond of some one, and could not exist without loving. in earlier days she had loved her papa, who now sat in a darkened room, breathing with difficulty; she had loved her aunt who used to come every other year from bryansk; and before that, when she was at school, she had loved her french master. she was a gentle, soft-hearted, compassionate girl, with mild, tender eyes and very good health. at the sight of her full rosy cheeks, her soft white neck with a little dark mole on it, and the kind, naïve smile, which came into her face when she listened to anything pleasant, men thought, "yes, not half bad," and smiled too, while lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle of a conversation, exclaiming in a gush of delight, "you darling!" the house in which she had lived from her birth upwards, and which was left her in her father's will, was at the extreme end of the town, not far from the tivoli. in the evenings and at night she could head the band playing, and the crackling and banging of fireworks, and it seemed to her that it was kukin struggling with his destiny, storming the entrenchments of his chief foe, the indifferent public; there was a sweet thrill at her heart, she had no desire to sleep, and when he returned home at day-break, she tapped softly at her bedroom window, and showing him only her face and one shoulder through the curtain, she gave him a friendly smile. . . . he proposed to her, and they were married. and when he had a closer view of her neck and her plump, fine shoulders, he threw up his hands, and said: "you darling!" he was happy, but as it rained on the day and night of his wedding, his face still retained an expression of despair. they got on very well together. she used to sit in his office, to look after things in the tivoli, to put down the accounts and pay the wages. and her rosy cheeks, her sweet, naïve, radiant smile, were to be seen now at the office window, now in the refreshment bar or behind the scenes of the theatre. and already she used to say to her acquaintances that the theatre was the chief and most important thing in life and that it was only through the drama that one could derive true enjoyment and become cultivated and humane. "but do you suppose the public understands that?" she used to say. "what they want is a clown. yesterday we gave 'faust inside out,' and almost all the boxes were empty; but if vanitchka and i had been producing some vulgar thing, i assure you the theatre would have been packed. tomorrow vanitchka and i are doing 'orpheus in hell.' do come." and what kukin said about the theatre and the actors she repeated. like him she despised the public for their ignorance and their indifference to art; she took part in the rehearsals, she corrected the actors, she kept an eye on the behaviour of the musicians, and when there was an unfavourable notice in the local paper, she shed tears, and then went to the editor's office to set things right. the actors were fond of her and used to call her "vanitchka and i," and "the darling"; she was sorry for them and used to lend them small sums of money, and if they deceived her, she used to shed a few tears in private, but did not complain to her husband. they got on well in the winter too. they took the theatre in the town for the whole winter, and let it for short terms to a little russian company, or to a conjurer, or to a local dramatic society. olenka grew stouter, and was always beaming with satisfaction, while kukin grew thinner and yellower, and continually complained of their terrible losses, although he had not done badly all the winter. he used to cough at night, and she used to give him hot raspberry tea or lime-flower water, to rub him with eau-de-cologne and to wrap him in her warm shawls. "you're such a sweet pet!" she used to say with perfect sincerity, stroking his hair. "you're such a pretty dear!" towards lent he went to moscow to collect a new troupe, and without him she could not sleep, but sat all night at her window, looking at the stars, and she compared herself with the hens, who are awake all night and uneasy when the cock is not in the hen-house. kukin was detained in moscow, and wrote that he would be back at easter, adding some instructions about the tivoli. but on the sunday before easter, late in the evening, came a sudden ominous knock at the gate; some one was hammering on the gate as though on a barrel-- boom, boom, boom! the drowsy cook went flopping with her bare feet through the puddles, as she ran to open the gate. "please open," said some one outside in a thick bass. "there is a telegram for you." olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but this time for some reason she felt numb with terror. with shaking hands she opened the telegram and read as follows: "ivan petrovitch died suddenly to-day. awaiting immate instructions fufuneral tuesday." that was how it was written in the telegram--"fufuneral," and the utterly incomprehensible word "immate." it was signed by the stage manager of the operatic company. "my darling!" sobbed olenka. "vanka, my precious, my darling! why did i ever meet you! why did i know you and love you! your poor heart-broken olenka is alone without you!" kukin's funeral took place on tuesday in moscow, olenka returned home on wednesday, and as soon as she got indoors, she threw herself on her bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard next door, and in the street. "poor darling!" the neighbours said, as they crossed themselves. "olga semyonovna, poor darling! how she does take on!" three months later olenka was coming home from mass, melancholy and in deep mourning. it happened that one of her neighbours, vassily andreitch pustovalov, returning home from church, walked back beside her. he was the manager at babakayev's, the timber merchant's. he wore a straw hat, a white waistcoat, and a gold watch-chain, and looked more a country gentleman than a man in trade. "everything happens as it is ordained, olga semyonovna," he said gravely, with a sympathetic note in his voice; "and if any of our dear ones die, it must be because it is the will of god, so we ought have fortitude and bear it submissively." after seeing olenka to her gate, he said good-bye and went on. all day afterwards she heard his sedately dignified voice, and whenever she shut her eyes she saw his dark beard. she liked him very much. and apparently she had made an impression on him too, for not long afterwards an elderly lady, with whom she was only slightly acquainted, came to drink coffee with her, and as soon as she was seated at table began to talk about pustovalov, saying that he was an excellent man whom one could thoroughly depend upon, and that any girl would be glad to marry him. three days later pustovalov came himself. he did not stay long, only about ten minutes, and he did not say much, but when he left, olenka loved him--loved him so much that she lay awake all night in a perfect fever, and in the morning she sent for the elderly lady. the match was quickly arranged, and then came the wedding. pustovalov and olenka got on very well together when they were married. usually he sat in the office till dinner-time, then he went out on business, while olenka took his place, and sat in the office till evening, making up accounts and booking orders. "timber gets dearer every year; the price rises twenty per cent," she would say to her customers and friends. "only fancy we used to sell local timber, and now vassitchka always has to go for wood to the mogilev district. and the freight!" she would add, covering her cheeks with her hands in horror. "the freight!" it seemed to her that she had been in the timber trade for ages and ages, and that the most important and necessary thing in life was timber; and there was something intimate and touching to her in the very sound of words such as "baulk," "post," "beam," "pole," "scantling," "batten," "lath," "plank," etc. at night when she was asleep she dreamed of perfect mountains of planks and boards, and long strings of wagons, carting timber somewhere far away. she dreamed that a whole regiment of six-inch beams forty feet high, standing on end, was marching upon the timber-yard; that logs, beams, and boards knocked together with the resounding crash of dry wood, kept falling and getting up again, piling themselves on each other. olenka cried out in her sleep, and pustovalov said to her tenderly: "olenka, what's the matter, darling? cross yourself!" her husband's ideas were hers. if he thought the room was too hot, or that business was slack, she thought the same. her husband did not care for entertainments, and on holidays he stayed at home. she did likewise. "you are always at home or in the office," her friends said to her. "you should go to the theatre, darling, or to the circus." "vassitchka and i have no time to go to theatres," she would answer sedately. "we have no time for nonsense. what's the use of these theatres?" on saturdays pustovalov and she used to go to the evening service; on holidays to early mass, and they walked side by side with softened faces as they came home from church. there was a pleasant fragrance about them both, and her silk dress rustled agreeably. at home they drank tea, with fancy bread and jams of various kinds, and afterwards they ate pie. every day at twelve o'clock there was a savoury smell of beet-root soup and of mutton or duck in their yard, and on fast-days of fish, and no one could pass the gate without feeling hungry. in the office the samovar was always boiling, and customers were regaled with tea and cracknels. once a week the couple went to the baths and returned side by side, both red in the face. "yes, we have nothing to complain of, thank god," olenka used to say to her acquaintances. "i wish every one were as well off as vassitchka and i." when pustovalov went away to buy wood in the mogilev district, she missed him dreadfully, lay awake and cried. a young veterinary surgeon in the army, called smirnin, to whom they had let their lodge, used sometimes to come in in the evening. he used to talk to her and play cards with her, and this entertained her in her husband's absence. she was particularly interested in what he told her of his home life. he was married and had a little boy, but was separated from his wife because she had been unfaithful to him, and now he hated her and used to send her forty roubles a month for the maintenance of their son. and hearing of all this, olenka sighed and shook her head. she was sorry for him. "well, god keep you," she used to say to him at parting, as she lighted him down the stairs with a candle. "thank you for coming to cheer me up, and may the mother of god give you health." and she always expressed herself with the same sedateness and dignity, the same reasonableness, in imitation of her husband. as the veterinary surgeon was disappearing behind the door below, she would say: "you know, vladimir platonitch, you'd better make it up with your wife. you should forgive her for the sake of your son. you may be sure the little fellow understands." and when pustovalov came back, she told him in a low voice about the veterinary surgeon and his unhappy home life, and both sighed and shook their heads and talked about the boy, who, no doubt, missed his father, and by some strange connection of ideas, they went up to the holy ikons, bowed to the ground before them and prayed that god would give them children. and so the pustovalovs lived for six years quietly and peaceably in love and complete harmony. but behold! one winter day after drinking hot tea in the office, vassily andreitch went out into the yard without his cap on to see about sending off some timber, caught cold and was taken ill. he had the best doctors, but he grew worse and died after four months' illness. and olenka was a widow once more. "i've nobody, now you've left me, my darling," she sobbed, after her husband's funeral. "how can i live without you, in wretchedness and misery! pity me, good people, all alone in the world!" she went about dressed in black with long "weepers," and gave up wearing hat and gloves for good. she hardly ever went out, except to church, or to her husband's grave, and led the life of a nun. it was not till six months later that she took off the weepers and opened the shutters of the windows. she was sometimes seen in the mornings, going with her cook to market for provisions, but what went on in her house and how she lived now could only be surmised. people guessed, from seeing her drinking tea in her garden with the veterinary surgeon, who read the newspaper aloud to her, and from the fact that, meeting a lady she knew at the post-office, she said to her: "there is no proper veterinary inspection in our town, and that's the cause of all sorts of epidemics. one is always hearing of people's getting infection from the milk supply, or catching diseases from horses and cows. the health of domestic animals ought to be as well cared for as the health of human beings." she repeated the veterinary surgeon's words, and was of the same opinion as he about everything. it was evident that she could not live a year without some attachment, and had found new happiness in the lodge. in any one else this would have been censured, but no one could think ill of olenka; everything she did was so natural. neither she nor the veterinary surgeon said anything to other people of the change in their relations, and tried, indeed, to conceal it, but without success, for olenka could not keep a secret. when he had visitors, men serving in his regiment, and she poured out tea or served the supper, she would begin talking of the cattle plague, of the foot and mouth disease, and of the municipal slaughterhouses. he was dreadfully embarrassed, and when the guests had gone, he would seize her by the hand and hiss angrily: "i've asked you before not to talk about what you don't understand. when we veterinary surgeons are talking among ourselves, please don't put your word in. it's really annoying." and she would look at him with astonishment and dismay, and ask him in alarm: "but, voloditchka, what _am_ i to talk about?" and with tears in her eyes she would embrace him, begging him not to be angry, and they were both happy. but this happiness did not last long. the veterinary surgeon departed, departed for ever with his regiment, when it was transferred to a distant place--to siberia, it may be. and olenka was left alone. now she was absolutely alone. her father had long been dead, and his armchair lay in the attic, covered with dust and lame of one leg. she got thinner and plainer, and when people met her in the street they did not look at her as they used to, and did not smile to her; evidently her best years were over and left behind, and now a new sort of life had begun for her, which did not bear thinking about. in the evening olenka sat in the porch, and heard the band playing and the fireworks popping in the tivoli, but now the sound stirred no response. she looked into her yard without interest, thought of nothing, wished for nothing, and afterwards, when night came on she went to bed and dreamed of her empty yard. she ate and drank as it were unwillingly. and what was worst of all, she had no opinions of any sort. she saw the objects about her and understood what she saw, but could not form any opinion about them, and did not know what to talk about. and how awful it is not to have any opinions! one sees a bottle, for instance, or the rain, or a peasant driving in his cart, but what the bottle is for, or the rain, or the peasant, and what is the meaning of it, one can't say, and could not even for a thousand roubles. when she had kukin, or pustovalov, or the veterinary surgeon, olenka could explain everything, and give her opinion about anything you like, but now there was the same emptiness in her brain and in her heart as there was in her yard outside. and it was as harsh and as bitter as wormwood in the mouth. little by little the town grew in all directions. the road became a street, and where the tivoli and the timber-yard had been, there were new turnings and houses. how rapidly time passes! olenka's house grew dingy, the roof got rusty, the shed sank on one side, and the whole yard was overgrown with docks and stinging-nettles. olenka herself had grown plain and elderly; in summer she sat in the porch, and her soul, as before, was empty and dreary and full of bitterness. in winter she sat at her window and looked at the snow. when she caught the scent of spring, or heard the chime of the church bells, a sudden rush of memories from the past came over her, there was a tender ache in her heart, and her eyes brimmed over with tears; but this was only for a minute, and then came emptiness again and the sense of the futility of life. the black kitten, briska, rubbed against her and purred softly, but olenka was not touched by these feline caresses. that was not what she needed. she wanted a love that would absorb her whole being, her whole soul and reason--that would give her ideas and an object in life, and would warm her old blood. and she would shake the kitten off her skirt and say with vexation: "get along; i don't want you!" and so it was, day after day and year after year, and no joy, and no opinions. whatever mavra, the cook, said she accepted. one hot july day, towards evening, just as the cattle were being driven away, and the whole yard was full of dust, some one suddenly knocked at the gate. olenka went to open it herself and was dumbfounded when she looked out: she saw smirnin, the veterinary surgeon, grey-headed, and dressed as a civilian. she suddenly remembered everything. she could not help crying and letting her head fall on his breast without uttering a word, and in the violence of her feeling she did not notice how they both walked into the house and sat down to tea. "my dear vladimir platonitch! what fate has brought you?" she muttered, trembling with joy. "i want to settle here for good, olga semyonovna," he told her. "i have resigned my post, and have come to settle down and try my luck on my own account. besides, it's time for my boy to go to school. he's a big boy. i am reconciled with my wife, you know." "where is she?' asked olenka. "she's at the hotel with the boy, and i'm looking for lodgings." "good gracious, my dear soul! lodgings? why not have my house? why shouldn't that suit you? why, my goodness, i wouldn't take any rent!" cried olenka in a flutter, beginning to cry again. "you live here, and the lodge will do nicely for me. oh dear! how glad i am!" next day the roof was painted and the walls were whitewashed, and olenka, with her arms akimbo walked about the yard giving directions. her face was beaming with her old smile, and she was brisk and alert as though she had waked from a long sleep. the veterinary's wife arrived--a thin, plain lady, with short hair and a peevish expression. with her was her little sasha, a boy of ten, small for his age, blue-eyed, chubby, with dimples in his cheeks. and scarcely had the boy walked into the yard when he ran after the cat, and at once there was the sound of his gay, joyous laugh. "is that your puss, auntie?" he asked olenka. "when she has little ones, do give us a kitten. mamma is awfully afraid of mice." olenka talked to him, and gave him tea. her heart warmed and there was a sweet ache in her bosom, as though the boy had been her own child. and when he sat at the table in the evening, going over his lessons, she looked at him with deep tenderness and pity as she murmured to herself: "you pretty pet! . . . my precious! . . . such a fair little thing, and so clever." "'an island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by water,'" he read aloud. "an island is a piece of land," she repeated, and this was the first opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after so many years of silence and dearth of ideas. now she had opinions of her own, and at supper she talked to sasha's parents, saying how difficult the lessons were at the high schools, but that yet the high school was better than a commercial one, since with a high-school education all careers were open to one, such as being a doctor or an engineer. sasha began going to the high school. his mother departed to harkov to her sister's and did not return; his father used to go off every day to inspect cattle, and would often be away from home for three days together, and it seemed to olenka as though sasha was entirely abandoned, that he was not wanted at home, that he was being starved, and she carried him off to her lodge and gave him a little room there. and for six months sasha had lived in the lodge with her. every morning olenka came into his bedroom and found him fast asleep, sleeping noiselessly with his hand under his cheek. she was sorry to wake him. "sashenka," she would say mournfully, "get up, darling. it's time for school." he would get up, dress and say his prayers, and then sit down to breakfast, drink three glasses of tea, and eat two large cracknels and a half a buttered roll. all this time he was hardly awake and a little ill-humoured in consequence. "you don't quite know your fable, sashenka," olenka would say, looking at him as though he were about to set off on a long journey. "what a lot of trouble i have with you! you must work and do your best, darling, and obey your teachers." "oh, do leave me alone!" sasha would say. then he would go down the street to school, a little figure, wearing a big cap and carrying a satchel on his shoulder. olenka would follow him noiselessly. "sashenka!" she would call after him, and she would pop into his hand a date or a caramel. when he reached the street where the school was, he would feel ashamed of being followed by a tall, stout woman, he would turn round and say: "you'd better go home, auntie. i can go the rest of the way alone." she would stand still and look after him fixedly till he had disappeared at the school-gate. ah, how she loved him! of her former attachments not one had been so deep; never had her soul surrendered to any feeling so spontaneously, so disinterestedly, and so joyously as now that her maternal instincts were aroused. for this little boy with the dimple in his cheek and the big school cap, she would have given her whole life, she would have given it with joy and tears of tenderness. why? who can tell why? when she had seen the last of sasha, she returned home, contented and serene, brimming over with love; her face, which had grown younger during the last six months, smiled and beamed; people meeting her looked at her with pleasure. "good-morning, olga semyonovna, darling. how are you, darling?" "the lessons at the high school are very difficult now," she would relate at the market. "it's too much; in the first class yesterday they gave him a fable to learn by heart, and a latin translation and a problem. you know it's too much for a little chap." and she would begin talking about the teachers, the lessons, and the school books, saying just what sasha said. at three o'clock they had dinner together: in the evening they learned their lessons together and cried. when she put him to bed, she would stay a long time making the cross over him and murmuring a prayer; then she would go to bed and dream of that far-away misty future when sasha would finish his studies and become a doctor or an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a carriage, would get married and have children. . . . she would fall asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring beside her: "mrr, mrr, mrr." suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate. olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing. half a minute later would come another knock. "it must be a telegram from harkov," she would think, beginning to tremble from head to foot. "sasha's mother is sending for him from harkov. . . . oh, mercy on us!" she was in despair. her head, her hands, and her feet would turn chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in the world. but another minute would pass, voices would be heard: it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the club. "well, thank god!" she would think. and gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would feel at ease. she would go back to bed thinking of sasha, who lay sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep: "i'll give it you! get away! shut up!" ariadne on the deck of a steamer sailing from odessa to sevastopol, a rather good-looking gentleman, with a little round beard, came up to me to smoke, and said: "notice those germans sitting near the shelter? whenever germans or englishmen get together, they talk about the crops, the price of wool, or their personal affairs. but for some reason or other when we russians get together we never discuss anything but women and abstract subjects--but especially women." this gentleman's face was familiar to me already. we had returned from abroad the evening before in the same train, and at volotchisk when the luggage was being examined by the customs, i saw him standing with a lady, his travelling companion, before a perfect mountain of trunks and baskets filled with ladies' clothes, and i noticed how embarrassed and downcast he was when he had to pay duty on some piece of silk frippery, and his companion protested and threatened to make a complaint. afterwards, on the way to odessa, i saw him carrying little pies and oranges to the ladies' compartment. it was rather damp; the vessel swayed a little, and the ladies had retired to their cabins. the gentleman with the little round beard sat down beside me and continued: "yes, when russians come together they discuss nothing but abstract subjects and women. we are so intellectual, so solemn, that we utter nothing but truths and can discuss only questions of a lofty order. the russian actor does not know how to be funny; he acts with profundity even in a farce. we're just the same: when we have got to talk of trifles we treat them only from an exalted point of view. it comes from a lack of boldness, sincerity, and simplicity. we talk so often about women, i fancy, because we are dissatisfied. we take too ideal a view of women, and make demands out of all proportion with what reality can give us; we get something utterly different from what we want, and the result is dissatisfaction, shattered hopes, and inward suffering, and if any one is suffering, he's bound to talk of it. it does not bore you to go on with this conversation? "no, not in the least." "in that case, allow me to introduce myself," said my companion, rising from his seat a little: "ivan ilyitch shamohin, a moscow landowner of a sort. . . . you i know very well." he sat down and went on, looking at me with a genuine and friendly expression: "a mediocre philosopher, like max nordau, would explain these incessant conversations about women as a form of erotic madness, or would put it down to our having been slave-owners and so on; i take quite a different view of it. i repeat, we are dissatisfied because we are idealists. we want the creatures who bear us and our children to be superior to us and to everything in the world. when we are young we adore and poeticize those with whom we are in love: love and happiness with us are synonyms. among us in russia marriage without love is despised, sensuality is ridiculed and inspires repulsion, and the greatest success is enjoyed by those tales and novels in which women are beautiful, poetical, and exalted; and if the russian has been for years in ecstasies over raphael's madonna, or is eager for the emancipation of women, i assure you there is no affectation about it. but the trouble is that when we have been married or been intimate with a woman for some two or three years, we begin to feel deceived and disillusioned: we pair off with others, and again--disappointment, again--repulsion, and in the long run we become convinced that women are lying, trivial, fussy, unfair, undeveloped, cruel--in fact, far from being superior, are immeasurably inferior to us men. and in our dissatisfaction and disappointment there is nothing left for us but to grumble and talk about what we've been so cruelly deceived in." while shamohin was talking i noticed that the russian language and our russian surroundings gave him great pleasure. this was probably because he had been very homesick abroad. though he praised the russians and ascribed to them a rare idealism, he did not disparage foreigners, and that i put down to his credit. it could be seen, too, that there was some uneasiness in his soul, that he wanted to talk more of himself than of women, and that i was in for a long story in the nature of a confession. and when we had asked for a bottle of wine and had each of us drunk a glass, this was how he did in fact begin: "i remember in a novel of weltmann's some one says, 'so that's the story!' and some one else answers, 'no, that's not the story-- that's only the introduction to the story.' in the same way what i've said so far is only the introduction; what i really want to tell you is my own love story. excuse me, i must ask you again; it won't bore you to listen?" i told him it would not, and he went on: the scene of my story is laid in the moscow province in one of its northern districts. the scenery there, i must tell you, is exquisite. our homestead is on the high bank of a rapid stream, where the water chatters noisily day and night: imagine a big old garden, neat flower-beds, beehives, a kitchen-garden, and below it a river with leafy willows, which, when there is a heavy dew on them, have a lustreless look as though they had turned grey; and on the other side a meadow, and beyond the meadow on the upland a terrible, dark pine forest. in that forest delicious, reddish agarics grow in endless profusion, and elks still live in its deepest recesses. when i am nailed up in my coffin i believe i shall still dream of those early mornings, you know, when the sun hurts your eyes: or the wonderful spring evenings when the nightingales and the landrails call in the garden and beyond the garden, and sounds of the harmonica float across from the village, while they play the piano indoors and the stream babbles . . . when there is such music, in fact, that one wants at the same time to cry and to sing aloud. we have not much arable land, but our pasture makes up for it, and with the forest yields about two thousand roubles a year. i am the only son of my father; we are both modest persons, and with my father's pension that sum was amply sufficient for us. the first three years after finishing at the university i spent in the country, looking after the estate and constantly expecting to be elected on some local assembly; but what was most important, i was violently in love with an extraordinarily beautiful and fascinating girl. she was the sister of our neighbour, kotlovitch, a ruined landowner who had on his estate pine-apples, marvellous peaches, lightning conductors, a fountain in the courtyard, and at the same time not a farthing in his pocket. he did nothing and knew how to do nothing. he was as flabby as though he had been made of boiled turnip; he used to doctor the peasants by homeopathy and was interested in spiritualism. he was, however, a man of great delicacy and mildness, and by no means a fool, but i have no fondness for these gentlemen who converse with spirits and cure peasant women by magnetism. in the first place, the ideas of people who are not intellectually free are always in a muddle, and it's extremely difficult to talk to them; and, secondly, they usually love no one, and have nothing to do with women, and their mysticism has an unpleasant effect on sensitive people. i did not care for his appearance either. he was tall, stout, white-skinned, with a little head, little shining eyes, and chubby white fingers. he did not shake hands, but kneaded one's hands in his. and he was always apologising. if he asked for anything it was "excuse me"; if he gave you anything it was "excuse me" too. as for his sister, she was a character out of a different opera. i must explain that i had not been acquainted with the kotlovitches in my childhood and early youth, for my father had been a professor at n., and we had for many years lived away. when i did make their acquaintance the girl was twenty-two, had left school long before, and had spent two or three years in moscow with a wealthy aunt who brought her out into society. when i was introduced and first had to talk to her, what struck me most of all was her rare and beautiful name--ariadne. it suited her so wonderfully! she was a brunette, very thin, very slender, supple, elegant, and extremely graceful, with refined and exceedingly noble features. her eyes were shining, too, but her brother's shone with a cold sweetness, mawkish as sugar-candy, while hers had the glow of youth, proud and beautiful. she conquered me on the first day of our acquaintance, and indeed it was inevitable. my first impression was so overwhelming that to this day i cannot get rid of my illusions; i am still tempted to imagine that nature had some grand, marvellous design when she created that girl. ariadne's voice, her walk, her hat, even her footprints on the sandy bank where she used to angle for gudgeon, filled me with delight and a passionate hunger for life. i judged of her spiritual being from her lovely face and lovely figure, and every word, every smile of ariadne's bewitched me, conquered me and forced me to believe in the loftiness of her soul. she was friendly, ready to talk, gay and simple in her manners. she had a poetic belief in god, made poetic reflections about death, and there was such a wealth of varying shades in her spiritual organisation that even her faults seemed in her to carry with them peculiar, charming qualities. suppose she wanted a new horse and had no money--what did that matter? something might be sold or pawned, or if the steward swore that nothing could possibly be sold or pawned, the iron roofs might be torn off the lodges and taken to the factory, or at the very busiest time the farm-horses might be driven to the market and sold there for next to nothing. these unbridled desires reduced the whole household to despair at times, but she expressed them with such refinement that everything was forgiven her; all things were permitted her as to a goddess or to cæsar's wife. my love was pathetic and was soon noticed by every one--my father, the neighbours, and the peasants--and they all sympathised with me. when i stood the workmen vodka, they would bow and say: "may the kotlovitch young lady be your bride, please god!" and ariadne herself knew that i loved her. she would often ride over on horseback or drive in the char-à-banc to see us, and would spend whole days with me and my father. she made great friends with the old man, and he even taught her to bicycle, which was his favourite amusement. i remember helping her to get on the bicycle one evening, and she looked so lovely that i felt as though i were burning my hands when i touched her. i shuddered with rapture, and when the two of them, my old father and she, both looking so handsome and elegant, bicycled side by side along the main road, a black horse ridden by the steward dashed aside on meeting them, and it seemed to me that it dashed aside because it too was overcome by her beauty. my love, my worship, touched ariadne and softened her; she had a passionate longing to be captivated like me and to respond with the same love. it was so poetical! but she was incapable of really loving as i did, for she was cold and already somewhat corrupted. there was a demon in her, whispering to her day and night that she was enchanting, adorable; and, having no definite idea for what object she was created, or for what purpose life had been given her, she never pictured herself in the future except as very wealthy and distinguished, she had visions of balls, races, liveries, of sumptuous drawing-rooms, of a salon of her own, and of a perfect swarm of counts, princes, ambassadors, celebrated painters and artists, all of them adoring her and in ecstasies over her beauty and her dresses. . . . this thirst for personal success, and this continual concentration of the mind in one direction, makes people cold, and ariadne was cold--to me, to nature, and to music. meanwhile time was passing, and still there were no ambassadors on the scene. ariadne went on living with her brother, the spiritualist: things went from bad to worse, so that she had nothing to buy hats and dresses with, and had to resort to all sorts of tricks and dodges to conceal her poverty. as luck would have it, a certain prince maktuev, a wealthy man but an utterly insignificant person, had paid his addresses to her when she was living at her aunt's in moscow. she had refused him, point-blank. but now she was fretted by the worm of repentance that she had refused him; just as a peasant pouts with repulsion at a mug of kvass with cockroaches in it but yet drinks it, so she frowned disdainfully at the recollection of the prince, and yet she would say to me: "say what you like, there is something inexplicable, fascinating, in a title. . . ." she dreamed of a title, of a brilliant position, and at the same time she did not want to let me go. however one may dream of ambassadors one's heart is not a stone, and one has wistful feelings for one's youth. ariadne tried to fall in love, made a show of being in love, and even swore that she loved me. but i am a highly strung and sensitive man; when i am loved i feel it even at a distance, without vows and assurances; at once i felt as it were a coldness in the air, and when she talked to me of love, it seemed to me as though i were listening to the singing of a metal nightingale. ariadne was herself aware that she was lacking in something. she was vexed and more than once i saw her cry. another time--can you imagine it?--all of a sudden she embraced me and kissed me. it happened in the evening on the river-bank, and i saw by her eyes that she did not love me, but was embracing me from curiosity, to test herself and to see what came of it. and i felt dreadful. i took her hands and said to her in despair: "these caresses without love cause me suffering!" "what a queer fellow you are!" she said with annoyance, and walked away. another year or two might have passed, and in all probability i should have married her, and so my story would have ended, but fate was pleased to arrange our romance differently. it happened that a new personage appeared on our horizon. ariadne's brother had a visit from an old university friend called mihail ivanitch lubkov, a charming man of whom coachmen and footmen used to say: "an entertaining gentleman." he was a man of medium height, lean and bald, with a face like a good-natured bourgeois, not interesting, but pale and presentable, with a stiff, well-kept moustache, with a neck like gooseskin, and a big adam's apple. he used to wear pince-nez on a wide black ribbon, lisped, and could not pronounce either _r_ or _l_. he was always in good spirits, everything amused him. he had made an exceedingly foolish marriage at twenty, and had acquired two houses in moscow as part of his wife's dowry. he began doing them up and building a bath-house, and was completely ruined. now his wife and four children lodged in oriental buildings in great poverty, and he had to support them--and this amused him. he was thirty-six and his wife was by now forty-two, and that, too, amused him. his mother, a conceited, sulky personage, with aristocratic pretensions, despised his wife and lived apart with a perfect menagerie of cats and dogs, and he had to allow her seventy-five roubles a month also; he was, too, a man of taste, liked lunching at the slavyansky bazaar and dining at the hermitage; he needed a great deal of money, but his uncle only allowed him two thousand roubles a year, which was not enough, and for days together he would run about moscow with his tongue out, as the saying is, looking for some one to borrow from--and this, too, amused him. he had come to kotlovitch to find in the lap of nature, as he said, a rest from family life. at dinner, at supper, and on our walks, he talked about his wife, about his mother, about his creditors, about the bailiffs, and laughed at them; he laughed at himself and assured us that, thanks to his talent for borrowing, he had made a great number of agreeable acquaintances. he laughed without ceasing and we laughed too. moreover, in his company we spent our time differently. i was more inclined to quiet, so to say idyllic pleasures; i liked fishing, evening walks, gathering mushrooms; lubkov preferred picnics, fireworks, hunting. he used to get up picnics three times a week, and ariadne, with an earnest and inspired face, used to write a list of oysters, champagne, sweets, and used to send me into moscow to get them, without inquiring, of course, whether i had money. and at the picnics there were toasts and laughter, and again mirthful descriptions of how old his wife was, what fat lap-dogs his mother had, and what charming people his creditors were. lubkov was fond of nature, but he regarded it as something long familiar and at the same time, in reality, infinitely beneath himself and created for his pleasure. he would sometimes stand still before some magnificent landscape and say: "it would be nice to have tea here." one day, seeing ariadne walking in the distance with a parasol, he nodded towards her and said: "she's thin, and that's what i like; i don't like fat women." this made me wince. i asked him not to speak like that about women before me. he looked at me in surprise and said: "what is there amiss in my liking thin women and not caring for fat ones?" i made no answer. afterwards, being in very good spirits and a trifle elevated, he said: "i've noticed ariadne grigoryevna likes you. i can't understand why you don't go in and win." his words made me feel uncomfortable, and with some embarrassment i told him how i looked at love and women. "i don't know," he sighed; "to my thinking, a woman's a woman and a man's a man. ariadne grigoryevna may be poetical and exalted, as you say, but it doesn't follow that she must be superior to the laws of nature. you see for yourself that she has reached the age when she must have a husband or a lover. i respect women as much as you do, but i don't think certain relations exclude poetry. poetry's one thing and love is another. it's just the same as it is in farming. the beauty of nature is one thing and the income from your forests or fields is quite another." when ariadne and i were fishing, lubkov would lie on the sand close by and make fun of me, or lecture me on the conduct of life. "i wonder, my dear sir, how you can live without a love affair," he would say. "you are young, handsome, interesting--in fact, you're a man not to be sniffed at, yet you live like a monk. och! i can't stand these fellows who are old at twenty-eight! i'm nearly ten years older than you are, and yet which of us is the younger? ariadne grigoryevna, which?" "you, of course," ariadne answered him. and when he was bored with our silence and the attention with which we stared at our floats he went home, and she said, looking at me angrily: "you're really not a man, but a mush, god forgive me! a man ought to be able to be carried away by his feelings, he ought to be able to be mad, to make mistakes, to suffer! a woman will forgive you audacity and insolence, but she will never forgive your reasonableness!" she was angry in earnest, and went on: "to succeed, a man must be resolute and bold. lubkov is not so handsome as you are, but he is more interesting. he will always succeed with women because he's not like you; he's a man. . . ." and there was actually a note of exasperation in her voice. one day at supper she began saying, not addressing me, that if she were a man she would not stagnate in the country, but would travel, would spend the winter somewhere aboard--in italy, for instance. oh, italy! at this point my father unconsciously poured oil on the flames; he began telling us at length about italy, how splendid it was there, the exquisite scenery, the museums. ariadne suddenly conceived a burning desire to go to italy. she positively brought her fist down on the table and her eyes flashed as she said: "i must go!" after that came conversations every day about italy: how splendid it would be in italy--ah, italy!--oh, italy! and when ariadne looked at me over her shoulder, from her cold and obstinate expression i saw that in her dreams she had already conquered italy with all its salons, celebrated foreigners and tourists, and there was no holding her back now. i advised her to wait a little, to put off her tour for a year or two, but she frowned disdainfully and said: "you're as prudent as an old woman!" lubkov was in favour of the tour. he said it could be done very cheaply, and he, too, would go to italy and have a rest there from family life. i behaved, i confess, as naïvely as a schoolboy. not from jealousy, but from a foreboding of something terrible and extraordinary, i tried as far as possible not to leave them alone together, and they made fun of me. for instance, when i went in they would pretend they had just been kissing one another, and so on. but lo and behold, one fine morning, her plump, white-skinned brother, the spiritualist, made his appearance and expressed his desire to speak to me alone. he was a man without will; in spite of his education and his delicacy he could never resist reading another person's letter, if it lay before him on the table. and now he admitted that he had by chance read a letter of lubkov's to ariadne. "from that letter i learned that she is very shortly going abroad. my dear fellow, i am very much upset! explain it to me for goodness' sake. i can make nothing of it!" as he said this he breathed hard, breathing straight in my face and smelling of boiled beef. "excuse me for revealing the secret of this letter to you, but you are ariadne's friend, she respects you. perhaps you know something of it. she wants to go away, but with whom? mr. lubkov is proposing to go with her. excuse me, but this is very strange of mr. lubkov; he is a married man, he has children, and yet he is making a declaration of love; he is writing to ariadne 'darling.' excuse me, but it is so strange!" i turned cold all over; my hands and feet went numb and i felt an ache in my chest, as if a three-cornered stone had been driven into it. kotlovitch sank helplessly into an easy-chair, and his hands fell limply at his sides. "what can i do?" i inquired. "persuade her. . . . impress her mind. . . . just consider, what is lubkov to her? is he a match for her? oh, good god! how awful it is, how awful it is!" he went on, clutching his head. "she has had such splendid offers--prince maktuev and . . . and others. the prince adores her, and only last wednesday week his late grandfather, ilarion, declared positively that ariadne would be his wife--positively! his grandfather ilarion is dead, but he is a wonderfully intelligent person; we call up his spirit every day." after this conversation i lay awake all night and thought of shooting myself. in the morning i wrote five letters and tore them all up. then i sobbed in the barn. then i took a sum of money from my father and set off for the caucasus without saying good-bye. of course, a woman's a woman and a man's a man, but can all that be as simple in our day as it was before the flood, and can it be that i, a cultivated man endowed with a complex spiritual organisation, ought to explain the intense attraction i feel towards a woman simply by the fact that her bodily formation is different from mine? oh, how awful that would be! i want to believe that in his struggle with nature the genius of man has struggled with physical love too, as with an enemy, and that, if he has not conquered it, he has at least succeeded in tangling it in a net-work of illusions of brotherhood and love; and for me, at any rate, it is no longer a simple instinct of my animal nature as with a dog or a toad, but is real love, and every embrace is spiritualised by a pure impulse of the heart and respect for the woman. in reality, a disgust for the animal instinct has been trained for ages in hundreds of generations; it is inherited by me in my blood and forms part of my nature, and if i poetize love, is not that as natural and inevitable in our day as my ears' not being able to move and my not being covered with fur? i fancy that's how the majority of civilised people look at it, so that the absence of the moral, poetical element in love is treated in these days as a phenomenon, as a sign of atavism; they say it is a symptom of degeneracy, of many forms of insanity. it is true that, in poetizing love, we assume in those we love qualities that are lacking in them, and that is a source of continual mistakes and continual miseries for us. but to my thinking it is better, even so; that is, it is better to suffer than to find complacency on the basis of woman being woman and man being man. in tiflis i received a letter from my father. he wrote that ariadne grigoryevna had on such a day gone abroad, intending to spend the whole winter away. a month later i returned home. it was by now autumn. every week ariadne sent my father extremely interesting letters on scented paper, written in an excellent literary style. it is my opinion that every woman can be a writer. ariadne described in great detail how it had not been easy for her to make it up with her aunt and induce the latter to give her a thousand roubles for the journey, and what a long time she had spent in moscow trying to find an old lady, a distant relation, in order to persuade her to go with her. such a profusion of detail suggested fiction, and i realised, of course, that she had no chaperon with her. soon afterwards i, too, had a letter from her, also scented and literary. she wrote that she had missed me, missed my beautiful, intelligent, loving eyes. she reproached me affectionately for wasting my youth, for stagnating in the country when i might, like her, be living in paradise under the palms, breathing the fragrance of the orange-trees. and she signed herself "your forsaken ariadne." two days later came another letter in the same style, signed "your forgotten ariadne." my mind was confused. i loved her passionately, i dreamed of her every night, and then this "your forsaken," "your forgotten"--what did it mean? what was it for? and then the dreariness of the country, the long evenings, the disquieting thoughts of lubkov. . . . the uncertainty tortured me, and poisoned my days and nights; it became unendurable. i could not bear it and went abroad. ariadne summoned me to abbazzia. i arrived there on a bright warm day after rain; the rain-drops were still hanging on the trees and glistening on the huge, barrack-like dépendance where ariadne and lubkov were living. they were not at home. i went into the park; wandered about the avenues, then sat down. an austrian general, with his hands behind him, walked past me, with red stripes on his trousers such as our generals wear. a baby was wheeled by in a perambulator and the wheels squeaked on the damp sand. a decrepit old man with jaundice passed, then a crowd of englishwomen, a catholic priest, then the austrian general again. a military band, only just arrived from fiume, with glittering brass instruments, sauntered by to the bandstand--they began playing. have you ever been at abbazzia? it's a filthy little slav town with only one street, which stinks, and in which one can't walk after rain without goloshes. i had read so much and always with such intense feeling about this earthly paradise that when afterwards, holding up my trousers, i cautiously crossed the narrow street, and in my ennui bought some hard pears from an old peasant woman who, recognising me as a russian, said: "tcheeteery" for "tchetyry" (four)--"davadtsat" for "dvadtsat" (twenty), and when i wondered in perplexity where to go and what to do here, and when i inevitably met russians as disappointed as i was, i began to feel vexed and ashamed. there is a calm bay there full of steamers and boats with coloured sails. from there i could see fiume and the distant islands covered with lilac mist, and it would have been picturesque if the view over the bay had not been hemmed in by the hotels and their dépendances--buildings in an absurd, trivial style of architecture, with which the whole of that green shore has been covered by greedy money grubbers, so that for the most part you see nothing in this little paradise but windows, terraces, and little squares with tables and waiters' black coats. there is a park such as you find now in every watering-place abroad. and the dark, motionless, silent foliage of the palms, and the bright yellow sand in the avenue, and the bright green seats, and the glitter of the braying military horns--all this sickened me in ten minutes! and yet one is obliged for some reason to spend ten days, ten weeks, there! having been dragged reluctantly from one of these watering-places to another, i have been more and more struck by the inconvenient and niggardly life led by the wealthy and well-fed, the dulness and feebleness of their imagination, the lack of boldness in their tastes and desires. and how much happier are those tourists, old and young, who, not having the money to stay in hotels, live where they can, admire the view of the sea from the tops of the mountains, lying on the green grass, walk instead of riding, see the forests and villages at close quarters, observe the customs of the country, listen to its songs, fall in love with its women. . . . while i was sitting in the park, it began to get dark, and in the twilight my ariadne appeared, elegant and dressed like a princess; after her walked lubkov, wearing a new loose-fitting suit, bought probably in vienna. "why are you cross with me?" he was saying. "what have i done to you?" seeing me, she uttered a cry of joy, and probably, if we had not been in the park, would have thrown herself on my neck. she pressed my hands warmly and laughed; and i laughed too and almost cried with emotion. questions followed, of the village, of my father, whether i had seen her brother, and so on. she insisted on my looking her straight in the face, and asked if i remembered the gudgeon, our little quarrels, the picnics. . . . "how nice it all was really!" she sighed. "but we're not having a slow time here either. we have a great many acquaintances, my dear, my best of friends! to-morrow i will introduce you to a russian family here, but please buy yourself another hat." she scrutinised me and frowned. "abbazzia is not the country," she said; "here one must be _comme il faut_." then we went to the restaurant. ariadne was laughing and mischievous all the time; she kept calling me "dear," "good," "clever," and seemed as though she could not believe her eyes that i was with her. we sat on till eleven o'clock, and parted very well satisfied both with the supper and with each other. next day ariadne presented me to the russian family as: "the son of a distinguished professor whose estate is next to ours." she talked to this family about nothing but estates and crops, and kept appealing to me. she wanted to appear to be a very wealthy landowner, and did, in fact, succeed in doing so. her manner was superb like that of a real aristocrat, which indeed she was by birth. "but what a person my aunt is!" she said suddenly, looking at me with a smile. "we had a slight tiff, and she has bolted off to meran. what do you say to that?" afterwards when we were walking in the park i asked her: "what aunt were you talking of just now? what aunt is that?" "that was a saving lie," laughed ariadne. "they must not know i'm without a chaperon." after a moment's silence she came closer to me and said: "my dear, my dear, do be friends with lubkov. he is so unhappy! his wife and mother are simply awful." she used the formal mode of address in speaking to lubkov, and when she was going up to bed she said good-night to him exactly as she did to me, and their rooms were on different floors. all this made me hope that it was all nonsense, and that there was no sort of love affair between them, and i felt at ease when i met him. and when one day he asked me for the loan of three hundred roubles, i gave it to him with the greatest pleasure. every day we spent in enjoying ourselves and in nothing but enjoying ourselves; we strolled in the park, we ate, we drank. every day there were conversations with the russian family. by degrees i got used to the fact that if i went into the park i should be sure to meet the old man with jaundice, the catholic priest, and the austrian general, who always carried a pack of little cards, and wherever it was possible sat down and played patience, nervously twitching his shoulders. and the band played the same thing over and over again. at home in the country i used to feel ashamed to meet the peasants when i was fishing or on a picnic party on a working day; here too i was ashamed at the sight of the footmen, the coachmen, and the workmen who met us. it always seemed to me they were looking at me and thinking: "why are you doing nothing?" and i was conscious of this feeling of shame every day from morning to night. it was a strange, unpleasant, monotonous time; it was only varied by lubkov's borrowing from me now a hundred, now fifty guldens, and being suddenly revived by the money as a morphia-maniac is by morphia, beginning to laugh loudly at his wife, at himself, at his creditors. at last it began to be rainy and cold. we went to italy, and i telegraphed to my father begging him for mercy's sake to send me eight hundred roubles to rome. we stayed in venice, in bologna, in florence, and in every town invariably put up at an expensive hotel, where we were charged separately for lights, and for service, and for heating, and for bread at lunch, and for the right of having dinner by ourselves. we ate enormously. in the morning they gave us _café complet_; at one o'clock lunch: meat, fish, some sort of omelette, cheese, fruits, and wine. at six o'clock dinner of eight courses with long intervals, during which we drank beer and wine. at nine o'clock tea. at midnight ariadne would declare she was hungry, and ask for ham and boiled eggs. we would eat to keep her company. in the intervals between meals we used to rush about the museums and exhibitions in continual anxiety for fear we should be late for dinner or lunch. i was bored at the sight of the pictures; i longed to be at home to rest; i was exhausted, looked about for a chair and hypocritically repeated after other people: "how exquisite, what atmosphere!" like overfed boa constrictors, we noticed only the most glaring objects. the shop windows hypnotised us; we went into ecstasies over imitation brooches and bought a mass of useless trumpery. the same thing happened in rome, where it rained and there was a cold wind. after a heavy lunch we went to look at st. peter's, and thanks to our replete condition and perhaps the bad weather, it made no sort of impression on us, and detecting in each other an indifference to art, we almost quarrelled. the money came from my father. i went to get it, i remember, in the morning. lubkov went with me. "the present cannot be full and happy when one has a past," said he. "i have heavy burdens left on me by the past. however, if only i get the money, it's no great matter, but if not, i'm in a fix. would you believe it, i have only eight francs left, yet i must send my wife a hundred and my mother another. and we must live here too. ariadne's like a child; she won't enter into the position, and flings away money like a duchess. why did she buy a watch yesterday? and, tell me, what object is there in our going on playing at being good children? why, our hiding our relations from the servants and our friends costs us from ten to fifteen francs a day, as i have to have a separate room. what's the object of it?" i felt as though a sharp stone had been turned round in my chest. there was no uncertainty now; it was all clear to me. i turned cold all over, and at once made a resolution to give up seeing them, to run away from them, to go home at once. . . . "to get on terms with a woman is easy enough," lubkov went on. "you have only to undress her; but afterwards what a bore it is, what a silly business!" when i counted over the money i received he said: "if you don't lend me a thousand francs, i am faced with complete ruin. your money is the only resource left to me." i gave him the money, and he at once revived and began laughing about his uncle, a queer fish, who could never keep his address secret from his wife. when i reached the hotel i packed and paid my bill. i had still to say good-bye to ariadne. i knocked at the door. "entrez!" in her room was the usual morning disorder: tea-things on the table, an unfinished roll, an eggshell; a strong overpowering reek of scent. the bed had not been made, and it was evident that two had slept in it. ariadne herself had only just got out of bed and was now with her hair down in a flannel dressing-jacket. i said good-morning to her, and then sat in silence for a minute while she tried to put her hair tidy, and then i asked her, trembling all over: "why . . . why . . . did you send for me here?" evidently she guessed what i was thinking; she took me by the hand and said: "i want you to be here, you are so pure." i felt ashamed of my emotion, of my trembling. and i was afraid i might begin sobbing, too! i went out without saying another word, and within an hour i was sitting in the train. all the journey, for some reason, i imagined ariadne with child, and she seemed disgusting to me, and all the women i saw in the trains and at the stations looked to me, for some reason, as if they too were with child, and they too seemed disgusting and pitiable. i was in the position of a greedy, passionate miser who should suddenly discover that all his gold coins were false. the pure, gracious images which my imagination, warmed by love, had cherished for so long, my plans, my hopes, my memories, my ideas of love and of woman--all now were jeering and putting out their tongues at me. "ariadne," i kept asking with horror, "that young, intellectual, extraordinarily beautiful girl, the daughter of a senator, carrying on an intrigue with such an ordinary, uninteresting vulgarian? but why should she not love lubkov?" i answered myself. "in what is he inferior to me? oh, let her love any one she likes, but why lie to me? but why is she bound to be open with me?" and so i went on over and over again till i was stupefied. it was cold in the train; i was travelling first class, but even so there were three on a side, there were no double windows, the outer door opened straight into the compartment, and i felt as though i were in the stocks, cramped, abandoned, pitiful, and my legs were fearfully numb, and at the same time i kept recalling how fascinating she had been that morning in her dressing-jacket and with her hair down, and i was suddenly overcome by such acute jealousy that i leapt up in anguish, so that my neighbours stared at me in wonder and positive alarm. at home i found deep snow and twenty degrees of frost. i'm fond of the winter; i'm fond of it because at that time, even in the hardest frosts, it's particularly snug at home. it's pleasant to put on one's fur jacket and felt overboots on a clear frosty day, to do something in the garden or in the yard, or to read in a well warmed room, to sit in my father's study before the open fire, to wash in my country bath-house. . . . only if there is no mother in the house, no sister and no children, it is somehow dreary on winter evenings, and they seem extraordinarily long and quiet. and the warmer and snugger it is, the more acutely is this lack felt. in the winter when i came back from abroad, the evenings were endlessly long, i was intensely depressed, so depressed that i could not even read; in the daytime i was coming and going, clearing away the snow in the garden or feeding the chickens and the calves, but in the evening it was all up with me. i had never cared for visitors before, but now i was glad of them, for i knew there was sure to be talk of ariadne. kotlovitch, the spiritualist, used often to come to talk about his sister, and sometimes he brought with him his friend prince maktuev, who was as much in love with ariadne as i was. to sit in ariadne's room, to finger the keys of her piano, to look at her music was a necessity for the prince--he could not live without it; and the spirit of his grandfather ilarion was still predicting that sooner or later she would be his wife. the prince usually stayed a long time with us, from lunch to midnight, saying nothing all the time; in silence he would drink two or three bottles of beer, and from time to time, to show that he too was taking part in the conversation, he would laugh an abrupt, melancholy, foolish laugh. before going home he would always take me aside and ask me in an undertone: "when did you see ariadne grigoryevna last? was she quite well? i suppose she's not tired of being out there?" spring came on. there was the harrowing to do and then the sowing of spring corn and clover. i was sad, but there was the feeling of spring. one longed to accept the inevitable. working in the fields and listening to the larks, i asked myself: "couldn't i have done with this question of personal happiness once and for all? couldn't i lay aside my fancy and marry a simple peasant girl?" suddenly when we were at our very busiest, i got a letter with the italian stamp, and the clover and the beehives and the calves and the peasant girl all floated away like smoke. this time ariadne wrote that she was profoundly, infinitely unhappy. she reproached me for not holding out a helping hand to her, for looking down upon her from the heights of my virtue and deserting her at the moment of danger. all this was written in a large, nervous handwriting with blots and smudges, and it was evident that she wrote in haste and distress. in conclusion she besought me to come and save her. again my anchor was hauled up and i was carried away. ariadne was in rome. i arrived late in the evening, and when she saw me, she sobbed and threw herself on my neck. she had not changed at all that winter, and was just as young and charming. we had supper together and afterwards drove about rome until dawn, and all the time she kept telling me about her doings. i asked where lubkov was. "don't remind me of that creature!" she cried. "he is loathsome and disgusting to me!" "but i thought you loved him," i said. "never," she said. "at first he struck me as original and aroused my pity, that was all. he is insolent and takes a woman by storm. and that's attractive. but we won't talk about him. that is a melancholy page in my life. he has gone to russia to get money. serve him right! i told him not to dare to come back." she was living then, not at an hotel, but in a private lodging of two rooms which she had decorated in her own taste, frigidly and luxuriously. after lubkov had gone away she had borrowed from her acquaintances about five thousand francs, and my arrival certainly was the one salvation for her. i had reckoned on taking her back to the country, but i did not succeed in that. she was homesick for her native place, but her recollections of the poverty she had been through there, of privations, of the rusty roof on her brother's house, roused a shudder of disgust, and when i suggested going home to her, she squeezed my hands convulsively and said: "no, no, i shall die of boredom there!" then my love entered upon its final phase. "be the darling that you used to be; love me a little," said ariadne, bending over to me. "you're sulky and prudent, you're afraid to yield to impulse, and keep thinking of consequences, and that's dull. come, i beg you, i beseech you, be nice to me! . . . my pure one, my holy one, my dear one, i love you so!" i became her lover. for a month anyway i was like a madman, conscious of nothing but rapture. to hold in one's arms a young and lovely body, with bliss to feel her warmth every time one waked up from sleep, and to remember that she was there--she, my ariadne!-- oh, it was not easy to get used to that! but yet i did get used to it, and by degrees became capable of reflecting on my new position. first of all, i realised, as before, that ariadne did not love me. but she wanted to be really in love, she was afraid of solitude, and, above all, i was healthy, young, vigorous; she was sensual, like all cold people, as a rule--and we both made a show of being united by a passionate, mutual love. afterwards i realised something else, too. we stayed in rome, in naples, in florence; we went to paris, but there we thought it cold and went back to italy. we introduced ourselves everywhere as husband and wife, wealthy landowners. people readily made our acquaintance and ariadne had great social success everywhere. as she took lessons in painting, she was called an artist, and only imagine, that quite suited her, though she had not the slightest trace of talent. she would sleep every day till two or three o'clock; she had her coffee and lunch in bed. at dinner she would eat soup, lobster, fish, meat, asparagus, game, and after she had gone to bed i used to bring up something, for instance roast beef, and she would eat it with a melancholy, careworn expression, and if she waked in the night she would eat apples and oranges. the chief, so to say fundamental, characteristic of the woman was an amazing duplicity. she was continually deceitful every minute, apparently apart from any necessity, as it were by instinct, by an impulse such as makes the sparrow chirrup and the cockroach waggle its antennæ. she was deceitful with me, with the footman, with the porter, with the tradesmen in the shops, with her acquaintances; not one conversation, not one meeting, took place without affectation and pretence. a man had only to come into our room--whoever it might be, a waiter, or a baron--for her eyes, her expression, her voice to change, even the contour of her figure was transformed. at the very first glance at her then, you would have said there were no more wealthy and fashionable people in italy than we. she never met an artist or a musician without telling him all sorts of lies about his remarkable talent. "you have such a talent!" she would say, in honeyed cadences, "i'm really afraid of you. i think you must see right through people." and all this simply in order to please, to be successful, to be fascinating! she waked up every morning with the one thought of "pleasing"! it was the aim and object of her life. if i had told her that in such a house, in such a street, there lived a man who was not attracted by her, it would have caused her real suffering. she wanted every day to enchant, to captivate, to drive men crazy. the fact that i was in her power and reduced to a complete nonentity before her charms gave her the same sort of satisfaction that visitors used to feel in tournaments. my subjection was not enough, and at nights, stretched out like a tigress, uncovered--she was always too hot--she would read the letters sent her by lubkov; he besought her to return to russia, vowing if she did not he would rob or murder some one to get the money to come to her. she hated him, but his passionate, slavish letters excited her. she had an extraordinary opinion of her own charms; she imagined that if somewhere, in some great assembly, men could have seen how beautifully she was made and the colour of her skin, she would have vanquished all italy, the whole world. her talk of her figure, of her skin, offended me, and observing this, she would, when she was angry, to vex me, say all sorts of vulgar things, taunting me. one day when we were at the summer villa of a lady of our acquaintance, and she lost her temper, she even went so far as to say: "if you don't leave off boring me with your sermons, i'll undress this minute and lie naked here on these flowers." often looking at her asleep, or eating, or trying to assume a naïve expression, i wondered why that extraordinary beauty, grace, and intelligence had been given her by god. could it simply be for lolling in bed, eating and lying, lying endlessly? and was she intelligent really? she was afraid of three candles in a row, of the number thirteen, was terrified of spells and bad dreams. she argued about free love and freedom in general like a bigoted old woman, declared that boleslav markevitch was a better writer than turgenev. but she was diabolically cunning and sharp, and knew how to seem a highly educated, advanced person in company. even at a good-humoured moment, she could always insult a servant or kill an insect without a pang; she liked bull-fights, liked to read about murders, and was angry when prisoners were acquitted. for the life ariadne and i were leading, we had to have a great deal of money. my poor father sent me his pension, all the little sums he received, borrowed for me wherever he could, and when one day he answered me: "non habeo," i sent him a desperate telegram in which i besought him to mortgage the estate. a little later i begged him to get money somehow on a second mortgage. he did this too without a murmur and sent me every farthing. ariadne despised the practical side of life; all this was no concern of hers, and when flinging away thousands of francs to satisfy her mad desires i groaned like an old tree, she would be singing "addio bella napoli" with a light heart. little by little i grew cold to her and began to be ashamed of our tie. i am not fond of pregnancy and confinements, but now i sometimes dreamed of a child who would have been at least a formal justification of our life. that i might not be completely disgusted with myself, i began reading and visiting museums and galleries, gave up drinking and took to eating very little. if one keeps oneself well in hand from morning to night, one's heart seems lighter. i began to bore ariadne too. the people with whom she won her triumphs were, by the way, all of the middling sort; as before, there were no ambassadors, there was no salon, the money did not run to it, and this mortified her and made her sob, and she announced to me at last that perhaps she would not be against our returning to russia. and here we are on our way. for the last few months she has been zealously corresponding with her brother; she evidently has some secret projects, but what they are--god knows! i am sick of trying to fathom her underhand schemes! but we're going, not to the country, but to yalta and afterwards to the caucasus. she can only exist now at watering-places, and if you knew how i hate all these watering-places, how suffocated and ashamed i am in them. if i could be in the country now! if i could only be working now, earning my bread by the sweat of my brow, atoning for my follies. i am conscious of a superabundance of energy and i believe that if i were to put that energy to work i could redeem my estate in five years. but now, as you see, there is a complication. here we're not abroad, but in mother russia; we shall have to think of lawful wedlock. of course, all attraction is over; there is no trace left of my old love, but, however that may be, i am bound in honour to marry her. ---- shamohin, excited by his story, went below with me and we continued talking about women. it was late. it appeared that he and i were in the same cabin. "so far it is only in the village that woman has not fallen behind man," said shamohin. "there she thinks and feels just as man does, and struggles with nature in the name of culture as zealously as he. in the towns the woman of the bourgeois or intellectual class has long since fallen behind, and is returning to her primitive condition. she is half a human beast already, and, thanks to her, a great deal of what had been won by human genius has been lost again; the woman gradually disappears and in her place is the primitive female. this dropping-back on the part of the educated woman is a real danger to culture; in her retrogressive movement she tries to drag man after her and prevents him from moving forward. that is incontestable." i asked: "why generalise? why judge of all women from ariadne alone? the very struggle of women for education and sexual equality, which i look upon as a struggle for justice, precludes any hypothesis of a retrograde movement." but shamohin scarcely listened to me and he smiled distrustfully. he was a passionate, convinced misogynist, and it was impossible to alter his convictions. "oh, nonsense!" he interrupted. "when once a woman sees in me, not a man, not an equal, but a male, and her one anxiety all her life is to attract me--that is, to take possession of me--how can one talk of their rights? oh, don't you believe them; they are very, very cunning! we men make a great stir about their emancipation, but they don't care about their emancipation at all, they only pretend to care about it; they are horribly cunning things, horribly cunning!" i began to feel sleepy and weary of discussion. i turned over with my face to the wall. "yes," i heard as i fell asleep--"yes, and it's our education that's at fault, sir. in our towns, the whole education and bringing up of women in its essence tends to develop her into the human beast --that is, to make her attractive to the male and able to vanquish him. yes, indeed"--shamohiri sighed--"little girls ought to be taught and brought up with boys, so that they might be always together. a woman ought to be trained so that she may be able, like a man, to recognise when she's wrong, or she always thinks she's in the right. instil into a little girl from her cradle that a man is not first of all a cavalier or a possible lover, but her neighbour, her equal in everything. train her to think logically, to generalise, and do not assure her that her brain weighs less than a man's and that therefore she can be indifferent to the sciences, to the arts, to the tasks of culture in general. the apprentice to the shoemaker or the house painter has a brain of smaller size than the grown-up man too, yet he works, suffers, takes his part in the general struggle for existence. we must give up our attitude to the physiological aspect, too--to pregnancy and childbirth, seeing that in the first place women don't have babies every month; secondly, not all women have babies; and, thirdly, a normal countrywoman works in the fields up to the day of her confinement and it does her no harm. then there ought to be absolute equality in everyday life. if a man gives a lady his chair or picks up the handkerchief she has dropped, let her repay him in the same way. i have no objection if a girl of good family helps me to put on my coat or hands me a glass of water--" i heard no more, for i fell asleep. next morning when we were approaching sevastopol, it was damp, unpleasant weather; the ship rocked. shamohin sat on deck with me, brooding and silent. when the bell rang for tea, men with their coat-collars turned up and ladies with pale, sleepy faces began going below; a young and very beautiful lady, the one who had been so angry with the customs officers at volotchisk, stopped before shamohin and said with the expression of a naughty, fretful child: "jean, your birdie's been sea-sick." afterwards when i was at yalta i saw the same beautiful lady dashing about on horseback with a couple of officers hardly able to keep up with her. and one morning i saw her in an overall and a phrygian cap, sketching on the sea-front with a great crowd admiring her a little way off. i too was introduced to her. she pressed my hand with great warmth, and looking at me ecstatically, thanked me in honeyed cadences for the pleasure i had given her by my writings. "don't you believe her," shamohin whispered to me, "she has never read a word of them." when i was walking on the sea-front in the early evening shamohin met me with his arms full of big parcels of fruits and dainties. "prince maktuev is here!" he said joyfully. "he came yesterday with her brother, the spiritualist! now i understand what she was writing to him about! oh, lord!" he went on, gazing up to heaven, and pressing his parcels to his bosom. "if she hits it off with the prince, it means freedom, then i can go back to the country with my father!" and he ran on. "i begin to believe in spirits," he called to me, looking back. "the spirit of grandfather ilarion seems to have prophesied the truth! oh, if only it is so!" ---- the day after this meeting i left yalta and how shamohin's story ended i don't know. polinka it is one o'clock in the afternoon. shopping is at its height at the "nouveauté's de paris," a drapery establishment in one of the arcades. there is a monotonous hum of shopmen's voices, the hum one hears at school when the teacher sets the boys to learn something by heart. this regular sound is not interrupted by the laughter of lady customers nor the slam of the glass door, nor the scurrying of the boys. polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop looking about for some one. a dark-browed boy runs up to her and asks, looking at her very gravely: "what is your pleasure, madam?" "nikolay timofeitch always takes my order," answers polinka. nikolay timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at polinka with a smile. "morning, pelagea sergeevna!" he cries in a pleasant, hearty baritone voice. "what can i do for you?" "good-morning!" says polinka, going up to him. "you see, i'm back again. . . . show me some gimp, please." "gimp--for what purpose?" "for a bodice trimming--to trim a whole dress, in fact." "certainly." nickolay timofeitch lays several kinds of gimp before polinka; she looks at the trimmings languidly and begins bargaining over them. "oh, come, a rouble's not dear," says the shopman persuasively, with a condescending smile. "it's a french trimming, pure silk. . . . we have a commoner sort, if you like, heavier. that's forty-five kopecks a yard; of course, it's nothing like the same quality." "i want a bead corselet, too, with gimp buttons," says polinka, bending over the gimp and sighing for some reason. "and have you any bead motifs to match?" "yes." polinka bends still lower over the counter and asks softly: "and why did you leave us so early on thursday, nikolay timofeitch?" "hm! it's queer you noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. "you were so taken up with that fine student that . . . it's queer you noticed it!" polinka flushes crimson and remains mute. with a nervous quiver in his fingers the shopman closes the boxes, and for no sort of object piles them one on the top of another. a moment of silence follows. "i want some bead lace, too," says polinka, lifting her eyes guiltily to the shopman. "what sort? black or coloured? bead lace on tulle is the most fashionable trimming." "and how much is it?" "the black's from eighty kopecks and the coloured from two and a half roubles. i shall never come and see you again," nikolay timofeitch adds in an undertone. "why?" "why? it's very simple. you must understand that yourself. why should i distress myself? it's a queer business! do you suppose it's a pleasure to me to see that student carrying on with you? i see it all and i understand. ever since autumn he's been hanging about you and you go for a walk with him almost every day; and when he is with you, you gaze at him as though he were an angel. you are in love with him; there's no one to beat him in your eyes. well, all right, then, it's no good talking." polinka remains dumb and moves her finger on the counter in embarrassment. "i see it all," the shopman goes on. "what inducement have i to come and see you? i've got some pride. it's not every one likes to play gooseberry. what was it you asked for?" "mamma told me to get a lot of things, but i've forgotten. i want some feather trimming too." "what kind would you like?" "the best, something fashionable." "the most fashionable now are real bird feathers. if you want the most fashionable colour, it's heliotrope or _kanak_--that is, claret with a yellow shade in it. we have an immense choice. and what all this affair is going to lead to, i really don't understand. here you are in love, and how is it to end?" patches of red come into nikolay timofeitch's face round his eyes. he crushes the soft feather trimming in his hand and goes on muttering: "do you imagine he'll marry you--is that it? you'd better drop any such fancies. students are forbidden to marry. and do you suppose he comes to see you with honourable intentions? a likely idea! why, these fine students don't look on us as human beings . . . they only go to see shopkeepers and dressmakers to laugh at their ignorance and to drink. they're ashamed to drink at home and in good houses, but with simple uneducated people like us they don't care what any one thinks; they'd be ready to stand on their heads. yes! well, which feather trimming will you take? and if he hangs about and carries on with you, we know what he is after. . . . when he's a doctor or a lawyer he'll remember you: 'ah,' he'll say, 'i used to have a pretty fair little thing! i wonder where she is now?' even now i bet you he boasts among his friends that he's got his eye on a little dressmaker." polinka sits down and gazes pensively at the pile of white boxes. "no, i won't take the feather trimming," she sighs. "mamma had better choose it for herself; i may get the wrong one. i want six yards of fringe for an overcoat, at forty kopecks the yard. for the same coat i want cocoa-nut buttons, perforated, so they can be sown on firmly. . . ." nikolay timofeitch wraps up the fringe and the buttons. she looks at him guiltily and evidently expects him to go on talking, but he remains sullenly silent while he tidies up the feather trimming. "i mustn't forget some buttons for a dressing-gown . . ." she says after an interval of silence, wiping her pale lips with a handkerchief. "what kind?" "it's for a shopkeeper's wife, so give me something rather striking." "yes, if it's for a shopkeeper's wife, you'd better have something bright. here are some buttons. a combination of colours--red, blue, and the fashionable gold shade. very glaring. the more refined prefer dull black with a bright border. but i don't understand. can't you see for yourself? what can these . . . walks lead to?" "i don't know," whispers polinka, and she bends over the buttons; "i don't know myself what's come to me, nikolay timofeitch." a solid shopman with whiskers forces his way behind nikolay timofeitch's back, squeezing him to the counter, and beaming with the choicest gallantry, shouts: "be so kind, madam, as to step into this department. we have three kinds of jerseys: plain, braided, and trimmed with beads! which may i have the pleasure of showing you?" at the same time a stout lady passes by polinka, pronouncing in a rich, deep voice, almost a bass: "they must be seamless, with the trade mark stamped in them, please." "pretend to be looking at the things," nikolay timofeitch whispers, bending down to polinka with a forced smile. "dear me, you do look pale and ill; you are quite changed. he'll throw you over, pelagea sergeevna! or if he does marry you, it won't be for love but from hunger; he'll be tempted by your money. he'll furnish himself a nice home with your dowry, and then be ashamed of you. he'll keep you out of sight of his friends and visitors, because you're uneducated. he'll call you 'my dummy of a wife.' you wouldn't know how to behave in a doctor's or lawyer's circle. to them you're a dressmaker, an ignorant creature." "nikolay timofeitch!" somebody shouts from the other end of the shop. "the young lady here wants three yards of ribbon with a metal stripe. have we any?" nikolay timofeitch turns in that direction, smirks and shouts: "yes, we have! ribbon with a metal stripe, ottoman with a satin stripe, and satin with a moiré stripe!" "oh, by the way, i mustn't forget, olga asked me to get her a pair of stays!" says polinka. "there are tears in your eyes," says nikolay timofeitch in dismay. "what's that for? come to the corset department, i'll screen you --it looks awkward." with a forced smile and exaggeratedly free and easy manner, the shopman rapidly conducts polinka to the corset department and conceals her from the public eye behind a high pyramid of boxes. "what sort of corset may i show you?" he asks aloud, whispering immediately: "wipe your eyes!" "i want . . . i want . . . size forty-eight centimetres. only she wanted one, lined . . . with real whalebone . . . i must talk to you, nikolay timofeitch. come to-day!" "talk? what about? there's nothing to talk about." "you are the only person who . . . cares about me, and i've no one to talk to but you." "these are not reed or steel, but real whalebone. . . . what is there for us to talk about? it's no use talking. . . . you are going for a walk with him to-day, i suppose?" "yes; i . . . i am." "then what's the use of talking? talk won't help. . . . you are in love, aren't you?" "yes . . ." polinka whispers hesitatingly, and big tears gush from her eyes. "what is there to say?" mutters nikolay timofeitch, shrugging his shoulders nervously and turning pale. "there's no need of talk. . . . wipe your eyes, that's all. i . . . i ask for nothing." at that moment a tall, lanky shopman comes up to the pyramid of boxes, and says to his customer: "let me show you some good elastic garters that do not impede the circulation, certified by medical authority . . ." nikolay timofeitch screens polinka, and, trying to conceal her emotion and his own, wrinkles his face into a smile and says aloud: "there are two kinds of lace, madam: cotton and silk! oriental, english, valenciennes, crochet, torchon, are cotton. and rococo, soutache, cambray, are silk. . . . for god's sake, wipe your eyes! they're coming this way!" and seeing that her tears are still gushing he goes on louder than ever: "spanish, rococo, soutache, cambray . . . stockings, thread, cotton, silk . . ." anyuta in the cheapest room of a big block of furnished apartments stepan klotchkov, a medical student in his third year, was walking to and fro, zealously conning his anatomy. his mouth was dry and his forehead perspiring from the unceasing effort to learn it by heart. in the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat on a stool the girl who shared his room--anyuta, a thin little brunette of five-and-twenty, very pale with mild grey eyes. sitting with bent back she was busy embroidering with red thread the collar of a man's shirt. she was working against time. . . . the clock in the passage struck two drowsily, yet the little room had not been put to rights for the morning. crumpled bed-clothes, pillows thrown about, books, clothes, a big filthy slop-pail filled with soap-suds in which cigarette ends were swimming, and the litter on the floor--all seemed as though purposely jumbled together in one confusion. . . . "the right lung consists of three parts . . ." klotchkov repeated. "boundaries! upper part on anterior wall of thorax reaches the fourth or fifth rib, on the lateral surface, the fourth rib . . . behind to the _spina scapulæ_. . ." klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise what he had just read. unable to form a clear picture of it, he began feeling his upper ribs through his waistcoat. "these ribs are like the keys of a piano," he said. "one must familiarise oneself with them somehow, if one is not to get muddled over them. one must study them in the skeleton and the living body . . . . i say, anyuta, let me pick them out." anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened herself up. klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began counting her ribs. "h'm! . . . one can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade . . . . this must be the second rib. . . . yes . . . this is the third . . . this is the fourth. . . . h'm! . . . yes. . . . why are you wriggling?" "your fingers are cold!" "come, come . . . it won't kill you. don't twist about. that must be the third rib, then . . . this is the fourth. . . . you look such a skinny thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. that's the second . . . that's the third. . . . oh, this is muddling, and one can't see it clearly. . . . i must draw it. . . . where's my crayon?" klotchkov took his crayon and drew on anyuta's chest several parallel lines corresponding with the ribs. "first-rate. that's all straightforward. . . . well, now i can sound you. stand up!" anyuta stood up and raised her chin. klotchkov began sounding her, and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how anyuta's lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. anyuta shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam. "now it's all clear," said klotchkov when he had finished. "you sit like that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile i'll learn up a little more." and the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself. anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she had been tattooed, sat thinking, huddled up and shivering with cold. she said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and thinking. . . . in the six or seven years of her wanderings from one furnished room to another, she had known five students like klotchkov. now they had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. one of them was living in paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. klotchkov was the sixth. . . . soon he, too, would finish his studies and go out into the world. there was a fine future before him, no doubt, and klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present was anything but bright; klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and there were only four lumps of sugar left. she must make haste and finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco. "can i come in?" asked a voice at the door. anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. fetisov, the artist, walked in. "i have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing klotchkov, and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung over his brow. "do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a couple of hours! i'm painting a picture, you see, and i can't get on without a model." "oh, with pleasure," klotchkov agreed. "go along, anyuta." "the things i've had to put up with there," anyuta murmured softly. "rubbish! the man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any sort of nonsense. why not help him if you can?" anyuta began dressing. "and what are you painting?" asked klotchkov. "psyche; it's a fine subject. but it won't go, somehow. i have to keep painting from different models. yesterday i was painting one with blue legs. 'why are your legs blue?' i asked her. 'it's my stockings stain them,' she said. and you're still grinding! lucky fellow! you have patience." "medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding." "h'm! . . . excuse me, klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! it's awful the way you live!" "how do you mean? i can't help it. . . . i only get twelve roubles a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that." "yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . an educated man is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he? and goodness knows what it's like here! the bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's porridge in the plates. . . tfoo!" "that's true," said the student in confusion; "but anyuta has had no time to-day to tidy up; she's been busy all the while." when anyuta and the artist had gone out klotchkov lay down on the sofa and began learning, lying down; then he accidentally dropped asleep, and waking up an hour later, propped his head on his fists and sank into gloomy reflection. he recalled the artist's words that an educated man was in duty bound to have taste, and his surroundings actually struck him now as loathsome and revolting. he saw, as it were in his mind's eye, his own future, when he would see his patients in his consulting-room, drink tea in a large dining-room in the company of his wife, a real lady. and now that slop-pail in which the cigarette ends were swimming looked incredibly disgusting. anyuta, too, rose before his imagination--a plain, slovenly, pitiful figure . . . and he made up his mind to part with her at once, at all costs. when, on coming back from the artist's, she took off her coat, he got up and said to her seriously: "look here, my good girl . . . sit down and listen. we must part! the fact is, i don't want to live with you any longer." anyuta had come back from the artist's worn out and exhausted. standing so long as a model had made her face look thin and sunken, and her chin sharper than ever. she said nothing in answer to the student's words, only her lips began to tremble. "you know we should have to part sooner or later, anyway," said the student. "you're a nice, good girl, and not a fool; you'll understand. . . ." anyuta put on her coat again, in silence wrapped up her embroidery in paper, gathered together her needles and thread: she found the screw of paper with the four lumps of sugar in the window, and laid it on the table by the books. "that's . . . your sugar . . ." she said softly, and turned away to conceal her tears. "why are you crying?" asked klotchkov. he walked about the room in confusion, and said: "you are a strange girl, really. . . . why, you know we shall have to part. we can't stay together for ever." she had gathered together all her belongings, and turned to say good-bye to him, and he felt sorry for her. "shall i let her stay on here another week?" he thought. "she really may as well stay, and i'll tell her to go in a week;" and vexed at his own weakness, he shouted to her roughly: "come, why are you standing there? if you are going, go; and if you don't want to, take off your coat and stay! you can stay!" anyuta took off her coat, silently, stealthily, then blew her nose also stealthily, sighed, and noiselessly returned to her invariable position on her stool by the window. the student drew his textbook to him and began again pacing from corner to corner. "the right lung consists of three parts," he repeated; "the upper part, on anterior wall of thorax, reaches the fourth or fifth rib . . . ." in the passage some one shouted at the top of his voice: "grigory! the samovar!" the two volodyas "let me; i want to drive myself! i'll sit by the driver!" sofya lvovna said in a loud voice. "wait a minute, driver; i'll get up on the box beside you." she stood up in the sledge, and her husband, vladimir nikititch, and the friend of her childhood, vladimir mihalovitch, held her arms to prevent her falling. the three horses were galloping fast. "i said you ought not to have given her brandy," vladimir nikititch whispered to his companion with vexation. "what a fellow you are, really!" the colonel knew by experience that in women like his wife, sofya lvovna, after a little too much wine, turbulent gaiety was followed by hysterical laughter and then tears. he was afraid that when they got home, instead of being able to sleep, he would have to be administering compresses and drops. "wo!" cried sofya lvovna. "i want to drive myself!" she felt genuinely gay and triumphant. for the last two months, ever since her wedding, she had been tortured by the thought that she had married colonel yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is said, _par dépit_; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. in spite of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. really, the older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the young. it seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. the colonel was two years older than her father, but could there be any importance in that if, honestly speaking, there were infinitely more vitality, go, and freshness in him than in herself, though she was only twenty-three? "oh, my darling!" she thought. "you are wonderful!" she had become convinced in the restaurant, too, that not a spark of her old feeling remained. for the friend of her childhood, vladimir mihalovitch, or simply volodya, with whom only the day before she had been madly, miserably in love, she now felt nothing but complete indifference. all that evening he had seemed to her spiritless, torpid, uninteresting, and insignificant, and the _sangfroid_ with which he habitually avoided paying at restaurants on this occasion revolted her, and she had hardly been able to resist saying, "if you are poor, you should stay at home." the colonel paid for all. perhaps because trees, telegraph posts, and drifts of snow kept flitting past her eyes, all sorts of disconnected ideas came rushing into her mind. she reflected: the bill at the restaurant had been a hundred and twenty roubles, and a hundred had gone to the gipsies, and to-morrow she could fling away a thousand roubles if she liked; and only two months ago, before her wedding, she had not had three roubles of her own, and had to ask her father for every trifle. what a change in her life! her thoughts were in a tangle. she recalled, how, when she was a child of ten, colonel yagitch, now her husband, used to make love to her aunt, and every one in the house said that he had ruined her. and her aunt had, in fact, often come down to dinner with her eyes red from crying, and was always going off somewhere; and people used to say of her that the poor thing could find no peace anywhere. he had been very handsome in those days, and had an extraordinary reputation as a lady-killer. so much so that he was known all over the town, and it was said of him that he paid a round of visits to his adorers every day like a doctor visiting his patients. and even now, in spite of his grey hair, his wrinkles, and his spectacles, his thin face looked handsome, especially in profile. sofya lvovna's father was an army doctor, and had at one time served in the same regiment with colonel yagitch. volodya's father was an army doctor too, and he, too, had once been in the same regiment as her father and colonel yagitch. in spite of many amatory adventures, often very complicated and disturbing, volodya had done splendidly at the university, and had taken a very good degree. now he was specialising in foreign literature, and was said to be writing a thesis. he lived with his father, the army doctor, in the barracks, and had no means of his own, though he was thirty. as children sofya and he had lived under the same roof, though in different flats. he often came to play with her, and they had dancing and french lessons together. but when he grew up into a graceful, remarkably handsome young man, she began to feel shy of him, and then fell madly in love with him, and had loved him right up to the time when she was married to yagitch. he, too, had been renowned for his success with women almost from the age of fourteen, and the ladies who deceived their husbands on his account excused themselves by saying that he was only a boy. some one had told a story of him lately that when he was a student living in lodgings so as to be near the university, it always happened if one knocked at his door, that one heard his footstep, and then a whispered apology: "_pardon, je ne suis pas setul._" yagitch was delighted with him, and blessed him as a worthy successor, as derchavin blessed pushkin; he appeared to be fond of him. they would play billiards or picquet by the hour together without uttering a word, if yagitch drove out on any expedition he always took volodya with him, and yagitch was the only person volodya initiated into the mysteries of his thesis. in earlier days, when yagitch was rather younger, they had often been in the position of rivals, but they had never been jealous of one another. in the circle in which they moved yagitch was nicknamed big volodya, and his friend little volodya. besides big volodya, little volodya, and sofya lvovna, there was a fourth person in the sledge--margarita alexandrovna, or, as every one called her, rita, a cousin of madame yagitch--a very pale girl over thirty, with black eyebrows and a pince-nez, who was for ever smoking cigarettes, even in the bitterest frost, and who always had her knees and the front of her blouse covered with cigarette ash. she spoke through her nose, drawling every word, was of a cold temperament, could drink any amount of wine and liquor without being drunk, and used to tell scandalous anecdotes in a languid and tasteless way. at home she spent her days reading thick magazines, covering them with cigarette ash, or eating frozen apples. "sonia, give over fooling," she said, drawling. "it's really silly." as they drew near the city gates they went more slowly, and began to pass people and houses. sofya lvovna subsided, nestled up to her husband, and gave herself up to her thoughts. little volodya sat opposite. by now her light-hearted and cheerful thoughts were mingled with gloomy ones. she thought that the man sitting opposite knew that she loved him, and no doubt he believed the gossip that she married the colonel _par dépit_. she had never told him of her love; she had not wanted him to know, and had done her best to hide her feeling, but from her face she knew that he understood her perfectly --and her pride suffered. but what was most humiliating in her position was that, since her wedding, volodya had suddenly begun to pay her attention, which he had never done before, spending hours with her, sitting silent or chattering about trifles; and even now in the sledge, though he did not talk to her, he touched her foot with his and pressed her hand a little. evidently that was all he wanted, that she should be married; and it was evident that he despised her and that she only excited in him an interest of a special kind as though she were an immoral and disreputable woman. and when the feeling of triumph and love for her husband were mingled in her soul with humiliation and wounded pride, she was overcome by a spirit of defiance, and longed to sit on the box, to shout and whistle to the horses. just as they passed the nunnery the huge hundred-ton bell rang out. rita crossed herself. "our olga is in that nunnery," said sofya lvovna, and she, too, crossed herself and shuddered. "why did she go into the nunnery?" said the colonel. "_par dépit_," rita answered crossly, with obvious allusion to sofya's marrying yagitch. "_par dépit_ is all the fashion nowadays. defiance of all the world. she was always laughing, a desperate flirt, fond of nothing but balls and young men, and all of a sudden off she went--to surprise every one!" "that's not true," said volodya, turning down the collar of his fur coat and showing his handsome face. "it wasn't a case of _par dépit_; it was simply horrible, if you like. her brother dmitri was sent to penal servitude, and they don't know where he is now. and her mother died of grief." he turned up his collar again. "olga did well," he added in a muffled voice. "living as an adopted child, and with such a paragon as sofya lvovna,--one must take that into consideration too!" sofya lvovna heard a tone of contempt in his voice, and longed to say something rude to him, but she said nothing. the spirit of defiance came over her again; she stood up again and shouted in a tearful voice: "i want to go to the early service! driver, back! i want to see olga." they turned back. the nunnery bell had a deep note, and sofya lvovna fancied there was something in it that reminded her of olga and her life. the other church bells began ringing too. when the driver stopped the horses, sofya lvovna jumped out of the sledge and, unescorted and alone, went quickly up to the gate. "make haste, please!" her husband called to her. "it's late already." she went in at the dark gateway, then by the avenue that led from the gate to the chief church. the snow crunched under her feet, and the ringing was just above her head, and seemed to vibrate through her whole being. here was the church door, then three steps down, and an ante-room with ikons of the saints on both sides, a fragrance of juniper and incense, another door, and a dark figure opening it and bowing very low. the service had not yet begun. one nun was walking by the ikon-screen and lighting the candles on the tall standard candlesticks, another was lighting the chandelier. here and there, by the columns and the side chapels, there stood black, motionless figures. "i suppose they must remain standing as they are now till the morning," thought sofya lvovna, and it seemed to her dark, cold, and dreary--drearier than a graveyard. she looked with a feeling of dreariness at the still, motionless figures and suddenly felt a pang at her heart. for some reason, in one short nun, with thin shoulders and a black kerchief on her head, she recognised olga, though when olga went into the nunnery she had been plump and had looked taller. hesitating and extremely agitated, sofya lvovna went up to the nun, and looking over her shoulder into her face, recognised her as olga. "olga!" she cried, throwing up her hands, and could not speak from emotion. "olga!" the nun knew her at once; she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and her pale, freshly washed face, and even, it seemed, the white headcloth that she wore under her wimple, beamed with pleasure. "what a miracle from god!" she said, and she, too, threw up her thin, pale little hands. sofya lvovna hugged her and kissed her warmly, and was afraid as she did so that she might smell of spirits. "we were just driving past, and we thought of you," she said, breathing hard, as though she had been running. "dear me! how pale you are! i . . . i'm very glad to see you. well, tell me how are you? are you dull?" sofya lvovna looked round at the other nuns, and went on in a subdued voice: "there've been so many changes at home . . . you know, i'm married to colonel yagitch. you remember him, no doubt. . . . i am very happy with him." "well, thank god for that. and is your father quite well?" "yes, he is quite well. he often speaks of you. you must come and see us during the holidays, olga, won't you?" "i will come," said olga, and she smiled. "i'll come on the second day." sofya lvovna began crying, she did not know why, and for a minute she shed tears in silence, then she wiped her eyes and said: "rita will be very sorry not to have seen you. she is with us too. and volodya's here. they are close to the gate. how pleased they'd be if you'd come out and see them. let's go out to them; the service hasn't begun yet." "let us," olga agreed. she crossed herself three times and went out with sofya lvovna to the entrance. "so you say you're happy, sonitchka?" she asked when they came out at the gate. "very." "well, thank god for that." the two volodyas, seeing the nun, got out of the sledge and greeted her respectfully. both were visibly touched by her pale face and her black monastic dress, and both were pleased that she had remembered them and come to greet them. that she might not be cold, sofya lvovna wrapped her up in a rug and put one half of her fur coat round her. her tears had relieved and purified her heart, and she was glad that this noisy, restless, and, in reality, impure night should unexpectedly end so purely and serenely. and to keep olga by her a little longer she suggested: "let us take her for a drive! get in, olga; we'll go a little way." the men expected the nun to refuse--saints don't dash about in three-horse sledges; but to their surprise, she consented and got into the sledge. and while the horses were galloping to the city gate all were silent, and only tried to make her warm and comfortable, and each of them was thinking of what she had been in the past and what she was now. her face was now passionless, inexpressive, cold, pale, and transparent, as though there were water, not blood, in her veins. and two or three years ago she had been plump and rosy, talking about her suitors and laughing at every trifle. near the city gate the sledge turned back; when it stopped ten minutes later near the nunnery, olga got out of the sledge. the bell had begun to ring more rapidly. "the lord save you," said olga, and she bowed low as nuns do. "mind you come, olga." "i will, i will." she went and quickly disappeared through the gateway. and when after that they drove on again, sofya lvovna felt very sad. every one was silent. she felt dispirited and weak all over. that she should have made a nun get into a sledge and drive in a company hardly sober seemed to her now stupid, tactless, and almost sacrilegious. as the intoxication passed off, the desire to deceive herself passed away also. it was clear to her now that she did not love her husband, and never could love him, and that it all had been foolishness and nonsense. she had married him from interested motives, because, in the words of her school friends, he was madly rich, and because she was afraid of becoming an old maid like rita, and because she was sick of her father, the doctor, and wanted to annoy volodya. if she could have imagined when she got married, that it would be so oppressive, so dreadful, and so hideous, she would not have consented to the marriage for all the wealth in the world. but now there was no setting it right. she must make up her mind to it. they reached home. getting into her warm, soft bed, and pulling the bed-clothes over her, sofya lvovna recalled the dark church, the smell of incense, and the figures by the columns, and she felt frightened at the thought that these figures would be standing there all the while she was asleep. the early service would be very, very long; then there would be "the hours," then the mass, then the service of the day. "but of course there is a god--there certainly is a god; and i shall have to die, so that sooner or later one must think of one's soul, of eternal life, like olga. olga is saved now; she has settled all questions for herself. . . . but if there is no god? then her life is wasted. but how is it wasted? why is it wasted?" and a minute later the thought came into her mind again: "there is a god; death must come; one must think of one's soul. if olga were to see death before her this minute she would not be afraid. she is prepared. and the great thing is that she has already solved the problem of life for herself. there is a god . . . yes . . . . but is there no other solution except going into a monastery? to go into the monastery means to renounce life, to spoil it . . . ." sofya lvovna began to feel rather frightened; she hid her head under her pillow. "i mustn't think about it," she whispered. "i mustn't. . . ." yagitch was walking about on the carpet in the next room with a soft jingle of spurs, thinking about something. the thought occurred to sofya lvovna that this man was near and dear to her only for one reason--that his name, too, was vladimir. she sat up in bed and called tenderly: "volodya!" "what is it?" her husband responded. "nothing." she lay down again. she heard a bell, perhaps the same nunnery bell. again she thought of the vestibule and the dark figures, and thoughts of god and of inevitable death strayed through her mind, and she covered her ears that she might not hear the bell. she thought that before old age and death there would be a long, long life before her, and that day by day she would have to put up with being close to a man she did not love, who had just now come into the bedroom and was getting into bed, and would have to stifle in her heart her hopeless love for the other young, fascinating, and, as she thought, exceptional man. she looked at her husband and tried to say good-night to him, but suddenly burst out crying instead. she was vexed with herself. "well, now then for the music!" said yagitch. she was not pacified till ten o'clock in the morning. she left off crying and trembling all over, but she began to have a splitting headache. yagitch was in haste to go to the late mass, and in the next room was grumbling at his orderly, who was helping him to dress. he came into the bedroom once with the soft jingle of his spurs to fetch something, and then a second time wearing his epaulettes, and his orders on his breast, limping slightly from rheumatism; and it struck sofya lvovna that he looked and walked like a bird of prey. she heard yagitch ring the telephone bell. "be so good as to put me on to the vassilevsky barracks," he said; and a minute later: "vassilevsky barracks? please ask doctor salimovitch to come to the telephone . . ." and a minute later: "with whom am i speaking? is it you, volodya? delighted. ask your father to come to us at once, dear boy; my wife is rather shattered after yesterday. not at home, you say? h'm! . . . thank you. very good. i shall be much obliged . . . _merci_." yagitch came into the bedroom for the third time, bent down to his wife, made the sign of the cross over her, gave her his hand to kiss (the women who had been in love with him used to kiss his hand and he had got into the habit of it), and saying that he should be back to dinner, went out. at twelve o'clock the maid came in to announce that vladimir mihalovitch had arrived. sofya lvovna, staggering with fatigue and headache, hurriedly put on her marvellous new lilac dressing-gown trimmed with fur, and hastily did up her hair after a fashion. she was conscious of an inexpressible tenderness in her heart, and was trembling with joy and with fear that he might go away. she wanted nothing but to look at him. volodya came dressed correctly for calling, in a swallow-tail coat and white tie. when sofya lvovna came in he kissed her hand and expressed his genuine regret that she was ill. then when they had sat down, he admired her dressing-gown. "i was upset by seeing olga yesterday," she said. "at first i felt it dreadful, but now i envy her. she is like a rock that cannot be shattered; there is no moving her. but was there no other solution for her, volodya? is burying oneself alive the only solution of the problem of life? why, it's death, not life!" at the thought of olga, volodya's face softened. "here, you are a clever man, volodya," said sofya lvovna. "show me how to do what olga has done. of course, i am not a believer and should not go into a nunnery, but one can do something equivalent. life isn't easy for me," she added after a brief pause. "tell me what to do. . . . tell me something i can believe in. tell me something, if it's only one word." "one word? by all means: tararaboomdeeay." "volodya, why do you despise me?" she asked hotly. "you talk to me in a special, fatuous way, if you'll excuse me, not as one talks to one's friends and women one respects. you are so good at your work, you are fond of science; why do you never talk of it to me? why is it? am i not good enough?" volodya frowned with annoyance and said: "why do you want science all of a sudden? don't you perhaps want constitutional government? or sturgeon and horse-radish?" "very well, i am a worthless, trivial, silly woman with no convictions. i have a mass, a mass of defects. i am neurotic, corrupt, and i ought to be despised for it. but you, volodya, are ten years older than i am, and my husband is thirty years older. i've grown up before your eyes, and if you would, you could have made anything you liked of me--an angel. but you"--her voice quivered-- "treat me horribly. yagitch has married me in his old age, and you . . ." "come, come," said volodya, sitting nearer her and kissing both her hands. "let the schopenhauers philosophise and prove whatever they like, while we'll kiss these little hands." "you despise me, and if only you knew how miserable it makes me," she said uncertainly, knowing beforehand that he would not believe her. "and if you only knew how i want to change, to begin another life! i think of it with enthusiasm!" and tears of enthusiasm actually came into her eyes. "to be good, honest, pure, not to be lying; to have an object in life." "come, come, come, please don't be affected! i don't like it!" said volodya, and an ill-humoured expression came into his face. "upon my word, you might be on the stage. let us behave like simple people." to prevent him from getting cross and going away, she began defending herself, and forced herself to smile to please him; and again she began talking of olga, and of how she longed to solve the problem of her life and to become something real. "ta-ra-ra-boomdee-ay," he hummed. "ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay!" and all at once he put his arm round her waist, while she, without knowing what she was doing, laid her hands on his shoulders and for a minute gazed with ecstasy, almost intoxication, at his clever, ironical face, his brow, his eyes, his handsome beard. "you have known that i love you for ever so long," she confessed to him, and she blushed painfully, and felt that her lips were twitching with shame. "i love you. why do you torture me?" she shut her eyes and kissed him passionately on the lips, and for a long while, a full minute, could not take her lips away, though she knew it was unseemly, that he might be thinking the worse of her, that a servant might come in. "oh, how you torture me!" she repeated. when half an hour later, having got all that he wanted, he was sitting at lunch in the dining-room, she was kneeling before him, gazing greedily into his face, and he told her that she was like a little dog waiting for a bit of ham to be thrown to it. then he sat her on his knee, and dancing her up and down like a child, hummed: "tara-raboom-dee-ay. . . . tara-raboom-dee-ay." and when he was getting ready to go she asked him in a passionate whisper: "when? to-day? where?" and held out both hands to his mouth as though she wanted to seize his answer in them. "to-day it will hardly be convenient," he said after a minute's thought. "to-morrow, perhaps." and they parted. before dinner sofya lvovna went to the nunnery to see olga, but there she was told that olga was reading the psalter somewhere over the dead. from the nunnery she went to her father's and found that he, too, was out. then she took another sledge and drove aimlessly about the streets till evening. and for some reason she kept thinking of the aunt whose eyes were red with crying, and who could find no peace anywhere. and at night they drove out again with three horses to a restaurant out of town and listened to the gipsies. and driving back past the nunnery again, sofya lvovna thought of olga, and she felt aghast at the thought that for the girls and women of her class there was no solution but to go on driving about and telling lies, or going into a nunnery to mortify the flesh. . . . and next day she met her lover, and again sofya lvovna drove about the town alone in a hired sledge thinking about her aunt. a week later volodya threw her over. and after that life went on as before, uninteresting, miserable, and sometimes even agonising. the colonel and volodya spent hours playing billiards and picquet, rita told anecdotes in the same languid, tasteless way, and sofya lvovna went about alone in hired sledges and kept begging her husband to take her for a good drive with three horses. going almost every day to the nunnery, she wearied olga, complaining of her unbearable misery, weeping, and feeling as she did so that she brought with her into the cell something impure, pitiful, shabby. and olga repeated to her mechanically as though a lesson learnt by rote, that all this was of no consequence, that it would all pass and god would forgive her. the trousseau i have seen a great many houses in my time, little and big, new and old, built of stone and of wood, but of one house i have kept a very vivid memory. it was, properly speaking, rather a cottage than a house--a tiny cottage of one story, with three windows, looking extraordinarily like a little old hunchback woman with a cap on. its white stucco walls, its tiled roof, and dilapidated chimney, were all drowned in a perfect sea of green. the cottage was lost to sight among the mulberry-trees, acacias, and poplars planted by the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of its present occupants. and yet it is a town house. its wide courtyard stands in a row with other similar green courtyards, and forms part of a street. nothing ever drives down that street, and very few persons are ever seen walking through it. the shutters of the little house are always closed; its occupants do not care for sunlight--the light is no use to them. the windows are never opened, for they are not fond of fresh air. people who spend their lives in the midst of acacias, mulberries, and nettles have no passion for nature. it is only to the summer visitor that god has vouchsafed an eye for the beauties of nature. the rest of mankind remain steeped in profound ignorance of the existence of such beauties. people never prize what they have always had in abundance. "what we have, we do not treasure," and what's more we do not even love it. the little house stands in an earthly paradise of green trees with happy birds nesting in them. but inside . . . alas . . . ! in summer, it is close and stifling within; in winter, hot as a turkish bath, not one breath of air, and the dreariness! . . . the first time i visited the little house was many years ago on business. i brought a message from the colonel who was the owner of the house to his wife and daughter. that first visit i remember very distinctly. it would be impossible, indeed, to forget it. imagine a limp little woman of forty, gazing at you with alarm and astonishment while you walk from the passage into the parlour. you are a stranger, a visitor, "a young man"; that's enough to reduce her to a state of terror and bewilderment. though you have no dagger, axe, or revolver in your hand, and though you smile affably, you are met with alarm. "whom have i the honour and pleasure of addressing?" the little lady asks in a trembling voice. i introduced myself and explained why i had come. the alarm and amazement were at once succeeded by a shrill, joyful "ach!" and she turned her eyes upwards to the ceiling. this "ach!" was caught up like an echo and repeated from the hall to the parlour, from the parlour to the kitchen, and so on down to the cellar. soon the whole house was resounding with "ach!" in various voices. five minutes later i was sitting on a big, soft, warm lounge in the drawing-room listening to the "ach!" echoing all down the street. there was a smell of moth powder, and of goatskin shoes, a pair of which lay on a chair beside me wrapped in a handkerchief. in the windows were geraniums, and muslin curtains, and on the curtains were torpid flies. on the wall hung the portrait of some bishop, painted in oils, with the glass broken at one corner, and next to the bishop a row of ancestors with lemon-coloured faces of a gipsy type. on the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, were lying on the floor. in the next room two alarmed and fluttered old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of tailor's chalk from the floor. "you must, please, excuse us; we are dreadfully untidy," said the little lady. while she talked to me, she stole embarrassed glances towards the other room where the patterns were still being picked up. the door, too, seemed embarrassed, opening an inch or two and then shutting again. "what's the matter?" said the little lady, addressing the door. _"où est mon cravatte lequel mon père m'avait envoyé de koursk?"_ asked a female voice at the door. _"ah, est-ce que, marie . . . que_. . . really, it's impossible . . . . _nous avons donc chez nous un homme peu connu de nous._ ask lukerya." "how well we speak french, though!" i read in the eyes of the little lady, who was flushing with pleasure. soon afterwards the door opened and i saw a tall, thin girl of nineteen, in a long muslin dress with a gilt belt from which, i remember, hung a mother-of-pearl fan. she came in, dropped a curtsy, and flushed crimson. her long nose, which was slightly pitted with smallpox, turned red first, and then the flush passed up to her eyes and her forehead. "my daughter," chanted the little lady, "and, manetchka, this is a young gentleman who has come," etc. i was introduced, and expressed my surprise at the number of paper patterns. mother and daughter dropped their eyes. "we had a fair here at ascension," said the mother; "we always buy materials at the fair, and then it keeps us busy with sewing till the next year's fair comes around again. we never put things out to be made. my husband's pay is not very ample, and we are not able to permit ourselves luxuries. so we have to make up everything ourselves." "but who will ever wear such a number of things? there are only two of you?" "oh . . . as though we were thinking of wearing them! they are not to be worn; they are for the trousseau!" "ah, _mamam_, what are you saying?" said the daughter, and she crimsoned again. "our visitor might suppose it was true. i don't intend to be married. never!" she said this, but at the very word "married" her eyes glowed. tea, biscuits, butter, and jam were brought in, followed by raspberries and cream. at seven o'clock, we had supper, consisting of six courses, and while we were at supper i heard a loud yawn from the next room. i looked with surprise towards the door: it was a yawn that could only come from a man. "that's my husband's brother, yegor semyonitch," the little lady explained, noticing my surprise. "he's been living with us for the last year. please excuse him; he cannot come in to see you. he is such an unsociable person, he is shy with strangers. he is going into a monastery. he was unfairly treated in the service, and the disappointment has preyed on his mind." after supper the little lady showed the vestment which yegor semyonitch was embroidering with his own hands as an offering for the church. manetchka threw off her shyness for a moment and showed me the tobacco-pouch she was embroidering for her father. when i pretended to be greatly struck by her work, she flushed crimson and whispered something in her mother's ear. the latter beamed all over, and invited me to go with her to the store-room. there i was shown five large trunks, and a number of smaller trunks and boxes. "this is her trousseau," her mother whispered; "we made it all ourselves." after looking at these forbidding trunks i took leave of my hospitable hostesses. they made me promise to come and see them again some day. it happened that i was able to keep this promise. seven years after my first visit, i was sent down to the little town to give expert evidence in a case that was being tried there. as i entered the little house i heard the same "ach!" echo through it. they recognised me at once. . . . well they might! my first visit had been an event in their lives, and when events are few they are long remembered. i walked into the drawing-room: the mother, who had grown stouter and was already getting grey, was creeping about on the floor, cutting out some blue material. the daughter was sitting on the sofa, embroidering. there was the same smell of moth powder; there were the same patterns, the same portrait with the broken glass. but yet there was a change. beside the portrait of the bishop hung a portrait of the colonel, and the ladies were in mourning. the colonel's death had occurred a week after his promotion to be a general. reminiscences began. . . . the widow shed tears. "we have had a terrible loss," she said. "my husband, you know, is dead. we are alone in the world now, and have no one but ourselves to look to. yegor semyonitch is alive, but i have no good news to tell of him. they would not have him in the monastery on account of--of intoxicating beverages. and now in his disappointment he drinks more than ever. i am thinking of going to the marshal of nobility to lodge a complaint. would you believe it, he has more than once broken open the trunks and . . . taken manetchka's trousseau and given it to beggars. he has taken everything out of two of the trunks! if he goes on like this, my manetchka will be left without a trousseau at all." "what are you saying, _mamam_?" said manetchka, embarrassed. "our visitor might suppose . . . there's no knowing what he might suppose . . . . i shall never--never marry." manetchka cast her eyes up to the ceiling with a look of hope and aspiration, evidently not for a moment believing what she said. a little bald-headed masculine figure in a brown coat and goloshes instead of boots darted like a mouse across the passage and disappeared. "yegor semyonitch, i suppose," i thought. i looked at the mother and daughter together. they both looked much older and terribly changed. the mother's hair was silvered, but the daughter was so faded and withered that her mother might have been taken for her elder sister, not more than five years her senior. "i have made up my mind to go to the marshal," the mother said to me, forgetting she had told me this already. "i mean to make a complaint. yegor semyonitch lays his hands on everything we make, and offers it up for the sake of his soul. my manetchka is left without a trousseau." manetchka flushed again, but this time she said nothing. "we have to make them all over again. and god knows we are not so well off. we are all alone in the world now." "we are alone in the world," repeated manetchka. a year ago fate brought me once more to the little house. walking into the drawing-room, i saw the old lady. dressed all in black with heavy crape _pleureuses_, she was sitting on the sofa sewing. beside her sat the little old man in the brown coat and the goloshes instead of boots. on seeing me, he jumped up and ran out of the room. in response to my greeting, the old lady smiled and said: _"je suis charmée de vous revoir, monsieur."_ "what are you making?" i asked, a little later. "it's a blouse. when it's finished i shall take it to the priest's to be put away, or else yegor semyonitch would carry it off. i store everything at the priest's now," she added in a whisper. and looking at the portrait of her daughter which stood before her on the table, she sighed and said: "we are all alone in the world." and where was the daughter? where was manetchka? i did not ask. i did not dare to ask the old mother dressed in her new deep mourning. and while i was in the room, and when i got up to go, no manetchka came out to greet me. i did not hear her voice, nor her soft, timid footstep. . . . i understood, and my heart was heavy. the helpmate "i've asked you not to tidy my table," said nikolay yevgrafitch. "there's no finding anything when you've tidied up. where's the telegram? where have you thrown it? be so good as to look for it. it's from kazan, dated yesterday." the maid--a pale, very slim girl with an indifferent expression --found several telegrams in the basket under the table, and handed them to the doctor without a word; but all these were telegrams from patients. then they looked in the drawing-room, and in olga dmitrievna's room. it was past midnight. nikolay yevgrafitch knew his wife would not be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. he did not trust her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by some one or other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's shop all over the house. on such nights he became petty, ill-humoured, irritable, and he fancied now that it was very necessary for him to have the telegram he had received the day before from his brother, though it contained nothing but christmas greetings. on the table of his wife's room under the box of stationery he found a telegram, and glanced at it casually. it was addressed to his wife, care of his mother-in-law, from monte carlo, and signed michel . . . . the doctor did not understand one word of it, as it was in some foreign language, apparently english. "who is this michel? why monte carlo? why directed care of her mother?" during the seven years of his married life he had grown used to being suspicious, guessing, catching at clues, and it had several times occurred to him, that his exercise at home had qualified him to become an excellent detective. going into his study and beginning to reflect, he recalled at once how he had been with his wife in petersburg a year and a half ago, and had lunched with an old school-fellow, a civil engineer, and how that engineer had introduced to him and his wife a young man of two or three and twenty, called mihail ivanovitch, with rather a curious short surname--riss. two months later the doctor had seen the young man's photograph in his wife's album, with an inscription in french: "in remembrance of the present and in hope of the future." later on he had met the young man himself at his mother-in-law's. and that was at the time when his wife had taken to being very often absent and coming home at four or five o'clock in the morning, and was constantly asking him to get her a passport for abroad, which he kept refusing to do; and a continual feud went on in the house which made him feel ashamed to face the servants. six months before, his colleagues had decided that he was going into consumption, and advised him to throw up everything and go to the crimea. when she heard of this, olga dmitrievna affected to be very much alarmed; she began to be affectionate to her husband, and kept assuring him that it would be cold and dull in the crimea, and that he had much better go to nice, and that she would go with him, and there would nurse him, look after him, take care of him. now, he understood why his wife was so particularly anxious to go to nice: her michel lived at monte carlo. he took an english dictionary, and translating the words, and guessing their meaning, by degrees he put together the following sentence: "i drink to the health of my beloved darling, and kiss her little foot a thousand times, and am impatiently expecting her arrival." he pictured the pitiable, ludicrous part he would play if he had agreed to go to nice with his wife. he felt so mortified that he almost shed tears and began pacing to and fro through all the rooms of the flat in great agitation. his pride, his plebeian fastidiousness, was revolted. clenching his fists and scowling with disgust, he wondered how he, the son of a village priest, brought up in a clerical school, a plain, straightforward man, a surgeon by profession--how could he have let himself be enslaved, have sunk into such shameful bondage to this weak, worthless, mercenary, low creature. "'little foot'!" he muttered to himself, crumpling up the telegram; "'little foot'!" of the time when he fell in love and proposed to her, and the seven years that he had been living with her, all that remained in his memory was her long, fragrant hair, a mass of soft lace, and her little feet, which certainly were very small, beautiful feet; and even now it seemed as though he still had from those old embraces the feeling of lace and silk upon his hands and face--and nothing more. nothing more--that is, not counting hysterics, shrieks, reproaches, threats, and lies--brazen, treacherous lies. he remembered how in his father's house in the village a bird would sometimes chance to fly in from the open air into the house and would struggle desperately against the window-panes and upset things; so this woman from a class utterly alien to him had flown into his life and made complete havoc of it. the best years of his life had been spent as though in hell, his hopes for happiness shattered and turned into a mockery, his health gone, his rooms as vulgar in their atmosphere as a cocotte's, and of the ten thousand he earned every year he could never save ten roubles to send his old mother in the village, and his debts were already about fifteen thousand. it seemed that if a band of brigands had been living in his rooms his life would not have been so hopelessly, so irremediably ruined as by the presence of this woman. he began coughing and gasping for breath. he ought to have gone to bed and got warm, but he could not. he kept walking about the rooms, or sat down to the table, nervously fidgeting with a pencil and scribbling mechanically on a paper. "trying a pen. . . . a little foot." by five o'clock he grew weaker and threw all the blame on himself. it seemed to him now that if olga dmitrievna had married some one else who might have had a good influence over her--who knows?-- she might after all have become a good, straightforward woman. he was a poor psychologist, and knew nothing of the female heart; besides, he was churlish, uninteresting. . . . "i haven't long to live now," he thought. "i am a dead man, and ought not to stand in the way of the living. it would be strange and stupid to insist upon one's rights now. i'll have it out with her; let her go to the man she loves. . . . i'll give her a divorce. i'll take the blame on myself." olga dmitrievna came in at last, and she walked into the study and sank into a chair just as she was in her white cloak, hat, and overboots. "the nasty, fat boy," she said with a sob, breathing hard. "it's really dishonest; it's disgusting." she stamped. "i can't put up with it; i can't, i can't!" "what's the matter?" asked nikolay yevgrafitch, going up to her. "that student, azarbekov, was seeing me home, and he lost my bag, and there was fifteen roubles in it. i borrowed it from mamma." she was crying in a most genuine way, like a little girl, and not only her handkerchief, but even her gloves, were wet with tears. "it can't be helped!" said the doctor. "if he's lost it, he's lost it, and it's no good worrying over it. calm yourself; i want to talk to you." "i am not a millionaire to lose money like that. he says he'll pay it back, but i don't believe him; he's poor . . ." her husband begged her to calm herself and to listen to him, but she kept on talking of the student and of the fifteen roubles she had lost. "ach! i'll give you twenty-five roubles to-morrow if you'll only hold your tongue!" he said irritably. "i must take off my things!" she said, crying. "i can't talk seriously in my fur coat! how strange you are!" he helped her off with her coat and overboots, detecting as he did so the smell of the white wine she liked to drink with oysters (in spite of her etherealness she ate and drank a great deal). she went into her room and came back soon after, having changed her things and powdered her face, though her eyes still showed traces of tears. she sat down, retreating into her light, lacy dressing-gown, and in the mass of billowy pink her husband could see nothing but her hair, which she had let down, and her little foot wearing a slipper. "what do you want to talk about?" she asked, swinging herself in a rocking-chair. "i happened to see this;" and he handed her the telegram. she read it and shrugged her shoulders. "well?" she said, rocking herself faster. "that's the usual new year's greeting and nothing else. there are no secrets in it." "you are reckoning on my not knowing english. no, i don't know it; but i have a dictionary. that telegram is from riss; he drinks to the health of his beloved and sends you a thousand kisses. but let us leave that," the doctor went on hurriedly. "i don't in the least want to reproach you or make a scene. we've had scenes and reproaches enough; it's time to make an end of them. . . . this is what i want to say to you: you are free, and can live as you like." there was a silence. she began crying quietly. "i set you free from the necessity of lying and keeping up pretences," nikolay yevgrafitch continued. "if you love that young man, love him; if you want to go abroad to him, go. you are young, healthy, and i am a wreck, and haven't long to live. in short . . . you understand me." he was agitated and could not go on. olga dmitrievna, crying and speaking in a voice of self-pity, acknowledged that she loved riss, and used to drive out of town with him and see him in his rooms, and now she really did long to go abroad. "you see, i hide nothing from you," she added, with a sigh. "my whole soul lies open before you. and i beg you again, be generous, get me a passport." "i repeat, you are free." she moved to another seat nearer him to look at the expression of his face. she did not believe him and wanted now to understand his secret meaning. she never did believe any one, and however generous were their intentions, she always suspected some petty or ignoble motive or selfish object in them. and when she looked searchingly into his face, it seemed to him that there was a gleam of green light in her eyes as in a cat's. "when shall i get the passport?" she asked softly. he suddenly had an impulse to say "never"; but he restrained himself and said: "when you like." "i shall only go for a month." "you'll go to riss for good. i'll get you a divorce, take the blame on myself, and riss can marry you." "but i don't want a divorce!" olga dmitrievna retorted quickly, with an astonished face. "i am not asking you for a divorce! get me a passport, that's all." "but why don't you want the divorce?" asked the doctor, beginning to feel irritated. "you are a strange woman. how strange you are! if you are fond of him in earnest and he loves you too, in your position you can do nothing better than get married. can you really hesitate between marriage and adultery?" "i understand you," she said, walking away from him, and a spiteful, vindictive expression came into her face. "i understand you perfectly. you are sick of me, and you simply want to get rid of me, to force this divorce on me. thank you very much; i am not such a fool as you think. i won't accept the divorce and i won't leave you--i won't, i won't! to begin with, i don't want to lose my position in society," she continued quickly, as though afraid of being prevented from speaking. "secondly, i am twenty-seven and riss is only twenty-three; he'll be tired of me in a year and throw me over. and what's more, if you care to know, i'm not certain that my feeling will last long . . . so there! i'm not going to leave you." "then i'll turn you out of the house!" shouted nikolay yevgrafitch, stamping. "i shall turn you out, you vile, loathsome woman!" "we shall see!" she said, and went out. it was broad daylight outside, but the doctor still sat at the table moving the pencil over the paper and writing mechanically. "my dear sir. . . . little foot." or he walked about and stopped in the drawing-room before a photograph taken seven years ago, soon after his marriage, and looked at it for a long time. it was a family group: his father-in-law, his mother-in-law, his wife olga dmitrievna when she was twenty, and himself in the rôle of a happy young husband. his father-in-law, a clean-shaven, dropsical privy councillor, crafty and avaricious; his mother-in-law, a stout lady with small predatory features like a weasel, who loved her daughter to distraction and helped her in everything; if her daughter were strangling some one, the mother would not have protested, but would only have screened her with her skirts. olga dmitrievna, too, had small predatory-looking features, but more expressive and bolder than her mother's; she was not a weasel, but a beast on a bigger scale! and nikolay yevgrafitch himself in the photograph looked such a guileless soul, such a kindly, good fellow, so open and simple-hearted; his whole face was relaxed in the naïve, good-natured smile of a divinity student, and he had had the simplicity to believe that that company of beasts of prey into which destiny had chanced to thrust him would give him romance and happiness and all he had dreamed of when as a student he used to sing the song "youth is wasted, life is nought, when the heart is cold and loveless." and once more he asked himself in perplexity how he, the son of a village priest, with his democratic bringing up--a plain, blunt, straightforward man--could have so helplessly surrendered to the power of this worthless, false, vulgar, petty creature, whose nature was so utterly alien to him. when at eleven o'clock he put on his coat to go to the hospital the servant came into his study. "what is it?" he asked. "the mistress has got up and asks you for the twenty-five roubles you promised her yesterday." talent an artist called yegor savvitch, who was spending his summer holidays at the house of an officer's widow, was sitting on his bed, given up to the depression of morning. it was beginning to look like autumn out of doors. heavy, clumsy clouds covered the sky in thick layers; there was a cold, piercing wind, and with a plaintive wail the trees were all bending on one side. he could see the yellow leaves whirling round in the air and on the earth. farewell, summer! this melancholy of nature is beautiful and poetical in its own way, when it is looked at with the eyes of an artist, but yegor savvitch was in no humour to see beauty. he was devoured by ennui and his only consolation was the thought that by to-morrow he would not be there. the bed, the chairs, the tables, the floor, were all heaped up with cushions, crumpled bed-clothes, boxes. the floor had not been swept, the cotton curtains had been taken down from the windows. next day he was moving, to town. his landlady, the widow, was out. she had gone off somewhere to hire horses and carts to move next day to town. profiting by the absence of her severe mamma, her daughter katya, aged twenty, had for a long time been sitting in the young man's room. next day the painter was going away, and she had a great deal to say to him. she kept talking, talking, and yet she felt that she had not said a tenth of what she wanted to say. with her eyes full of tears, she gazed at his shaggy head, gazed at it with rapture and sadness. and yegor savvitch was shaggy to a hideous extent, so that he looked like a wild animal. his hair hung down to his shoulder-blades, his beard grew from his neck, from his nostrils, from his ears; his eyes were lost under his thick overhanging brows. it was all so thick, so matted, that if a fly or a beetle had been caught in his hair, it would never have found its way out of this enchanted thicket. yegor savvitch listened to katya, yawning. he was tired. when katya began whimpering, he looked severely at her from his overhanging eyebrows, frowned, and said in a heavy, deep bass: "i cannot marry." "why not?" katya asked softly. "because for a painter, and in fact any man who lives for art, marriage is out of the question. an artist must be free." "but in what way should i hinder you, yegor savvitch?" "i am not speaking of myself, i am speaking in general. . . . famous authors and painters have never married." "and you, too, will be famous--i understand that perfectly. but put yourself in my place. i am afraid of my mother. she is stern and irritable. when she knows that you won't marry me, and that it's all nothing . . . she'll begin to give it to me. oh, how wretched i am! and you haven't paid for your rooms, either! . . . ." "damn her! i'll pay." yegor savvitch got up and began walking to and fro. "i ought to be abroad!" he said. and the artist told her that nothing was easier than to go abroad. one need do nothing but paint a picture and sell it. "of course!" katya assented. "why haven't you painted one in the summer?" "do you suppose i can work in a barn like this?" the artist said ill-humouredly. "and where should i get models?" some one banged the door viciously in the storey below. katya, who was expecting her mother's return from minute to minute, jumped up and ran away. the artist was left alone. for a long time he walked to and fro, threading his way between the chairs and the piles of untidy objects of all sorts. he heard the widow rattling the crockery and loudly abusing the peasants who had asked her two roubles for each cart. in his disgust yegor savvitch stopped before the cupboard and stared for a long while, frowning at the decanter of vodka. "ah, blast you!" he heard the widow railing at katya. "damnation take you!" the artist drank a glass of vodka, and the dark cloud in his soul gradually disappeared, and he felt as though all his inside was smiling within him. he began dreaming. . . . his fancy pictured how he would become great. he could not imagine his future works but he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would look after him. he tried to picture himself in a magnificent drawing-room surrounded by pretty and adoring women; but the picture was misty, vague, as he had never in his life seen a drawing-room. the pretty and adoring women were not a success either, for, except katya, he knew no adoring woman, not even one respectable girl. people who know nothing about life usually picture life from books, but yegor savvitch knew no books either. he had tried to read gogol, but had fallen asleep on the second page. "it won't burn, drat the thing!" the widow bawled down below, as she set the samovar. "katya, give me some charcoal!" the dreamy artist felt a longing to share his hopes and dreams with some one. he went downstairs into the kitchen, where the stout widow and katya were busy about a dirty stove in the midst of charcoal fumes from the samovar. there he sat down on a bench close to a big pot and began: "it's a fine thing to be an artist! i can go just where i like, do what i like. one has not to work in an office or in the fields. i've no superiors or officers over me. . . . i'm my own superior. and with all that i'm doing good to humanity!" and after dinner he composed himself for a "rest." he usually slept till the twilight of evening. but this time soon after dinner he felt that some one was pulling at his leg. some one kept laughing and shouting his name. he opened his eyes and saw his friend ukleikin, the landscape painter, who had been away all the summer in the kostroma district. "bah!" he cried, delighted. "what do i see?" there followed handshakes, questions. "well, have you brought anything? i suppose you've knocked off hundreds of sketches?" said yegor savvitch, watching ukleikin taking his belongings out of his trunk. "h'm! . . . yes. i have done something. and how are you getting on? have you been painting anything?" yegor savvitch dived behind the bed, and crimson in the face, extracted a canvas in a frame covered with dust and spider webs. "see here. . . . a girl at the window after parting from her betrothed. in three sittings. not nearly finished yet." the picture represented katya faintly outlined sitting at an open window, from which could be seen a garden and lilac distance. ukleikin did not like the picture. "h'm! . . . there is air and . . . and there is expression," he said. "there's a feeling of distance, but . . . but that bush is screaming . . . screaming horribly!" the decanter was brought on to the scene. towards evening kostyliov, also a promising beginner, an historical painter, came in to see yegor savvitch. he was a friend staying at the next villa, and was a man of five-and-thirty. he had long hair, and wore a blouse with a shakespeare collar, and had a dignified manner. seeing the vodka, he frowned, complained of his chest, but yielding to his friends' entreaties, drank a glass. "i've thought of a subject, my friends," he began, getting drunk. "i want to paint some new . . . herod or clepentian, or some blackguard of that description, you understand, and to contrast with him the idea of christianity. on the one side rome, you understand, and on the other christianity. . . . i want to represent the spirit, you understand? the spirit!" and the widow downstairs shouted continually: "katya, give me the cucumbers! go to sidorov's and get some kvass, you jade!" like wolves in a cage, the three friends kept pacing to and fro from one end of the room to the other. they talked without ceasing, talked, hotly and genuinely; all three were excited, carried away. to listen to them it would seem they had the future, fame, money, in their hands. and it never occurred to either of them that time was passing, that every day life was nearing its close, that they had lived at other people's expense a great deal and nothing yet was accomplished; that they were all bound by the inexorable law by which of a hundred promising beginners only two or three rise to any position and all the others draw blanks in the lottery, perish playing the part of flesh for the cannon. . . . they were gay and happy, and looked the future boldly in the face! at one o'clock in the morning kostyliov said good-bye, and smoothing out his shakespeare collar, went home. the landscape painter remained to sleep at yegor savvitch's. before going to bed, yegor savvitch took a candle and made his way into the kitchen to get a drink of water. in the dark, narrow passage katya was sitting, on a box, and, with her hands clasped on her knees, was looking upwards. a blissful smile was straying on her pale, exhausted face, and her eyes were beaming. "is that you? what are you thinking about?" yegor savvitch asked her. "i am thinking of how you'll be famous," she said in a half-whisper. "i keep fancying how you'll become a famous man. . . . i overheard all your talk. . . . i keep dreaming and dreaming. . . ." katya went off into a happy laugh, cried, and laid her hands reverently on her idol's shoulders. an artist's story i it was six or seven years ago when i was living in one of the districts of the province of t----, on the estate of a young landowner called byelokurov, who used to get up very early, wear a peasant tunic, drink beer in the evenings, and continually complain to me that he never met with sympathy from any one. he lived in the lodge in the garden, and i in the old seigniorial house, in a big room with columns, where there was no furniture except a wide sofa on which i used to sleep, and a table on which i used to lay out patience. there was always, even in still weather, a droning noise in the old amos stoves, and in thunder-storms the whole house shook and seemed to be cracking into pieces; and it was rather terrifying, especially at night, when all the ten big windows were suddenly lit up by lightning. condemned by destiny to perpetual idleness, i did absolutely nothing. for hours together i gazed out of window at the sky, at the birds, at the avenue, read everything that was brought me by post, slept. sometimes i went out of the house and wandered about till late in the evening. one day as i was returning home, i accidentally strayed into a place i did not know. the sun was already sinking, and the shades of evening lay across the flowering rye. two rows of old, closely planted, very tall fir-trees stood like two dense walls forming a picturesque, gloomy avenue. i easily climbed over the fence and walked along the avenue, slipping over the fir-needles which lay two inches deep on the ground. it was still and dark, and only here and there on the high tree-tops the vivid golden light quivered and made rainbows in the spiders' webs. there was a strong, almost stifling smell of resin. then i turned into a long avenue of limes. here, too, all was desolation and age; last year's leaves rusted mournfully under my feet and in the twilight shadows lurked between the trees. from the old orchard on the right came the faint, reluctant note of the golden oriole, who must have been old too. but at last the limes ended. i walked by an old white house of two storeys with a terrace, and there suddenly opened before me a view of a courtyard, a large pond with a bathing-house, a group of green willows, and a village on the further bank, with a high, narrow belfry on which there glittered a cross reflecting the setting sun. for a moment it breathed upon me the fascination of something near and very familiar, as though i had seen that landscape at some time in my childhood. at the white stone gates which led from the yard to the fields, old-fashioned solid gates with lions on them, were standing two girls. one of them, the elder, a slim, pale, very handsome girl with a perfect haystack of chestnut hair and a little obstinate mouth, had a severe expression and scarcely took notice of me, while the other, who was still very young, not more than seventeen or eighteen, and was also slim and pale, with a large mouth and large eyes, looked at me with astonishment as i passed by, said something in english, and was overcome with embarrassment. and it seemed to me that these two charming faces, too, had long been familiar to me. and i returned home feeling as though i had had a delightful dream. one morning soon afterwards, as byelokurov and i were walking near the house, a carriage drove unexpectedly into the yard, rustling over the grass, and in it was sitting one of those girls. it was the elder one. she had come to ask for subscriptions for some villagers whose cottages had been burnt down. speaking with great earnestness and precision, and not looking at us, she told us how many houses in the village of siyanovo had been burnt, how many men, women, and children were left homeless, and what steps were proposed, to begin with, by the relief committee, of which she was now a member. after handing us the subscription list for our signatures, she put it away and immediately began to take leave of us. "you have quite forgotten us, pyotr petrovitch," she said to byelokurov as she shook hands with him. "do come, and if monsieur n. (she mentioned my name) cares to make the acquaintance of admirers of his work, and will come and see us, mother and i will be delighted." i bowed. when she had gone pyotr petrovitch began to tell me about her. the girl was, he said, of good family, and her name was lidia voltchaninov, and the estate on which she lived with her mother and sister, like the village on the other side of the pond, was called shelkovka. her father had once held an important position in moscow, and had died with the rank of privy councillor. although they had ample means, the voltchaninovs lived on their estate summer and winter without going away. lidia was a teacher in the zemstvo school in her own village, and received a salary of twenty-five roubles a month. she spent nothing on herself but her salary, and was proud of earning her own living. "an interesting family," said byelokurov. "let us go over one day. they will be delighted to see you." one afternoon on a holiday we thought of the voltchaninovs, and went to shelkovka to see them. they--the mother and two daughters --were at home. the mother, ekaterina pavlovna, who at one time had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation about painting. having heard from her daughter that i might come to shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes which she had seen in exhibitions in moscow, and now asked what i meant to express by them. lidia, or as they called her lida, talked more to byelokurov than to me. earnest and unsmiling, she asked him why he was not on the zemstvo, and why he had not attended any of its meetings. "it's not right, pyotr petrovitch," she said reproachfully. "it's not right. it's too bad." "that's true, lida--that's true," the mother assented. "it isn't right." "our whole district is in the hands of balagin," lida went on, addressing me. "he is the chairman of the zemstvo board, and he has distributed all the posts in the district among his nephews and sons-in-law; and he does as he likes. he ought to be opposed. the young men ought to make a strong party, but you see what the young men among us are like. it's a shame, pyotr petrovitch!" the younger sister, genya, was silent while they were talking of the zemstvo. she took no part in serious conversation. she was not looked upon as quite grown up by her family, and, like a child, was always called by the nickname of misuce, because that was what she had called her english governess when she was a child. she was all the time looking at me with curiosity, and when i glanced at the photographs in the album, she explained to me: "that's uncle . . . that's god-father," moving her finger across the photograph. as she did so she touched me with her shoulder like a child, and i had a close view of her delicate, undeveloped chest, her slender shoulders, her plait, and her thin little body tightly drawn in by her sash. we played croquet and lawn tennis, we walked about the garden, drank tea, and then sat a long time over supper. after the huge empty room with columns, i felt, as it were, at home in this small snug house where there were no oleographs on the walls and where the servants were spoken to with civility. and everything seemed to me young and pure, thanks to the presence of lida and misuce, and there was an atmosphere of refinement over everything. at supper lida talked to byelokurov again of the zemstvo, of balagin, and of school libraries. she was an energetic, genuine girl, with convictions, and it was interesting to listen to her, though she talked a great deal and in a loud voice--perhaps because she was accustomed to talking at school. on the other hand, pyotr petrovitch, who had retained from his student days the habit of turning every conversation into an argument, was tedious, flat, long-winded, and unmistakably anxious to appear clever and advanced. gesticulating, he upset a sauce-boat with his sleeve, making a huge pool on the tablecloth, but no one except me appeared to notice it. it was dark and still as we went home. "good breeding is shown, not by not upsetting the sauce, but by not noticing it when somebody else does," said byelokurov, with a sigh. "yes, a splendid, intellectual family! i've dropped out of all decent society; it's dreadful how i've dropped out of it! it's all through work, work, work!" he talked of how hard one had to work if one wanted to be a model farmer. and i thought what a heavy, sluggish fellow he was! whenever he talked of anything serious he articulated "er-er" with intense effort, and worked just as he talked--slowly, always late and behind-hand. i had little faith in his business capacity if only from the fact that when i gave him letters to post he carried them about in his pocket for weeks together. "the hardest thing of all," he muttered as he walked beside me-- "the hardest thing of all is that, work as one may, one meets with no sympathy from any one. no sympathy!" ii i took to going to see the voltchaninovs. as a rule i sat on the lower step of the terrace; i was fretted by dissatisfaction with myself; i was sorry at the thought of my life passing so rapidly and uninterestingly, and felt as though i would like to tear out of my breast the heart which had grown so heavy. and meanwhile i heard talk on the terrace, the rustling of dresses, the pages of a book being turned. i soon grew accustomed to the idea that during the day lida received patients, gave out books, and often went into the village with a parasol and no hat, and in the evening talked aloud of the zemstvo and schools. this slim, handsome, invariably austere girl, with her small well-cut mouth, always said dryly when the conversation turned on serious subjects: "that's of no interest to you." she did not like me. she disliked me because i was a landscape painter and did not in my pictures portray the privations of the peasants, and that, as she fancied, i was indifferent to what she put such faith in. i remember when i was travelling on the banks of lake baikal, i met a buriat girl on horseback, wearing a shirt and trousers of blue chinese canvas; i asked her if she would sell me her pipe. while we talked she looked contemptuously at my european face and hat, and in a moment she was bored with talking to me; she shouted to her horse and galloped on. and in just the same way lida despised me as an alien. she never outwardly expressed her dislike for me, but i felt it, and sitting on the lower step of the terrace, i felt irritated, and said that doctoring peasants when one was not a doctor was deceiving them, and that it was easy to be benevolent when one had six thousand acres. meanwhile her sister misuce had no cares, and spent her life in complete idleness just as i did. when she got up in the morning she immediately took up a book and sat down to read on the terrace in a deep arm-chair, with her feet hardly touching the ground, or hid herself with her book in the lime avenue, or walked out into the fields. she spent the whole day reading, poring greedily over her book, and only from the tired, dazed look in her eyes and the extreme paleness of her face one could divine how this continual reading exhausted her brain. when i arrived she would flush a little, leave her book, and looking into my face with her big eyes, would tell me eagerly of anything that had happened--for instance, that the chimney had been on fire in the servants' hall, or that one of the men had caught a huge fish in the pond. on ordinary days she usually went about in a light blouse and a dark blue skirt. we went for walks together, picked cherries for making jam, went out in the boat. when she jumped up to reach a cherry or sculled in the boat, her thin, weak arms showed through her transparent sleeves. or i painted a sketch, and she stood beside me watching rapturously. one sunday at the end of july i came to the voltchaninovs about nine o clock in the morning. i walked about the park, keeping a good distance from the house, looking for white mushrooms, of which there was a great number that summer, and noting their position so as to come and pick them afterwards with genya. there was a warm breeze. i saw genya and her mother both in light holiday dresses coming home from church, genya holding her hat in the wind. afterwards i heard them having tea on the terrace. for a careless person like me, trying to find justification for my perpetual idleness, these holiday mornings in our country-houses in the summer have always had a particular charm. when the green garden, still wet with dew, is all sparkling in the sun and looks radiant with happiness, when there is a scent of mignonette and oleander near the house, when the young people have just come back from church and are having breakfast in the garden, all so charmingly dressed and gay, and one knows that all these healthy, well-fed, handsome people are going to do nothing the whole long day, one wishes that all life were like that. now, too, i had the same thought, and walked about the garden prepared to walk about like that, aimless and unoccupied, the whole day, the whole summer. genya came out with a basket; she had a look in her face as though she knew she would find me in the garden, or had a presentiment of it. we gathered mushrooms and talked, and when she asked a question she walked a little ahead so as to see my face. "a miracle happened in the village yesterday," she said. "the lame woman pelagea has been ill the whole year. no doctors or medicines did her any good; but yesterday an old woman came and whispered something over her, and her illness passed away." "that's nothing much," i said. "you mustn't look for miracles only among sick people and old women. isn't health a miracle? and life itself? whatever is beyond understanding is a miracle." "and aren't you afraid of what is beyond understanding?" "no. phenomena i don't understand i face boldly, and am not overwhelmed by them. i am above them. man ought to recognise himself as superior to lions, tigers, stars, superior to everything in nature, even what seems miraculous and is beyond his understanding, or else he is not a man, but a mouse afraid of everything." genya believed that as an artist i knew a very great deal, and could guess correctly what i did not know. she longed for me to initiate her into the domain of the eternal and the beautiful--into that higher world in which, as she imagined, i was quite at home. and she talked to me of god, of the eternal life, of the miraculous. and i, who could never admit that my self and my imagination would be lost forever after death, answered: "yes, men are immortal"; "yes, there is eternal life in store for us." and she listened, believed, and did not ask for proofs. as we were going home she stopped suddenly and said: "our lida is a remarkable person--isn't she? i love her very dearly, and would be ready to give my life for her any minute. but tell me"--genya touched my sleeve with her finger--"tell me, why do you always argue with her? why are you irritated?" "because she is wrong." genya shook her head and tears came into her eyes. "how incomprehensible that is!" she said. at that minute lida had just returned from somewhere, and standing with a whip in her hand, a slim, beautiful figure in the sunlight, at the steps, she was giving some orders to one of the men. talking loudly, she hurriedly received two or three sick villagers; then with a busy and anxious face she walked about the rooms, opening one cupboard after another, and went upstairs. it was a long time before they could find her and call her to dinner, and she came in when we had finished our soup. all these tiny details i remember with tenderness, and that whole day i remember vividly, though nothing special happened. after dinner genya lay in a long arm-chair reading, while i sat upon the bottom step of the terrace. we were silent. the whole sky was overcast with clouds, and it began to spot with fine rain. it was hot; the wind had dropped, and it seemed as though the day would never end. ekaterina pavlovna came out on the terrace, looking drowsy and carrying a fan. "oh, mother," said genya, kissing her hand, "it's not good for you to sleep in the day." they adored each other. when one went into the garden, the other would stand on the terrace, and, looking towards the trees, call "aa--oo, genya!" or "mother, where are you?" they always said their prayers together, and had the same faith; and they understood each other perfectly even when they did not speak. and their attitude to people was the same. ekaterina pavlovna, too, grew quickly used to me and fond of me, and when i did not come for two or three days, sent to ask if i were well. she, too, gazed at my sketches with enthusiasm, and with the same openness and readiness to chatter as misuce, she told me what had happened, and confided to me her domestic secrets. she had a perfect reverence for her elder daughter. lida did not care for endearments, she talked only of serious matters; she lived her life apart, and to her mother and sister was as sacred and enigmatic a person as the admiral, always sitting in his cabin, is to the sailors. "our lida is a remarkable person," the mother would often say. "isn't she?" now, too, while it was drizzling with rain, we talked of lida. "she is a remarkable girl," said her mother, and added in an undertone, like a conspirator, looking about her timidly: "you wouldn't easily find another like her; only, do you know, i am beginning to be a little uneasy. the school, the dispensary, books --all that's very good, but why go to extremes? she is three-and-twenty, you know; it's time for her to think seriously of herself. with her books and her dispensary she will find life has slipped by without having noticed it. . . . she must be married." genya, pale from reading, with her hair disarranged, raised her head and said as it were to herself, looking at her mother: "mother, everything is in god's hands." and again she buried herself in her book. byelokurov came in his tunic and embroidered shirt. we played croquet and tennis, then when it got dark, sat a long time over supper and talked again about schools, and about balagin, who had the whole district under his thumb. as i went away from the voltchaninovs that evening, i carried away the impression of a long, long idle day, with a melancholy consciousness that everything ends in this world, however long it may be. genya saw us out to the gate, and perhaps because she had been with me all day, from morning till night, i felt dull without her, and that all that charming family were near and dear to me, and for the first time that summer i had a yearning to paint. "tell me, why do you lead such a dreary, colourless life?" i asked byelokurov as i went home. "my life is dreary, difficult, and monotonous because i am an artist, a strange person. from my earliest days i've been wrung by envy, self-dissatisfaction, distrust in my work. i'm always poor, i'm a wanderer, but you--you're a healthy, normal man, a landowner, and a gentleman. why do you live in such an uninteresting way? why do you get so little out of life? why haven't you, for instance, fallen in love with lida or genya?" "you forget that i love another woman," answered byelokurov. he was referring to liubov ivanovna, the lady who shared the lodge with him. every day i saw this lady, very plump, rotund, and dignified, not unlike a fat goose, walking about the garden, in the russian national dress and beads, always carrying a parasol; and the servant was continually calling her in to dinner or to tea. three years before she had taken one of the lodges for a summer holiday, and had settled down at byelokurov's apparently forever. she was ten years older than he was, and kept a sharp hand over him, so much so that he had to ask her permission when he went out of the house. she often sobbed in a deep masculine note, and then i used to send word to her that if she did not leave off, i should give up my rooms there; and she left off. when we got home byelokurov sat down on the sofa and frowned thoughtfully, and i began walking up and down the room, conscious of a soft emotion as though i were in love. i wanted to talk about the voltchaninovs. "lida could only fall in love with a member of the zemstvo, as devoted to schools and hospitals as she is," i said. "oh, for the sake of a girl like that one might not only go into the zemstvo, but even wear out iron shoes, like the girl in the fairy tale. and misuce? what a sweet creature she is, that misuce!" byelokurov, drawling out "er--er," began a long-winded disquisition on the malady of the age--pessimism. he talked confidently, in a tone that suggested that i was opposing him. hundreds of miles of desolate, monotonous, burnt-up steppe cannot induce such deep depression as one man when he sits and talks, and one does not know when he will go. "it's not a question of pessimism or optimism," i said irritably; "its simply that ninety-nine people out of a hundred have no sense." byelokurov took this as aimed at himself, was offended, and went away. iii "the prince is staying at malozyomovo, and he asks to be remembered to you," said lida to her mother. she had just come in, and was taking off her gloves. "he gave me a great deal of interesting news . . . . he promised to raise the question of a medical relief centre at malozyomovo again at the provincial assembly, but he says there is very little hope of it." and turning to me, she said: "excuse me, i always forget that this cannot be interesting to you." i felt irritated. "why not interesting to me?" i said, shrugging my shoulders. "you do not care to know my opinion, but i assure you the question has great interest for me." "yes?" "yes. in my opinion a medical relief centre at malozyomovo is quite unnecessary." my irritation infected her; she looked at me, screwing up her eyes, and asked: "what is necessary? landscapes?" "landscapes are not, either. nothing is." she finished taking off her gloves, and opened the newspaper, which had just been brought from the post. a minute later she said quietly, evidently restraining herself: "last week anna died in childbirth, and if there had been a medical relief centre near, she would have lived. and i think even landscape-painters ought to have some opinions on the subject." "i have a very definite opinion on that subject, i assure you," i answered; and she screened herself with the newspaper, as though unwilling to listen to me. "to my mind, all these schools, dispensaries, libraries, medical relief centres, under present conditions, only serve to aggravate the bondage of the people. the peasants are fettered by a great chain, and you do not break the chain, but only add fresh links to it--that's my view of it." she raised her eyes to me and smiled ironically, and i went on trying to formulate my leading idea. "what matters is not that anna died in childbirth, but that all these annas, mavras, pelageas, toil from early morning till dark, fall ill from working beyond their strength, all their lives tremble for their sick and hungry children, all their lives are being doctored, and in dread of death and disease, fade and grow old early, and die in filth and stench. their children begin the same story over again as soon as they grow up, and so it goes on for hundreds of years and milliards of men live worse than beasts-- in continual terror, for a mere crust of bread. the whole horror of their position lies in their never having time to think of their souls, of their image and semblance. cold, hunger, animal terror, a burden of toil, like avalanches of snow, block for them every way to spiritual activity--that is, to what distinguishes man from the brutes and what is the only thing which makes life worth living. you go to their help with hospitals and schools, but you don't free them from their fetters by that; on the contrary, you bind them in closer bonds, as, by introducing new prejudices, you increase the number of their wants, to say nothing of the fact that they've got to pay the zemstvo for drugs and books, and so toil harder than ever." "i am not going to argue with you," said lida, putting down the paper. "i've heard all that before. i will only say one thing: one cannot sit with one's hands in one's lap. it's true that we are not saving humanity, and perhaps we make a great many mistakes; but we do what we can, and we are right. the highest and holiest task for a civilised being is to serve his neighbours, and we try to serve them as best we can. you don't like it, but one can't please every one." "that's true, lida," said her mother--"that's true." in lida's presence she was always a little timid, and looked at her nervously as she talked, afraid of saying something superfluous or inopportune. and she never contradicted her, but always assented: "that's true, lida--that's true." "teaching the peasants to read and write, books of wretched precepts and rhymes, and medical relief centres, cannot diminish either ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows cannot light up this huge garden," said i. "you give nothing. by meddling in these people's lives you only create new wants in them, and new demands on their labour." "ach! good heavens! but one must do something!" said lida with vexation, and from her tone one could see that she thought my arguments worthless and despised them. "the people must be freed from hard physical labour," said i. "we must lighten their yoke, let them have time to breathe, that they may not spend all their lives at the stove, at the wash-tub, and in the fields, but may also have time to think of their souls, of god--may have time to develop their spiritual capacities. the highest vocation of man is spiritual activity--the perpetual search for truth and the meaning of life. make coarse animal labour unnecessary for them, let them feel themselves free, and then you will see what a mockery these dispensaries and books are. once a man recognises his true vocation, he can only be satisfied by religion, science, and art, and not by these trifles." "free them from labour?" laughed lida. "but is that possible?" "yes. take upon yourself a share of their labour. if all of us, townspeople and country people, all without exception, would agree to divide between us the labour which mankind spends on the satisfaction of their physical needs, each of us would perhaps need to work only for two or three hours a day. imagine that we all, rich and poor, work only for three hours a day, and the rest of our time is free. imagine further that in order to depend even less upon our bodies and to labour less, we invent machines to replace our work, we try to cut down our needs to the minimum. we would harden ourselves and our children that they should not be afraid of hunger and cold, and that we shouldn't be continually trembling for their health like anna, mavra, and pelagea. imagine that we don't doctor ourselves, don't keep dispensaries, tobacco factories, distilleries--what a lot of free time would be left us after all! all of us together would devote our leisure to science and art. just as the peasants sometimes work, the whole community together mending the roads, so all of us, as a community, would search for truth and the meaning of life, and i am convinced that the truth would be discovered very quickly; man would escape from this continual, agonising, oppressive dread of death, and even from death itself." "you contradict yourself, though," said lida. "you talk about science, and are yourself opposed to elementary education." "elementary education when a man has nothing to read but the signs on public houses and sometimes books which he cannot understand-- such education has existed among us since the times of rurik; gogol's petrushka has been reading for ever so long, yet as the village was in the days of rurik so it has remained. what is needed is not elementary education, but freedom for a wide development of spiritual capacities. what are wanted are not schools, but universities." "you are opposed to medicine, too." "yes. it would be necessary only for the study of diseases as natural phenomena, and not for the cure of them. if one must cure, it should not be diseases, but the causes of them. remove the principal cause --physical labour, and then there will be no disease. i don't believe in a science that cures disease," i went on excitedly. "when science and art are real, they aim not at temporary private ends, but at eternal and universal--they seek for truth and the meaning of life, they seek for god, for the soul, and when they are tied down to the needs and evils of the day, to dispensaries and libraries, they only complicate and hamper life. we have plenty of doctors, chemists, lawyers, plenty of people can read and write, but we are quite without biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, poets. the whole of our intelligence, the whole of our spiritual energy, is spent on satisfying temporary, passing needs. scientific men, writers, artists, are hard at work; thanks to them, the conveniences of life are multiplied from day to day. our physical demands increase, yet truth is still a long way off, and man still remains the most rapacious and dirty animal; everything is tending to the degeneration of the majority of mankind, and the loss forever of all fitness for life. in such conditions an artist's work has no meaning, and the more talented he is, the stranger and the more unintelligible is his position, as when one looks into it, it is evident that he is working for the amusement of a rapacious and unclean animal, and is supporting the existing order. and i don't care to work and i won't work. . . . nothing is any use; let the earth sink to perdition!" "misuce, go out of the room!" said lida to her sister, apparently thinking my words pernicious to the young girl. genya looked mournfully at her mother and sister, and went out of the room. "these are the charming things people say when they want to justify their indifference," said lida. "it is easier to disapprove of schools and hospitals, than to teach or heal." "that's true, lida--that's true," the mother assented. "you threaten to give up working," said lida. "you evidently set a high value on your work. let us give up arguing; we shall never agree, since i put the most imperfect dispensary or library of which you have just spoken so contemptuously on a higher level than any landscape." and turning at once to her mother, she began speaking in quite a different tone: "the prince is very much changed, and much thinner than when he was with us last. he is being sent to vichy." she told her mother about the prince in order to avoid talking to me. her face glowed, and to hide her feeling she bent low over the table as though she were short-sighted, and made a show of reading the newspaper. my presence was disagreeable to her. i said good-bye and went home. iv it was quite still out of doors; the village on the further side of the pond was already asleep; there was not a light to be seen, and only the stars were faintly reflected in the pond. at the gate with the lions on it genya was standing motionless, waiting to escort me. "every one is asleep in the village," i said to her, trying to make out her face in the darkness, and i saw her mournful dark eyes fixed upon me. "the publican and the horse-stealers are asleep, while we, well-bred people, argue and irritate each other." it was a melancholy august night--melancholy because there was already a feeling of autumn; the moon was rising behind a purple cloud, and it shed a faint light upon the road and on the dark fields of winter corn by the sides. from time to time a star fell. genya walked beside me along the road, and tried not to look at the sky, that she might not see the falling stars, which for some reason frightened her. "i believe you are right," she said, shivering with the damp night air. "if people, all together, could devote themselves to spiritual ends, they would soon know everything." "of course. we are higher beings, and if we were really to recognise the whole force of human genius and lived only for higher ends, we should in the end become like gods. but that will never be--mankind will degenerate till no traces of genius remain." when the gates were out of sight, genya stopped and shook hands with me. "good-night," she said, shivering; she had nothing but her blouse over her shoulders and was shrinking with cold. "come to-morrow." i felt wretched at the thought of being left alone, irritated and dissatisfied with myself and other people; and i, too, tried not to look at the falling stars. "stay another minute," i said to her, "i entreat you." i loved genya. i must have loved her because she met me when i came and saw me off when i went away; because she looked at me tenderly and enthusiastically. how touchingly beautiful were her pale face, slender neck, slender arms, her weakness, her idleness, her reading. and intelligence? i suspected in her intelligence above the average. i was fascinated by the breadth of her views, perhaps because they were different from those of the stern, handsome lida, who disliked me. genya liked me, because i was an artist. i had conquered her heart by my talent, and had a passionate desire to paint for her sake alone; and i dreamed of her as of my little queen who with me would possess those trees, those fields, the mists, the dawn, the exquisite and beautiful scenery in the midst of which i had felt myself hopelessly solitary and useless. "stay another minute," i begged her. "i beseech you." i took off my overcoat and put it over her chilly shoulders; afraid of looking ugly and absurd in a man's overcoat, she laughed, threw it off, and at that instant i put my arms round her and covered her face, shoulders, and hands with kisses. "till to-morrow," she whispered, and softly, as though afraid of breaking upon the silence of the night, she embraced me. "we have no secrets from one another. i must tell my mother and my sister at once. . . . it's so dreadful! mother is all right; mother likes you--but lida!" she ran to the gates. "good-bye!" she called. and then for two minutes i heard her running. i did not want to go home, and i had nothing to go for. i stood still for a little time hesitating, and made my way slowly back, to look once more at the house in which she lived, the sweet, simple old house, which seemed to be watching me from the windows of its upper storey, and understanding all about it. i walked by the terrace, sat on the seat by the tennis ground, in the dark under the old elm-tree, and looked from there at the house. in the windows of the top storey where misuce slept there appeared a bright light, which changed to a soft green--they had covered the lamp with the shade. shadows began to move. . . . i was full of tenderness, peace, and satisfaction with myself--satisfaction at having been able to be carried away by my feelings and having fallen in love, and at the same time i felt uncomfortable at the thought that only a few steps away from me, in one of the rooms of that house there was lida, who disliked and perhaps hated me. i went on sitting there wondering whether genya would come out; i listened and fancied i heard voices talking upstairs. about an hour passed. the green light went out, and the shadows were no longer visible. the moon was standing high above the house, and lighting up the sleeping garden and the paths; the dahlias and the roses in front of the house could be seen distinctly, and looked all the same colour. it began to grow very cold. i went out of the garden, picked up my coat on the road, and slowly sauntered home. when next day after dinner i went to the voltchaninovs, the glass door into the garden was wide open. i sat down on the terrace, expecting genya every minute, to appear from behind the flower-beds on the lawn, or from one of the avenues, or that i should hear her voice from the house. then i walked into the drawing-room, the dining-room. there was not a soul to be seen. from the dining-room i walked along the long corridor to the hall and back. in this corridor there were several doors, and through one of them i heard the voice of lida: "'god . . . sent . . . a crow,'" she said in a loud, emphatic voice, probably dictating--"'god sent a crow a piece of cheese . . . . a crow . . . a piece of cheese.' . . . who's there?" she called suddenly, hearing my steps. "it's i." "ah! excuse me, i cannot come out to you this minute; i'm giving dasha her lesson." "is ekaterina pavlovna in the garden?" "no, she went away with my sister this morning to our aunt in the province of penza. and in the winter they will probably go abroad," she added after a pause. "'god sent . . . the crow . . . a piece . . . of cheese.' . . . have you written it?" i went into the hall, and stared vacantly at the pond and the village, and the sound reached me of "a piece of cheese. . . . god sent the crow a piece of cheese." and i went back by the way i had come here for the first time-- first from the yard into the garden past the house, then into the avenue of lime-trees. . . . at this point i was overtaken by a small boy who gave me a note: "i told my sister everything and she insists on my parting from you," i read. "i could not wound her by disobeying. god will give you happiness. forgive me. if only you knew how bitterly my mother and i are crying!" then there was the dark fir avenue, the broken-down fence. . . . on the field where then the rye was in flower and the corncrakes were calling, now there were cows and hobbled horses. on the slope there were bright green patches of winter corn. a sober workaday feeling came over me and i felt ashamed of all i had said at the voltchaninovs', and felt bored with life as i had been before. when i got home, i packed and set off that evening for petersburg. ---- i never saw the voltchaninovs again. not long ago, on my way to the crimea, i met byelokurov in the train. as before, he was wearing a jerkin and an embroidered shirt, and when i asked how he was, he replied that, god be praised, he was well. we began talking. he had sold his old estate and bought another smaller one, in the name of liubov ivanovna. he could tell me little about the voltchaninovs. lida, he said, was still living in shelkovka and teaching in the school; she had by degrees succeeded in gathering round her a circle of people sympathetic to her who made a strong party, and at the last election had turned out balagin, who had till then had the whole district under his thumb. about genya he only told me that she did not live at home, and that he did not know where she was. i am beginning to forget the old house, and only sometimes when i am painting or reading i suddenly, apropos of nothing, remember the green light in the window, the sound of my footsteps as i walked home through the fields in the night, with my heart full of love, rubbing my hands in the cold. and still more rarely, at moments when i am sad and depressed by loneliness, i have dim memories, and little by little i begin to feel that she is thinking of me, too --that she is waiting for me, and that we shall meet. . . . misuce, where are you? three years i it was dark, and already lights had begun to gleam here and there in the houses, and a pale moon was rising behind the barracks at the end of the street. laptev was sitting on a bench by the gate waiting for the end of the evening service at the church of st. peter and st. paul. he was reckoning that yulia sergeyevna would pass by on her way from the service, and then he would speak to her, and perhaps spend the whole evening with her. he had been sitting there for an hour and a half already, and all that time his imagination had been busy picturing his moscow rooms, his moscow friends, his man pyotr, and his writing-table. he gazed half wonderingly at the dark, motionless trees, and it seemed strange to him that he was living now, not in his summer villa at sokolniki, but in a provincial town in a house by which a great herd of cattle was driven every morning and evening, accompanied by terrible clouds of dust and the blowing of a horn. he thought of long conversations in which he had taken part quite lately in moscow--conversations in which it had been maintained that one could live without love, that passionate love was an obsession, that finally there is no such love, but only a physical attraction between the sexes--and so on, in the same style; he remembered them and thought mournfully that if he were asked now what love was, he could not have found an answer. the service was over, the people began to appear. laptev strained his eyes gazing at the dark figures. the bishop had been driven by in his carriage, the bells had stopped ringing, and the red and green lights in the belfry were one after another extinguished-- there had been an illumination, as it was dedication day--but the people were still coming out, lingering, talking, and standing under the windows. but at last laptev heard a familiar voice, his heart began beating violently, and he was overcome with despair on seeing that yulia sergeyevna was not alone, but walking with two ladies. "it's awful, awful!" he whispered, feeling jealous. "it's awful!" at the corner of the lane, she stopped to say good-bye to the ladies, and while doing so glanced at laptev. "i was coming to see you," he said. "i'm coming for a chat with your father. is he at home?" "most likely," she answered. "it's early for him to have gone to the club." there were gardens all along the lane, and a row of lime-trees growing by the fence cast a broad patch of shadow in the moonlight, so that the gate and the fences were completely plunged in darkness on one side, from which came the sounds of women whispering, smothered laughter, and someone playing softly on a balalaika. there was a fragrance of lime-flowers and of hay. this fragrance and the murmur of the unseen whispers worked upon laptev. he was all at once overwhelmed with a passionate longing to throw his arms round his companion, to shower kisses on her face, her hands, her shoulders, to burst into sobs, to fall at her feet and to tell her how long he had been waiting for her. a faint scarcely perceptible scent of incense hung about her; and that scent reminded him of the time when he, too, believed in god and used to go to evening service, and when he used to dream so much of pure romantic love. and it seemed to him that, because this girl did not love him, all possibility of the happiness he had dreamed of then was lost to him forever. she began speaking sympathetically of the illness of his sister, nina fyodorovna. two months before his sister had undergone an operation for cancer, and now every one was expecting a return of the disease. "i went to see her this morning," said yulia sergeyevna, "and it seemed to me that during the last week she has, not exactly grown thin, but has, as it were, faded." "yes, yes," laptev agreed. "there's no return of the symptoms, but every day i notice she grows weaker and weaker, and is wasting before my eyes. i don't understand what's the matter with her." "oh dear! and how strong she used to be, plump and rosy!" said yulia sergeyevna after a moment's silence. "every one here used to call her the moscow lady. how she used to laugh! on holidays she used to dress up like a peasant girl, and it suited her so well." doctor sergey borisovitch was at home; he was a stout, red-faced man, wearing a long coat that reached below his knees, and looking as though he had short legs. he was pacing up and down his study, with his hands in his pockets, and humming to himself in an undertone, "ru-ru-ru-ru." his grey whiskers looked unkempt, and his hair was unbrushed, as though he had just got out of bed. and his study with pillows on the sofa, with stacks of papers in the corners, and with a dirty invalid poodle lying under the table, produced the same impression of unkemptness and untidiness as himself. "m. laptev wants to see you," his daughter said to him, going into his study. "ru-ru-ru-ru," he hummed louder than ever, and turning into the drawing-room, gave his hand to laptev, and asked: "what good news have you to tell me?" it was dark in the drawing-room. laptev, still standing with his hat in his hand, began apologising for disturbing him; he asked what was to be done to make his sister sleep at night, and why she was growing so thin; and he was embarrassed by the thought that he had asked those very questions at his visit that morning. "tell me," he said, "wouldn't it be as well to send for some specialist on internal diseases from moscow? what do you think of it?" the doctor sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and made a vague gesture with his hands. it was evident that he was offended. he was a very huffy man, prone to take offence, and always ready to suspect that people did not believe in him, that he was not recognised or properly respected, that his patients exploited him, and that his colleagues showed him ill-will. he was always jeering at himself, saying that fools like him were only made for the public to ride rough-shod over them. yulia sergeyevna lighted the lamp. she was tired out with the service, and that was evident from her pale, exhausted face, and her weary step. she wanted to rest. she sat down on the sofa, put her hands on her lap, and sank into thought. laptev knew that he was ugly, and now he felt as though he were conscious of his ugliness all over his body. he was short, thin, with ruddy cheeks, and his hair had grown so thin that his head felt cold. in his expression there was none of that refined simplicity which makes even rough, ugly faces attractive; in the society of women, he was awkward, over-talkative, affected. and now he almost despised himself for it. he must talk that yulia sergeyevna might not be bored in his company. but what about? about his sister's illness again? and he began to talk about medicine, saying what is usually said. he approved of hygiene, and said that he had long ago wanted to found a night-refuge in moscow--in fact, he had already calculated the cost of it. according to his plan the workmen who came in the evening to the night-refuge were to receive a supper of hot cabbage soup with bread, a warm, dry bed with a rug, and a place for drying their clothes and their boots. yulia sergeyevna was usually silent in his presence, and in a strange way, perhaps by the instinct of a lover, he divined her thoughts and intentions. and now, from the fact that after the evening service she had not gone to her room to change her dress and drink tea, he deduced that she was going to pay some visit elsewhere. "but i'm in no hurry with the night-refuge," he went on, speaking with vexation and irritability, and addressing the doctor, who looked at him, as it were, blankly and in perplexity, evidently unable to understand what induced him to raise the question of medicine and hygiene. "and most likely it will be a long time, too, before i make use of our estimate. i fear our night-shelter will fall into the hands of our pious humbugs and philanthropic ladies, who always ruin any undertaking." yulia sergeyevna got up and held out her hand to laptev. "excuse me," she said, "it's time for me to go. please give my love to your sister." "ru-ru-ru-ru," hummed the doctor. "ru-ru-ru-ru." yulia sergeyevna went out, and after staying a little longer, laptev said good-bye to the doctor and went home. when a man is dissatisfied and feels unhappy, how trivial seem to him the shapes of the lime-trees, the shadows, the clouds, all the beauties of nature, so complacent, so indifferent! by now the moon was high up in the sky, and the clouds were scudding quickly below. "but how naïve and provincial the moon is, how threadbare and paltry the clouds!" thought laptev. he felt ashamed of the way he had talked just now about medicine, and the night-refuge. he felt with horror that next day he would not have will enough to resist trying to see her and talk to her again, and would again be convinced that he was nothing to her. and the day after--it would be the same. with what object? and how and when would it all end? at home he went in to see his sister. nina fyodorovna still looked strong and gave the impression of being a well-built, vigorous woman, but her striking pallor made her look like a corpse, especially when, as now, she was lying on her back with her eyes closed; her eldest daughter sasha, a girl of ten years old, was sitting beside her reading aloud from her reading-book. "alyosha has come," the invalid said softly to herself. there had long been established between sasha and her uncle a tacit compact, to take turns in sitting with the patient. on this occasion sasha closed her reading-book, and without uttering a word, went softly out of the room. laptev took an historical novel from the chest of drawers, and looking for the right page, sat down and began reading it aloud. nina fyodorovna was born in moscow of a merchant family. she and her two brothers had spent their childhood and early youth, living at home in pyatnitsky street. their childhood was long and wearisome; her father treated her sternly, and had even on two or three occasions flogged her, and her mother had had a long illness and died. the servants were coarse, dirty, and hypocritical; the house was frequented by priests and monks, also hypocritical; they ate and drank and coarsely flattered her father, whom they did not like. the boys had the good-fortune to go to school, while nina was left practically uneducated. all her life she wrote an illegible scrawl, and had read nothing but historical novels. seventeen years ago, when she was twenty-two, on a summer holiday at himki, she made the acquaintance of her present husband, a landowner called panaurov, had fallen in love with him, and married him secretly against her father's will. panaurov, a handsome, rather impudent fellow, who whistled and lighted his cigarette from the holy lamp, struck the father as an absolutely worthless person. and when the son-in-law began in his letters demanding a dowry, the old man wrote to his daughter that he would send her furs, silver, and various articles that had been left at her mother's death, as well as thirty thousand roubles, but without his paternal blessing. later he sent another twenty thousand. this money, as well as the dowry, was spent; the estate had been sold and panaurov moved with his family to the town and got a job in a provincial government office. in the town he formed another tie, and had a second family, and this was the subject of much talk, as his illicit family was not a secret. nina fyodorovna adored her husband. and now, listening to the historical novel, she was thinking how much she had gone through in her life, how much she had suffered, and that if any one were to describe her life it would make a very pathetic story. as the tumour was in her breast, she was persuaded that love and her domestic grief were the cause of her illness, and that jealousy and tears had brought her to her hopeless state. at last alexey fyodorovitch closed the book and said: "that's the end, and thank god for it. to-morrow we'll begin a new one." nina fyodorovna laughed. she had always been given to laughter, but of late laptev had begun to notice that at moments her mind seemed weakened by illness, and she would laugh at the smallest trifle, and even without any cause at all. "yulia came before dinner while you were out," she said. "so far as i can see, she hasn't much faith in her papa. 'let papa go on treating you,' she said, 'but write in secret to the holy elder to pray for you, too.' there is a holy man somewhere here. yulia forgot her parasol here; you must take it to her to-morrow," she went on after a brief pause. "no, when the end comes, neither doctors nor holy men are any help." "nina, why can't you sleep at night?" laptev asked, to change the subject. "oh, well, i don't go to sleep--that's all. i lie and think." "what do you think about, dear?" "about the children, about you . . . about my life. i've gone through a great deal, alyosha, you know. when one begins to remember and remember. . . . my god!" she laughed. "it's no joke to have borne five children as i have, to have buried three. . . sometimes i was expecting to be confined while my grigory nikolaitch would be sitting at that very time with another woman. there would be no one to send for the doctor or the midwife. i would go into the passage or the kitchen for the servant, and there jews, tradesmen, moneylenders, would be waiting for him to come home. my head used to go round . . . . he did not love me, though he never said so openly. now i've grown calmer--it doesn't weigh on my heart; but in old days, when i was younger, it hurt me--ach! how it hurt me, darling! once-- while we were still in the country--i found him in the garden with a lady, and i walked away. . . i walked on aimlessly, and i don't know how, but i found myself in the church porch. i fell on my knees: 'queen of heaven!' i said. and it was night, the moon was shining. . . ." she was exhausted, she began gasping for breath. then, after resting a little, she took her brother's hand and went on in a weak, toneless voice: "how kind you are, alyosha! . . . and how clever! . . . what a good man you've grown up into!" at midnight laptev said good-night to her, and as he went away he took with him the parasol that yulia sergeyevna had forgotten. in spite of the late hour, the servants, male and female, were drinking tea in the dining-room. how disorderly! the children were not in bed, but were there in the dining-room, too. they were all talking softly in undertones, and had not noticed that the lamp was smoking and would soon go out. all these people, big and little, were disturbed by a whole succession of bad omens and were in an oppressed mood. the glass in the hall had been broken, the samovar had been buzzing every day, and, as though on purpose, was even buzzing now. they were describing how a mouse had jumped out of nina fyodorovna's boot when she was dressing. and the children were quite aware of the terrible significance of these omens. the elder girl, sasha, a thin little brunette, was sitting motionless at the table, and her face looked scared and woebegone, while the younger, lida, a chubby fair child of seven, stood beside her sister looking from under her brows at the light. laptev went downstairs to his own rooms in the lower storey, where under the low ceilings it was always close and smelt of geraniums. in his sitting-room, panaurov, nina fyodorovna's husband, was sitting reading the newspaper. laptev nodded to him and sat down opposite. both sat still and said nothing. they used to spend whole evenings like this without speaking, and neither of them was in the least put out by this silence. the little girls came down from upstairs to say good-night. deliberately and in silence, panaurov made the sign of the cross over them several times, and gave them his hand to kiss. they dropped curtsies, and then went up to laptev, who had to make the sign of the cross and give them his hand to kiss also. this ceremony with the hand-kissing and curtsying was repeated every evening. when the children had gone out panaurov laid aside the newspaper and said: "it's not very lively in our god-fearing town! i must confess, my dear fellow," he added with a sigh, "i'm very glad that at last you've found some distraction." "what do you mean?" asked laptev. "i saw you coming out of dr. byelavin's just now. i expect you don't go there for the sake of the papa." "of course not," said laptev, and he blushed. "well, of course not. and by the way, you wouldn't find such another old brute as that papa if you hunted by daylight with a candle. you can't imagine what a foul, stupid, clumsy beast he is! you cultured people in the capitals are still interested in the provinces only on the lyrical side, only from the _paysage_ and _poor anton_ point of view, but i can assure you, my boy, there's nothing logical about it; there's nothing but barbarism, meanness, and nastiness--that's all. take the local devotees of science--the local intellectuals, so to speak. can you imagine there are here in this town twenty-eight doctors? they've all made their fortunes, and they are living in houses of their own, and meanwhile the population is in just as helpless a condition as ever. here, nina had to have an operation, quite an ordinary one really, yet we were obliged to get a surgeon from moscow; not one doctor here would undertake it. it's beyond all conception. they know nothing, they understand nothing. they take no interest in anything. ask them, for instance, what cancer is--what it is, what it comes from." and panaurov began to explain what cancer was. he was a specialist on all scientific subjects, and explained from a scientific point of view everything that was discussed. but he explained it all in his own way. he had a theory of his own about the circulation of the blood, about chemistry, about astronomy. he talked slowly, softly, convincingly. "it's beyond all conception," he pronounced in an imploring voice, screwing up his eyes, sighing languidly, and smiling as graciously as a king, and it was evident that he was very well satisfied with himself, and never gave a thought to the fact that he was fifty. "i am rather hungry," said laptev. "i should like something savoury." "well, that can easily be managed." not long afterwards laptev and his brother-in-law were sitting upstairs in the dining-room having supper. laptev had a glass of vodka, and then began drinking wine. panaurov drank nothing. he never drank, and never gambled, yet in spite of that he had squandered all his own and his wife's property, and had accumulated debts. to squander so much in such a short time, one must have, not passions, but a special talent. panaurov liked dainty fare, liked a handsome dinner service, liked music after dinner, speeches, bowing footmen, to whom he would carelessly fling tips of ten, even twenty-five roubles. he always took part in all lotteries and subscriptions, sent bouquets to ladies of his acquaintance on their birthdays, bought cups, stands for glasses, studs, ties, walking-sticks, scents, cigarette-holders, pipes, lap-dogs, parrots, japanese bric-à-brac, antiques; he had silk nightshirts, and a bedstead made of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl. his dressing-gown was a genuine bokhara, and everything was to correspond; and on all this there went every day, as he himself expressed, "a deluge" of money. at supper he kept sighing and shaking his head. "yes, everything on this earth has an end," he said softly, screwing up his dark eyes. "you will fall in love and suffer. you will fall out of love; you'll be deceived, for there is no woman who will not deceive; you will suffer, will be brought to despair, and will be faithless too. but the time will come when all this will be a memory, and when you will reason about it coldly and look upon it as utterly trivial. . . ." laptev, tired, a little drunk, looked at his handsome head, his clipped black beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved this pampered, conceited, and physically handsome creature. after supper panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to his other lodgings. laptev went out to see him on his way. panaurov was the only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant, dandified figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences, the pitiful little houses, with their three windows and the thickets of nettles, always made a strange and mournful impression. after saying good-bye to him laptev returned home without hurrying. the moon was shining brightly; one could distinguish every straw on the ground, and laptev felt as though the moonlight were caressing his bare head, as though some one were passing a feather over his hair. "i love!" he pronounced aloud, and he had a sudden longing to run to overtake panaurov, to embrace him, to forgive him, to make him a present of a lot of money, and then to run off into the open country, into a wood, to run on and on without looking back. at home he saw lying on the chair the parasol yulia sergeyevna had forgotten; he snatched it up and kissed it greedily. the parasol was a silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic. the handle was a cheap one, of white bone. laptev opened it over him, and he felt as though there were the fragrance of happiness about him. he settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and still keeping hold of the parasol, began writing to moscow to one of his friends: "dear precious kostya, "here is news for you: i'm in love again! i say _again_, because six years ago i fell in love with a moscow actress, though i didn't even succeed in making her acquaintance, and for the last year and a half i have been living with a certain person you know--a woman neither young nor good-looking. ah, my dear boy, how unlucky i am in love. i've never had any success with women, and if i say _again_ it's simply because it's rather sad and mortifying to acknowledge even to myself that my youth has passed entirely without love, and that i'm in love in a real sense now for the first time in my life, at thirty-four. let it stand that i love _again_. "if only you knew what a girl she was! she couldn't be called a beauty--she has a broad face, she is very thin, but what a wonderful expression of goodness she has when she smiles! when she speaks, her voice is as clear as a bell. she never carries on a conversation with me--i don't know her; but when i'm beside her i feel she's a striking, exceptional creature, full of intelligence and lofty aspirations. she is religious, and you cannot imagine how deeply this touches me and exalts her in my eyes. on that point i am ready to argue with you endlessly. you may be right, to your thinking; but, still, i love to see her praying in church. she is a provincial, but she was educated in moscow. she loves our moscow; she dresses in the moscow style, and i love her for that--love her, love her . . . . i see you frowning and getting up to read me a long lecture on what love is, and what sort of woman one can love, and what sort one cannot, and so on, and so on. but, dear kostya, before i was in love i, too, knew quite well what love was. "my sister thanks you for your message. she often recalls how she used to take kostya kotchevoy to the preparatory class, and never speaks of you except as _poor kostya_, as she still thinks of you as the little orphan boy she remembers. and so, poor orphan, i'm in love. while it's a secret, don't say anything to a 'certain person.' i think it will all come right of itself, or, as the footman says in tolstoy, will 'come round.'" when he had finished his letter laptev went to bed. he was so tired that he couldn't keep his eyes open, but for some reason he could not get to sleep; the noise in the street seemed to prevent him. the cattle were driven by to the blowing of a horn, and soon afterwards the bells began ringing for early mass. at one minute a cart drove by creaking; at the next, he heard the voice of some woman going to market. and the sparrows twittered the whole time. ii the next morning was a cheerful one; it was a holiday. at ten o'clock nina fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress and with her hair neatly arranged, was led into the drawing-room, supported on each side. there she walked about a little and stood by the open window, and her smile was broad and naïve, and, looking at her, one recalled a local artist, a great drunkard, who wanted her to sit to him for a picture of the russian carnival. and all of them--the children, the servants, her brother, alexey fyodorovitch, and she herself-- were suddenly convinced, that she was certainly going to get well. with shrieks of laughter the children ran after their uncle, chasing him and catching him, and filling the house with noise. people called to ask how she was, brought her holy bread, told her that in almost all the churches they were offering up prayers for her that day. she had been conspicuous for her benevolence in the town, and was liked. she was very ready with her charity, like her brother alexey, who gave away his money freely, without considering whether it was necessary to give it or not. nina fyodorovna used to pay the school fees for poor children; used to give away tea, sugar, and jam to old women; used to provide trousseaux for poor brides; and if she picked up a newspaper, she always looked first of all to see if there were any appeals for charity or a paragraph about somebody's being in a destitute condition. she was holding now in her hand a bundle of notes, by means of which various poor people, her protégés, had procured goods from a grocer's shop. they had been sent her the evening before by the shopkeeper with a request for the payment of the total--eighty-two roubles. "my goodness, what a lot they've had! they've no conscience!" she said, deciphering with difficulty her ugly handwriting. "it's no joke! eighty-two roubles! i declare i won't pay it." "i'll pay it to-day," said laptev. "why should you? why should you?" cried nina fyodorovna in agitation. "it's quite enough for me to take two hundred and fifty every month from you and our brother. god bless you!" she added, speaking softly, so as not to be overheard by the servants. "well, but i spend two thousand five hundred a month," he said. "i tell you again, dear: you have just as much right to spend it as i or fyodor. do understand that, once for all. there are three of us, and of every three kopecks of our father's money, one belongs to you." but nina fyodorovna did not understand, and her expression looked as though she were mentally solving some very difficult problem. and this lack of comprehension in pecuniary matters, always made laptev feel uneasy and troubled. he suspected that she had private debts in addition which worried her and of which she scrupled to tell him. then came the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing; it was the doctor coming up the stairs, dishevelled and unkempt as usual. "ru-ru-ru," he was humming. "ru-ru." to avoid meeting him, laptev went into the dining-room, and then went downstairs to his own room. it was clear to him that to get on with the doctor and to drop in at his house without formalities was impossible; and to meet the "old brute," as panaurov called him, was distasteful. that was why he so rarely saw yulia. he reflected now that the father was not at home, that if he were to take yulia sergeyevna her parasol, he would be sure to find her at home alone, and his heart ached with joy. haste, haste! he took the parasol and, violently agitated, flew on the wings of love. it was hot in the street. in the big courtyard of the doctor's house, overgrown with coarse grass and nettles, some twenty urchins were playing ball. these were all the children of working-class families who tenanted the three disreputable-looking lodges, which the doctor was always meaning to have done up, though he put it off from year to year. the yard resounded with ringing, healthy voices. at some distance on one side, yulia sergeyevna was standing at her porch, her hands folded, watching the game. "good-morning!" laptev called to her. she looked round. usually he saw her indifferent, cold, or tired as she had been the evening before. now her face looked full of life and frolic, like the faces of the boys who were playing ball. "look, they never play so merrily in moscow," she said, going to meet him. "there are no such big yards there, though; they've no place to run there. papa has only just gone to you," she added, looking round at the children. "i know; but i've not come to see him, but to see you," said laptev, admiring her youthfulness, which he had not noticed till then, and seemed only that day to have discovered in her; it seemed to him as though he were seeing her slender white neck with the gold chain for the first time. "i've come to see you . . ." he repeated. "my sister has sent you your parasol; you forgot it yesterday." she put out her hand to take the parasol, but he pressed it to his bosom and spoke passionately, without restraint, yielding again to the sweet ecstasy he had felt the night before, sitting under the parasol. "i entreat you, give it me. i shall keep it in memory of you . . . of our acquaintance. it's so wonderful!" "take it," she said, and blushed; "but there's nothing wonderful about it." he looked at her in ecstasy, in silence, not knowing what to say. "why am i keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief pause, laughing. "let us go indoors." "i am not disturbing you?" they went into the hall. yulia sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white dress with blue flowers on it rustling as she went. "i can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "i never do anything. every day is a holiday for me, from morning till night." "what you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. "i grew up in a world in which every one without exception, men and women alike, worked hard every day." "but if one has nothing to do?" she asked. "one has to arrange one's life under such conditions, that work is inevitable. there can be no clean and happy life without work." again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise spoke softly, in a voice unlike his own: "if you would consent to be my wife i would give everything--i would give everything. there's no price i would not pay, no sacrifice i would not make." she started and looked at him with wonder and alarm. "what are you saying!" she brought out, turning pale. "it's impossible, i assure you. forgive me." then with the same rustle of her skirts she went up higher, and vanished through the doorway. laptev grasped what this meant, and his mood was transformed, completely, abruptly, as though a light in his soul had suddenly been extinguished. filled with the shame of a man humiliated, of a man who is disdained, who is not liked, who is distasteful, perhaps disgusting, who is shunned, he walked out of the house. "i would give everything," he thought, mimicking himself as he went home through the heat and recalled the details of his declaration. "i would give everything--like a regular tradesman. as though she wanted your _everything_!" all he had just said seemed to him repulsively stupid. why had he lied, saying that he had grown up in a world where every one worked, without exception? why had he talked to her in a lecturing tone about a clean and happy life? it was not clever, not interesting; it was false--false in the moscow style. but by degrees there followed that mood of indifference into which criminals sink after a severe sentence. he began thinking that, thank god! everything was at an end and that the terrible uncertainty was over; that now there was no need to spend whole days in anticipation, in pining, in thinking always of the same thing. now everything was clear; he must give up all hope of personal happiness, live without desires, without hopes, without dreams, or expectations, and to escape that dreary sadness which he was so sick of trying to soothe, he could busy himself with other people's affairs, other people's happiness, and old age would come on imperceptibly, and life would reach its end--and nothing more was wanted. he did not care, he wished for nothing, and could reason about it coolly, but there was a sort of heaviness in his face especially under his eyes, his forehead felt drawn tight like elastic--and tears were almost starting into his eyes. feeling weak all over, he lay down on his bed, and in five minutes was sound asleep. iii the proposal laptev had made so suddenly threw yulia sergeyevna into despair. she knew laptev very little, had made his acquaintance by chance; he was a rich man, a partner in the well-known moscow firm of "fyodor laptev and sons"; always serious, apparently clever, and anxious about his sister's illness. it had seemed to her that he took no notice of her whatever, and she did not care about him in the least --and then all of a sudden that declaration on the stairs, that pitiful, ecstatic face. . . . the offer had overwhelmed her by its suddenness and by the fact that the word wife had been uttered, and by the necessity of rejecting it. she could not remember what she had said to laptev, but she still felt traces of the sudden, unpleasant feeling with which she had rejected him. he did not attract her; he looked like a shopman; he was not interesting; she could not have answered him except with a refusal, and yet she felt uncomfortable, as though she had done wrong. "my god! without waiting to get into the room, on the stairs," she said to herself in despair, addressing the ikon which hung over her pillow; "and no courting beforehand, but so strangely, so oddly. . . ." in her solitude her agitation grew more intense every hour, and it was beyond her strength to master this oppressive feeling alone. she needed some one to listen to her story and to tell her that she had done right. but she had no one to talk to. she had lost her mother long before; she thought her father a queer man, and could not talk to him seriously. he worried her with his whims, his extreme readiness to take offence, and his meaningless gestures; and as soon as one began to talk to him, he promptly turned the conversation on himself. and in her prayer she was not perfectly open, because she did not know for certain what she ought to pray for. the samovar was brought in. yulia sergeyevna, very pale and tired, looking dejected, came into the dining-room to make tea--it was one of her duties--and poured out a glass for her father. sergey borisovitch, in his long coat that reached below his knees, with his red face and unkempt hair, walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets, pacing, not from corner to corner, but backwards and forwards at random, like a wild beast in its cage. he would stand still by the table, sip his glass of tea with relish, and pace about again, lost in thought. "laptev made me an offer to-day," said yulia sergeyevna, and she flushed crimson. the doctor looked at her and did not seem to understand. "laptev?" he queried. "panaurov's brother-in-law?" he was fond of his daughter; it was most likely that she would sooner or later be married, and leave him, but he tried not to think about that. he was afraid of being alone, and for some reason fancied, that if he were left alone in that great house, he would have an apoplectic stroke, but he did not like to speak of this directly. "well, i'm delighted to hear it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "i congratulate you with all my heart. it offers you a splendid opportunity for leaving me, to your great satisfaction. and i quite understand your feelings. to live with an old father, an invalid, half crazy, must be very irksome at your age. i quite understand you. and the sooner i'm laid out and in the devil's clutches, the better every one will be pleased. i congratulate you with all my heart." "i refused him." the doctor felt relieved, but he was unable to stop himself and went on: "i wonder, i've long wondered, why i've not yet been put into a madhouse--why i'm still wearing this coat instead of a strait-waistcoat? i still have faith in justice, in goodness. i am a fool, an idealist, and nowadays that's insanity, isn't it? and how do they repay me for my honesty? they almost throw stones at me and ride rough-shod over me. and even my nearest kith and kin do nothing but try to get the better of me. it's high time the devil fetched an old fool like me. . . ." "there's no talking to you like a rational being!" said yulia. she got up from the table impulsively, and went to her room in great wrath, remembering how often her father had been unjust to her. but a little while afterwards she felt sorry for her father, too, and when he was going to the club she went downstairs with him, and shut the door after him. it was a rough and stormy night; the door shook with the violence of the wind, and there were draughts in all directions in the passage, so that the candle was almost blown out. in her own domain upstairs yulia sergeyevna went the round of all the rooms, making the sign of the cross over every door and window; the wind howled, and it sounded as though some one were walking on the roof. never had it been so dreary, never had she felt so lonely. she asked herself whether she had done right in rejecting a man, simply because his appearance did not attract her. it was true he was a man she did not love, and to marry him would mean renouncing forever her dreams, her conceptions of happiness in married life, but would she ever meet the man of whom she dreamed, and would he love her? she was twenty-one already. there were no eligible young men in the town. she pictured all the men she knew--government clerks, schoolmasters, officers, and some of them were married already, and their domestic life was conspicuous for its dreariness and triviality; others were uninteresting, colourless, unintelligent, immoral. laptev was, anyway, a moscow man, had taken his degree at the university, spoke french. he lived in the capital, where there were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people; where there was noise and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings, first-rate dressmakers, confectioners. . . . in the bible it was written that a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? was it out of the question to enter upon married life without love? it was said, of course, that love soon passed away, and that nothing was left but habit, and that the object of married life was not to be found in love, nor in happiness, but in duties, such as the bringing up of one's children, the care of one's household, and so on. and perhaps what was meant in the bible was love for one's husband as one's neighbour, respect for him, charity. at night yulia sergeyevna read the evening prayers attentively, then knelt down, and pressing her hands to her bosom, gazing at the flame of the lamp before the ikon, said with feeling: "give me understanding, holy mother, our defender! give me understanding, o lord!" she had in the course of her life come across elderly maiden ladies, poor and of no consequence in the world, who bitterly repented and openly confessed their regret that they had refused suitors in the past. would not the same thing happen to her? had not she better go into a convent or become a sister of mercy? she undressed and got into bed, crossing herself and crossing the air around her. suddenly the bell rang sharply and plaintively in the corridor. "oh, my god!" she said, feeling a nervous irritation all over her at the sound. she lay still and kept thinking how poor this provincial life was in events, monotonous and yet not peaceful. one was constantly having to tremble, to feel apprehensive, angry or guilty, and in the end one's nerves were so strained, that one was afraid to peep out of the bedclothes. a little while afterwards the bell rang just as sharply again. the servant must have been asleep and had not heard. yulia sergeyevna lighted a candle, and feeling vexed with the servant, began with a shiver to dress, and when she went out into the corridor, the maid was already closing the door downstairs. "i thought it was the master, but it's some one from a patient," she said. yulia sergeyevna went back to her room. she took a pack of cards out of the chest of drawers, and decided that if after shuffling the cards well and cutting, the bottom card turned out to be a red one, it would mean _yes_--that is, she would accept laptev's offer; and that if it was a black, it would mean _no_. the card turned out to be the ten of spades. that relieved her mind--she fell asleep; but in the morning, she was wavering again between _yes_ and _no_, and she was dwelling on the thought that she could, if she chose, change her life. the thought harassed her, she felt exhausted and unwell; but yet, soon after eleven, she dressed and went to see nina fyodorovna. she wanted to see laptev: perhaps now he would seem more attractive to her; perhaps she had been wrong about him hitherto. . . . she found it hard to walk against the wind. she struggled along, holding her hat on with both hands, and could see nothing for the dust. iv going into his sister's room, and seeing to his surprise yulia sergeyevna, laptev had again the humiliating sensation of a man who feels himself an object of repulsion. he concluded that if after what had happened yesterday she could bring herself so easily to visit his sister and meet him, it must be because she was not concerned about him, and regarded him as a complete nonentity. but when he greeted her, and with a pale face and dust under her eyes she looked at him mournfully and remorsefully, he saw that she, too, was miserable. she did not feel well. she only stayed ten minutes, and began saying good-bye. and as she went out she said to laptev: "will you see me home, alexey fyodorovitch?" they walked along the street in silence, holding their hats, and he, walking a little behind, tried to screen her from the wind. in the lane it was more sheltered, and they walked side by side. "forgive me if i was not nice yesterday;" and her voice quavered as though she were going to cry. "i was so wretched! i did not sleep all night." "i slept well all night," said laptev, without looking at her; "but that doesn't mean that i was happy. my life is broken. i'm deeply unhappy, and after your refusal yesterday i go about like a man poisoned. the most difficult thing was said yesterday. to-day i feel no embarrassment and can talk to you frankly. i love you more than my sister, more than my dead mother. . . . i can live without my sister, and without my mother, and i have lived without them, but life without you--is meaningless to me; i can't face it. . . ." and now too, as usual, he guessed her intention. he realised that she wanted to go back to what had happened the day before, and with that object had asked him to accompany her, and now was taking him home with her. but what could she add to her refusal? what new idea had she in her head? from everything, from her glances, from her smile, and even from her tone, from the way she held her head and shoulders as she walked beside him, he saw that, as before, she did not love him, that he was a stranger to her. what more did she want to say? doctor sergey borisovitch was at home. "you are very welcome. i'm always glad to see you, fyodor alexeyitch," he said, mixing up his christian name and his father's. "delighted, delighted!" he had never been so polite before, and laptev saw that he knew of his offer; he did not like that either. he was sitting now in the drawing-room, and the room impressed him strangely, with its poor, common decorations, its wretched pictures, and though there were arm-chairs in it, and a huge lamp with a shade over it, it still looked like an uninhabited place, a huge barn, and it was obvious that no one could feel at home in such a room, except a man like the doctor. the next room, almost twice as large, was called the reception-room, and in it there were only rows of chairs, as though for a dancing class. and while laptev was sitting in the drawing-room talking to the doctor about his sister, he began to be tortured by a suspicion. had not yulia sergeyevna been to his sister nina's, and then brought him here to tell him that she would accept him? oh, how awful it was! but the most awful thing of all was that his soul was capable of such a suspicion. and he imagined how the father and the daughter had spent the evening, and perhaps the night before, in prolonged consultation, perhaps dispute, and at last had come to the conclusion that yulia had acted thoughtlessly in refusing a rich man. the words that parents use in such cases kept ringing in his ears: "it is true you don't love him, but think what good you could do!" the doctor was going out to see patients. laptev would have gone with him, but yulia sergeyevna said: "i beg you to stay." she was distressed and dispirited, and told herself now that to refuse an honourable, good man who loved her, simply because he was not attractive, especially when marrying him would make it possible for her to change her mode of life, her cheerless, monotonous, idle life in which youth was passing with no prospect of anything better in the future--to refuse him under such circumstances was madness, caprice and folly, and that god might even punish her for it. the father went out. when the sound of his steps had died away, she suddenly stood up before laptev and said resolutely, turning horribly white as she did so: "i thought for a long time yesterday, alexey fyodorovitch. . . . i accept your offer." he bent down and kissed her hand. she kissed him awkwardly on the head with cold lips. he felt that in this love scene the chief thing--her love--was lacking, and that there was a great deal that was not wanted; and he longed to cry out, to run away, to go back to moscow at once. but she was close to him, and she seemed to him so lovely, and he was suddenly overcome by passion. he reflected that it was too late for deliberation now; he embraced her passionately, and muttered some words, calling her _thou_; he kissed her on the neck, and then on the cheek, on the head. . . . she walked away to the window, dismayed by these demonstrations, and both of them were already regretting what they had said and both were asking themselves in confusion: "why has this happened?" "if only you knew how miserable i am!" she said, wringing her hands. "what is it?" he said, going up to her, wringing his hands too. "my dear, for god's sake, tell me--what is it? only tell the truth, i entreat you--nothing but the truth!" "don't pay any attention to it," she said, and forced herself to smile. "i promise you i'll be a faithful, devoted wife. . . . come this evening." sitting afterwards with his sister and reading aloud an historical novel, he recalled it all and felt wounded that his splendid, pure, rich feeling was met with such a shallow response. he was not loved, but his offer had been accepted--in all probability because he was rich: that is, what was thought most of in him was what he valued least of all in himself. it was quite possible that yulia, who was so pure and believed in god, had not once thought of his money; but she did not love him--did not love him, and evidently she had interested motives, vague, perhaps, and not fully thought out--still, it was so. the doctor's house with its common furniture was repulsive to him, and he looked upon the doctor himself as a wretched, greasy miser, a sort of operatic gaspard from "les cloches de corneville." the very name "yulia" had a vulgar sound. he imagined how he and his yulia would stand at their wedding, in reality complete strangers to one another, without a trace of feeling on her side, just as though their marriage had been made by a professional matchmaker; and the only consolation left him now, as commonplace as the marriage itself, was the reflection that he was not the first, and would not be the last; that thousands of people were married like that; and that with time, when yulia came to know him better, she would perhaps grow fond of him. "romeo and juliet!" he said, as he shut the novel, and he laughed. "i am romeo, nina. you may congratulate me. i made an offer to yulia byelavin to-day." nina fyodorovna thought he was joking, but when she believed it, she began to cry; she was not pleased at the news. "well, i congratulate you," she said. "but why is it so sudden?" "no, it's not sudden. it's been going on since march, only you don't notice anything. . . . i fell in love with her last march when i made her acquaintance here, in your rooms." "i thought you would marry some one in our moscow set," said nina fyodorovna after a pause. "girls in our set are simpler. but what matters, alyosha, is that you should be happy--that matters most. my grigory nikolaitch did not love me, and there's no concealing it; you can see what our life is. of course any woman may love you for your goodness and your brains, but, you see, yulitchka is a girl of good family from a high-class boarding-school; goodness and brains are not enough for her. she is young, and, you, alyosha, are not so young, and are not good-looking." to soften the last words, she stroked his head and said: "you're not good-looking, but you're a dear." she was so agitated that a faint flush came into her cheeks, and she began discussing eagerly whether it would be the proper thing for her to bless alyosha with the ikon at the wedding. she was, she reasoned, his elder sister, and took the place of his mother; and she kept trying to convince her dejected brother that the wedding must be celebrated in proper style, with pomp and gaiety, so that no one could find fault with it. then he began going to the byelavins' as an accepted suitor, three or four times a day; and now he never had time to take sasha's place and read aloud the historical novel. yulia used to receive him in her two rooms, which were at a distance from the drawing-room and her father's study, and he liked them very much. the walls in them were dark; in the corner stood a case of ikons; and there was a smell of good scent and of the oil in the holy lamp. her rooms were at the furthest end of the house; her bedstead and dressing-table were shut off by a screen. the doors of the bookcase were covered on the inside with a green curtain, and there were rugs on the floor, so that her footsteps were noiseless--and from this he concluded that she was of a reserved character, and that she liked a quiet, peaceful, secluded life. in her own home she was treated as though she were not quite grown up. she had no money of her own, and sometimes when they were out for walks together, she was overcome with confusion at not having a farthing. her father allowed her very little for dress and books, hardly ten pounds a year. and, indeed, the doctor himself had not much money in spite of his good practice. he played cards every night at the club, and always lost. moreover, he bought mortgaged houses through a building society, and let them. the tenants were irregular in paying the rent, but he was convinced that such speculations were profitable. he had mortgaged his own house in which he and his daughter were living, and with the money so raised had bought a piece of waste ground, and had already begun to build on it a large two-storey house, meaning to mortgage it, too, as soon as it was finished. laptev now lived in a sort of cloud, feeling as though he were not himself, but his double, and did many things which he would never have brought himself to do before. he went three or four times to the club with the doctor, had supper with him, and offered him money for house-building. he even visited panaurov at his other establishment. it somehow happened that panaurov invited him to dinner, and without thinking, laptev accepted. he was received by a lady of five-and-thirty. she was tall and thin, with hair touched with grey, and black eyebrows, apparently not russian. there were white patches of powder on her face. she gave him a honeyed smile and pressed his hand jerkily, so that the bracelets on her white hands tinkled. it seemed to laptev that she smiled like that because she wanted to conceal from herself and from others that she was unhappy. he also saw two little girls, aged five and three, who had a marked likeness to sasha. for dinner they had milk-soup, cold veal, and chocolate. it was insipid and not good; but the table was splendid, with gold forks, bottles of soyer, and cayenne pepper, an extraordinary bizarre cruet-stand, and a gold pepper-pot. it was only as he was finishing the milk-soup that laptev realised how very inappropriate it was for him to be dining there. the lady was embarrassed, and kept smiling, showing her teeth. panaurov expounded didactically what being in love was, and what it was due to. "we have in it an example of the action of electricity," he said in french, addressing the lady. "every man has in his skin microscopic glands which contain currents of electricity. if you meet with a person whose currents are parallel with your own, then you get love." when laptev went home and his sister asked him where he had been he felt awkward, and made no answer. he felt himself in a false position right up to the time of the wedding. his love grew more intense every day, and yulia seemed to him a poetic and exalted creature; but, all the same, there was no mutual love, and the truth was that he was buying her and she was selling herself. sometimes, thinking things over, he fell into despair and asked himself: should he run away? he did not sleep for nights together, and kept thinking how he should meet in moscow the lady whom he had called in his letters "a certain person," and what attitude his father and his brother, difficult people, would take towards his marriage and towards yulia. he was afraid that his father would say something rude to yulia at their first meeting. and something strange had happened of late to his brother fyodor. in his long letters he had taken to writing of the importance of health, of the effect of illness on the mental condition, of the meaning of religion, but not a word about moscow or business. these letters irritated laptev, and he thought his brother's character was changing for the worse. the wedding was in september. the ceremony took place at the church of st. peter and st. paul, after mass, and the same day the young couple set off for moscow. when laptev and his wife, in a black dress with a long train, already looking not a girl but a married woman, said good-bye to nina fyodorovna, the invalid's face worked, but there was no tear in her dry eyes. she said: "if--which god forbid--i should die, take care of my little girls." "oh, i promise!" answered yulia sergeyevna, and her lips and eyelids began quivering too. "i shall come to see you in october," said laptev, much moved. "you must get better, my darling." they travelled in a special compartment. both felt depressed and uncomfortable. she sat in the corner without taking off her hat, and made a show of dozing, and he lay on the seat opposite, and he was disturbed by various thoughts--of his father, of "a certain person," whether yulia would like her moscow flat. and looking at his wife, who did not love him, he wondered dejectedly "why this had happened." v the laptevs had a wholesale business in moscow, dealing in fancy goods: fringe, tape, trimmings, crochet cotton, buttons, and so on. the gross receipts reached two millions a year; what the net profit was, no one knew but the old father. the sons and the clerks estimated the profits at approximately three hundred thousand, and said that it would have been a hundred thousand more if the old man had not "been too free-handed"--that is, had not allowed credit indiscriminately. in the last ten years alone the bad debts had mounted up to the sum of a million; and when the subject was referred to, the senior clerk would wink slyly and deliver himself of sentences the meaning of which was not clear to every one: "the psychological sequences of the age." their chief commercial operations were conducted in the town market in a building which was called the warehouse. the entrance to the warehouse was in the yard, where it was always dark, and smelt of matting and where the dray-horses were always stamping their hoofs on the asphalt. a very humble-looking door, studded with iron, led from the yard into a room with walls discoloured by damp and scrawled over with charcoal, lighted up by a narrow window covered by an iron grating. then on the left was another room larger and cleaner with an iron stove and a couple of chairs, though it, too, had a prison window: this was the office, and from it a narrow stone staircase led up to the second storey, where the principal room was. this was rather a large room, but owing to the perpetual darkness, the low-pitched ceiling, the piles of boxes and bales, and the numbers of men that kept flitting to and fro in it, it made as unpleasant an impression on a newcomer as the others. in the offices on the top storey the goods lay in bales, in bundles and in cardboard boxes on the shelves; there was no order nor neatness in the arrangement of it, and if crimson threads, tassels, ends of fringe, had not peeped out here and there from holes in the paper parcels, no one could have guessed what was being bought and sold here. and looking at these crumpled paper parcels and boxes, no one would have believed that a million was being made out of such trash, and that fifty men were employed every day in this warehouse, not counting the buyers. when at midday, on the day after his arrival at moscow, laptev went into the warehouse, the workmen packing the goods were hammering so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him come in. a postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not notice laptev either. the first person to meet him upstairs was his brother fyodor fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed for twins. this resemblance always reminded laptev of his own personal appearance, and now, seeing before him a short, red-faced man with rather thin hair, with narrow plebeian hips, looking so uninteresting and so unintellectual, he asked himself: "can i really look like that?" "how glad i am to see you!" said fyodor, kissing his brother and pressing his hand warmly. "i have been impatiently looking forward to seeing you every day, my dear fellow. when you wrote that you were getting married, i was tormented with curiosity, and i've missed you, too, brother. only fancy, it's six months since we saw each other. well? how goes it? nina's very bad? awfully bad?" "awfully bad." "it's in god's hands," sighed fyodor. "well, what of your wife? she's a beauty, no doubt? i love her already. of course, she is my little sister now. we'll make much of her between us." laptev saw the broad, bent back--so familiar to him--of his father, fyodor stepanovitch. the old man was sitting on a stool near the counter, talking to a customer. "father, god has sent us joy!" cried fyodor. "brother has come!" fyodor stepanovitch was a tall man of exceptionally powerful build, so that, in spite of his wrinkles and eighty years, he still looked a hale and vigorous man. he spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice, that resounded from his broad chest as from a barrel. he wore no beard, but a short-clipped military moustache, and smoked cigars. as he was always too hot, he used all the year round to wear a canvas coat at home and at the warehouse. he had lately had an operation for cataract. his sight was bad, and he did nothing in the business but talk to the customers and have tea and jam with them. laptev bent down and kissed his head and then his lips. "it's a good long time since we saw you, honoured sir," said the old man--"a good long time. well, am i to congratulate you on entering the state of holy matrimony? very well, then; i congratulate you." and he put his lips out to be kissed. laptev bent down and kissed him. "well, have you brought your young lady?" the old man asked, and without waiting for an answer, he said, addressing the customer: "'herewith i beg to inform you, father, that i'm going to marry such and such a young lady.' yes. but as for asking for his father's counsel or blessing, that's not in the rules nowadays. now they go their own way. when i married i was over forty, but i went on my knees to my father and asked his advice. nowadays we've none of that." the old man was delighted to see his son, but thought it unseemly to show his affection or make any display of his joy. his voice and his manner of saying "your young lady" brought back to laptev the depression he had always felt in the warehouse. here every trifling detail reminded him of the past, when he used to be flogged and put on lenten fare; he knew that even now boys were thrashed and punched in the face till their noses bled, and that when those boys grew up they would beat others. and before he had been five minutes in the warehouse, he always felt as though he were being scolded or punched in the face. fyodor slapped the customer on the shoulder and said to his brother: "here, alyosha, i must introduce our tambov benefactor, grigory timofeitch. he might serve as an example for the young men of the day; he's passed his fiftieth birthday, and he has tiny children." the clerks laughed, and the customer, a lean old man with a pale face, laughed too. "nature above the normal capacity," observed the head-clerk, who was standing at the counter close by. "it always comes out when it's there." the head-clerk--a tall man of fifty, in spectacles, with a dark beard, and a pencil behind his ear--usually expressed his ideas vaguely in roundabout hints, while his sly smile betrayed that he attached particular significance to his words. he liked to obscure his utterances with bookish words, which he understood in his own way, and many such words he used in a wrong sense. for instance, the word "except." when he had expressed some opinion positively and did not want to be contradicted, he would stretch out his hand and pronounce: "except!" and what was most astonishing, the customers and the other clerks understood him perfectly. his name was ivan vassilitch potchatkin, and he came from kashira. now, congratulating laptev, he expressed himself as follows: "it's the reward of valour, for the female heart is a strong opponent." another important person in the warehouse was a clerk called makeitchev--a stout, solid, fair man with whiskers and a perfectly bald head. he went up to laptev and congratulated him respectfully in a low voice: "i have the honour, sir. . . the lord has heard your parent's prayer. thank god." then the other clerks began coming up to congratulate him on his marriage. they were all fashionably dressed, and looked like perfectly well-bred, educated men. since between every two words they put in a "sir," their congratulations--something like "best wishes, sir, for happiness, sir," uttered very rapidly in a low voice--sounded rather like the hiss of a whip in the air--"shshsh-s s s s s!" laptev was soon bored and longing to go home, but it was awkward to go away. he was obliged to stay at least two hours at the warehouse to keep up appearances. he walked away from the counter and began asking makeitchev whether things had gone well while he was away, and whether anything new had turned up, and the clerk answered him respectfully, avoiding his eyes. a boy with a cropped head, wearing a grey blouse, handed laptev a glass of tea without a saucer; not long afterwards another boy, passing by, stumbled over a box, and almost fell down, and makeitchev's face looked suddenly spiteful and ferocious like a wild beast's, and he shouted at him: "keep on your feet!" the clerks were pleased that their young master was married and had come back at last; they looked at him with curiosity and friendly feeling, and each one thought it his duty to say something agreeable when he passed him. but laptev was convinced that it was not genuine, and that they were only flattering him because they were afraid of him. he never could forget how fifteen years before, a clerk, who was mentally deranged, had run out into the street with nothing on but his shirt and shaking his fists at the windows, shouted that he had been ill-treated; and how, when the poor fellow had recovered, the clerks had jeered at him for long afterwards, reminding him how he had called his employers "planters" instead of "exploiters." altogether the employees at laptevs' had a very poor time of it, and this fact was a subject of conversation for the whole market. the worst of it was that the old man, fyodor stepanovitch, maintained something of an asiatic despotism in his attitude to them. thus, no one knew what wages were paid to the old man's favourites, potchatkin and makeitchev. they received no more than three thousand a year, together with bonuses, but he made out that he paid then seven. the bonuses were given to all the clerks every year, but privately, so that the man who got little was bound from vanity to say he had got more. not one boy knew when he would be promoted to be a clerk; not one of the men knew whether his employer was satisfied with him or not. nothing was directly forbidden, and so the clerks never knew what was allowed, and what was not. they were not forbidden to marry, but they did not marry for fear of displeasing their employer and losing their place. they were allowed to have friends and pay visits, but the gates were shut at nine o'clock, and every morning the old man scanned them all suspiciously, and tried to detect any smell of vodka about them: "now then, breathe," he would say. every clerk was obliged to go to early service, and to stand in church in such a position that the old man could see them all. the fasts were strictly observed. on great occasions, such as the birthday of their employer or of any member of his family, the clerks had to subscribe and present a cake from fley's, or an album. the clerks lived three or four in a room in the lower storey, and in the lodges of the house in pyatnitsky street, and at dinner ate from a common bowl, though there was a plate set before each of them. if one of the family came into the room while they were at dinner, they all stood up. laptev was conscious that only, perhaps, those among them who had been corrupted by the old man's training could seriously regard him as their benefactor; the others must have looked on him as an enemy and a "planter." now, after six months' absence, he saw no change for the better; there was indeed something new which boded nothing good. his brother fyodor, who had always been quiet, thoughtful, and extremely refined, was now running about the warehouse with a pencil behind his ear making a show of being very busy and businesslike, slapping customers on the shoulder and shouting "friends!" to the clerks. apparently he had taken up a new role, and alexey did not recognise him in the part. the old man's voice boomed unceasingly. having nothing to do, he was laying down the law to a customer, telling him how he should order his life and his business, always holding himself up as an example. that boastfulness, that aggressive tone of authority, laptev had heard ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. the old man adored himself; from what he said it always appeared that he had made his wife and all her relations happy, that he had been munificent to his children, and a benefactor to his clerks and employés, and that every one in the street and all his acquaintances remembered him in their prayers. whatever he did was always right, and if things went wrong with people it was because they did not take his advice; without his advice nothing could succeed. in church he stood in the foremost place, and even made observations to the priests, if in his opinion they were not conducting the service properly, and believed that this was pleasing god because god loved him. at two o'clock every one in the warehouse was hard at work, except the old man, who still went on booming in his deep voice. to avoid standing idle, laptev took some trimmings from a workgirl and let her go; then listened to a customer, a merchant from vologda, and told a clerk to attend to him. "t. v. a.!" resounded on all sides (prices were denoted by letters in the warehouse and goods by numbers). "r. i. t.!" as he went away, laptev said good-bye to no one but fyodor. "i shall come to pyatnitsky street with my wife to-morrow," he said; "but i warn you, if father says a single rude thing to her, i shall not stay there another minute." "you're the same as ever," sighed fyodor. "marriage has not changed you. you must be patient with the old man. so till eleven o'clock, then. we shall expect you impatiently. come directly after mass, then." "i don't go to mass." "that does not matter. the great thing is not to be later than eleven, so you may be in time to pray to god and to lunch with us. give my greetings to my little sister and kiss her hand for me. i have a presentiment that i shall like her," fyodor added with perfect sincerity. "i envy you, brother!" he shouted after him as alexey went downstairs. "and why does he shrink into himself in that shy way as though he fancied he was naked?" thought laptev, as he walked along nikolsky street, trying to understand the change that had come over his brother. "and his language is new, too: 'brother, dear brother, god has sent us joy; to pray to god'--just like iudushka in shtchedrin." vi at eleven o'clock the next day, which was sunday, he was driving with his wife along pyatnitsky street in a light, one-horse carriage. he was afraid of his father's doing something outrageous, and was already ill at ease. after two nights in her husband's house yulia sergeyevna considered her marriage a mistake and a calamity, and if she had had to live with her husband in any other town but moscow, it seemed to her that she could not have endured the horror of it. moscow entertained her--she was delighted with the streets, the churches; and if it had been possible to drive about moscow in those splendid sledges with expensive horses, to drive the whole day from morning till night, and with the swift motion to feel the cold autumn air blowing upon her, she would perhaps not have felt herself so unhappy. near a white, lately stuccoed two-storey house the coachman pulled up his horse, and began to turn to the right. they were expected, and near the gate stood two policemen and the porter in a new full-skirted coat, high boots, and goloshes. the whole space, from the middle of the street to the gates and all over the yard from the porch, was strewn with fresh sand. the porter took off his hat, the policemen saluted. near the entrance fyodor met them with a very serious face. "very glad to make your acquaintance, little sister," he said, kissing yulia's hand. "you're very welcome." he led her upstairs on his arm, and then along a corridor through a crowd of men and women. the anteroom was crowded too, and smelt of incense. "i will introduce you to our father directly," whispered fyodor in the midst of a solemn, deathly silence. "a venerable old man, _pater-familias_." in the big drawing-room, by a table prepared for service, fyodor stepanovitch stood, evidently waiting for them, and with him the priest in a calotte, and a deacon. the old man shook hands with yulia without saying a word. every one was silent. yulia was overcome with confusion. the priest and the deacon began putting on their vestments. a censer was brought in, giving off sparks and fumes of incense and charcoal. the candles were lighted. the clerks walked into the drawing-room on tiptoe and stood in two rows along the wall. there was perfect stillness, no one even coughed. "the blessing of god," began the deacon. the service was read with great solemnity; nothing was left out and two canticles were sung --to sweetest jesus and the most holy mother of god. the singers sang very slowly, holding up the music before them. laptev noticed how confused his wife was. while they were singing the canticles, and the singers in different keys brought out "lord have mercy on us," he kept expecting in nervous suspense that the old man would make some remark such as, "you don't know how to cross yourself," and he felt vexed. why this crowd, and why this ceremony with priests and choristers? it was too bourgeois. but when she, like the old man, put her head under the gospel and afterwards several times dropped upon her knees, he realised that she liked it all, and was reassured. at the end of the service, during "many, many years," the priest gave the old man and alexey the cross to kiss, but when yulia went up, he put his hand over the cross, and showed he wanted to speak. signs were made to the singers to stop. "the prophet samuel," began the priest, "went to bethlehem at the bidding of the lord, and there the elders of the town with fear and trembling asked him: 'comest thou peaceably?' and the prophet answered: 'peaceably: i am come to sacrifice unto the lord: sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.' even so, yulia, servant of god, shall we ask of thee, dost thou come bringing peace into this house?" yulia flushed with emotion. as he finished, the priest gave her the cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice: "now fyodor fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time." the choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the room was noisy again. the old man, much touched, with his eyes full of tears, kissed yulia three times, made the sign of the cross over her face, and said: "this is your home. i'm an old man and need nothing." the clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir was singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. then they had lunch and drank champagne. she sat beside the old father, and he talked to her, saying that families ought not to be parted but live together in one house; that separation and disunion led to permanent rupture. "i've made money and the children only do the spending of it," he said. "now, you live with me and save money. it's time for an old man like me to rest." yulia had all the time a vision of fyodor flitting about so like her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her and often kissed her hand. "we are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of red came into his face as he spoke. "we live simply in russian style, like christians, little sister." as they went home, laptev felt greatly relieved that everything had gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened as he had expected. he said to his wife: "you're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as fyodor and me. yes; but it's easy to explain! my father married my mother when he was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. she turned pale and trembled in his presence. nina was born first--born of a comparatively healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier than we were. fyodor and i were begotten and born after mother had been worn out by terror. i can remember my father correcting me--or, to speak plainly, beating me--before i was five years old. he used to thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit me on the head, and every morning when i woke up my first thought was whether he would beat me that day. play and childish mischief was forbidden us. we had to go to morning service and to early mass. when we met priests or monks we had to kiss their hands; at home we had to sing hymns. here you are religious and love all that, but i'm afraid of religion, and when i pass a church i remember my childhood, and am overcome with horror. i was taken to the warehouse as soon as i was eight years old. i worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health, for i used to be beaten there every day. afterwards when i went to the high school, i used to go to school till dinner-time, and after dinner i had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things went on like that till i was twenty-two, till i got to know yartsev, and he persuaded me to leave my father's house. that yartsev did a great deal for me. i tell you what," said laptev, and he laughed with pleasure: "let us go and pay yartsev a visit at once. he's a very fine fellow! how touched he will be!" vii on a saturday in november anton rubinstein was conducting in a symphony concert. it was very hot and crowded. laptev stood behind the columns, while his wife and kostya kotchevoy were sitting in the third or fourth row some distance in front. at the very beginning of an interval a "certain person," polina nikolaevna razsudin, quite unexpectedly passed by him. he had often since his marriage thought with trepidation of a possible meeting with her. when now she looked at him openly and directly, he realised that he had all this time shirked having things out with her, or writing her two or three friendly lines, as though he had been hiding from her; he felt ashamed and flushed crimson. she pressed his hand tightly and impulsively and asked: "have you seen yartsev?" and without waiting for an answer she went striding on impetuously as though some one were pushing her on from behind. she was very thin and plain, with a long nose; her face always looked tired, and exhausted, and it seemed as though it were an effort to her to keep her eyes open, and not to fall down. she had fine, dark eyes, and an intelligent, kind, sincere expression, but her movements were awkward and abrupt. it was hard to talk to her, because she could not talk or listen quietly. loving her was not easy. sometimes when she was alone with laptev she would go on laughing for a long time, hiding her face in her hands, and would declare that love was not the chief thing in life for her, and would be as whimsical as a girl of seventeen; and before kissing her he would have to put out all the candles. she was thirty. she was married to a schoolmaster, but had not lived with her husband for years. she earned her living by giving music lessons and playing in quartettes. during the ninth symphony she passed again as though by accident, but the crowd of men standing like a thick wall behind the columns prevented her going further, and she remained beside him. laptev saw that she was wearing the same little velvet blouse she had worn at concerts last year and the year before. her gloves were new, and her fan, too, was new, but it was a common one. she was fond of fine clothes, but she did not know how to dress, and grudged spending money on it. she dressed so badly and untidily that when she was going to her lessons striding hurriedly down the street, she might easily have been taken for a young monk. the public applauded and shouted encore. "you'll spend the evening with me," said polina nikolaevna, going up to laptev and looking at him severely. "when this is over we'll go and have tea. do you hear? i insist on it. you owe me a great deal, and haven't the moral right to refuse me such a trifle." "very well; let us go," laptev assented. endless calls followed the conclusion of the concert. the audience got up from their seats and went out very slowly, and laptev could not go away without telling his wife. he had to stand at the door and wait. "i'm dying for some tea," polina nikolaevna said plaintively. "my very soul is parched." "you can get something to drink here," said laptev. "let's go to the buffet." "oh, i've no money to fling away on waiters. i'm not a shopkeeper." he offered her his arm; she refused, in a long, wearisome sentence which he had heard many times, to the effect that she did not class herself with the feebler fair sex, and did not depend on the services of gentlemen. as she talked to him she kept looking about at the audience and greeting acquaintances; they were her fellow-students at the higher courses and at the conservatorium, and her pupils. she gripped their hands abruptly, as though she were tugging at them. but then she began twitching her shoulders, and trembling as though she were in a fever, and at last said softly, looking at laptev with horror: "who is it you've married? where were your eyes, you mad fellow? what did you see in that stupid, insignificant girl? why, i loved you for your mind, for your soul, but that china doll wants nothing but your money!" "let us drop that, polina," he said in a voice of supplication. "all that you can say to me about my marriage i've said to myself many times already. don't cause me unnecessary pain." yulia sergeyevna made her appearance, wearing a black dress with a big diamond brooch, which her father-in-law had sent her after the service. she was followed by her suite--kotchevoy, two doctors of their acquaintance, an officer, and a stout young man in student's uniform, called kish. "you go on with kostya," laptev said to his wife. "i'm coming later." yulia nodded and went on. polina nikolaevna gazed after her, quivering all over and twitching nervously, and in her eyes there was a look of repulsion, hatred, and pain. laptev was afraid to go home with her, foreseeing an unpleasant discussion, cutting words, and tears, and he suggested that they should go and have tea at a restaurant. but she said: "no, no. i want to go home. don't dare to talk to me of restaurants." she did not like being in a restaurant, because the atmosphere of restaurants seemed to her poisoned by tobacco smoke and the breath of men. against all men she did not know she cherished a strange prejudice, regarding them all as immoral rakes, capable of attacking her at any moment. besides, the music played at restaurants jarred on her nerves and gave her a headache. coming out of the hall of nobility, they took a sledge in ostozhenka and drove to savelovsky lane, where she lodged. all the way laptev thought about her. it was true that he owed her a great deal. he had made her acquaintance at the flat of his friend yartsev, to whom she was giving lessons in harmony. her love for him was deep and perfectly disinterested, and her relations with him did not alter her habits; she went on giving her lessons and wearing herself out with work as before. through her he came to understand and love music, which he had scarcely cared for till then. "half my kingdom for a cup of tea!" she pronounced in a hollow voice, covering her mouth with her muff that she might not catch cold. "i've given five lessons, confound them! my pupils are as stupid as posts; i nearly died of exasperation. i don't know how long this slavery can go on. i'm worn out. as soon as i can scrape together three hundred roubles, i shall throw it all up and go to the crimea, to lie on the beach and drink in ozone. how i love the sea--oh, how i love the sea!" "you'll never go," said laptev. "to begin with, you'll never save the money; and, besides, you'd grudge spending it. forgive me, i repeat again: surely it's quite as humiliating to collect the money by farthings from idle people who have music lessons to while away their time, as to borrow it from your friends." "i haven't any friends," she said irritably. "and please don't talk nonsense. the working class to which i belong has one privilege: the consciousness of being incorruptible--the right to refuse to be indebted to wretched little shopkeepers, and to treat them with scorn. no, indeed, you don't buy me! i'm not a yulitchka!" laptev did not attempt to pay the driver, knowing that it would call forth a perfect torrent of words, such as he had often heard before. she paid herself. she had a little furnished room in the flat of a solitary lady who provided her meals. her big becker piano was for the time at yartsev's in great nikitsky street, and she went there every day to play on it. in her room there were armchairs in loose covers, a bed with a white summer quilt, and flowers belonging to the landlady; there were oleographs on the walls, and there was nothing that would have suggested that there was a woman, and a woman of university education, living in it. there was no toilet table; there were no books; there was not even a writing-table. it was evident that she went to bed as soon as she got home, and went out as soon as she got up in the morning. the cook brought in the samovar. polina nikolaevna made tea, and, still shivering--the room was cold--began abusing the singers who had sung in the ninth symphony. she was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open. she drank one glass of tea, then a second, and then a third. "and so you are married," she said. "but don't be uneasy; i'm not going to pine away. i shall be able to tear you out of my heart. only it's annoying and bitter to me that you are just as contemptible as every one else; that what you want in a woman is not brains or intellect, but simply a body, good looks, and youth. . . . youth!" she pronounced through her nose, as though mimicking some one, and she laughed. "youth! you must have purity, _reinheit! reinheit!_" she laughed, throwing herself back in her chair. "_reinheit!_" when she left off laughing her eyes were wet with tears. "you're happy, at any rate?" she asked. "no." "does she love you?" laptev, agitated, and feeling miserable, stood up and began walking about the room. "no," he repeated. "if you want to know, polina, i'm very unhappy. there's no help for it; i've done the stupid thing, and there's no correcting it now. i must look at it philosophically. she married me without love, stupidly, perhaps with mercenary motives, but without understanding, and now she evidently sees her mistake and is miserable. i see it. at night we sleep together, but by day she is afraid to be left alone with me for five minutes, and tries to find distraction, society. with me she feels ashamed and frightened." "and yet she takes money from you?" "that's stupid, polina!" cried laptev. "she takes money from me because it makes absolutely no difference to her whether she has it or not. she is an honest, pure girl. she married me simply because she wanted to get away from her father, that's all." "and are you sure she would have married you if you had not been rich?" asked polina. "i'm not sure of anything," said laptev dejectedly. "not of anything. i don't understand anything. for god's sake, polina, don't let us talk about it." "do you love her?" "desperately." a silence followed. she drank a fourth glass, while he paced up and down, thinking that by now his wife was probably having supper at the doctors' club. "but is it possible to love without knowing why?" asked polina, shrugging her shoulders. "no; it's the promptings of animal passion! you are poisoned, intoxicated by that beautiful body, that _reinheit!_ go away from me; you are unclean! go to her!" she brandished her hand at him, then took up his hat and hurled it at him. he put on his fur coat without speaking and went out, but she ran after him into the passage, clutched his arm above the elbow, and broke into sobs. "hush, polina! don't!" he said, and could not unclasp her fingers. "calm yourself, i entreat you." she shut her eyes and turned pale, and her long nose became an unpleasant waxy colour like a corpse's, and laptev still could not unclasp her fingers. she had fainted. he lifted her up carefully, laid her on her bed, and sat by her for ten minutes till she came to herself. her hands were cold, her pulse was weak and uneven. "go home," she said, opening her eyes. "go away, or i shall begin howling again. i must take myself in hand." when he came out, instead of going to the doctors' club where his friends were expecting him, he went home. all the way home he was asking himself reproachfully why he had not settled down to married life with that woman who loved him so much, and was in reality his wife and friend. she was the one human being who was devoted to him; and, besides, would it not have been a grateful and worthy task to give happiness, peace, and a home to that proud, clever, overworked creature? was it for him, he asked himself, to lay claim to youth and beauty, to that happiness which could not be, and which, as though in punishment or mockery, had kept him for the last three months in a state of gloom and oppression. the honeymoon was long over, and he still, absurd to say, did not know what sort of person his wife was. to her school friends and her father she wrote long letters of five sheets, and was never at a loss for something to say to them, but to him she never spoke except about the weather or to tell him that dinner was ready, or that it was supper-time. when at night she said her lengthy prayers and then kissed her crosses and ikons, he thought, watching her with hatred, "here she's praying. what's she praying about? what about?" in his thoughts he showered insults on himself and her, telling himself that when he got into bed and took her into his arms, he was taking what he had paid for; but it was horrible. if only it had been a healthy, reckless, sinful woman; but here he had youth, piety, meekness, the pure eyes of innocence. . . . while they were engaged her piety had touched him; now the conventional definiteness of her views and convictions seemed to him a barrier, behind which the real truth could not be seen. already everything in his married life was agonising. when his wife, sitting beside him in the theatre, sighed or laughed spontaneously, it was bitter to him that she enjoyed herself alone and would not share her delight with him. and it was remarkable that she was friendly with all his friends, and they all knew what she was like already, while he knew nothing about her, and only moped and was dumbly jealous. when he got home laptev put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and sat down in his study to read a novel. his wife was not at home. but within half an hour there was a ring at the hall door, and he heard the muffled footsteps of pyotr running to open it. it was yulia. she walked into the study in her fur coat, her cheeks rosy with the frost, "there's a great fire in pryesnya," she said breathlessly. "there's a tremendous glow. i'm going to see it with konstantin ivanovitch." "well, do, dear!" the sight of her health, her freshness, and the childish horror in her eyes, reassured laptev. he read for another half-hour and went to bed. next day polina nikolaevna sent to the warehouse two books she had borrowed from him, all his letters and his photographs; with them was a note consisting of one word--_"basta."_ viii towards the end of october nina fyodorovna had unmistakable symptoms of a relapse. there was a change in her face, and she grew rapidly thinner. in spite of acute pain she still imagined that she was getting better, and got up and dressed every morning as though she were well, and then lay on her bed, fully dressed, for the rest of the day. and towards the end she became very talkative. she would lie on her back and talk in a low voice, speaking with an effort and breathing painfully. she died suddenly under the following circumstances. it was a clear moonlight evening. in the street people were tobogganing in the fresh snow, and their clamour floated in at the window. nina fyodorovna was lying on her back in bed, and sasha, who had no one to take turns with her now, was sitting beside her half asleep. "i don't remember his father's name," nina fyodorovna was saying softly, "but his name was ivan kotchevoy--a poor clerk. he was a sad drunkard, the kingdom of heaven be his! he used to come to us, and every month we used to give him a pound of sugar and two ounces of tea. and money, too, sometimes, of course. yes. . . . and then, this is what happened. our kotchevoy began drinking heavily and died, consumed by vodka. he left a little son, a boy of seven. poor little orphan! . . . we took him and hid him in the clerk's quarters, and he lived there for a whole year, without father's knowing. and when father did see him, he only waved his hand and said nothing. when kostya, the little orphan, was nine years old--by that time i was engaged to be married--i took him round to all the day schools. i went from one to the other, and no one would take him. and he cried. . . . 'what are you crying for, little silly?' i said. i took him to razgulyay to the second school, where--god bless them for it!--they took him, and the boy began going every day on foot from pyatnitsky street to razgulyay street and back again . . . . alyosha paid for him. . . . by god's grace the boy got on, was good at his lessons, and turned out well. . . . he's a lawyer now in moscow, a friend of alyosha's, and so good in science. yes, we had compassion on a fellow-creature and took him into our house, and now i daresay, he remembers us in his prayers. . . yes. . . ." nina fyodorovna spoke more and more slowly with long pauses, then after a brief silence she suddenly raised herself and sat up. "there's something the matter with me . . . something seems wrong," she said. "lord have mercy on me! oh, i can't breathe!" sasha knew that her mother would soon die; seeing now how suddenly her face looked drawn, she guessed that it was the end, and she was frightened. "mother, you mustn't!" she began sobbing. "you mustn't." "run to the kitchen; let them go for father. i am very ill indeed." sasha ran through all the rooms calling, but there were none of the servants in the house, and the only person she found was lida asleep on a chest in the dining-room with her clothes on and without a pillow. sasha ran into the yard just as she was without her goloshes, and then into the street. on a bench at the gate her nurse was sitting watching the tobogganing. from beyond the river, where the tobogganing slope was, came the strains of a military band. "nurse, mother's dying!" sobbed sasha. "you must go for father! . . ." the nurse went upstairs, and, glancing at the sick woman, thrust a lighted wax candle into her hand. sasha rushed about in terror and besought some one to go for her father, then she put on a coat and a kerchief, and ran into the street. from the servants she knew already that her father had another wife and two children with whom he lived in bazarny street. she ran out of the gate and turned to the left, crying, and frightened of unknown people. she soon began to sink into the snow and grew numb with cold. she met an empty sledge, but she did not take it: perhaps, she thought, the man would drive her out of town, rob her, and throw her into the cemetery (the servants had talked of such a case at tea). she went on and on, sobbing and panting with exhaustion. when she got into bazarny street, she inquired where m. panaurov lived. an unknown woman spent a long time directing her, and seeing that she did not understand, took her by the hand and led her to a house of one storey that stood back from the street. the door stood open. sasha ran through the entry, along the corridor, and found herself at last in a warm, lighted room where her father was sitting by the samovar with a lady and two children. but by now she was unable to utter a word, and could only sob. panaurov understood. "mother's worse?" he asked. "tell me, child: is mother worse?" he was alarmed and sent for a sledge. when they got home, nina fyodorovna was sitting propped up with pillows, with a candle in her hand. her face looked dark and her eyes were closed. crowding in the doorway stood the nurse, the cook, the housemaid, a peasant called prokofy and a few persons of the humbler class, who were complete strangers. the nurse was giving them orders in a whisper, and they did not understand. inside the room at the window stood lida, with a pale and sleepy face, gazing severely at her mother. panaurov took the candle out of nina fyodorovna's hand, and, frowning contemptuously, flung it on the chest of drawers. "this is awful!" he said, and his shoulders quivered. "nina, you must lie down," he said affectionately. "lie down, dear." she looked at him, but did not know him. they laid her down on her back. when the priest and the doctor, sergey borisovitch, arrived, the servants crossed themselves devoutly and prayed for her. "what a sad business!" said the doctor thoughtfully, coming out into the drawing-room. "why, she was still young--not yet forty." they heard the loud sobbing of the little girls. panaurov, with a pale face and moist eyes, went up to the doctor and said in a faint, weak voice: "do me a favour, my dear fellow. send a telegram to moscow. i'm not equal to it." the doctor fetched the ink and wrote the following telegram to his daughter: "madame panaurov died at eight o'clock this evening. tell your husband: a mortgaged house for sale in dvoryansky street, nine thousand cash. auction on twelfth. advise him not miss opportunity." ix laptev lived in one of the turnings out of little dmitrovka. besides the big house facing the street, he rented also a two-storey lodge in the yard at the back of his friend kotchevoy, a lawyer's assistant whom all the laptevs called kostya, because he had grown up under their eyes. facing this lodge stood another, also of two storeys, inhabited by a french family consisting of a husband and wife and five daughters. there was a frost of twenty degrees. the windows were frozen over. waking up in the morning, kostya, with an anxious face, took twenty drops of a medicine; then, taking two dumb-bells out of the bookcase, he did gymnastic exercises. he was tall and thin, with big reddish moustaches; but what was most noticeable in his appearance was the length of his legs. pyotr, a middle-aged peasant in a reefer jacket and cotton breeches tucked into his high boots, brought in the samovar and made the tea. "it's very nice weather now, konstantin ivanovitch," he said. "it is, but i tell you what, brother, it's a pity we can't get on, you and i, without such exclamations." pyotr sighed from politeness. "what are the little girls doing?" asked kotchevoy. "the priest has not come. alexey fyodorovitch is giving them their lesson himself." kostya found a spot in the window that was not covered with frost, and began looking through a field-glass at the windows of the house where the french family lived. "there's no seeing," he said. meanwhile alexey fyodorovitch was giving sasha and lida a scripture lesson below. for the last six weeks they had been living in moscow, and were installed with their governess in the lower storey of the lodge. and three times a week a teacher from a school in the town, and a priest, came to give them lessons. sasha was going through the new testament and lida was going through the old. the time before lida had been set the story up to abraham to learn by heart. "and so adam and eve had two sons," said laptev. "very good. but what were they called? try to remember them!" lida, still with the same severe face, gazed dumbly at the table. she moved her lips, but without speaking; and the elder girl, sasha, looked into her face, frowning. "you know it very well, only you mustn't be nervous," said laptev. "come, what were adam's sons called?" "abel and canel," lida whispered. "cain and abel," laptev corrected her. a big tear rolled down lida's cheek and dropped on the book. sasha looked down and turned red, and she, too, was on the point of tears. laptev felt a lump in his throat, and was so sorry for them he could not speak. he got up from the table and lighted a cigarette. at that moment kotchevoy came down the stairs with a paper in his hand. the little girls stood up, and without looking at him, made curtsies. "for god's sake, kostya, give them their lessons," said laptev, turning to him. "i'm afraid i shall cry, too, and i have to go to the warehouse before dinner." "all right." alexey fyodorovitch went away. kostya, with a very serious face, sat down to the table and drew the scripture history towards him. "well," he said; "where have you got to?" "she knows about the flood," said sasha. "the flood? all right. let's peg in at the flood. fire away about the flood." kostya skimmed through a brief description of the flood in the book, and said: "i must remark that there really never was a flood such as is described here. and there was no such person as noah. some thousands of years before the birth of christ, there was an extraordinary inundation of the earth, and that's not only mentioned in the jewish bible, but in the books of other ancient peoples: the greeks, the chaldeans, the hindoos. but whatever the inundation may have been, it couldn't have covered the whole earth. it may have flooded the plains, but the mountains must have remained. you can read this book, of course, but don't put too much faith in it." tears trickled down lida's face again. she turned away and suddenly burst into such loud sobs, that kostya started and jumped up from his seat in great confusion. "i want to go home," she said, "to papa and to nurse." sasha cried too. kostya went upstairs to his own room, and spoke on the telephone to yulia sergeyevna. "my dear soul," he said, "the little girls are crying again; there's no doing anything with them." yulia sergeyevna ran across from the big house in her indoor dress, with only a knitted shawl over her shoulders, and chilled through by the frost, began comforting the children. "do believe me, do believe me," she said in an imploring voice, hugging first one and then the other. "your papa's coming to-day; he has sent a telegram. you're grieving for mother, and i grieve too. my heart's torn, but what can we do? we must bow to god's will!" when they left off crying, she wrapped them up and took them out for a drive. they stopped near the iverskoy chapel, put up candles at the shrine, and, kneeling down, prayed. on the way back they went in filippov's, and had cakes sprinkled with poppy-seeds. the laptevs had dinner between two and three. pyotr handed the dishes. this pyotr waited on the family, and by day ran to the post, to the warehouse, to the law courts for kostya; he spent his evenings making cigarettes, ran to open the door at night, and before five o'clock in the morning was up lighting the stoves, and no one knew where he slept. he was very fond of opening seltzer-water bottles and did it easily, without a bang and without spilling a drop. "with god's blessing," said kostya, drinking off a glass of vodka before the soup. at first yulia sergeyevna did not like kostya; his bass voice, his phrases such as "landed him one on the beak," "filth," "produce the samovar," etc., his habit of clinking glasses and making sentimental speeches, seemed to her trivial. but as she got to know him better, she began to feel very much at home with him. he was open with her; he liked talking to her in a low voice in the evening, and even gave her novels of his own composition to read, though these had been kept a secret even from such friends as laptev and yartsev. she read these novels and praised them, so that she might not disappoint him, and he was delighted because he hoped sooner or later to become a distinguished author. in his novels he described nothing but country-house life, though he had only seen the country on rare occasions when visiting friends at a summer villa, and had only been in a real country-house once in his life, when he had been to volokolamsk on law business. he avoided any love interest as though he were ashamed of it; he put in frequent descriptions of nature, and in them was fond of using such expressions as, "the capricious lines of the mountains, the miraculous forms of the clouds, the harmony of mysterious rhythms . . . ." his novels had never been published, and this he attributed to the censorship. he liked the duties of a lawyer, but yet he considered that his most important pursuit was not the law but these novels. he believed that he had a subtle, æsthetic temperament, and he always had leanings towards art. he neither sang nor played on any musical instrument, and was absolutely without an ear for music, but he attended all the symphony and philharmonic concerts, got up concerts for charitable objects, and made the acquaintance of singers. . . . they used to talk at dinner. "it's a strange thing," said laptev, "my fyodor took my breath away again! he said we must find out the date of the centenary of our firm, so as to try and get raised to noble rank; and he said it quite seriously. what can be the matter with him? i confess i begin to feel worried about him." they talked of fyodor, and of its being the fashion nowadays to adopt some pose or other. fyodor, for instance, tried to appear like a plain merchant, though he had ceased to be one; and when the teacher came from the school, of which old laptev was the patron, to ask fyodor for his salary, the latter changed his voice and deportment, and behaved with the teacher as though he were some one in authority. there was nothing to be done; after dinner they went into the study. they talked about the decadents, about "the maid of orleans," and kostya delivered a regular monologue; he fancied that he was very successful in imitating ermolova. then they sat down and played whist. the little girls had not gone back to the lodge but were sitting together in one arm-chair, with pale and mournful faces, and were listening to every noise in the street, wondering whether it was their father coming. in the evening when it was dark and the candles were lighted, they felt deeply dejected. the talk over the whist, the footsteps of pyotr, the crackling in the fireplace, jarred on their nerves, and they did not like to look at the fire. in the evenings they did not want to cry, but they felt strange, and there was a load on their hearts. they could not understand how people could talk and laugh when their mother was dead. "what did you see through the field-glasses today?" yulia sergeyevna asked kostya. "nothing to-day, but yesterday i saw the old frenchman having his bath." at seven o'clock yulia and kostya went to the little theatre. laptev was left with the little girls. "it's time your father was here," he said, looking at his watch. "the train must be late." the children sat in their arm-chair dumb and huddling together like animals when they are cold, while he walked about the room looking impatiently at his watch. it was quiet in the house. but just before nine o'clock some one rang at the bell. pyotr went to open the door. hearing a familiar voice, the children shrieked, burst into sobs, and ran into the hall. panaurov was wearing a sumptuous coat of antelope skin, and his head and moustaches were white with hoar frost. "in a minute, in a minute," he muttered, while sasha and lida, sobbing and laughing, kissed his cold hands, his hat, his antelope coat. with the languor of a handsome man spoilt by too much love, he fondled the children without haste, then went into the study and said, rubbing his hands: "i've not come to stay long, my friends. i'm going to petersburg to-morrow. they've promised to transfer me to another town." he was staying at the dresden hotel. x a friend who was often at the laptevs' was ivan gavrilitch yartsev. he was a strong, healthy man with black hair and a clever, pleasant face. he was considered to be handsome, but of late he had begun to grow stout, and that rather spoilt his face and figure; another thing that spoilt him was that he wore his hair cut so close that the skin showed through. at the university his tall figure and physical strength had won him the nickname of "the pounder" among the students. he had taken his degree with the laptev brothers in the faculty of philology--then he went in for science and now had the degree of _magister_ in chemistry. but he had never given a lecture or even been a demonstrator. he taught physics and natural history in the modern school, and in two girls' high schools. he was enthusiastic over his pupils, especially the girls, and used to maintain that a remarkable generation was growing up. at home he spent his time studying sociology and russian history, as well as chemistry, and he sometimes published brief notes in the newspapers and magazines, signing them "y." when he talked of some botanical or zoological subject, he spoke like an historian; when he was discussing some historical question, he approached it as a man of science. kish, nicknamed "the eternal student," was also like one of the family at the laptevs'. he had been for three years studying medicine. then he took up mathematics, and spent two years over each year's course. his father, a provincial druggist, used to send him forty roubles a month, to which his mother, without his father's knowledge, added another ten. and this sum was not only sufficient for his board and lodging, but even for such luxuries as an overcoat lined with polish beaver, gloves, scent, and photographs (he often had photographs taken of himself and used to distribute them among his friends). he was neat and demure, slightly bald, with golden side-whiskers, and he had the air of a man nearly always ready to oblige. he was always busy looking after other people's affairs. at one time he would be rushing about with a subscription list; at another time he would be freezing in the early morning at a ticket office to buy tickets for ladies of his acquaintance, or at somebody's request would be ordering a wreath or a bouquet. people simply said of him: "kish will go, kish will do it, kish will buy it." he was usually unsuccessful in carrying out his commissions. reproaches were showered upon him, people frequently forgot to pay him for the things he bought, but he simply sighed in hard cases and never protested. he was never particularly delighted nor disappointed; his stories were always long and boring; and his jokes invariably provoked laughter just because they were not funny. thus, one day, for instance, intending to make a joke, he said to pyotr: "pyotr, you're not a sturgeon;" and this aroused a general laugh, and he, too, laughed for a long time, much pleased at having made such a successful jest. whenever one of the professors was buried, he walked in front with the mutes. yartsev and kish usually came in the evening to tea. if the laptevs were not going to the theatre or a concert, the evening tea lingered on till supper. one evening in february the following conversation took place: "a work of art is only significant and valuable when there are some serious social problems contained in its central idea," said kostya, looking wrathfully at yartsev. "if there is in the work a protest against serfdom, or the author takes up arms against the vulgarity of aristocratic society, the work is significant and valuable. the novels that are taken up with 'ach!' and 'och!' and 'she loved him, while he ceased to love her,' i tell you, are worthless, and damn them all, i say!" "i agree with you, konstantin ivanovitch," said yulia sergeyevna. "one describes a love scene; another, a betrayal; and the third, meeting again after separation. are there no other subjects? why, there are many people sick, unhappy, harassed by poverty, to whom reading all that must be distasteful." it was disagreeable to laptev to hear his wife, not yet twenty-two, speaking so seriously and coldly about love. he understood why this was so. "if poetry does not solve questions that seem so important," said yartsev, "you should turn to works on technical subjects, criminal law, or finance, read scientific pamphlets. what need is there to discuss in 'romeo and juliet,' liberty of speech, or the disinfecting of prisons, instead of love, when you can find all that in special articles and textbooks?" "that's pushing it to the extreme," kostya interrupted. "we are not talking of giants like shakespeare or goethe; we are talking of the hundreds of talented mediocre writers, who would be infinitely more valuable if they would let love alone, and would employ themselves in spreading knowledge and humane ideas among the masses." kish, lisping and speaking a little through his nose, began telling the story of a novel he had lately been reading. he spoke circumstantially and without haste. three minutes passed, then five, then ten, and no one could make out what he was talking about, and his face grew more and more indifferent, and his eyes more and more blank. "kish, do be quick over it," yulia sergeyevna could not resist saying; "it's really agonizing!" "shut up, kish!" kostya shouted to him. they all laughed, and kish with them. fyodor came in. flushing red in patches, he greeted them all in a nervous flurry, and led his brother away into the study. of late he had taken to avoiding the company of more than one person at once. "let the young people laugh, while we speak from the heart in here," he said, settling himself in a deep arm-chair at a distance from the lamp. "it's a long time, my dear brother, since we've seen each other. how long is it since you were at the warehouse? i think it must be a week." "yes, there's nothing for me to do there. and i must confess that the old man wearies me." "of course, they could get on at the warehouse without you and me, but one must have some occupation. 'in the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread,' as it is written. god loves work." pyotr brought in a glass of tea on a tray. fyodor drank it without sugar, and asked for more. he drank a great deal of tea, and could get through as many as ten glasses in the evening. "i tell you what, brother," he said, getting up and going to his brother. "laying aside philosophic subtleties, you must get elected on to the town council, and little by little we will get you on to the local board, and then to be an alderman. and as time goes on --you are a clever man and well-educated--you will be noticed in petersburg and asked to go there--active men on the provincial assemblies and town councils are all the fashion there now--and before you are fifty you'll be a privy councillor, and have a ribbon across your shoulders." laptev made no answer; he knew that all this--being a privy councillor and having a ribbon over his shoulder--was what fyodor desired for himself, and he did not know what to say. the brothers sat still and said nothing. fyodor opened his watch and for a long, long time gazed into it with strained attention, as though he wanted to detect the motion of the hand, and the expression of his face struck laptev as strange. they were summoned to supper. laptev went into the dining-room, while fyodor remained in the study. the argument was over and yartsev was speaking in the tones of a professor giving a lecture: "owing to differences of climate, of energy, of tastes, of age, equality among men is physically impossible. but civilised man can make this inequality innocuous, as he has already done with bogs and bears. a learned man succeeded in making a cat, a mouse, a falcon, a sparrow, all eat out of one plate; and education, one must hope, will do the same thing with men. life continually progresses, civilisation makes enormous advances before our eyes, and obviously a time will come when we shall think, for instance, the present condition of the factory population as absurd as we now do the state of serfdom, in which girls were exchanged for dogs." "that won't be for a long while, a very long while," said kostya, with a laugh, "not till rothschild thinks his cellars full of gold absurd, and till then the workers may bend their backs and die of hunger. no; that's not it. we mustn't wait for it; we must struggle for it. do you suppose because the cat eats out of the same saucer as the mouse--do you suppose that she is influenced by a sense of conscious intelligence? not a bit of it! she's made to do it by force." "fyodor and i are rich; our father's a capitalist, a millionaire. you will have to struggle with us," said laptev, rubbing his forehead with his hand. "struggle with me is an idea i cannot grasp. i am rich, but what has money given me so far? what has this power given me? in what way am i happier than you? my childhood was slavery, and money did not save me from the birch. when nina was ill and died, my money did not help her. if people don't care for me, i can't make them like me if i spend a hundred million." "but you can do a great deal of good," said kish. "good, indeed! you spoke to me yesterday of a mathematical man who is looking for a job. believe me, i can do as little for him as you can. i can give money, but that's not what he wants--i asked a well-known musician to help a poor violinist, and this is what he answered: 'you apply to me just because you are not a musician yourself.' in the same way i say to you that you apply for help to me so confidently because you've never been in the position of a rich man." "why you bring in the comparison with a well-known musician i don't understand!" said yulia sergeyevna, and she flushed crimson. "what has the well-known musician to do with it!" her face was quivering with hatred, and she dropped her eyes to conceal the feeling. and not only her husband, but all the men sitting at the table, knew what the look in her face meant. "what has the well-known musician got to do with it?" she said slowly. "why, nothing's easier than helping some one poor." silence followed. pyotr handed the woodcock, but they all refused it, and ate nothing but salad. laptev did not remember what he had said, but it was clear to him that it was not his words that were hateful, but the fact of his meddling in the conversation at all. after supper he went into his study; intently, with a beating heart, expecting further humiliation, he listened to what was going on in the hall. an argument had sprung up there again. then yartsev sat down to the piano and played a sentimental song. he was a man of varied accomplishments; he could play and sing, and even perform conjuring tricks. "you may please yourselves, my friends, but i'm not going to stay at home," said yulia. "we must go somewhere." they decided to drive out of town, and sent kish to the merchant's club to order a three-horse sledge. they did not ask laptev to go with them because he did not usually join these expeditions, and because his brother was sitting with him; but he took it to mean that his society bored them, and that he was not wanted in their light-hearted youthful company. and his vexation, his bitter feeling, was so intense that he almost shed tears. he was positively glad that he was treated so ungraciously, that he was scorned, that he was a stupid, dull husband, a money-bag; and it seemed to him, that he would have been even more glad if his wife were to deceive him that night with his best friend, and were afterwards to acknowledge it, looking at him with hatred. . . . he was jealous on her account of their student friends, of actors, of singers, of yartsev, even of casual acquaintances; and now he had a passionate longing for her really to be unfaithful to him. he longed to find her in another man's arms, and to be rid of this nightmare forever. fyodor was drinking tea, gulping it noisily. but he, too, got up to go. "our old father must have got cataract," he said, as he put on his fur coat. "his sight has become very poor." laptev put on his coat, too, and went out. after seeing his brother part of the way home, he took a sledge and drove to yar's. "and this is family happiness!" he said, jeering at himself. "this is love!" his teeth were chattering, and he did not know if it were jealousy or something else. he walked about near the tables; listened to a comic singer in the hall. he had not a single phrase ready if he should meet his own party; and he felt sure beforehand that if he met his wife, he would only smile pitifully and not cleverly, and that every one would understand what feeling had induced him to come here. he was bewildered by the electric light, the loud music, the smell of powder, and the fact that the ladies he met looked at him. he stood at the doors trying to see and to hear what was going on in the private rooms, and it seemed to him that he was somehow playing a mean, contemptible part on a level with the comic singers and those ladies. then he went to strelna, but he found none of his circle there, either; and only when on the way home he was again driving up to yar's, a three-horse sledge noisily overtook him. the driver was drunk and shouting, and he could hear yartsev laughing: "ha, ha, ha!" laptev returned home between three and four. yulia sergeyevna was in bed. noticing that she was not asleep, he went up to her and said sharply: "i understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me before other people; you might conceal your feelings." she got up and sat on the bed with her legs dangling. her eyes looked big and black in the lamplight. "i beg your pardon," she said. he could not utter a single word from excitement and the trembling of his whole body; he stood facing her and was dumb. she trembled, too, and sat with the air of a criminal waiting for explanations. "how i suffer!" he said at last, and he clutched his head. "i'm in hell, and i'm out of my mind." "and do you suppose it's easy for me?" she asked, with a quiver in her voice. "god alone knows what i go through." "you've been my wife for six months, but you haven't a spark of love for me in your heart. there's no hope, not one ray of light! why did you marry me?" laptev went on with despair. "why? what demon thrust you into my arms? what did you hope for? what did you want?" she looked at him with terror, as though she were afraid he would kill her. "did i attract you? did you like me?" he went on, gasping for breath. "no. then what? what? tell me what?" he cried. "oh, the cursed money! the cursed money!" "i swear to god, no!" she cried, and she crossed herself. she seemed to shrink under the insult, and for the first time he heard her crying. "i swear to god, no!" she repeated. "i didn't think about your money; i didn't want it. i simply thought i should do wrong if i refused you. i was afraid of spoiling your life and mine. and now i am suffering for my mistake. i'm suffering unbearably!" she sobbed bitterly, and he saw that she was hurt; and not knowing what to say, dropped down on the carpet before her. "that's enough; that's enough," he muttered. "i insulted you because i love you madly." he suddenly kissed her foot and passionately hugged it. "if only a spark of love," he muttered. "come, lie to me; tell me a lie! don't say it's a mistake! . . ." but she went on crying, and he felt that she was only enduring his caresses as an inevitable consequence of her mistake. and the foot he had kissed she drew under her like a bird. he felt sorry for her. she got into bed and covered her head over; he undressed and got into bed, too. in the morning they both felt confused and did not know what to talk about, and he even fancied she walked unsteadily on the foot he had kissed. before dinner panaurov came to say good-bye. yulia had an irresistible desire to go to her own home; it would be nice, she thought, to go away and have a rest from married life, from the embarrassment and the continual consciousness that she had done wrong. it was decided at dinner that she should set off with panaurov, and stay with her father for two or three weeks until she was tired of it. xi she travelled with panaurov in a reserved compartment; he had on his head an astrachan cap of peculiar shape. "yes, petersburg did not satisfy me," he said, drawling, with a sigh. "they promise much, but nothing definite. yes, my dear girl. i have been a justice of the peace, a member of the local board, chairman of the board of magistrates, and finally councillor of the provincial administration. i think i have served my country and have earned the right to receive attention; but--would you believe it?--i can never succeed in wringing from the authorities a post in another town. . . ." panaurov closed his eyes and shook his head. "they don't recognise me," he went on, as though dropping asleep. "of course i'm not an administrator of genius, but, on the other hand, i'm a decent, honest man, and nowadays even that's something rare. i regret to say i have not been always quite straightforward with women, but in my relations with the russian government i've always been a gentleman. but enough of that," he said, opening his eyes; "let us talk of you. what put it into your head to visit your papa so suddenly?" "well. . . . i had a little misunderstanding with my husband," said yulia, looking at his cap. "yes. what a queer fellow he is! all the laptevs are queer. your husband's all right--he's nothing out of the way, but his brother fyodor is a perfect fool." panaurov sighed and asked seriously: "and have you a lover yet?" yulia looked at him in amazement and laughed. "goodness knows what you're talking about." it was past ten o'clock when they got out at a big station and had supper. when the train went on again panaurov took off his greatcoat and his cap, and sat down beside yulia. "you are very charming, i must tell you," he began. "excuse me for the eating-house comparison, but you remind me of fresh salted cucumber; it still smells of the hotbed, so to speak, and yet has a smack of the salt and a scent of fennel about it. as time goes on you will make a magnificent woman, a wonderful, exquisite woman. if this trip of ours had happened five years ago," he sighed, "i should have felt it my duty to join the ranks of your adorers, but now, alas, i'm a veteran on the retired list." he smiled mournfully, but at the same time graciously, and put his arm round her waist. "you must be mad!" she said; she flushed crimson and was so frightened that her hands and feet turned cold. "leave off, grigory nikolaevitch!" "what are you afraid of, dear?" he asked softly. "what is there dreadful about it? it's simply that you're not used to it." if a woman protested he always interpreted it as a sign that he had made an impression on her and attracted her. holding yulia round the waist, he kissed her firmly on the cheek, then on the lips, in the full conviction that he was giving her intense gratification. yulia recovered from her alarm and confusion, and began laughing. he kissed her once more and said, as he put on his ridiculous cap: "that is all that the old veteran can give you. a turkish pasha, a kind-hearted old fellow, was presented by some one--or inherited, i fancy it was--a whole harem. when his beautiful young wives drew up in a row before him, he walked round them, kissed each one of them, and said: 'that is all that i am equal to giving you.' and that's just what i say, too." all this struck her as stupid and extraordinary, and amused her. she felt mischievous. standing up on the seat and humming, she got a box of sweets from the shelf, and throwing him a piece of chocolate, shouted: "catch!" he caught it. with a loud laugh she threw him another sweet, then a third, and he kept catching them and putting them into his mouth, looking at her with imploring eyes; and it seemed to her that in his face, his features, his expression, there was a great deal that was feminine and childlike. and when, out of breath, she sat down on the seat and looked at him, laughing, he tapped her cheek with two fingers, and said as though he were vexed: "naughty girl!" "take it," she said, giving him the box. "i don't care for sweet things." he ate up the sweets--every one of them, and locked the empty box in his trunk; he liked boxes with pictures on them. "that's mischief enough, though," he said. "it's time for the veteran to go bye-bye." he took out of his hold-all a bokhara dressing-gown and a pillow, lay down, and covered himself with the dressing-gown. "good-night, darling!" he said softly, and sighed as though his whole body ached. and soon a snore was heard. without the slightest feeling of constraint, she, too, lay down and went to sleep. when next morning she drove through her native town from the station homewards, the streets seemed to her empty and deserted. the snow looked grey, and the houses small, as though some one had squashed them. she was met by a funeral procession: the dead body was carried in an open coffin with banners. "meeting a funeral, they say, is lucky," she thought. there were white bills pasted in the windows of the house where nina fyodorovna used to live. with a sinking at her heart she drove into her own courtyard and rang at the door. it was opened by a servant she did not know--a plump, sleepy-looking girl wearing a warm wadded jacket. as she went upstairs yulia remembered how laptev had declared his love there, but now the staircase was unscrubbed, covered with foot-marks. upstairs in the cold passage patients were waiting in their out-door coats. and for some reason her heart beat violently, and she was so excited she could scarcely walk. the doctor, who had grown even stouter, was sitting with a brick-red face and dishevelled hair, drinking tea. seeing his daughter, he was greatly delighted, and even lacrymose. she thought that she was the only joy in this old man's life, and much moved, she embraced him warmly, and told him she would stay a long time--till easter. after taking off her things in her own room, she went back to the dining-room to have tea with him. he was pacing up and down with his hands in his pockets, humming, "ru-ru-ru"; this meant that he was dissatisfied with something. "you have a gay time of it in moscow," he said. "i am very glad for your sake. . . . i'm an old man and i need nothing. i shall soon give up the ghost and set you all free. and the wonder is that my hide is so tough, that i'm alive still! it's amazing!" he said that he was a tough old ass that every one rode on. they had thrust on him the care of nina fyodorovna, the worry of her children, and of her burial; and that coxcomb panaurov would not trouble himself about it, and had even borrowed a hundred roubles from him and had never paid it back. "take me to moscow and put me in a madhouse," said the doctor. "i'm mad; i'm a simple child, as i still put faith in truth and justice." then he found fault with her husband for his short-sightedness in not buying houses that were being sold so cheaply. and now it seemed to yulia that she was not the one joy in this old man's life. while he was seeing his patients, and afterwards going his rounds, she walked through all the rooms, not knowing what to do or what to think about. she had already grown strange to her own town and her own home. she felt no inclination to go into the streets or see her friends; and at the thought of her old friends and her life as a girl, she felt no sadness nor regret for the past. in the evening she dressed a little more smartly and went to the evening service. but there were only poor people in the church, and her splendid fur coat and hat made no impression. and it seemed to her that there was some change in the church as well as in herself. in old days she had loved it when they read the prayers for the day at evening service, and the choir sang anthems such as "i will open my lips." she liked moving slowly in the crowd to the priest who stood in the middle of the church, and then to feel the holy oil on her forehead; now she only waited for the service to be over. and now, going out of the church, she was only afraid that beggars would ask for alms; it was such a bore to have to stop and feel for her pockets; besides, she had no coppers in her pocket now--nothing but roubles. she went to bed early, and was a long time in going to sleep. she kept dreaming of portraits of some sort, and of the funeral procession she had met that morning. the open coffin with the dead body was carried into the yard, and brought to a standstill at the door; then the coffin was swung backwards and forwards on a sheet, and dashed violently against the door. yulia woke and jumped up in alarm. there really was a bang at the door, and the wire of the bell rustled against the wall, though no ring was to be heard. the doctor coughed. then she heard the servant go downstairs, and then come back. "madam!" she said, and knocked at the door. "madam!" "what is it?" said yulia. "a telegram for you!" yulia went out to her with a candle. behind the servant stood the doctor, in his night-clothes and greatcoat, and he, too, had a candle in his hand. "our bell is broken," he said, yawning sleepily. "it ought to have been mended long ago." yulia broke open the telegram and read: "we drink to your health.--yartsev, kotchevoy." "ah, what idiots!" she said, and burst out laughing; and her heart felt light and gay. going back into her room, she quietly washed and dressed, then she spent a long time in packing her things, until it was daylight, and at midday she set off for moscow. xii in holy week the laptevs went to an exhibition of pictures in the school of painting. the whole family went together in the moscow fashion, the little girls, the governess, kostya, and all. laptev knew the names of all the well-known painters, and never missed an exhibition. he used sometimes to paint little landscape paintings when he was in the country in the summer, and he fancied he had a good deal of taste, and that if he had studied he might have made a good painter. when he was abroad he sometimes used to go to curio shops, examining the antiques with the air of a connoisseur and giving his opinion on them. when he bought any article he gave just what the shopkeeper liked to ask for it and his purchase remained afterwards in a box in the coach-house till it disappeared altogether. or going into a print shop, he would slowly and attentively examine the engravings and the bronzes, making various remarks on them, and would buy a common frame or a box of wretched prints. at home he had pictures always of large dimensions but of inferior quality; the best among them were badly hung. it had happened to him more than once to pay large sums for things which had afterwards turned out to be forgeries of the grossest kind. and it was remarkable that, though as a rule timid in the affairs of life, he was exceedingly bold and self-confident at a picture exhibition. why? yulia sergeyevna looked at the pictures as her husband did, through her open fist or an opera-glass, and was surprised that the people in the pictures were like live people, and the trees like real trees. but she did not understand art, and it seemed to her that many pictures in the exhibition were alike, and she imagined that the whole object in painting was that the figures and objects should stand out as though they were real, when you looked at the picture through your open fist. "that forest is shiskin's," her husband explained to her. "he always paints the same thing. . . . but notice snow's never such a lilac colour as that. . . . and that boy's left arm is shorter than his right." when they were all tired and laptev had gone to look for kostya, that they might go home, yulia stopped indifferently before a small landscape. in the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark grass; a field on the right; a copse; near it a camp fire--no doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow of the evening sunset. yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then along the little path further and further, while all round was stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering in the distance. and for some reason she suddenly began to feel that she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the red part of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many times before. she felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on along the path; and there, in the glow of sunset was the calm reflection of something unearthly, eternal. "how finely that's painted!" she said, surprised that the picture had suddenly become intelligible to her. "look, alyosha! do you see how peaceful it is?" she began trying to explain why she liked the landscape so much, but neither kostya nor her husband understood her. she kept looking at the picture with a mournful smile, and the fact that the others saw nothing special in it troubled her. then she began walking through the rooms and looking at the pictures again. she tried to understand them and no longer thought that a great many of them were alike. when, on returning home, for the first time she looked attentively at the big picture that hung over the piano in the drawing-room, she felt a dislike for it, and said: "what an idea to have pictures like that!" and after that the gilt cornices, the venetian looking-glasses with flowers on them, the pictures of the same sort as the one that hung over the piano, and also her husband's and kostya's reflections upon art, aroused in her a feeling of dreariness and vexation, even of hatred. life went on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise of anything special. the theatrical season was over, the warm days had come. there was a long spell of glorious weather. one morning the laptevs attended the district court to hear kostya, who had been appointed by the court to defend some one. they were late in starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses had begun. a soldier in the reserve was accused of theft and housebreaking. there were a great number of witnesses, washerwomen; they all testified that the accused was often in the house of their employer--a woman who kept a laundry. at the feast of the exaltation of the cross he came late in the evening and began asking for money; he wanted a pick-me-up, as he had been drinking, but no one gave him anything. then he went away, but an hour afterwards he came back, and brought with him some beer and a soft gingerbread cake for the little girl. they drank and sang songs almost till daybreak, and when in the morning they looked about, the lock of the door leading up into the attic was broken, and of the linen three men's shirts, a petticoat, and two sheets were missing. kostya asked each witness sarcastically whether she had not drunk the beer the accused had brought. evidently he was insinuating that the washerwomen had stolen the linen themselves. he delivered his speech without the slightest nervousness, looking angrily at the jury. he explained what robbery with housebreaking meant, and the difference between that and simple theft. he spoke very circumstantially and convincingly, displaying an unusual talent for speaking at length and in a serious tone about what had been know to every one long before. and it was difficult to make out exactly what he was aiming at. from his long speech the foreman of the jury could only have deduced "that it was housebreaking but not robbery, as the washerwomen had sold the linen for drink themselves; or, if there had been robbery, there had not been housebreaking." but obviously, he said just what was wanted, as his speech moved the jury and the audience, and was very much liked. when they gave a verdict of acquittal, yulia nodded to kostya, and afterwards pressed his hand warmly. in may the laptevs moved to a country villa at sokolniki. by that time yulia was expecting a baby. xiii more than a year had passed. yulia and yartsev were lying on the grass at sokolniki not far from the embankment of the yaroslav railway; a little distance away kotchevoy was lying with hands under his head, looking at the sky. all three had been for a walk, and were waiting for the six o'clock train to pass to go home to tea. "mothers see something extraordinary in their children, that is ordained by nature," said yulia. "a mother will stand for hours together by the baby's cot looking at its little ears and eyes and nose, and fascinated by them. if any one else kisses her baby the poor thing imagines that it gives him immense pleasure. and a mother talks of nothing but her baby. i know that weakness in mothers, and i keep watch over myself, but my olga really is exceptional. how she looks at me when i'm nursing her! how she laughs! she's only eight months old, but, upon my word, i've never seen such intelligent eyes in a child of three." "tell me, by the way," asked yartsev: "which do you love most-- your husband or your baby?" yulia shrugged her shoulders. "i don't know," she said. "i never was so very fond of my husband, and olga is in reality my first love. you know that i did not marry alexey for love. in old days i was foolish and miserable, and thought that i had ruined my life and his, and now i see that love is not necessary--that it is all nonsense." "but if it is not love, what feeling is it that binds you to your husband? why do you go on living with him?" "i don't know. . . . i suppose it must be habit. i respect him, i miss him when he's away for long, but that's--not love. he is a clever, honest man, and that's enough to make me happy. he is very kind and good-hearted. . . ." "alyosha's intelligent, alyosha's good," said kostya, raising his head lazily; "but, my dear girl, to find out that he is intelligent, good, and interesting, you have to eat a hundredweight of salt with him. . . . and what's the use of his goodness and intelligence? he can fork out money as much as you want, but when character is needed to resist insolence or aggressiveness, he is faint-hearted and overcome with nervousness. people like your amiable alyosha are splendid people, but they are no use at all for fighting. in fact, they are no use for anything." at last the train came in sight. coils of perfectly pink smoke from the funnels floated over the copse, and two windows in the last compartment flashed so brilliantly in the sun, that it hurt their eyes to look at it. "tea-time!" said yulia sergeyevna, getting up. she had grown somewhat stouter of late, and her movements were already a little matronly, a little indolent. "it's bad to be without love though," said yartsev, walking behind her. "we talk and read of nothing else but love, but we do very little loving ourselves, and that's really bad." "all that's nonsense, ivan gavrilitch," said yulia. "that's not what gives happiness." they had tea in the little garden, where mignonette, stocks, and tobacco plants were in flower, and spikes of early gladiolus were just opening. yartsev and kotchevoy could see from yulia's face that she was passing through a happy period of inward peace and serenity, that she wanted nothing but what she had, and they, too, had a feeling of peace and comfort in their hearts. whatever was said sounded apt and clever; the pines were lovely--the fragrance of them was exquisite as it had never been before; and the cream was very nice; and sasha was a good, intelligent child. after tea yartsev sang songs, accompanying himself on the piano, while yulia and kotchevoy sat listening in silence, though yulia got up from time to time, and went softly indoors, to take a look at the baby and at lida, who had been in bed for the last two days feverish and eating nothing. "my friend, my tender friend," sang yartsev. "no, my friends, i'll be hanged if i understand why you are all so against love!" he said, flinging back his head. "if i weren't busy for fifteen hours of the twenty-four, i should certainly fall in love." supper was served on the verandah; it was warm and still, but yulia wrapped herself in a shawl and complained of the damp. when it got dark, she seemed not quite herself; she kept shivering and begging her visitors to stay a little longer. she regaled them with wine, and after supper ordered brandy to keep them from going. she didn't want to be left alone with the children and the servants. "we summer visitors are getting up a performance for the children," she said. "we have got everything--a stage and actors; we are only at a loss for a play. two dozen plays of different sorts have been sent us, but there isn't one that is suitable. now, you are fond of the theatre, and are so good at history," she said, addressing yartsev. "write an historical play for us." "well, i might." the men drank up all the brandy, and prepared to go. it was past ten, and for summer-villa people that was late. "how dark it is! one can't see a bit," said yulia, as she went with them to the gate. "i don't know how you'll find your way. but, isn't it cold?" she wrapped herself up more closely and walked back to the porch. "i suppose my alexey's playing cards somewhere," she called to them. "good-night!" after the lighted rooms nothing could be seen. yartsev and kostya groped their way like blind men to the railway embankment and crossed it. "one can't see a thing," said kostya in his bass voice, standing still and gazing at the sky. "and the stars, the stars, they are like new three-penny-bits. gavrilitch!" "ah?" yartsev responded somewhere in the darkness. "i say, one can't see a thing. where are you?" yartsev went up to him whistling, and took his arm. "hi, there, you summer visitors!" kostya shouted at the top of his voice. "we've caught a socialist." when he was exhilarated he was always very rowdy, shouting, wrangling with policemen and cabdrivers, singing, and laughing violently. "nature be damned," he shouted. "come, come," said yartsev, trying to pacify him. "you mustn't. please don't." soon the friends grew accustomed to the darkness, and were able to distinguish the outlines of the tall pines and telegraph posts. from time to time the sound of whistles reached them from the station and the telegraph wires hummed plaintively. from the copse itself there came no sound, and there was a feeling of pride, strength, and mystery in its silence, and on the right it seemed that the tops of the pines were almost touching the sky. the friends found their path and walked along it. there it was quite dark, and it was only from the long strip of sky dotted with stars, and from the firmly trodden earth under their feet, that they could tell they were walking along a path. they walked along side by side in silence, and it seemed to both of them that people were coming to meet them. their tipsy exhilaration passed off. the fancy came into yartsev's mind that perhaps that copse was haunted by the spirits of the muscovite tsars, boyars, and patriarchs, and he was on the point of telling kostya about it, but he checked himself. when they reached the town gate there was a faint light of dawn in the sky. still in silence, yartsev and kotchevoy walked along the wooden pavement, by the cheap summer cottages, eating-houses, timber-stacks. under the arch of interlacing branches, the damp air was fragrant of lime-trees, and then a broad, long street opened before them, and on it not a soul, not a light. . . . when they reached the red pond, it was daylight. "moscow--it's a town that will have to suffer a great deal more," said yartsev, looking at the alexyevsky monastery. "what put that into your head?" "i don't know. i love moscow." both yartsev and kostya had been born in moscow, and adored the town, and felt for some reason antagonistic to every other town. both were convinced that moscow was a remarkable town, and russia a remarkable country. in the crimea, in the caucasus, and abroad, they felt dull, uncomfortable, and ill at ease, and they thought their grey moscow weather very pleasant and healthy. and when the rain lashed at the window-panes and it got dark early, and when the walls of the churches and houses looked a drab, dismal colour, days when one doesn't know what to put on when one is going out--such days excited them agreeably. at last near the station they took a cab. "it really would be nice to write an historical play," said yartsev, "but not about the lyapunovs or the godunovs, but of the times of yaroslav or of monomach. . . . i hate all historical plays except the monologue of pimen. when you have to do with some historical authority or even read a textbook of russian history, you feel that every one in russia is exceptionally talented, gifted, and interesting; but when i see an historical play at the theatre, russian life begins to seem stupid, morbid, and not original." near dmitrovka the friends separated, and yartsev went on to his lodging in nikitsky street. he sat half dozing, swaying from side to side, and pondering on the play. he suddenly imagined a terrible din, a clanging noise, and shouts in some unknown language, that might have been kalmuck, and a village wrapped in flames, and forests near covered with hoarfrost and soft pink in the glow of the fire, visible for miles around, and so clearly that every little fir-tree could be distinguished, and savage men darting about the village on horseback and on foot, and as red as the glow in the sky. "the polovtsy," thought yartsev. one of them, a terrible old man with a bloodstained face all scorched from the fire, binds to his saddle a young girl with a white russian face, and the girl looks sorrowful, understanding. yartsev flung back his head and woke up. "my friend, my tender friend . . ." he hummed. as he paid the cabman and went up his stairs, he could not shake off his dreaminess; he saw the flames catching the village, and the forest beginning to crackle and smoke. a huge, wild bear frantic with terror rushed through the village. . . . and the girl tied to the saddle was still looking. when at last he went into his room it was broad daylight. two candles were burning by some open music on the piano. on the sofa lay polina razsudin wearing a black dress and a sash, with a newspaper in her hand, fast asleep. she must have been playing late, waiting for yartsev to come home, and, tired of waiting, fell asleep. "hullo, she's worn out," he thought. carefully taking the newspaper out of her hands, he covered her with a rug. he put out the candles and went into his bedroom. as he got into bed, he still thought of his historical play, and the tune of "my friend, my tender friend" was still ringing in his head. . . . two days later laptev looked in upon him for a moment to tell him that lida was ill with diphtheria, and that yulia sergeyevna and her baby had caught it from her, and five days later came the news that lida and yulia were recovering, but the baby was dead, and that the laptevs had left their villa at sokolniki and had hastened back to moscow. xiv it had become distasteful to laptev to be long at home. his wife was constantly away in the lodge declaring that she had to look after the little girls, but he knew that she did not go to the lodge to give them lessons but to cry in kostya's room. the ninth day came, then the twentieth, and then the fortieth, and still he had to go to the cemetery to listen to the requiem, and then to wear himself out for a whole day and night thinking of nothing but that unhappy baby, and trying to comfort his wife with all sorts of commonplace expressions. he went rarely to the warehouse now, and spent most of his time in charitable work, seizing upon every pretext requiring his attention, and he was glad when he had for some trivial reason to be out for the whole day. he had been intending of late to go abroad, to study night-refuges, and that idea attracted him now. it was an autumn day. yulia had just gone to the lodge to cry, while laptev lay on a sofa in the study thinking where he could go. just at that moment pyotr announced polina razsudin. laptev was delighted; he leapt up and went to meet the unexpected visitor, who had been his closest friend, though he had almost begun to forget her. she had not changed in the least since that evening when he had seen her for the last time, and was just the same as ever. "polina," he said, holding out both hands to her. "what ages! if you only knew how glad i am to see you! do come in!" polina greeted him, jerked him by the hand, and without taking off her coat and hat, went into the study and sat down. "i've come to you for one minute," she said. "i haven't time to talk of any nonsense. sit down and listen. whether you are glad to see me or not is absolutely nothing to me, for i don't care a straw for the gracious attentions of you lords of creation. i've only come to you because i've been to five other places already to-day, and everywhere i was met with a refusal, and it's a matter that can't be put off. listen," she went on, looking into his face. "five students of my acquaintance, stupid, unintelligent people, but certainly poor, have neglected to pay their fees, and are being excluded from the university. your wealth makes it your duty to go straight to the university and pay for them." "with pleasure, polina." "here are their names," she said, giving him a list. "go this minute; you'll have plenty of time to enjoy your domestic happiness afterwards." at that moment a rustle was heard through the door that led into the drawing-room; probably the dog was scratching itself. polina turned crimson and jumped up. "your dulcinea's eavesdropping," she said. "that's horrid!" laptev was offended at this insult to yulia. "she's not here; she's in the lodge," he said. "and don't speak of her like that. our child is dead, and she is in great distress." "you can console her," polina scoffed, sitting down again; "she'll have another dozen. you don't need much sense to bring children into the world." laptev remembered that he had heard this, or something very like it, many times in old days, and it brought back a whiff of the romance of the past, of solitary freedom, of his bachelor life, when he was young and thought he could do anything he chose, when he had neither love for his wife nor memory of his baby. "let us go together," he said, stretching. when they reached the university polina waited at the gate, while laptev went into the office; he came back soon afterwards and handed polina five receipts. "where are you going now?" he asked. "to yartsev's." "i'll come with you." "but you'll prevent him from writing." "no, i assure you i won't," he said, and looked at her imploringly. she had on a black hat trimmed with crape, as though she were in mourning, and a short, shabby coat, the pockets of which stuck out. her nose looked longer than it used to be, and her face looked bloodless in spite of the cold. laptev liked walking with her, doing what she told him, and listening to her grumbling. he walked along thinking about her, what inward strength there must be in this woman, since, though she was so ugly, so angular, so restless, though she did not know how to dress, and always had untidy hair, and was always somehow out of harmony, she was yet so fascinating. they went into yartsev's flat by the back way through the kitchen, where they were met by the cook, a clean little old woman with grey curls; she was overcome with embarrassment, and with a honeyed smile which made her little face look like a pie, said: "please walk in." yartsev was not at home. polina sat down to the piano, and beginning upon a tedious, difficult exercise, told laptev not to hinder her. and without distracting her attention by conversation, he sat on one side and began turning over the pages of a "the messenger of europe." after practising for two hours--it was the task she set herself every day--she ate something in the kitchen and went out to her lessons. laptev read the continuation of a story, then sat for a long time without reading and without being bored, glad to think that he was too late for dinner at home. "ha, ha, ha!" came yartsev's laugh, and he walked in with ruddy cheeks, looking strong and healthy, wearing a new coat with bright buttons. "ha, ha, ha!" the friends dined together. then laptev lay on the sofa while yartsev sat near and lighted a cigar. it got dark. "i must be getting old," said laptev. "ever since my sister nina died, i've taken to constantly thinking of death." they began talking of death, of the immortality of the soul, of how nice it would be to rise again and fly off somewhere to mars, to be always idle and happy, and, above all, to think in a new special way, not as on earth. "one doesn't want to die," said yartsev softly. "no sort of philosophy can reconcile me to death, and i look on it simply as annihilation. one wants to live." "you love life, gavrilitch?" "yes, i love it." "do you know, i can never understand myself about that. i'm always in a gloomy mood or else indifferent. i'm timid, without self-confidence; i have a cowardly conscience; i never can adapt myself to life, or become its master. some people talk nonsense or cheat, and even so enjoy life, while i consciously do good, and feel nothing but uneasiness or complete indifference. i explain all that, gavrilitch, by my being a slave, the grandson of a serf. before we plebeians fight our way into the true path, many of our sort will perish on the way." "that's all quite right, my dear fellow," said yartsev, and he sighed. "that only proves once again how rich and varied russian life is. ah, how rich it is! do you know, i feel more convinced every day that we are on the eve of the greatest triumph, and i should like to live to take part in it. whether you like to believe it or not, to my thinking a remarkable generation is growing up. it gives me great enjoyment to teach the children, especially the girls. they are wonderful children!" yartsev went to the piano and struck a chord. "i'm a chemist, i think in chemical terms, and i shall die a chemist," he went on. "but i am greedy, and i am afraid of dying unsatisfied; and chemistry is not enough for me, and i seize upon russian history, history of art, the science of teaching music. . . . your wife asked me in the summer to write an historical play, and now i'm longing to write and write. i feel as though i could sit for three days and three nights without moving, writing all the time. i am worn out with ideas--my brain's crowded with them, and i feel as though there were a pulse throbbing in my head. i don't in the least want to become anything special, to create something great. i simply want to live, to dream, to hope, to be in the midst of everything . . . . life is short, my dear fellow, and one must make the most of everything." after this friendly talk, which was not over till midnight, laptev took to coming to see yartsev almost every day. he felt drawn to him. as a rule he came towards evening, lay down on the sofa, and waited patiently for yartsev to come in, without feeling in the least bored. when yartsev came back from his work, he had dinner, and sat down to work; but laptev would ask him a question, a conversation would spring up, and there was no more thought of work and at midnight the friends parted very well pleased with one another. but this did not last long. arriving one day at yartsev's, laptev found no one there but polina, who was sitting at the piano practising her exercises. she looked at him with a cold, almost hostile expression, and asked without shaking hands: "tell me, please: how much longer is this going on?" "this? what?" asked laptev, not understanding. "you come here every day and hinder yartsev from working. yartsev is not a tradesman; he is a scientific man, and every moment of his life is precious. you ought to understand and to have some little delicacy!" "if you think that i hinder him," said laptev, mildly, disconcerted, "i will give up my visits." "quite right, too. you had better go, or he may be home in a minute and find you here." the tone in which this was said, and the indifference in polina's eyes, completely disconcerted him. she had absolutely no sort of feeling for him now, except the desire that he should go as soon as possible--and what a contrast it was to her old love for him! he went out without shaking hands with her, and he fancied she would call out to him, bring him back, but he heard the scales again, and as he slowly went down the stairs he realised that he had become a stranger to her now. three days later yartsev came to spend the evening with him. "i have news," he said, laughing. "polina nikolaevna has moved into my rooms altogether." he was a little confused, and went on in a low voice: "well, we are not in love with each other, of course, but i suppose that . . . that doesn't matter. i am glad i can give her a refuge and peace and quiet, and make it possible for her not to work if she's ill. she fancies that her coming to live with me will make things more orderly, and that under her influence i shall become a great scientist. that's what she fancies. and let her fancy it. in the south they have a saying: 'fancy makes the fool a rich man.' ha, ha, ha!" laptev said nothing. yartsev walked up and down the study, looking at the pictures he had seen so many times before, and said with a sigh: "yes, my dear fellow, i am three years older than you are, and it's too late for me to think of real love, and in reality a woman like polina nikolaevna is a godsend to me, and, of course, i shall get on capitally with her till we're both old people; but, goodness knows why, one still regrets something, one still longs for something, and i still feel as though i am lying in the vale of daghestan and dreaming of a ball. in short, man's never satisfied with what he has." he went into the drawing-room and began singing as though nothing had happened, and laptev sat in his study with his eyes shut, and tried to understand why polina had gone to live with yartsev. and then he felt sad that there were no lasting, permanent attachments. and he felt vexed that polina nikolaevna had gone to live with yartsev, and vexed with himself that his feeling for his wife was not what it had been. xv laptev sat reading and swaying to and fro in a rocking-chair; yulia was in the study, and she, too, was reading. it seemed there was nothing to talk about; they had both been silent all day. from time to time he looked at her from over his book and thought: "whether one marries from passionate love, or without love at all, doesn't it come to the same thing?" and the time when he used to be jealous, troubled, distressed, seemed to him far away. he had succeeded in going abroad, and now he was resting after the journey and looking forward to another visit in the spring to england, which he had very much liked. and yulia sergeyevna had grown used to her sorrow, and had left off going to the lodge to cry. that winter she had given up driving out shopping, had given up the theatres and concerts, and had stayed at home. she never cared for big rooms, and always sat in her husband's study or in her own room, where she had shrines of ikons that had come to her on her marriage, and where there hung on the wall the landscape that had pleased her so much at the exhibition. she spent hardly any money on herself, and was almost as frugal now as she had been in her father's house. the winter passed cheerlessly. card-playing was the rule everywhere in moscow, and if any other recreation was attempted, such as singing, reading, drawing, the result was even more tedious. and since there were few talented people in moscow, and the same singers and reciters performed at every entertainment, even the enjoyment of art gradually palled and became for many people a tiresome and monotonous social duty. moreover, the laptevs never had a day without something vexatious happening. old laptev's eyesight was failing; he no longer went to the warehouse, and the oculist told them that he would soon be blind. fyodor had for some reason given up going to the warehouse and spent his time sitting at home writing something. panaurov had got a post in another town, and had been promoted an actual civil councillor, and was now staying at the dresden. he came to the laptevs' almost every day to ask for money. kish had finished his studies at last, and while waiting for laptev to find him a job, used to spend whole days at a time with them, telling them long, tedious stories. all this was irritating and exhausting, and made daily life unpleasant. pyotr came into the study, and announced an unknown lady. on the card he brought in was the name "josephina iosefovna milan." yulia sergeyevna got up languidly and went out limping slightly, as her foot had gone to sleep. in the doorway appeared a pale, thin lady with dark eyebrows, dressed altogether in black. she clasped her hands on her bosom and said supplicatingly: "m. laptev, save my children!" the jingle of her bracelets sounded familiar to him, and he knew the face with patches of powder on it; he recognised her as the lady with whom he had once so inappropriately dined before his marriage. it was panaurov's second wife. "save my children," she repeated, and her face suddenly quivered and looked old and pitiful. "you alone can save us, and i have spent my last penny coming to moscow to see you! my children are starving!" she made a motion as though she were going to fall on her knees. laptev was alarmed, and clutched her by the arm. "sit down, sit down . . ." he muttered, making her sit down. "i beg you to be seated." "we have no money to buy bread," she said. "grigory nikolaevitch is going away to a new post, but he will not take the children and me with him, and the money which you so generously send us he spends only on himself. what are we to do? what? my poor, unhappy children!" "calm yourself, i beg. i will give orders that that money shall be made payable to you." she began sobbing, and then grew calmer, and he noticed that the tears had made little pathways through the powder on her cheeks, and that she was growing a moustache. "you are infinitely generous, m. laptev. but be our guardian angel, our good fairy, persuade grigory nikolaevitch not to abandon me, but to take me with him. you know i love him--i love him insanely; he's the comfort of my life." laptev gave her a hundred roubles, and promised to talk to panaurov, and saw her out to the hall in trepidation the whole time, for fear she should break into sobs or fall on her knees. after her, kish made his appearance. then kostya came in with his photographic apparatus. of late he had been attracted by photography and took photographs of every one in the house several times a day. this new pursuit caused him many disappointments, and he had actually grown thinner. before evening tea fyodor arrived. sitting in a corner in the study, he opened a book and stared for a long time at a page, obviously not reading. then he spent a long time drinking tea; his face turned red. in his presence laptev felt a load on his heart; even his silence was irksome to him. "russia may be congratulated on the appearance of a new author," said fyodor. "joking apart, though, brother, i have turned out a little article--the firstfruits of my pen, so to say--and i've brought it to show you. read it, dear boy, and tell me your opinion --but sincerely." he took a manuscript out of his pocket and gave it to his brother. the article was called "the russian soul"; it was written tediously, in the colourless style in which people with no talent, but full of secret vanity, usually write. the leading idea of it was that the intellectual man has the right to disbelieve in the supernatural, but it is his duty to conceal his lack of faith, that he may not be a stumbling-block and shake the faith of others. without faith there is no idealism, and idealism is destined to save europe and guide humanity into the true path. "but you don't say what europe has to be saved from," said laptev. "that's intelligible of itself." "nothing is intelligible," said laptev, and he walked about the room in agitation. "it's not intelligible to me why you wrote it. but that's your business." "i want to publish it in pamphlet form." "that's your affair." they were silent for a minute. fyodor sighed and said: "it's an immense regret to me, dear brother, that we think differently. oh, alyosha, alyosha, my darling brother! you and i are true russians, true believers, men of broad nature; all of these german and jewish crochets are not for us. you and i are not wretched upstarts, you know, but representatives of a distinguished merchant family." "what do you mean by a distinguished family?" said laptev, restraining his irritation. "a distinguished family! the landowners beat our grandfather and every low little government clerk punched him in the face. our grandfather thrashed our father, and our father thrashed us. what has your distinguished family done for us? what sort of nerves, what sort of blood, have we inherited? for nearly three years you've been arguing like an ignorant deacon, and talking all sorts of nonsense, and now you've written--this slavish drivel here! while i, while i! look at me. . . . no elasticity, no boldness, no strength of will; i tremble over every step i take as though i should be flogged for it. i am timid before nonentities, idiots, brutes, who are immeasurably my inferiors mentally and morally; i am afraid of porters, doorkeepers, policemen, gendarmes. i am afraid of every one, because i was born of a mother who was terrified, and because from a child i was beaten and frightened! . . . you and i will do well to have no children. oh, god, grant that this distinguished merchant family may die with us!" yulia sergeyevna came into the study and sat down at the table. "are you arguing about something here?" she asked. "am i interrupting?" "no, little sister," answered fyodor. "our discussion was of principles. here, you are abusing the family," he added, turning to his brother. "that family has created a business worth a million, though. that stands for something, anyway!" "a great distinction--a business worth a million! a man with no particular brains, without abilities, by chance becomes a trader, and then when he has grown rich he goes on trading from day to day, with no sort of system, with no aim, without having any particular greed for money. he trades mechanically, and money comes to him of itself, without his going to meet it. he sits all his life at his work, likes it only because he can domineer over his clerks and get the better of his customers. he's a churchwarden because he can domineer over the choristers and keep them under his thumb; he's the patron of a school because he likes to feel the teacher is his subordinate and enjoys lording it over him. the merchant does not love trading, he loves dominating, and your warehouse is not so much a commercial establishment as a torture chamber! and for a business like yours, you want clerks who have been deprived of individual character and personal life--and you make them such by forcing them in childhood to lick the dust for a crust of bread, and you've trained them from childhood to believe that you are their benefactors. no fear of your taking a university man into your warehouse!" "university men are not suitable for our business." "that's not true," cried laptev. "it's a lie!" "excuse me, it seems to me you spit into the well from which you drink yourself," said fyodor, and he got up. "our business is hateful to you, yet you make use of the income from it." "aha! we've spoken our minds," said laptev, and he laughed, looking angrily at his brother. "yes, if i didn't belong to your distinguished family--if i had an ounce of will and courage, i should long ago have flung away that income, and have gone to work for my living. but in your warehouse you've destroyed all character in me from a child! i'm your product." fyodor looked at the clock and began hurriedly saying good-bye. he kissed yulia's hand and went out, but instead of going into the hall, walked into the drawing-room, then into the bedroom. "i've forgotten how the rooms go," he said in extreme confusion. "it's a strange house. isn't it a strange house!" he seemed utterly overcome as he put on his coat, and there was a look of pain on his face. laptev felt no more anger; he was frightened, and at the same time felt sorry for fyodor, and the warm, true love for his brother, which seemed to have died down in his heart during those three years, awoke, and he felt an intense desire to express that love. "come to dinner with us to-morrow, fyodor," he said, and stroked him on the shoulder. "will you come?" "yes, yes; but give me some water." laptev ran himself to the dining-room to take the first thing he could get from the sideboard. this was a tall beer-jug. he poured water into it and brought it to his brother. fyodor began drinking, but bit a piece out of the jug; they heard a crunch, and then sobs. the water ran over his fur coat and his jacket, and laptev, who had never seen men cry, stood in confusion and dismay, not knowing what to do. he looked on helplessly while yulia and the servant took off fyodor's coat and helped him back again into the room, and went with him, feeling guilty. yulia made fyodor lie down on the sofa and knelt beside him. "it's nothing," she said, trying to comfort him. "it's your nerves. . . ." "i'm so miserable, my dear!" he said. "i am so unhappy, unhappy . . . but all the time i've been hiding it, i've been hiding it!" he put his arm round her neck and whispered in her ear: "every night i see my sister nina. she comes and sits in the chair near my bed. . . ." when, an hour later, he put on his fur coat in the hall, he was smiling again and ashamed to face the servant. laptev went with him to pyatnitsky street. "come and have dinner with us to-morrow," he said on the way, holding him by the arm, "and at easter we'll go abroad together. you absolutely must have a change, or you'll be getting quite morbid." when he got home laptev found his wife in a state of great nervous agitation. the scene with fyodor had upset her, and she could not recover her composure. she wasn't crying but kept tossing on the bed, clutching with cold fingers at the quilt, at the pillows, at her husband's hands. her eyes looked big and frightened. "don't go away from me, don't go away," she said to her husband. "tell me, alyosha, why have i left off saying my prayers? what has become of my faith? oh, why did you talk of religion before me? you've shaken my faith, you and your friends. i never pray now." he put compresses on her forehead, chafed her hands, gave her tea to drink, while she huddled up to him in terror. . . . towards morning she was worn out and fell asleep, while laptev sat beside her and held her hand. so that he could get no sleep. the whole day afterwards he felt shattered and dull, and wandered listlessly about the rooms without a thought in his head. xvi the doctor said that fyodor's mind was affected. laptev did not know what to do in his father's house, while the dark warehouse in which neither his father nor fyodor ever appeared now seemed to him like a sepulchre. when his wife told him that he absolutely must go every day to the warehouse and also to his father's, he either said nothing, or began talking irritably of his childhood, saying that it was beyond his power to forgive his father for his past, that the warehouse and the house in pyatnitsky street were hateful to him, and so on. one sunday morning yulia went herself to pyatnitsky street. she found old fyodor stepanovitch in the same big drawing-room in which the service had been held on her first arrival. wearing slippers, and without a cravat, he was sitting motionless in his arm-chair, blinking with his sightless eyes. "it's i--your daughter-in-law," she said, going up to him. "i've come to see how you are." he began breathing heavily with excitement. touched by his affliction and his loneliness, she kissed his hand; and he passed his hand over her face and head, and having satisfied himself that it was she, made the sign of the cross over her. "thank you, thank you," he said. "you know i've lost my eyes and can see nothing. . . . i can dimly see the window and the fire, but people and things i cannot see at all. yes, i'm going blind, and fyodor has fallen ill, and without the master's eye things are in a bad way now. if there is any irregularity there's no one to look into it; and folks soon get spoiled. and why is it fyodor has fallen ill? did he catch cold? here i have never ailed in my life and never taken medicine. i never saw anything of doctors." and, as he always did, the old man began boasting. meanwhile the servants hurriedly laid the table and brought in lunch and bottles of wine. ten bottles were put on the table; one of them was in the shape of the eiffel tower. there was a whole dish of hot pies smelling of jam, rice, and fish. "i beg my dear guest to have lunch," said the old man. she took him by the arm, led him to the table, and poured him out a glass of vodka. "i will come to you again to-morrow," she said, "and i'll bring your grandchildren, sasha and lida. they will be sorry for you, and fondle you." "there's no need. don't bring them. they are illegitimate." "why are they illegitimate? why, their father and mother were married." "without my permission. i do not bless them, and i don't want to know them. let them be." "you speak strangely, fyodor stepanovitch," said yulia, with a sigh. "it is written in the gospel: children must fear and honour their parents." "nothing of the sort. the gospel tells us that we must forgive even our enemies." "one can't forgive in our business. if you were to forgive every one, you would come to ruin in three years." "but to forgive, to say a kind, friendly word to any one, even a sinner, is something far above business, far above wealth." yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion in him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly to all she said, as a grown-up person listens to a child. "fyodor stepanovitch," said yulia resolutely, "you are an old man, and god soon will call you to himself. he won't ask you how you managed your business, and whether you were successful in it, but whether you were gracious to people; or whether you were harsh to those who were weaker than you, such as your servants, your clerks." "i was always the benefactor of those that served me; they ought to remember me in their prayers forever," said the old man, with conviction, but touched by yulia's tone of sincerity, and anxious to give her pleasure, he said: "very well; bring my grandchildren to-morrow. i will tell them to buy me some little presents for them." the old man was slovenly in his dress, and there was cigar ash on his breast and on his knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots, or brushed his clothes. the rice in the pies was half cooked, the tablecloth smelt of soap, the servants tramped noisily about the room. and the old man and the whole house had a neglected look, and yulia, who felt this, was ashamed of herself and of her husband. "i will be sure to come and see you to-morrow," she said. she walked through the rooms, and gave orders for the old man's bedroom to be set to rights, and the lamp to be lighted under the ikons in it. fyodor, sitting in his own room, was looking at an open book without reading it. yulia talked to him and told the servants to tidy his room, too; then she went downstairs to the clerks. in the middle of the room where the clerks used to dine, there was an unpainted wooden post to support the ceiling and to prevent its coming down. the ceilings in the basement were low, the walls covered with cheap paper, and there was a smell of charcoal fumes and cooking. as it was a holiday, all the clerks were at home, sitting on their bedsteads waiting for dinner. when yulia went in they jumped up, and answered her questions timidly, looking up at her from under their brows like convicts. "good heavens! what a horrid room you have!" she said, throwing up her hands. "aren't you crowded here?" "crowded, but not aggrieved," said makeitchev. "we are greatly indebted to you, and will offer up our prayers for you to our heavenly father." "the congruity of life with the conceit of the personality," said potchatkin. and noticing that yulia did not understand potchatkin, makeitchev hastened to explain: "we are humble people and must live according to our position." she inspected the boys' quarters, and then the kitchen, made acquaintance with the housekeeper, and was thoroughly dissatisfied. when she got home she said to her husband: "we ought to move into your father's house and settle there for good as soon as possible. and you will go every day to the warehouse." then they both sat side by side in the study without speaking. his heart was heavy, and he did not want to move into pyatnitsky street or to go into the warehouse; but he guessed what his wife was thinking, and could not oppose her. he stroked her cheek and said: "i feel as though our life is already over, and that a grey half-life is beginning for us. when i knew that my brother fyodor was hopelessly ill, i shed tears; we spent our childhood and youth together, when i loved him with my whole soul. and now this catastrophe has come, and it seems, too, as though, losing him, i am finally cut away from my past. and when you said just now that we must move into the house in pyatnitsky street, to that prison, it began to seem to me that there was no future for me either." he got up and walked to the window. "however that may be, one has to give up all thoughts of happiness," he said, looking out into the street. "there is none. i never have had any, and i suppose it doesn't exist at all. i was happy once in my life, though, when i sat at night under your parasol. do you remember how you left your parasol at nina's?" he asked, turning to his wife. "i was in love with you then, and i remember i spent all night sitting under your parasol, and was perfectly blissful." near the book-case in the study stood a mahogany chest with bronze fittings where laptev kept various useless things, including the parasol. he took it out and handed it to his wife. "here it is." yulia looked for a minute at the parasol, recognised it, and smiled mournfully. "i remember," she said. "when you proposed to me you held it in your hand." and seeing that he was preparing to go out, she said: "please come back early if you can. i am dull without you." and then she went into her own room, and gazed for a long time at the parasol. xvii in spite of the complexity of the business and the immense turnover, there were no bookkeepers in the warehouse, and it was impossible to make anything out of the books kept by the cashier in the office. every day the warehouse was visited by agents, german and english, with whom the clerks talked politics and religion. a man of noble birth, ruined by drink, an ailing, pitiable creature, used to come to translate the foreign correspondence in the office; the clerks used to call him a midge, and put salt in his tea. and altogether the whole concern struck laptev as a very queer business. he went to the warehouse every day and tried to establish a new order of things; he forbade them to thrash the boys and to jeer at the buyers, and was violently angry when the clerks gleefully despatched to the provinces worthless shop-soiled goods as though they were new and fashionable. now he was the chief person in the warehouse, but still, as before, he did not know how large his fortune was, whether his business was doing well, how much the senior clerks were paid, and so on. potchatkin and makeitchev looked upon him as young and inexperienced, concealed a great deal from him, and whispered mysteriously every evening with his blind old father. it somehow happened at the beginning of june that laptev went into the bubnovsky restaurant with potchatkin to talk business with him over lunch. potchatkin had been with the laptevs a long while, and had entered their service at eight years old. he seemed to belong to them--they trusted him fully; and when on leaving the warehouse he gathered up all the takings from the till and thrust them into his pocket, it never aroused the slightest suspicion. he was the head man in the business and in the house, and also in the church, where he performed the duties of churchwarden in place of his old master. he was nicknamed malyuta skuratov on account of his cruel treatment of the boys and clerks under him. when they went into the restaurant he nodded to a waiter and said: "bring us, my lad, half a bodkin and twenty-four unsavouries." after a brief pause the waiter brought on a tray half a bottle of vodka and some plates of various kinds of savouries. "look here, my good fellow," said potchatkin. "give us a plateful of the source of all slander and evil-speaking, with mashed potatoes." the waiter did not understand; he was puzzled, and would have said something, but potchatkin looked at him sternly and said: "except." the waiter thought intently, then went to consult with his colleagues, and in the end guessing what was meant, brought a plateful of tongue. when they had drunk a couple of glasses and had had lunch, laptev asked: "tell me, ivan vassilitch, is it true that our business has been dropping off for the last year?" "not a bit of it." "tell me frankly and honestly what income we have been making and are making, and what our profits are. we can't go on in the dark. we had a balancing of the accounts at the warehouse lately, but, excuse me, i don't believe in it; you think fit to conceal something from me and only tell the truth to my father. you have been used to being diplomatic from your childhood, and now you can't get on without it. and what's the use of it? so i beg you to be open. what is our position?" "it all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," potchatkin answered after a moment's pause. "what do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?" potchatkin began explaining, but laptev could make nothing of it, and sent for makeitchev. the latter promptly made his appearance, had some lunch after saying grace, and in his sedate, mellow baritone began saying first of all that the clerks were in duty bound to pray night and day for their benefactors. "by all means, only allow me not to consider myself your benefactor," said laptev. "every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of his station. by the grace of god you are a father and benefactor to us, and we are your slaves." "i am sick of all that!" said laptev, getting angry. "please be a benefactor to me now. please explain the position of our business. give up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow i shall close the business. my father is blind, my brother is in the asylum, my nieces are only children. i hate the business; i should be glad to go away, but there's no one to take my place, as you know. for goodness' sake, drop your diplomacy!" they went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they went on with them at home in the evening, the old father himself assisting. initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the old man spoke as though he were engaged, not in trade, but in sorcery. it appeared that the profits of the business were increasing approximately ten per cent. per annum, and that the laptevs' fortune, reckoning only money and paper securities, amounted to six million roubles. when at one o'clock at night, after balancing the accounts, laptev went out into the open air, he was still under the spell of those figures. it was a still, sultry, moonlight night. the white walls of the houses beyond the river, the heavy barred gates, the stillness and the black shadows, combined to give the impression of a fortress, and nothing was wanting to complete the picture but a sentinel with a gun. laptev went into the garden and sat down on a seat near the fence, which divided them from the neighbour's yard, where there was a garden, too. the bird-cherry was in bloom. laptev remembered that the tree had been just as gnarled and just as big when he was a child, and had not changed at all since then. every corner of the garden and of the yard recalled the far-away past. and in his childhood, too, just as now, the whole yard bathed in moonlight could be seen through the sparse trees, the shadows had been mysterious and forbidding, a black dog had lain in the middle of the yard, and the clerks' windows had stood wide open. and all these were cheerless memories. the other side of the fence, in the neighbour's yard, there was a sound of light steps. "my sweet, my precious . . ." said a man's voice so near the fence that laptev could hear the man's breathing. now they were kissing. laptev was convinced that the millions and the business which was so distasteful to him were ruining his life, and would make him a complete slave. he imagined how, little by little, he would grow accustomed to his position; would, little by little, enter into the part of the head of a great firm; would begin to grow dull and old, die in the end, as the average man usually does die, in a decrepit, soured old age, making every one about him miserable and depressed. but what hindered him from giving up those millions and that business, and leaving that yard and garden which had been hateful to him from his childhood? the whispering and kisses the other side of the fence disturbed him. he moved into the middle of the yard, and, unbuttoning his shirt over his chest, looked at the moon, and it seemed to him that he would order the gate to be unlocked, and would go out and never come back again. his heart ached sweetly with the foretaste of freedom; he laughed joyously, and pictured how exquisite, poetical, and even holy, life might be. . . . but he still stood and did not go away, and kept asking himself: "what keeps me here?" and he felt angry with himself and with the black dog, which still lay stretched on the stone yard, instead of running off to the open country, to the woods, where it would have been free and happy. it was clear that that dog and he were prevented from leaving the yard by the same thing; the habit of bondage, of servitude. . . . at midday next morning he went to see his wife, and that he might not be dull, asked yartsev to go with him. yulia sergeyevna was staying in a summer villa at butovo, and he had not been to see her for five days. when they reached the station the friends got into a carriage, and all the way there yartsev was singing and in raptures over the exquisite weather. the villa was in a great park not far from the station. at the beginning of an avenue, about twenty paces from the gates, yulia sergeyevna was sitting under a broad, spreading poplar, waiting for her guests. she had on a light, elegant dress of a pale cream colour trimmed with lace, and in her hand she had the old familiar parasol. yartsev greeted her and went on to the villa from which came the sound of sasha's and lida's voices, while laptev sat down beside her to talk of business matters. "why is it you haven't been for so long?" she said, keeping his hand in hers. "i have been sitting here for days watching for you to come. i miss you so when you are away!" she stood up and passed her hand over his hair, and scanned his face, his shoulders, his hat, with interest. "you know i love you," she said, and flushed crimson. "you are precious to me. here you've come. i see you, and i'm so happy i can't tell you. well, let us talk. tell me something." she had told him she loved him, and he could only feel as though he had been married to her for ten years, and that he was hungry for his lunch. she had put her arm round his neck, tickling his cheek with the silk of her dress; he cautiously removed her hand, stood up, and without uttering a single word, walked to the villa. the little girls ran to meet him. "how they have grown!" he thought. "and what changes in these three years. . . . but one may have to live another thirteen years, another thirty years. . . . what is there in store for us in the future? if we live, we shall see." he embraced sasha and lida, who hung upon his neck, and said: "grandpapa sends his love. . . . uncle fyodor is dying. uncle kostya has sent a letter from america and sends you his love in it. he's bored at the exhibition and will soon be back. and uncle alyosha is hungry." then he sat on the verandah and saw his wife walking slowly along the avenue towards the house. she was deep in thought; there was a mournful, charming expression in her face, and her eyes were bright with tears. she was not now the slender, fragile, pale-faced girl she used to be; she was a mature, beautiful, vigorous woman. and laptev saw the enthusiasm with which yartsev looked at her when he met her, and the way her new, lovely expression was reflected in his face, which looked mournful and ecstatic too. one would have thought that he was seeing her for the first time in his life. and while they were at lunch on the verandah, yartsev smiled with a sort of joyous shyness, and kept gazing at yulia and at her beautiful neck. laptev could not help watching them while he thought that he had perhaps another thirteen, another thirty years of life before him. . . . and what would he have to live through in that time? what is in store for us in the future? and he thought: "let us live, and we shall see." the tales of chekhov volume the schoolmaster and other stories by anton tchekhov translated by constance garnett contents the schoolmaster enemies the examining magistrate betrothed from the diary of a violent-tempered man in the dark a play a mystery strong impressions drunk the marshal's widow a bad business in the court boots joy ladies a peculiar man at the barber's an inadvertence the album oh! the public a tripping tongue overdoing it the orator malingerers in the graveyard hush! in an hotel in a strange land the schoolmaster fyodor lukitch sysoev, the master of the factory school maintained at the expense of the firm of kulikin, was getting ready for the annual dinner. every year after the school examination the board of managers gave a dinner at which the inspector of elementary schools, all who had conducted the examinations, and all the managers and foremen of the factory were present. in spite of their official character, these dinners were always good and lively, and the guests sat a long time over them; forgetting distinctions of rank and recalling only their meritorious labours, they ate till they were full, drank amicably, chattered till they were all hoarse and parted late in the evening, deafening the whole factory settlement with their singing and the sound of their kisses. of such dinners sysoev had taken part in thirteen, as he had been that number of years master of the factory school. now, getting ready for the fourteenth, he was trying to make himself look as festive and correct as possible. he had spent a whole hour brushing his new black suit, and spent almost as long in front of a looking-glass while he put on a fashionable shirt; the studs would not go into the button-holes, and this circumstance called forth a perfect storm of complaints, threats, and reproaches addressed to his wife. his poor wife, bustling round him, wore herself out with her efforts. and indeed he, too, was exhausted in the end. when his polished boots were brought him from the kitchen he had not strength to pull them on. he had to lie down and have a drink of water. "how weak you have grown!" sighed his wife. "you ought not to go to this dinner at all." "no advice, please!" the schoolmaster cut her short angrily. he was in a very bad temper, for he had been much displeased with the recent examinations. the examinations had gone off splendidly; all the boys of the senior division had gained certificates and prizes; both the managers of the factory and the government officials were pleased with the results; but that was not enough for the schoolmaster. he was vexed that babkin, a boy who never made a mistake in writing, had made three mistakes in the dictation; sergeyev, another boy, had been so excited that he could not remember seventeen times thirteen; the inspector, a young and inexperienced man, had chosen a difficult article for dictation, and lyapunov, the master of a neighbouring school, whom the inspector had asked to dictate, had not behaved like "a good comrade"; but in dictating had, as it were, swallowed the words and had not pronounced them as written. after pulling on his boots with the assistance of his wife, and looking at himself once more in the looking-glass, the schoolmaster took his gnarled stick and set off for the dinner. just before the factory manager's house, where the festivity was to take place, he had a little mishap. he was taken with a violent fit of coughing . . . . he was so shaken by it that the cap flew off his head and the stick dropped out of his hand; and when the school inspector and the teachers, hearing his cough, ran out of the house, he was sitting on the bottom step, bathed in perspiration. "fyodor lukitch, is that you?" said the inspector, surprised. "you . . . have come?" "why not?" "you ought to be at home, my dear fellow. you are not at all well to-day. . . ." "i am just the same to-day as i was yesterday. and if my presence is not agreeable to you, i can go back." "oh, fyodor lukitch, you must not talk like that! please come in. why, the function is really in your honour, not ours. and we are delighted to see you. of course we are! . . ." within, everything was ready for the banquet. in the big dining-room adorned with german oleographs and smelling of geraniums and varnish there were two tables, a larger one for the dinner and a smaller one for the hors-d'oeuvres. the hot light of midday faintly percolated through the lowered blinds. . . . the twilight of the room, the swiss views on the blinds, the geraniums, the thin slices of sausage on the plates, all had a naïve, girlishly-sentimental air, and it was all in keeping with the master of the house, a good-natured little german with a round little stomach and affectionate, oily little eyes. adolf andreyitch bruni (that was his name) was bustling round the table of hors-d'oeuvres as zealously as though it were a house on fire, filling up the wine-glasses, loading the plates, and trying in every way to please, to amuse, and to show his friendly feelings. he clapped people on the shoulder, looked into their eyes, chuckled, rubbed his hands, in fact was as ingratiating as a friendly dog. "whom do i behold? fyodor lukitch!" he said in a jerky voice, on seeing sysoev. "how delightful! you have come in spite of your illness. gentlemen, let me congratulate you, fyodor lukitch has come!" the school-teachers were already crowding round the table and eating the hors-d'oeuvres. sysoev frowned; he was displeased that his colleagues had begun to eat and drink without waiting for him. he noticed among them lyapunov, the man who had dictated at the examination, and going up to him, began: "it was not acting like a comrade! no, indeed! gentlemanly people don't dictate like that!" "good lord, you are still harping on it!" said lyapunov, and he frowned. "aren't you sick of it?" "yes, still harping on it! my babkin has never made mistakes! i know why you dictated like that. you simply wanted my pupils to be floored, so that your school might seem better than mine. i know all about it! . . ." "why are you trying to get up a quarrel?" lyapunov snarled. "why the devil do you pester me?" "come, gentlemen," interposed the inspector, making a woebegone face. "is it worth while to get so heated over a trifle? three mistakes . . . not one mistake . . . does it matter?" "yes, it does matter. babkin has never made mistakes." "he won't leave off," lyapunov went on, snorting angrily. "he takes advantage of his position as an invalid and worries us all to death. well, sir, i am not going to consider your being ill." "let my illness alone!" cried sysoev, angrily. "what is it to do with you? they all keep repeating it at me: illness! illness! illness! . . . as though i need your sympathy! besides, where have you picked up the notion that i am ill? i was ill before the examinations, that's true, but now i have completely recovered, there is nothing left of it but weakness." "you have regained your health, well, thank god," said the scripture teacher, father nikolay, a young priest in a foppish cinnamon-coloured cassock and trousers outside his boots. "you ought to rejoice, but you are irritable and so on." "you are a nice one, too," sysoev interrupted him. "questions ought to be straightforward, clear, but you kept asking riddles. that's not the thing to do!" by combined efforts they succeeded in soothing him and making him sit down to the table. he was a long time making up his mind what to drink, and pulling a wry face drank a wine-glass of some green liqueur; then he drew a bit of pie towards him, and sulkily picked out of the inside an egg with onion on it. at the first mouthful it seemed to him that there was no salt in it. he sprinkled salt on it and at once pushed it away as the pie was too salt. at dinner sysoev was seated between the inspector and bruni. after the first course the toasts began, according to the old-established custom. "i consider it my agreeable duty," the inspector began, "to propose a vote of thanks to the absent school wardens, daniel petrovitch and . . . and . . . and . . ." "and ivan petrovitch," bruni prompted him. "and ivan petrovitch kulikin, who grudge no expense for the school, and i propose to drink their health. . . ." "for my part," said bruni, jumping up as though he had been stung, "i propose a toast to the health of the honoured inspector of elementary schools, pavel gennadievitch nadarov!" chairs were pushed back, faces beamed with smiles, and the usual clinking of glasses began. the third toast always fell to sysoev. and on this occasion, too, he got up and began to speak. looking grave and clearing his throat, he first of all announced that he had not the gift of eloquence and that he was not prepared to make a speech. further he said that during the fourteen years that he had been schoolmaster there had been many intrigues, many underhand attacks, and even secret reports on him to the authorities, and that he knew his enemies and those who had informed against him, and he would not mention their names, "for fear of spoiling somebody's appetite"; that in spite of these intrigues the kulikin school held the foremost place in the whole province not only from a moral, but also from a material point of view." "everywhere else," he said, "schoolmasters get two hundred or three hundred roubles, while i get five hundred, and moreover my house has been redecorated and even furnished at the expense of the firm. and this year all the walls have been repapered. . . ." further the schoolmaster enlarged on the liberality with which the pupils were provided with writing materials in the factory schools as compared with the zemstvo and government schools. and for all this the school was indebted, in his opinion, not to the heads of the firm, who lived abroad and scarcely knew of its existence, but to a man who, in spite of his german origin and lutheran faith, was a russian at heart. sysoev spoke at length, with pauses to get his breath and with pretensions to rhetoric, and his speech was boring and unpleasant. he several times referred to certain enemies of his, tried to drop hints, repeated himself, coughed, and flourished his fingers unbecomingly. at last he was exhausted and in a perspiration and he began talking jerkily, in a low voice as though to himself, and finished his speech not quite coherently: "and so i propose the health of bruni, that is adolf andreyitch, who is here, among us . . . generally speaking . . . you understand . . ." when he finished everyone gave a faint sigh, as though someone had sprinkled cold water and cleared the air. bruni alone apparently had no unpleasant feeling. beaming and rolling his sentimental eyes, the german shook sysoev's hand with feeling and was again as friendly as a dog. "oh, i thank you," he said, with an emphasis on the _oh_, laying his left hand on his heart. "i am very happy that you understand me! i, with my whole heart, wish you all things good. but i ought only to observe; you exaggerate my importance. the school owes its flourishing condition only to you, my honoured friend, fyodor lukitch. but for you it would be in no way distinguished from other schools! you think the german is paying a compliment, the german is saying something polite. ha-ha! no, my dear fyodor lukitch, i am an honest man and never make complimentary speeches. if we pay you five hundred roubles a year it is because you are valued by us. isn't that so? gentlemen, what i say is true, isn't it? we should not pay anyone else so much. . . . why, a good school is an honour to the factory!" "i must sincerely own that your school is really exceptional," said the inspector. "don't think this is flattery. anyway, i have never come across another like it in my life. as i sat at the examination i was full of admiration. . . . wonderful children! they know a great deal and answer brightly, and at the same time they are somehow special, unconstrained, sincere. . . . one can see that they love you, fyodor lukitch. you are a schoolmaster to the marrow of your bones. you must have been born a teacher. you have all the gifts --innate vocation, long experience, and love for your work. . . . it's simply amazing, considering the weak state of your health, what energy, what understanding . . . what perseverance, do you understand, what confidence you have! some one in the school committee said truly that you were a poet in your work. . . . yes, a poet you are!" and all present at the dinner began as one man talking of sysoev's extraordinary talent. and as though a dam had been burst, there followed a flood of sincere, enthusiastic words such as men do not utter when they are restrained by prudent and cautious sobriety. sysoev's speech and his intolerable temper and the horrid, spiteful expression on his face were all forgotten. everyone talked freely, even the shy and silent new teachers, poverty-stricken, down-trodden youths who never spoke to the inspector without addressing him as "your honour." it was clear that in his own circle sysoev was a person of consequence. having been accustomed to success and praise for the fourteen years that he had been schoolmaster, he listened with indifference to the noisy enthusiasm of his admirers. it was bruni who drank in the praise instead of the schoolmaster. the german caught every word, beamed, clapped his hands, and flushed modestly as though the praise referred not to the schoolmaster but to him. "bravo! bravo!" he shouted. "that's true! you have grasped my meaning! . . . excellent! . . ." he looked into the schoolmaster's eyes as though he wanted to share his bliss with him. at last he could restrain himself no longer; he leapt up, and, overpowering all the other voices with his shrill little tenor, shouted: "gentlemen! allow me to speak! sh-h! to all you say i can make only one reply: the management of the factory will not be forgetful of what it owes to fyodor lukitch! . . ." all were silent. sysoev raised his eyes to the german's rosy face. "we know how to appreciate it," bruni went on, dropping his voice. "in response to your words i ought to tell you that . . . fyodor lukitch's family will be provided for and that a sum of money was placed in the bank a month ago for that object." sysoev looked enquiringly at the german, at his colleagues, as though unable to understand why his family should be provided for and not he himself. and at once on all the faces, in all the motionless eyes bent upon him, he read not the sympathy, not the commiseration which he could not endure, but something else, something soft, tender, but at the same time intensely sinister, like a terrible truth, something which in one instant turned him cold all over and filled his soul with unutterable despair. with a pale, distorted face he suddenly jumped up and clutched at his head. for a quarter of a minute he stood like that, stared with horror at a fixed point before him as though he saw the swiftly coming death of which bruni was speaking, then sat down and burst into tears. "come, come! . . . what is it?" he heard agitated voices saying. "water! drink a little water!" a short time passed and the schoolmaster grew calmer, but the party did not recover their previous liveliness. the dinner ended in gloomy silence, and much earlier than on previous occasions. when he got home sysoev first of all looked at himself in the glass. "of course there was no need for me to blubber like that!" he thought, looking at his sunken cheeks and his eyes with dark rings under them. "my face is a much better colour to-day than yesterday. i am suffering from anemia and catarrh of the stomach, and my cough is only a stomach cough." reassured, he slowly began undressing, and spent a long time brushing his new black suit, then carefully folded it up and put it in the chest of drawers. then he went up to the table where there lay a pile of his pupils' exercise-books, and picking out babkin's, sat down and fell to contemplating the beautiful childish handwriting. . . . and meantime, while he was examining the exercise-books, the district doctor was sitting in the next room and telling his wife in a whisper that a man ought not to have been allowed to go out to dinner who had not in all probability more than a week to live. enemies between nine and ten on a dark september evening the only son of the district doctor, kirilov, a child of six, called andrey, died of diphtheria. just as the doctor's wife sank on her knees by the dead child's bedside and was overwhelmed by the first rush of despair there came a sharp ring at the bell in the entry. all the servants had been sent out of the house that morning on account of the diphtheria. kirilov went to open the door just as he was, without his coat on, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, without wiping his wet face or his hands which were scalded with carbolic. it was dark in the entry and nothing could be distinguished in the man who came in but medium height, a white scarf, and a large, extremely pale face, so pale that its entrance seemed to make the passage lighter. "is the doctor at home?" the newcomer asked quickly. "i am at home," answered kirilov. "what do you want?" "oh, it's you? i am very glad," said the stranger in a tone of relief, and he began feeling in the dark for the doctor's hand, found it and squeezed it tightly in his own. "i am very . . . very glad! we are acquainted. my name is abogin, and i had the honour of meeting you in the summer at gnutchev's. i am very glad i have found you at home. for god's sake don't refuse to come back with me at once. . . . my wife has been taken dangerously ill. . . . and the carriage is waiting. . . ." from the voice and gestures of the speaker it could be seen that he was in a state of great excitement. like a man terrified by a house on fire or a mad dog, he could hardly restrain his rapid breathing and spoke quickly in a shaking voice, and there was a note of unaffected sincerity and childish alarm in his voice. as people always do who are frightened and overwhelmed, he spoke in brief, jerky sentences and uttered a great many unnecessary, irrelevant words. "i was afraid i might not find you in," he went on. "i was in a perfect agony as i drove here. put on your things and let us go, for god's sake. . . . this is how it happened. alexandr semyonovitch paptchinsky, whom you know, came to see me. . . . we talked a little and then we sat down to tea; suddenly my wife cried out, clutched at her heart, and fell back on her chair. we carried her to bed and . . . and i rubbed her forehead with ammonia and sprinkled her with water . . . she lay as though she were dead. . . . i am afraid it is aneurism . . . . come along . . . her father died of aneurism." kirilov listened and said nothing, as though he did not understand russian. when abogin mentioned again paptchinsky and his wife's father and once more began feeling in the dark for his hand the doctor shook his head and said apathetically, dragging out each word: "excuse me, i cannot come . . . my son died . . . five minutes ago!" "is it possible!" whispered abogin, stepping back a pace. "my god, at what an unlucky moment i have come! a wonderfully unhappy day . . . wonderfully. what a coincidence. . . . it's as though it were on purpose!" abogin took hold of the door-handle and bowed his head. he was evidently hesitating and did not know what to do--whether to go away or to continue entreating the doctor. "listen," he said fervently, catching hold of kirilov's sleeve. "i well understand your position! god is my witness that i am ashamed of attempting at such a moment to intrude on your attention, but what am i to do? only think, to whom can i go? there is no other doctor here, you know. for god's sake come! i am not asking you for myself. . . . i am not the patient!" a silence followed. kirilov turned his back on abogin, stood still a moment, and slowly walked into the drawing-room. judging from his unsteady, mechanical step, from the attention with which he set straight the fluffy shade on the unlighted lamp in the drawing-room and glanced into a thick book lying on the table, at that instant he had no intention, no desire, was thinking of nothing and most likely did not remember that there was a stranger in the entry. the twilight and stillness of the drawing-room seemed to increase his numbness. going out of the drawing-room into his study he raised his right foot higher than was necessary, and felt for the doorposts with his hands, and as he did so there was an air of perplexity about his whole figure as though he were in somebody else's house, or were drunk for the first time in his life and were now abandoning himself with surprise to the new sensation. a broad streak of light stretched across the bookcase on one wall of the study; this light came together with the close, heavy smell of carbolic and ether from the door into the bedroom, which stood a little way open. . . . the doctor sank into a low chair in front of the table; for a minute he stared drowsily at his books, which lay with the light on them, then got up and went into the bedroom. here in the bedroom reigned a dead silence. everything to the smallest detail was eloquent of the storm that had been passed through, of exhaustion, and everything was at rest. a candle standing among a crowd of bottles, boxes, and pots on a stool and a big lamp on the chest of drawers threw a brilliant light over all the room. on the bed under the window lay a boy with open eyes and a look of wonder on his face. he did not move, but his open eyes seemed every moment growing darker and sinking further into his head. the mother was kneeling by the bed with her arms on his body and her head hidden in the bedclothes. like the child, she did not stir; but what throbbing life was suggested in the curves of her body and in her arms! she leaned against the bed with all her being, pressing against it greedily with all her might, as though she were afraid of disturbing the peaceful and comfortable attitude she had found at last for her exhausted body. the bedclothes, the rags and bowls, the splashes of water on the floor, the little paint-brushes and spoons thrown down here and there, the white bottle of lime water, the very air, heavy and stifling--were all hushed and seemed plunged in repose. the doctor stopped close to his wife, thrust his hands in his trouser pockets, and slanting his head on one side fixed his eyes on his son. his face bore an expression of indifference, and only from the drops that glittered on his beard it could be seen that he had just been crying. that repellent horror which is thought of when we speak of death was absent from the room. in the numbness of everything, in the mother's attitude, in the indifference on the doctor's face there was something that attracted and touched the heart, that subtle, almost elusive beauty of human sorrow which men will not for a long time learn to understand and describe, and which it seems only music can convey. there was a feeling of beauty, too, in the austere stillness. kirilov and his wife were silent and not weeping, as though besides the bitterness of their loss they were conscious, too, of all the tragedy of their position; just as once their youth had passed away, so now together with this boy their right to have children had gone for ever to all eternity! the doctor was forty-four, his hair was grey and he looked like an old man; his faded and invalid wife was thirty-five. andrey was not merely the only child, but also the last child. in contrast to his wife the doctor belonged to the class of people who at times of spiritual suffering feel a craving for movement. after standing for five minutes by his wife, he walked, raising his right foot high, from the bedroom into a little room which was half filled up by a big sofa; from there he went into the kitchen. after wandering by the stove and the cook's bed he bent down and went by a little door into the passage. there he saw again the white scarf and the white face. "at last," sighed abogin, reaching towards the door-handle. "let us go, please." the doctor started, glanced at him, and remembered. . . . "why, i have told you already that i can't go!" he said, growing more animated. "how strange!" "doctor, i am not a stone, i fully understand your position . . . i feel for you," abogin said in an imploring voice, laying his hand on his scarf. "but i am not asking you for myself. my wife is dying. if you had heard that cry, if you had seen her face, you would understand my pertinacity. my god, i thought you had gone to get ready! doctor, time is precious. let us go, i entreat you." "i cannot go," said kirilov emphatically and he took a step into the drawing-room. abogin followed him and caught hold of his sleeve. "you are in sorrow, i understand. but i'm not asking you to a case of toothache, or to a consultation, but to save a human life!" he went on entreating like a beggar. "life comes before any personal sorrow! come, i ask for courage, for heroism! for the love of humanity!" "humanity--that cuts both ways," kirilov said irritably. "in the name of humanity i beg you not to take me. and how queer it is, really! i can hardly stand and you talk to me about humanity! i am fit for nothing just now. . . . nothing will induce me to go, and i can't leave my wife alone. no, no. . ." kirilov waved his hands and staggered back. "and . . . and don't ask me," he went on in a tone of alarm. "excuse me. by no. xiii of the regulations i am obliged to go and you have the right to drag me by my collar . . . drag me if you like, but . . . i am not fit . . . i can't even speak . . . excuse me." "there is no need to take that tone to me, doctor!" said abogin, again taking the doctor by his sleeve. "what do i care about no. xiii! to force you against your will i have no right whatever. if you will, come; if you will not--god forgive you; but i am not appealing to your will, but to your feelings. a young woman is dying. you were just speaking of the death of your son. who should understand my horror if not you?" abogin's voice quivered with emotion; that quiver and his tone were far more persuasive than his words. abogin was sincere, but it was remarkable that whatever he said his words sounded stilted, soulless, and inappropriately flowery, and even seemed an outrage on the atmosphere of the doctor's home and on the woman who was somewhere dying. he felt this himself, and so, afraid of not being understood, did his utmost to put softness and tenderness into his voice so that the sincerity of his tone might prevail if his words did not. as a rule, however fine and deep a phrase may be, it only affects the indifferent, and cannot fully satisfy those who are happy or unhappy; that is why dumbness is most often the highest expression of happiness or unhappiness; lovers understand each other better when they are silent, and a fervent, passionate speech delivered by the grave only touches outsiders, while to the widow and children of the dead man it seems cold and trivial. kirilov stood in silence. when abogin uttered a few more phrases concerning the noble calling of a doctor, self-sacrifice, and so on, the doctor asked sullenly: "is it far?" "something like eight or nine miles. i have capital horses, doctor! i give you my word of honour that i will get you there and back in an hour. only one hour." these words had more effect on kirilov than the appeals to humanity or the noble calling of the doctor. he thought a moment and said with a sigh: "very well, let us go!" he went rapidly with a more certain step to his study, and afterwards came back in a long frock-coat. abogin, greatly relieved, fidgeted round him and scraped with his feet as he helped him on with his overcoat, and went out of the house with him. it was dark out of doors, though lighter than in the entry. the tall, stooping figure of the doctor, with his long, narrow beard and aquiline nose, stood out distinctly in the darkness. abogin's big head and the little student's cap that barely covered it could be seen now as well as his pale face. the scarf showed white only in front, behind it was hidden by his long hair. "believe me, i know how to appreciate your generosity," abogin muttered as he helped the doctor into the carriage. "we shall get there quickly. drive as fast as you can, luka, there's a good fellow! please!" the coachman drove rapidly. at first there was a row of indistinct buildings that stretched alongside the hospital yard; it was dark everywhere except for a bright light from a window that gleamed through the fence into the furthest part of the yard while three windows of the upper storey of the hospital looked paler than the surrounding air. then the carriage drove into dense shadow; here there was the smell of dampness and mushrooms, and the sound of rustling trees; the crows, awakened by the noise of the wheels, stirred among the foliage and uttered prolonged plaintive cries as though they knew the doctor's son was dead and that abogin's wife was ill. then came glimpses of separate trees, of bushes; a pond, on which great black shadows were slumbering, gleamed with a sullen light--and the carriage rolled over a smooth level ground. the clamour of the crows sounded dimly far away and soon ceased altogether. kirilov and abogin were silent almost all the way. only once abogin heaved a deep sigh and muttered: "it's an agonizing state! one never loves those who are near one so much as when one is in danger of losing them." and when the carriage slowly drove over the river, kirilov started all at once as though the splash of the water had frightened him, and made a movement. "listen--let me go," he said miserably. "i'll come to you later. i must just send my assistant to my wife. she is alone, you know!" abogin did not speak. the carriage swaying from side to side and crunching over the stones drove up the sandy bank and rolled on its way. kirilov moved restlessly and looked about him in misery. behind them in the dim light of the stars the road could be seen and the riverside willows vanishing into the darkness. on the right lay a plain as uniform and as boundless as the sky; here and there in the distance, probably on the peat marshes, dim lights were glimmering. on the left, parallel with the road, ran a hill tufted with small bushes, and above the hill stood motionless a big, red half-moon, slightly veiled with mist and encircled by tiny clouds, which seemed to be looking round at it from all sides and watching that it did not go away. in all nature there seemed to be a feeling of hopelessness and pain. the earth, like a ruined woman sitting alone in a dark room and trying not to think of the past, was brooding over memories of spring and summer and apathetically waiting for the inevitable winter. wherever one looked, on all sides, nature seemed like a dark, infinitely deep, cold pit from which neither kirilov nor abogin nor the red half-moon could escape. . . . the nearer the carriage got to its goal the more impatient abogin became. he kept moving, leaping up, looking over the coachman's shoulder. and when at last the carriage stopped before the entrance, which was elegantly curtained with striped linen, and when he looked at the lighted windows of the second storey there was an audible catch in his breath. "if anything happens . . . i shall not survive it," he said, going into the hall with the doctor, and rubbing his hands in agitation. "but there is no commotion, so everything must be going well so far," he added, listening in the stillness. there was no sound in the hall of steps or voices and all the house seemed asleep in spite of the lighted windows. now the doctor and abogin, who till then had been in darkness, could see each other clearly. the doctor was tall and stooped, was untidily dressed and not good-looking. there was an unpleasantly harsh, morose, and unfriendly look about his lips, thick as a negro's, his aquiline nose, and listless, apathetic eyes. his unkempt head and sunken temples, the premature greyness of his long, narrow beard through which his chin was visible, the pale grey hue of his skin and his careless, uncouth manners--the harshness of all this was suggestive of years of poverty, of ill fortune, of weariness with life and with men. looking at his frigid figure one could hardly believe that this man had a wife, that he was capable of weeping over his child. abogin presented a very different appearance. he was a thick-set, sturdy-looking, fair man with a big head and large, soft features; he was elegantly dressed in the very latest fashion. in his carriage, his closely buttoned coat, his long hair, and his face there was a suggestion of something generous, leonine; he walked with his head erect and his chest squared, he spoke in an agreeable baritone, and there was a shade of refined almost feminine elegance in the manner in which he took off his scarf and smoothed his hair. even his paleness and the childlike terror with which he looked up at the stairs as he took off his coat did not detract from his dignity nor diminish the air of sleekness, health, and aplomb which characterized his whole figure. "there is nobody and no sound," he said going up the stairs. "there is no commotion. god grant all is well." he led the doctor through the hall into a big drawing-room where there was a black piano and a chandelier in a white cover; from there they both went into a very snug, pretty little drawing-room full of an agreeable, rosy twilight. "well, sit down here, doctor, and i . . . will be back directly. i will go and have a look and prepare them." kirilov was left alone. the luxury of the drawing-room, the agreeably subdued light and his own presence in the stranger's unfamiliar house, which had something of the character of an adventure, did not apparently affect him. he sat in a low chair and scrutinized his hands, which were burnt with carbolic. he only caught a passing glimpse of the bright red lamp-shade and the violoncello case, and glancing in the direction where the clock was ticking he noticed a stuffed wolf as substantial and sleek-looking as abogin himself. it was quiet. . . . somewhere far away in the adjoining rooms someone uttered a loud exclamation: "ah!" there was a clang of a glass door, probably of a cupboard, and again all was still. after waiting five minutes kirilov left off scrutinizing his hands and raised his eyes to the door by which abogin had vanished. in the doorway stood abogin, but he was not the same as when he had gone out. the look of sleekness and refined elegance had disappeared --his face, his hands, his attitude were contorted by a revolting expression of something between horror and agonizing physical pain. his nose, his lips, his moustache, all his features were moving and seemed trying to tear themselves from his face, his eyes looked as though they were laughing with agony. . . . abogin took a heavy stride into the drawing-room, bent forward, moaned, and shook his fists. "she has deceived me," he cried, with a strong emphasis on the second syllable of the verb. "deceived me, gone away. she fell ill and sent me for the doctor only to run away with that clown paptchinsky! my god!" abogin took a heavy step towards the doctor, held out his soft white fists in his face, and shaking them went on yelling: "gone away! deceived me! but why this deception? my god! my god! what need of this dirty, scoundrelly trick, this diabolical, snakish farce? what have i done to her? gone away!" tears gushed from his eyes. he turned on one foot and began pacing up and down the drawing-room. now in his short coat, his fashionable narrow trousers which made his legs look disproportionately slim, with his big head and long mane he was extremely like a lion. a gleam of curiosity came into the apathetic face of the doctor. he got up and looked at abogin. "excuse me, where is the patient?" he said. "the patient! the patient!" cried abogin, laughing, crying, and still brandishing his fists. "she is not ill, but accursed! the baseness! the vileness! the devil himself could not have imagined anything more loathsome! she sent me off that she might run away with a buffoon, a dull-witted clown, an alphonse! oh god, better she had died! i cannot bear it! i cannot bear it!" the doctor drew himself up. his eyes blinked and filled with tears, his narrow beard began moving to right and to left together with his jaw. "allow me to ask what's the meaning of this?" he asked, looking round him with curiosity. "my child is dead, my wife is in grief alone in the whole house. . . . i myself can scarcely stand up, i have not slept for three nights. . . . and here i am forced to play a part in some vulgar farce, to play the part of a stage property! i don't . . . don't understand it!" abogin unclenched one fist, flung a crumpled note on the floor, and stamped on it as though it were an insect he wanted to crush. "and i didn't see, didn't understand," he said through his clenched teeth, brandishing one fist before his face with an expression as though some one had trodden on his corns. "i did not notice that he came every day! i did not notice that he came today in a closed carriage! what did he come in a closed carriage for? and i did not see it! noodle!" "i don't understand . . ." muttered the doctor. "why, what's the meaning of it? why, it's an outrage on personal dignity, a mockery of human suffering! it's incredible. . . . it's the first time in my life i have had such an experience!" with the dull surprise of a man who has only just realized that he has been bitterly insulted the doctor shrugged his shoulders, flung wide his arms, and not knowing what to do or to say sank helplessly into a chair. "if you have ceased to love me and love another--so be it; but why this deceit, why this vulgar, treacherous trick?" abogin said in a tearful voice. "what is the object of it? and what is there to justify it? and what have i done to you? listen, doctor," he said hotly, going up to kirilov. "you have been the involuntary witness of my misfortune and i am not going to conceal the truth from you. i swear that i loved the woman, loved her devotedly, like a slave! i have sacrificed everything for her; i have quarrelled with my own people, i have given up the service and music, i have forgiven her what i could not have forgiven my own mother or sister . . . i have never looked askance at her. . . . i have never gainsaid her in anything. why this deception? i do not demand love, but why this loathsome duplicity? if she did not love me, why did she not say so openly, honestly, especially as she knows my views on the subject? . . ." with tears in his eyes, trembling all over, abogin opened his heart to the doctor with perfect sincerity. he spoke warmly, pressing both hands on his heart, exposing the secrets of his private life without the faintest hesitation, and even seemed to be glad that at last these secrets were no longer pent up in his breast. if he had talked in this way for an hour or two, and opened his heart, he would undoubtedly have felt better. who knows, if the doctor had listened to him and had sympathized with him like a friend, he might perhaps, as often happens, have reconciled himself to his trouble without protest, without doing anything needless and absurd. . . . but what happened was quite different. while abogin was speaking the outraged doctor perceptibly changed. the indifference and wonder on his face gradually gave way to an expression of bitter resentment, indignation, and anger. the features of his face became even harsher, coarser, and more unpleasant. when abogin held out before his eyes the photograph of a young woman with a handsome face as cold and expressionless as a nun's and asked him whether, looking at that face, one could conceive that it was capable of duplicity, the doctor suddenly flew out, and with flashing eyes said, rudely rapping out each word: "what are you telling me all this for? i have no desire to hear it! i have no desire to!" he shouted and brought his fist down on the table. "i don't want your vulgar secrets! damnation take them! don't dare to tell me of such vulgar doings! do you consider that i have not been insulted enough already? that i am a flunkey whom you can insult without restraint? is that it?" abogin staggered back from kirilov and stared at him in amazement. "why did you bring me here?" the doctor went on, his beard quivering. "if you are so puffed up with good living that you go and get married and then act a farce like this, how do i come in? what have i to do with your love affairs? leave me in peace! go on squeezing money out of the poor in your gentlemanly way. make a display of humane ideas, play (the doctor looked sideways at the violoncello case) play the bassoon and the trombone, grow as fat as capons, but don't dare to insult personal dignity! if you cannot respect it, you might at least spare it your attention!" "excuse me, what does all this mean?" abogin asked, flushing red. "it means that it's base and low to play with people like this! i am a doctor; you look upon doctors and people generally who work and don't stink of perfume and prostitution as your menials and _mauvais ton_; well, you may look upon them so, but no one has given you the right to treat a man who is suffering as a stage property!" "how dare you say that to me!" abogin said quietly, and his face began working again, and this time unmistakably from anger. "no, how dared you, knowing of my sorrow, bring me here to listen to these vulgarities!" shouted the doctor, and he again banged on the table with his fist. "who has given you the right to make a mockery of another man's sorrow?" "you have taken leave of your senses," shouted abogin. "it is ungenerous. i am intensely unhappy myself and . . . and . . ." "unhappy!" said the doctor, with a smile of contempt. "don't utter that word, it does not concern you. the spendthrift who cannot raise a loan calls himself unhappy, too. the capon, sluggish from over-feeding, is unhappy, too. worthless people!" "sir, you forget yourself," shrieked abogin. "for saying things like that . . . people are thrashed! do you understand?" abogin hurriedly felt in his side pocket, pulled out a pocket-book, and extracting two notes flung them on the table. "here is the fee for your visit," he said, his nostrils dilating. "you are paid." "how dare you offer me money?" shouted the doctor and he brushed the notes off the table on to the floor. "an insult cannot be paid for in money!" abogin and the doctor stood face to face, and in their wrath continued flinging undeserved insults at each other. i believe that never in their lives, even in delirium, had they uttered so much that was unjust, cruel, and absurd. the egoism of the unhappy was conspicuous in both. the unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools. unhappiness does not bring people together but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people should be united by the similarity of their sorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than in comparatively placid surroundings. "kindly let me go home!" shouted the doctor, breathing hard. abogin rang the bell sharply. when no one came to answer the bell he rang again and angrily flung the bell on the floor; it fell on the carpet with a muffled sound, and uttered a plaintive note as though at the point of death. a footman came in. "where have you been hiding yourself, the devil take you?" his master flew at him, clenching his fists. "where were you just now? go and tell them to bring the victoria round for this gentleman, and order the closed carriage to be got ready for me. stay," he cried as the footman turned to go out. "i won't have a single traitor in the house by to-morrow! away with you all! i will engage fresh servants! reptiles!" abogin and the doctor remained in silence waiting for the carriage. the first regained his expression of sleekness and his refined elegance. he paced up and down the room, tossed his head elegantly, and was evidently meditating on something. his anger had not cooled, but he tried to appear not to notice his enemy. . . . the doctor stood, leaning with one hand on the edge of the table, and looked at abogin with that profound and somewhat cynical, ugly contempt only to be found in the eyes of sorrow and indigence when they are confronted with well-nourished comfort and elegance. when a little later the doctor got into the victoria and drove off there was still a look of contempt in his eyes. it was dark, much darker than it had been an hour before. the red half-moon had sunk behind the hill and the clouds that had been guarding it lay in dark patches near the stars. the carriage with red lamps rattled along the road and soon overtook the doctor. it was abogin driving off to protest, to do absurd things. . . . all the way home the doctor thought not of his wife, nor of his andrey, but of abogin and the people in the house he had just left. his thoughts were unjust and inhumanly cruel. he condemned abogin and his wife and paptchinsky and all who lived in rosy, subdued light among sweet perfumes, and all the way home he hated and despised them till his head ached. and a firm conviction concerning those people took shape in his mind. time will pass and kirilov's sorrow will pass, but that conviction, unjust and unworthy of the human heart, will not pass, but will remain in the doctor's mind to the grave. the examining magistrate a district doctor and an examining magistrate were driving one fine spring day to an inquest. the examining magistrate, a man of five and thirty, looked dreamily at the horses and said: "there is a great deal that is enigmatic and obscure in nature; and even in everyday life, doctor, one must often come upon phenomena which are absolutely incapable of explanation. i know, for instance, of several strange, mysterious deaths, the cause of which only spiritualists and mystics will undertake to explain; a clear-headed man can only lift up his hands in perplexity. for example, i know of a highly cultured lady who foretold her own death and died without any apparent reason on the very day she had predicted. she said that she would die on a certain day, and she did die." "there's no effect without a cause," said the doctor. "if there's a death there must be a cause for it. but as for predicting it there's nothing very marvellous in that. all our ladies--all our females, in fact--have a turn for prophecies and presentiments." "just so, but my lady, doctor, was quite a special case. there was nothing like the ladies' or other females' presentiments about her prediction and her death. she was a young woman, healthy and clever, with no superstitions of any sort. she had such clear, intelligent, honest eyes; an open, sensible face with a faint, typically russian look of mockery in her eyes and on her lips. there was nothing of the fine lady or of the female about her, except--if you like-- her beauty! she was graceful, elegant as that birch tree; she had wonderful hair. that she may be intelligible to you, i will add, too, that she was a person of the most infectious gaiety and carelessness and that intelligent, good sort of frivolity which is only found in good-natured, light-hearted people with brains. can one talk of mysticism, spiritualism, a turn for presentiment, or anything of that sort, in this case? she used to laugh at all that." the doctor's chaise stopped by a well. the examining magistrate and the doctor drank some water, stretched, and waited for the coachman to finish watering the horses. "well, what did the lady die of?" asked the doctor when the chaise was rolling along the road again. "she died in a strange way. one fine day her husband went in to her and said that it wouldn't be amiss to sell their old coach before the spring and to buy something rather newer and lighter instead, and that it might be as well to change the left trace horse and to put bobtchinsky (that was the name of one of her husband's horses) in the shafts. "his wife listened to him and said: "'do as you think best, but it makes no difference to me now. before the summer i shall be in the cemetery.' "her husband, of course, shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "'i am not joking,' she said. 'i tell you in earnest that i shall soon be dead.' "'what do you mean by soon?' "'directly after my confinement. i shall bear my child and die.' "the husband attached no significance to these words. he did not believe in presentiments of any sort, and he knew that ladies in an interesting condition are apt to be fanciful and to give way to gloomy ideas generally. a day later his wife spoke to him again of dying immediately after her confinement, and then every day she spoke of it and he laughed and called her a silly woman, a fortune-teller, a crazy creature. her approaching death became an _idée fixé_ with his wife. when her husband would not listen to her she would go into the kitchen and talk of her death to the nurse and the cook. "'i haven't long to live now, nurse,' she would say. 'as soon as my confinement is over i shall die. i did not want to die so early, but it seems it's my fate.' "the nurse and the cook were in tears, of course. sometimes the priest's wife or some lady from a neighbouring estate would come and see her and she would take them aside and open her soul to them, always harping on the same subject, her approaching death. she spoke gravely with an unpleasant smile, even with an angry face which would not allow any contradiction. she had been smart and fashionable in her dress, but now in view of her approaching death she became slovenly; she did not read, she did not laugh, she did not dream aloud. what was more she drove with her aunt to the cemetery and selected a spot for her tomb. five days before her confinement she made her will. and all this, bear in mind, was done in the best of health, without the faintest hint of illness or danger. a confinement is a difficult affair and sometimes fatal, but in the case of which i am telling you every indication was favourable, and there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of. her husband was sick of the whole business at last. he lost his temper one day at dinner and asked her: "'listen, natasha, when is there going to be an end of this silliness?' "'it's not silliness, i am in earnest.' "'nonsense, i advise you to give over being silly that you may not feel ashamed of it afterwards.' "well, the confinement came. the husband got the very best midwife from the town. it was his wife's first confinement, but it could not have gone better. when it was all over she asked to look at her baby. she looked at it and said: "'well, now i can die.' "she said good-bye, shut her eyes, and half an hour later gave up her soul to god. she was fully conscious up to the last moment. anyway when they gave her milk instead of water she whispered softly: "'why are you giving me milk instead of water?' "so that is what happened. she died as she predicted." the examining magistrate paused, gave a sigh and said: "come, explain why she died. i assure you on my honour, this is not invented, it's a fact." the doctor looked at the sky meditatively. "you ought to have had an inquest on her," he said. "why?" "why, to find out the cause of her death. she didn't die because she had predicted it. she poisoned herself most probably." the examining magistrate turned quickly, facing the doctor, and screwing up his eyes, asked: "and from what do you conclude that she poisoned herself?" "i don't conclude it, but i assume it. was she on good terms with her husband?" "h'm, not altogether. there had been misunderstandings soon after their marriage. there were unfortunate circumstances. she had found her husband on one occasion with a lady. she soon forgave him however." "and which came first, her husband's infidelity or her idea of dying?" the examining magistrate looked attentively at the doctor as though he were trying to imagine why he put that question. "excuse me," he said, not quite immediately. "let me try and remember." the examining magistrate took off his hat and rubbed his forehead. "yes, yes . . . it was very shortly after that incident that she began talking of death. yes, yes." "well, there, do you see? . . . in all probability it was at that time that she made up her mind to poison herself, but, as most likely she did not want to kill her child also, she put it off till after her confinement." "not likely, not likely! . . . it's impossible. she forgave him at the time." "that she forgave it quickly means that she had something bad in her mind. young wives do not forgive quickly." the examining magistrate gave a forced smile, and, to conceal his too noticeable agitation, began lighting a cigarette. "not likely, not likely," he went on. "no notion of anything of the sort being possible ever entered into my head. . . . and besides . . . he was not so much to blame as it seems. . . . he was unfaithful to her in rather a queer way, with no desire to be; he came home at night somewhat elevated, wanted to make love to somebody, his wife was in an interesting condition . . . then he came across a lady who had come to stay for three days--damnation take her-- an empty-headed creature, silly and not good-looking. it couldn't be reckoned as an infidelity. his wife looked at it in that way herself and soon . . . forgave it. nothing more was said about it. . . ." "people don't die without a reason," said the doctor. "that is so, of course, but all the same . . . i cannot admit that she poisoned herself. but it is strange that the idea has never struck me before! and no one thought of it! everyone was astonished that her prediction had come to pass, and the idea . . . of such a death was far from their mind. and indeed, it cannot be that she poisoned herself! no!" the examining magistrate pondered. the thought of the woman who had died so strangely haunted him all through the inquest. as he noted down what the doctor dictated to him he moved his eyebrows gloomily and rubbed his forehead. "and are there really poisons that kill one in a quarter of an hour, gradually, without any pain?" he asked the doctor while the latter was opening the skull. "yes, there are. morphia for instance." "h'm, strange. i remember she used to keep something of the sort . . . . but it could hardly be." on the way back the examining magistrate looked exhausted, he kept nervously biting his moustache, and was unwilling to talk. "let us go a little way on foot," he said to the doctor. "i am tired of sitting." after walking about a hundred paces, the examining magistrate seemed to the doctor to be overcome with fatigue, as though he had been climbing up a high mountain. he stopped and, looking at the doctor with a strange look in his eyes, as though he were drunk, said: "my god, if your theory is correct, why it's. . . it was cruel, inhuman! she poisoned herself to punish some one else! why, was the sin so great? oh, my god! and why did you make me a present of this damnable idea, doctor!" the examining magistrate clutched at his head in despair, and went on: "what i have told you was about my own wife, about myself. oh, my god! i was to blame, i wounded her, but can it have been easier to die than to forgive? that's typical feminine logic--cruel, merciless logic. oh, even then when she was living she was cruel! i recall it all now! it's all clear to me now!" as the examining magistrate talked he shrugged his shoulders, then clutched at his head. he got back into the carriage, then walked again. the new idea the doctor had imparted to him seemed to have overwhelmed him, to have poisoned him; he was distracted, shattered in body and soul, and when he got back to the town he said good-bye to the doctor, declining to stay to dinner though he had promised the doctor the evening before to dine with him. betrothed i it was ten o'clock in the evening and the full moon was shining over the garden. in the shumins' house an evening service celebrated at the request of the grandmother, marfa mihalovna, was just over, and now nadya--she had gone into the garden for a minute--could see the table being laid for supper in the dining-room, and her grandmother bustling about in her gorgeous silk dress; father andrey, a chief priest of the cathedral, was talking to nadya's mother, nina ivanovna, and now in the evening light through the window her mother for some reason looked very young; andrey andreitch, father andrey's son, was standing by listening attentively. it was still and cool in the garden, and dark peaceful shadows lay on the ground. there was a sound of frogs croaking, far, far away beyond the town. there was a feeling of may, sweet may! one drew deep breaths and longed to fancy that not here but far away under the sky, above the trees, far away in the open country, in the fields and the woods, the life of spring was unfolding now, mysterious, lovely, rich and holy beyond the understanding of weak, sinful man. and for some reason one wanted to cry. she, nadya, was already twenty-three. ever since she was sixteen she had been passionately dreaming of marriage and at last she was engaged to andrey andreitch, the young man who was standing on the other side of the window; she liked him, the wedding was already fixed for july , and yet there was no joy in her heart, she was sleeping badly, her spirits drooped. . . . she could hear from the open windows of the basement where the kitchen was the hurrying servants, the clatter of knives, the banging of the swing door; there was a smell of roast turkey and pickled cherries, and for some reason it seemed to her that it would be like that all her life, with no change, no end to it. some one came out of the house and stood on the steps; it was alexandr timofeitch, or, as he was always called, sasha, who had come from moscow ten days before and was staying with them. years ago a distant relation of the grandmother, a gentleman's widow called marya petrovna, a thin, sickly little woman who had sunk into poverty, used to come to the house to ask for assistance. she had a son sasha. it used for some reason to be said that he had talent as an artist, and when his mother died nadya's grandmother had, for the salvation of her soul, sent him to the komissarovsky school in moscow; two years later he went into the school of painting, spent nearly fifteen years there, and only just managed to scrape through the leaving examination in the section of architecture. he did not set up as an architect, however, but took a job at a lithographer's. he used to come almost every year, usually very ill, to stay with nadya's grandmother to rest and recover. he was wearing now a frock-coat buttoned up, and shabby canvas trousers, crumpled into creases at the bottom. and his shirt had not been ironed and he had somehow all over a look of not being fresh. he was very thin, with big eyes, long thin fingers and a swarthy bearded face, and all the same he was handsome. with the shumins he was like one of the family, and in their house felt he was at home. and the room in which he lived when he was there had for years been called sasha's room. standing on the steps he saw nadya, and went up to her. "it's nice here," he said. "of course it's nice, you ought to stay here till the autumn." "yes, i expect it will come to that. i dare say i shall stay with you till september." he laughed for no reason, and sat down beside her. "i'm sitting gazing at mother," said nadya. "she looks so young from here! my mother has her weaknesses, of course," she added, after a pause, "but still she is an exceptional woman." "yes, she is very nice . . ." sasha agreed. "your mother, in her own way of course, is a very good and sweet woman, but . . . how shall i say? i went early this morning into your kitchen and there i found four servants sleeping on the floor, no bedsteads, and rags for bedding, stench, bugs, beetles . . . it is just as it was twenty years ago, no change at all. well, granny, god bless her, what else can you expect of granny? but your mother speaks french, you know, and acts in private theatricals. one would think she might understand." as sasha talked, he used to stretch out two long wasted fingers before the listener's face. "it all seems somehow strange to me here, now i am out of the habit of it," he went on. "there is no making it out. nobody ever does anything. your mother spends the whole day walking about like a duchess, granny does nothing either, nor you either. and your andrey andreitch never does anything either." nadya had heard this the year before and, she fancied, the year before that too, and she knew that sasha could not make any other criticism, and in old days this had amused her, but now for some reason she felt annoyed. "that's all stale, and i have been sick of it for ages," she said and got up. "you should think of something a little newer." he laughed and got up too, and they went together toward the house. she, tall, handsome, and well-made, beside him looked very healthy and smartly dressed; she was conscious of this and felt sorry for him and for some reason awkward. "and you say a great deal you should not," she said. "you've just been talking about my andrey, but you see you don't know him." "my andrey. . . . bother him, your andrey. i am sorry for your youth." they were already sitting down to supper as the young people went into the dining-room. the grandmother, or granny as she was called in the household, a very stout, plain old lady with bushy eyebrows and a little moustache, was talking loudly, and from her voice and manner of speaking it could be seen that she was the person of most importance in the house. she owned rows of shops in the market, and the old-fashioned house with columns and the garden, yet she prayed every morning that god might save her from ruin and shed tears as she did so. her daughter-in-law, nadya's mother, nina ivanovna, a fair-haired woman tightly laced in, with a pince-nez, and diamonds on every finger, father andrey, a lean, toothless old man whose face always looked as though he were just going to say something amusing, and his son, andrey andreitch, a stout and handsome young man with curly hair looking like an artist or an actor, were all talking of hypnotism. "you will get well in a week here," said granny, addressing sasha. "only you must eat more. what do you look like!" she sighed. "you are really dreadful! you are a regular prodigal son, that is what you are." "after wasting his father's substance in riotous living," said father andrey slowly, with laughing eyes. "he fed with senseless beasts." "i like my dad," said andrey andreitch, touching his father on the shoulder. "he is a splendid old fellow, a dear old fellow." everyone was silent for a space. sasha suddenly burst out laughing and put his dinner napkin to his mouth. "so you believe in hypnotism?" said father andrey to nina ivanovna. "i cannot, of course, assert that i believe," answered nina ivanovna, assuming a very serious, even severe, expression; "but i must own that there is much that is mysterious and incomprehensible in nature." "i quite agree with you, though i must add that religion distinctly curtails for us the domain of the mysterious." a big and very fat turkey was served. father andrey and nina ivanovna went on with their conversation. nina ivanovna's diamonds glittered on her fingers, then tears began to glitter in her eyes, she grew excited. "though i cannot venture to argue with you," she said, "you must admit there are so many insoluble riddles in life!" "not one, i assure you." after supper andrey andreitch played the fiddle and nina ivanovna accompanied him on the piano. ten years before he had taken his degree at the university in the faculty of arts, but had never held any post, had no definite work, and only from time to time took part in concerts for charitable objects; and in the town he was regarded as a musician. andrey andreitch played; they all listened in silence. the samovar was boiling quietly on the table and no one but sasha was drinking tea. then when it struck twelve a violin string suddenly broke; everyone laughed, bustled about, and began saying good-bye. after seeing her fiancé out, nadya went upstairs where she and her mother had their rooms (the lower storey was occupied by the grandmother). they began putting the lights out below in the dining-room, while sasha still sat on drinking tea. he always spent a long time over tea in the moscow style, drinking as much as seven glasses at a time. for a long time after nadya had undressed and gone to bed she could hear the servants clearing away downstairs and granny talking angrily. at last everything was hushed, and nothing could be heard but sasha from time to time coughing on a bass note in his room below. ii when nadya woke up it must have been two o'clock, it was beginning to get light. a watchman was tapping somewhere far away. she was not sleepy, and her bed felt very soft and uncomfortable. nadya sat up in her bed and fell to thinking as she had done every night in may. her thoughts were the same as they had been the night before, useless, persistent thoughts, always alike, of how andrey andreitch had begun courting her and had made her an offer, how she had accepted him and then little by little had come to appreciate the kindly, intelligent man. but for some reason now when there was hardly a month left before the wedding, she began to feel dread and uneasiness as though something vague and oppressive were before her. "tick-tock, tick-tock . . ." the watchman tapped lazily. ". . . tick-tock." through the big old-fashioned window she could see the garden and at a little distance bushes of lilac in full flower, drowsy and lifeless from the cold; and the thick white mist was floating softly up to the lilac, trying to cover it. drowsy rooks were cawing in the far-away trees. "my god, why is my heart so heavy?" perhaps every girl felt the same before her wedding. there was no knowing! or was it sasha's influence? but for several years past sasha had been repeating the same thing, like a copybook, and when he talked he seemed naïve and queer. but why was it she could not get sasha out of her head? why was it? the watchman left off tapping for a long while. the birds were twittering under the windows and the mist had disappeared from the garden. everything was lighted up by the spring sunshine as by a smile. soon the whole garden, warm and caressed by the sun, returned to life, and dewdrops like diamonds glittered on the leaves and the old neglected garden on that morning looked young and gaily decked. granny was already awake. sasha's husky cough began. nadya could hear them below, setting the samovar and moving the chairs. the hours passed slowly, nadya had been up and walking about the garden for a long while and still the morning dragged on. at last nina ivanovna appeared with a tear-stained face, carrying a glass of mineral water. she was interested in spiritualism and homeopathy, read a great deal, was fond of talking of the doubts to which she was subject, and to nadya it seemed as though there were a deep mysterious significance in all that. now nadya kissed her mother and walked beside her. "what have you been crying about, mother?" she asked. "last night i was reading a story in which there is an old man and his daughter. the old man is in some office and his chief falls in love with his daughter. i have not finished it, but there was a passage which made it hard to keep from tears," said nina ivanovna and she sipped at her glass. "i thought of it this morning and shed tears again." "i have been so depressed all these days," said nadya after a pause. "why is it i don't sleep at night!" "i don't know, dear. when i can't sleep i shut my eyes very tightly, like this, and picture to myself anna karenin moving about and talking, or something historical from the ancient world. . . ." nadya felt that her mother did not understand her and was incapable of understanding. she felt this for the first time in her life, and it positively frightened her and made her want to hide herself; and she went away to her own room. at two o'clock they sat down to dinner. it was wednesday, a fast day, and so vegetable soup and bream with boiled grain were set before granny. to tease granny sasha ate his meat soup as well as the vegetable soup. he was making jokes all through dinner-time, but his jests were laboured and invariably with a moral bearing, and the effect was not at all amusing when before making some witty remark he raised his very long, thin, deathly-looking fingers; and when one remembered that he was very ill and would probably not be much longer in this world, one felt sorry for him and ready to weep. after dinner granny went off to her own room to lie down. nina ivanovna played on the piano for a little, and then she too went away. "oh, dear nadya!" sasha began his usual afternoon conversation, "if only you would listen to me! if only you would!" she was sitting far back in an old-fashioned armchair, with her eyes shut, while he paced slowly about the room from corner to corner. "if only you would go to the university," he said. "only enlightened and holy people are interesting, it's only they who are wanted. the more of such people there are, the sooner the kingdom of god will come on earth. of your town then not one stone will be left, everything will he blown up from the foundations, everything will be changed as though by magic. and then there will be immense, magnificent houses here, wonderful gardens, marvellous fountains, remarkable people. . . . but that's not what matters most. what matters most is that the crowd, in our sense of the word, in the sense in which it exists now--that evil will not exist then, because every man will believe and every man will know what he is living for and no one will seek moral support in the crowd. dear nadya, darling girl, go away! show them all that you are sick of this stagnant, grey, sinful life. prove it to yourself at least!" "i can't, sasha, i'm going to be married." "oh nonsense! what's it for!" they went out into the garden and walked up and down a little. "and however that may be, my dear girl, you must think, you must realize how unclean, how immoral this idle life of yours is," sasha went on. "do understand that if, for instance, you and your mother and your grandmother do nothing, it means that someone else is working for you, you are eating up someone else's life, and is that clean, isn't it filthy?" nadya wanted to say "yes, that is true"; she wanted to say that she understood, but tears came into her eyes, her spirits drooped, and shrinking into herself she went off to her room. towards evening andrey andreitch arrived and as usual played the fiddle for a long time. he was not given to much talk as a rule, and was fond of the fiddle, perhaps because one could be silent while playing. at eleven o'clock when he was about to go home and had put on his greatcoat, he embraced nadya and began greedily kissing her face, her shoulders, and her hands. "my dear, my sweet, my charmer," he muttered. "oh how happy i am! i am beside myself with rapture!" and it seemed to her as though she had heard that long, long ago, or had read it somewhere . . . in some old tattered novel thrown away long ago. in the dining-room sasha was sitting at the table drinking tea with the saucer poised on his five long fingers; granny was laying out patience; nina ivanovna was reading. the flame crackled in the ikon lamp and everything, it seemed, was quiet and going well. nadya said good-night, went upstairs to her room, got into bed and fell asleep at once. but just as on the night before, almost before it was light, she woke up. she was not sleepy, there was an uneasy, oppressive feeling in her heart. she sat up with her head on her knees and thought of her fiancé and her marriage. . . . she for some reason remembered that her mother had not loved her father and now had nothing and lived in complete dependence on her mother-in-law, granny. and however much nadya pondered she could not imagine why she had hitherto seen in her mother something special and exceptional, how it was she had not noticed that she was a simple, ordinary, unhappy woman. and sasha downstairs was not asleep, she could hear him coughing. he is a queer, naïve man, thought nadya, and in all his dreams, in all those marvellous gardens and wonderful fountains one felt there was something absurd. but for some reason in his naïveté, in this very absurdity there was something so beautiful that as soon as she thought of the possibility of going to the university, it sent a cold thrill through her heart and her bosom and flooded them with joy and rapture. "but better not think, better not think . . ." she whispered. "i must not think of it." "tick-tock," tapped the watchman somewhere far away. "tick-tock . . . tick-tock. . . ." iii in the middle of june sasha suddenly felt bored and made up his mind to return to moscow. "i can't exist in this town," he said gloomily. "no water supply, no drains! it disgusts me to eat at dinner; the filth in the kitchen is incredible. . . ." "wait a little, prodigal son!" granny tried to persuade him, speaking for some reason in a whisper, "the wedding is to be on the seventh." "i don't want to." "you meant to stay with us until september!" "but now, you see, i don't want to. i must get to work." the summer was grey and cold, the trees were wet, everything in the garden looked dejected and uninviting, it certainly did make one long to get to work. the sound of unfamiliar women's voices was heard downstairs and upstairs, there was the rattle of a sewing machine in granny's room, they were working hard at the trousseau. of fur coats alone, six were provided for nadya, and the cheapest of them, in granny's words, had cost three hundred roubles! the fuss irritated sasha; he stayed in his own room and was cross, but everyone persuaded him to remain, and he promised not to go before the first of july. time passed quickly. on st. peter's day andrey andreitch went with nadya after dinner to moscow street to look once more at the house which had been taken and made ready for the young couple some time before. it was a house of two storeys, but so far only the upper floor had been furnished. there was in the hall a shining floor painted and parqueted, there were viennese chairs, a piano, a violin stand; there was a smell of paint. on the wall hung a big oil painting in a gold frame--a naked lady and beside her a purple vase with a broken handle. "an exquisite picture," said andrey andreitch, and he gave a respectful sigh. "it's the work of the artist shismatchevsky." then there was the drawing-room with the round table, and a sofa and easy chairs upholstered in bright blue. above the sofa was a big photograph of father andrey wearing a priest's velvet cap and decorations. then they went into the dining-room in which there was a sideboard; then into the bedroom; here in the half dusk stood two bedsteads side by side, and it looked as though the bedroom had been decorated with the idea that it would always be very agreeable there and could not possibly be anything else. andrey andreitch led nadya about the rooms, all the while keeping his arm round her waist; and she felt weak and conscience-stricken. she hated all the rooms, the beds, the easy chairs; she was nauseated by the naked lady. it was clear to her now that she had ceased to love andrey andreitch or perhaps had never loved him at all; but how to say this and to whom to say it and with what object she did not understand, and could not understand, though she was thinking about it all day and all night. . . . he held her round the waist, talked so affectionately, so modestly, was so happy, walking about this house of his; while she saw nothing in it all but vulgarity, stupid, naïve, unbearable vulgarity, and his arm round her waist felt as hard and cold as an iron hoop. and every minute she was on the point of running away, bursting into sobs, throwing herself out of a window. andrey andreitch led her into the bathroom and here he touched a tap fixed in the wall and at once water flowed. "what do you say to that?" he said, and laughed. "i had a tank holding two hundred gallons put in the loft, and so now we shall have water." they walked across the yard and went out into the street and took a cab. thick clouds of dust were blowing, and it seemed as though it were just going to rain. "you are not cold?" said andrey andreitch, screwing up his eyes at the dust. she did not answer. "yesterday, you remember, sasha blamed me for doing nothing," he said, after a brief silence. "well, he is right, absolutely right! i do nothing and can do nothing. my precious, why is it? why is it that the very thought that i may some day fix a cockade on my cap and go into the government service is so hateful to me? why do i feel so uncomfortable when i see a lawyer or a latin master or a member of the zemstvo? o mother russia! o mother russia! what a burden of idle and useless people you still carry! how many like me are upon you, long-suffering mother!" and from the fact that he did nothing he drew generalizations, seeing in it a sign of the times. "when we are married let us go together into the country, my precious; there we will work! we will buy ourselves a little piece of land with a garden and a river, we will labour and watch life. oh, how splendid that will be!" he took off his hat, and his hair floated in the wind, while she listened to him and thought: "good god, i wish i were home!" when they were quite near the house they overtook father andrey. "ah, here's father coming," cried andrey andreitch, delighted, and he waved his hat. "i love my dad really," he said as he paid the cabman. "he's a splendid old fellow, a dear old fellow." nadya went into the house, feeling cross and unwell, thinking that there would be visitors all the evening, that she would have to entertain them, to smile, to listen to the fiddle, to listen to all sorts of nonsense, and to talk of nothing but the wedding. granny, dignified, gorgeous in her silk dress, and haughty as she always seemed before visitors, was sitting before the samovar. father andrey came in with his sly smile. "i have the pleasure and blessed consolation of seeing you in health," he said to granny, and it was hard to tell whether he was joking or speaking seriously. iv the wind was beating on the window and on the roof; there was a whistling sound, and in the stove the house spirit was plaintively and sullenly droning his song. it was past midnight; everyone in the house had gone to bed, but no one was asleep, and it seemed all the while to nadya as though they were playing the fiddle below. there was a sharp bang; a shutter must have been torn off. a minute later nina ivanovna came in in her nightgown, with a candle. "what was the bang, nadya?" she asked. her mother, with her hair in a single plait and a timid smile on her face, looked older, plainer, smaller on that stormy night. nadya remembered that quite a little time ago she had thought her mother an exceptional woman and had listened with pride to the things she said; and now she could not remember those things, everything that came into her mind was so feeble and useless. in the stove was the sound of several bass voices in chorus, and she even heard "o-o-o my g-o-od!" nadya sat on her bed, and suddenly she clutched at her hair and burst into sobs. "mother, mother, my own," she said. "if only you knew what is happening to me! i beg you, i beseech you, let me go away! i beseech you!" "where?" asked nina ivanovna, not understanding, and she sat down on the bedstead. "go where?" for a long while nadya cried and could not utter a word. "let me go away from the town," she said at last. "there must not and will not be a wedding, understand that! i don't love that man . . . i can't even speak about him." "no, my own, no!" nina ivanovna said quickly, terribly alarmed. "calm yourself--it's just because you are in low spirits. it will pass, it often happens. most likely you have had a tiff with andrey; but lovers' quarrels always end in kisses!" "oh, go away, mother, oh, go away," sobbed nadya. "yes," said nina ivanovna after a pause, "it's not long since you were a baby, a little girl, and now you are engaged to be married. in nature there is a continual transmutation of substances. before you know where you are you will be a mother yourself and an old woman, and will have as rebellious a daughter as i have." "my darling, my sweet, you are clever you know, you are unhappy," said nadya. "you are very unhappy; why do you say such very dull, commonplace things? for god's sake, why?" nina ivanovna tried to say something, but could not utter a word; she gave a sob and went away to her own room. the bass voices began droning in the stove again, and nadya felt suddenly frightened. she jumped out of bed and went quickly to her mother. nina ivanovna, with tear-stained face, was lying in bed wrapped in a pale blue quilt and holding a book in her hands. "mother, listen to me!" said nadya. "i implore you, do understand! if you would only understand how petty and degrading our life is. my eyes have been opened, and i see it all now. and what is your andrey andreitch? why, he is not intelligent, mother! merciful heavens, do understand, mother, he is stupid!" nina ivanovna abruptly sat up. "you and your grandmother torment me," she said with a sob. "i want to live! to live," she repeated, and twice she beat her little fist upon her bosom. "let me be free! i am still young, i want to live, and you have made me an old woman between you!" she broke into bitter tears, lay down and curled up under the quilt, and looked so small, so pitiful, so foolish. nadya went to her room, dressed, and sitting at the window fell to waiting for the morning. she sat all night thinking, while someone seemed to be tapping on the shutters and whistling in the yard. in the morning granny complained that the wind had blown down all the apples in the garden, and broken down an old plum tree. it was grey, murky, cheerless, dark enough for candles; everyone complained of the cold, and the rain lashed on the windows. after tea nadya went into sasha's room and without saying a word knelt down before an armchair in the corner and hid her face in her hands. "what is it?" asked sasha. "i can't . . ." she said. "how i could go on living here before, i can't understand, i can't conceive! i despise the man i am engaged to, i despise myself, i despise all this idle, senseless existence." "well, well," said sasha, not yet grasping what was meant. "that's all right . . . that's good." "i am sick of this life," nadya went on. "i can't endure another day here. to-morrow i am going away. take me with you for god's sake!" for a minute sasha looked at her in astonishment; at last he understood and was delighted as a child. he waved his arms and began pattering with his slippers as though he were dancing with delight. "splendid," he said, rubbing his hands. "my goodness, how fine that is!" and she stared at him without blinking, with adoring eyes, as though spellbound, expecting every minute that he would say something important, something infinitely significant; he had told her nothing yet, but already it seemed to her that something new and great was opening before her which she had not known till then, and already she gazed at him full of expectation, ready to face anything, even death. "i am going to-morrow," he said after a moment's thought. "you come to the station to see me off. . . . i'll take your things in my portmanteau, and i'll get your ticket, and when the third bell rings you get into the carriage, and we'll go off. you'll see me as far as moscow and then go on to petersburg alone. have you a passport?" "yes." "i can promise you, you won't regret it," said sasha, with conviction. "you will go, you will study, and then go where fate takes you. when you turn your life upside down everything will be changed. the great thing is to turn your life upside down, and all the rest is unimportant. and so we will set off to-morrow?" "oh yes, for god's sake!" it seemed to nadya that she was very much excited, that her heart was heavier than ever before, that she would spend all the time till she went away in misery and agonizing thought; but she had hardly gone upstairs and lain down on her bed when she fell asleep at once, with traces of tears and a smile on her face, and slept soundly till evening. v a cab had been sent for. nadya in her hat and overcoat went upstairs to take one more look at her mother, at all her belongings. she stood in her own room beside her still warm bed, looked about her, then went slowly in to her mother. nina ivanovna was asleep; it was quite still in her room. nadya kissed her mother, smoothed her hair, stood still for a couple of minutes . . . then walked slowly downstairs. it was raining heavily. the cabman with the hood pulled down was standing at the entrance, drenched with rain. "there is not room for you, nadya," said granny, as the servants began putting in the luggage. "what an idea to see him off in such weather! you had better stop at home. goodness, how it rains!" nadya tried to say something, but could not. then sasha helped nadya in and covered her feet with a rug. then he sat down beside her. "good luck to you! god bless you!" granny cried from the steps. "mind you write to us from moscow, sasha!" "right. good-bye, granny." "the queen of heaven keep you!" "oh, what weather!" said sasha. it was only now that nadya began to cry. now it was clear to her that she certainly was going, which she had not really believed when she was saying good-bye to granny, and when she was looking at her mother. good-bye, town! and she suddenly thought of it all: andrey, and his father and the new house and the naked lady with the vase; and it all no longer frightened her, nor weighed upon her, but was naïve and trivial and continually retreated further away. and when they got into the railway carriage and the train began to move, all that past which had been so big and serious shrank up into something tiny, and a vast wide future which till then had scarcely been noticed began unfolding before her. the rain pattered on the carriage windows, nothing could be seen but the green fields, telegraph posts with birds sitting on the wires flitted by, and joy made her hold her breath; she thought that she was going to freedom, going to study, and this was just like what used, ages ago, to be called going off to be a free cossack. she laughed and cried and prayed all at once. "it's a-all right," said sasha, smiling. "it's a-all right." vi autumn had passed and winter, too, had gone. nadya had begun to be very homesick and thought every day of her mother and her grandmother; she thought of sasha too. the letters that came from home were kind and gentle, and it seemed as though everything by now were forgiven and forgotten. in may after the examinations she set off for home in good health and high spirits, and stopped on the way at moscow to see sasha. he was just the same as the year before, with the same beard and unkempt hair, with the same large beautiful eyes, and he still wore the same coat and canvas trousers; but he looked unwell and worried, he seemed both older and thinner, and kept coughing, and for some reason he struck nadya as grey and provincial. "my god, nadya has come!" he said, and laughed gaily. "my darling girl!" they sat in the printing room, which was full of tobacco smoke, and smelt strongly, stiflingly of indian ink and paint; then they went to his room, which also smelt of tobacco and was full of the traces of spitting; near a cold samovar stood a broken plate with dark paper on it, and there were masses of dead flies on the table and on the floor. and everything showed that sasha ordered his personal life in a slovenly way and lived anyhow, with utter contempt for comfort, and if anyone began talking to him of his personal happiness, of his personal life, of affection for him, he would not have understood and would have only laughed. "it is all right, everything has gone well," said nadya hurriedly. "mother came to see me in petersburg in the autumn; she said that granny is not angry, and only keeps going into my room and making the sign of the cross over the walls." sasha looked cheerful, but he kept coughing, and talked in a cracked voice, and nadya kept looking at him, unable to decide whether he really were seriously ill or whether it were only her fancy. "dear sasha," she said, "you are ill." "no, it's nothing, i am ill, but not very . . ." "oh, dear!" cried nadya, in agitation. "why don't you go to a doctor? why don't you take care of your health? my dear, darling sasha," she said, and tears gushed from her eyes and for some reason there rose before her imagination andrey andreitch and the naked lady with the vase, and all her past which seemed now as far away as her childhood; and she began crying because sasha no longer seemed to her so novel, so cultured, and so interesting as the year before. "dear sasha, you are very, very ill . . . i would do anything to make you not so pale and thin. i am so indebted to you! you can't imagine how much you have done for me, my good sasha! in reality you are now the person nearest and dearest to me." they sat on and talked, and now, after nadya had spent a winter in petersburg, sasha, his works, his smile, his whole figure had for her a suggestion of something out of date, old-fashioned, done with long ago and perhaps already dead and buried. "i am going down the volga the day after tomorrow," said sasha, "and then to drink koumiss. i mean to drink koumiss. a friend and his wife are going with me. his wife is a wonderful woman; i am always at her, trying to persuade her to go to the university. i want her to turn her life upside down." after having talked they drove to the station. sasha got her tea and apples; and when the train began moving and he waved his handkerchief at her, smiling, it could be seen even from his legs that he was very ill and would not live long. nadya reached her native town at midday. as she drove home from the station the streets struck her as very wide and the houses very small and squat; there were no people about, she met no one but the german piano-tuner in a rusty greatcoat. and all the houses looked as though they were covered with dust. granny, who seemed to have grown quite old, but was as fat and plain as ever, flung her arms round nadya and cried for a long time with her face on nadya's shoulder, unable to tear herself away. nina ivanovna looked much older and plainer and seemed shrivelled up, but was still tightly laced, and still had diamonds flashing on her fingers. "my darling," she said, trembling all over, "my darling!" then they sat down and cried without speaking. it was evident that both mother and grandmother realized that the past was lost and gone, never to return; they had now no position in society, no prestige as before, no right to invite visitors; so it is when in the midst of an easy careless life the police suddenly burst in at night and made a search, and it turns out that the head of the family has embezzled money or committed forgery--and goodbye then to the easy careless life for ever! nadya went upstairs and saw the same bed, the same windows with naïve white curtains, and outside the windows the same garden, gay and noisy, bathed in sunshine. she touched the table, sat down and sank into thought. and she had a good dinner and drank tea with delicious rich cream; but something was missing, there was a sense of emptiness in the rooms and the ceilings were so low. in the evening she went to bed, covered herself up and for some reason it seemed to her to be funny lying in this snug, very soft bed. nina ivanovna came in for a minute; she sat down as people who feel guilty sit down, timidly, and looking about her. "well, tell me, nadya," she enquired after a brief pause, "are you contented? quite contented?" "yes, mother." nina ivanovna got up, made the sign of the cross over nadya and the windows. "i have become religious, as you see," she said. "you know i am studying philosophy now, and i am always thinking and thinking. . . . and many things have become as clear as daylight to me. it seems to me that what is above all necessary is that life should pass as it were through a prism." "tell me, mother, how is granny in health?" "she seems all right. when you went away that time with sasha and the telegram came from you, granny fell on the floor as she read it; for three days she lay without moving. after that she was always praying and crying. but now she is all right again." she got up and walked about the room. "tick-tock," tapped the watchman. "tick-tock, tick-tock. . . ." "what is above all necessary is that life should pass as it were through a prism," she said; "in other words, that life in consciousness should be analyzed into its simplest elements as into the seven primary colours, and each element must be studied separately." what nina ivanovna said further and when she went away, nadya did not hear, as she quickly fell asleep. may passed; june came. nadya had grown used to being at home. granny busied herself about the samovar, heaving deep sighs. nina ivanovna talked in the evenings about her philosophy; she still lived in the house like a poor relation, and had to go to granny for every farthing. there were lots of flies in the house, and the ceilings seemed to become lower and lower. granny and nina ivanovna did not go out in the streets for fear of meeting father andrey and andrey andreitch. nadya walked about the garden and the streets, looked at the grey fences, and it seemed to her that everything in the town had grown old, was out of date and was only waiting either for the end, or for the beginning of something young and fresh. oh, if only that new, bright life would come more quickly--that life in which one will be able to face one's fate boldly and directly, to know that one is right, to be light-hearted and free! and sooner or later such a life will come. the time will come when of granny's house, where things are so arranged that the four servants can only live in one room in filth in the basement--the time will come when of that house not a trace will remain, and it will be forgotten, no one will remember it. and nadya's only entertainment was from the boys next door; when she walked about the garden they knocked on the fence and shouted in mockery: "betrothed! betrothed!" a letter from sasha arrived from saratov. in his gay dancing handwriting he told them that his journey on the volga had been a complete success, but that he had been taken rather ill in saratov, had lost his voice, and had been for the last fortnight in the hospital. she knew what that meant, and she was overwhelmed with a foreboding that was like a conviction. and it vexed her that this foreboding and the thought of sasha did not distress her so much as before. she had a passionate desire for life, longed to be in petersburg, and her friendship with sasha seemed now sweet but something far, far away! she did not sleep all night, and in the morning sat at the window, listening. and she did in fact hear voices below; granny, greatly agitated, was asking questions rapidly. then some one began crying. . . . when nadya went downstairs granny was standing in the corner, praying before the ikon and her face was tearful. a telegram lay on the table. for some time nadya walked up and down the room, listening to granny's weeping; then she picked up the telegram and read it. it announced that the previous morning alexandr timofeitch, or more simply, sasha, had died at saratov of consumption. granny and nina ivanovna went to the church to order a memorial service, while nadya went on walking about the rooms and thinking. she recognized clearly that her life had been turned upside down as sasha wished; that here she was, alien, isolated, useless and that everything here was useless to her; that all the past had been torn away from her and vanished as though it had been burnt up and the ashes scattered to the winds. she went into sasha's room and stood there for a while. "good-bye, dear sasha," she thought, and before her mind rose the vista of a new, wide, spacious life, and that life, still obscure and full of mysteries, beckoned her and attracted her. she went upstairs to her own room to pack, and next morning said good-bye to her family, and full of life and high spirits left the town--as she supposed for ever. from the diary of a violent-tempered man i am a serious person and my mind is of a philosophic bent. my vocation is the study of finance. i am a student of financial law and i have chosen as the subject of my dissertation--the past and future of the dog licence. i need hardly point out that young ladies, songs, moonlight, and all that sort of silliness are entirely out of my line. morning. ten o'clock. my _maman_ pours me out a cup of coffee. i drink it and go out on the little balcony to set to work on my dissertation. i take a clean sheet of paper, dip the pen into the ink, and write out the title: "the past and future of the dog licence." after thinking a little i write: "historical survey. we may deduce from some allusions in herodotus and xenophon that the origin of the tax on dogs goes back to . . . ." but at that point i hear footsteps that strike me as highly suspicious. i look down from the balcony and see below a young lady with a long face and a long waist. her name, i believe, is nadenka or varenka, it really does not matter which. she is looking for something, pretends not to have noticed me, and is humming to herself: "dost thou remember that song full of tenderness?" i read through what i have written and want to continue, but the young lady pretends to have just caught sight of me, and says in a mournful voice: "good morning, nikolay andreitch. only fancy what a misfortune i have had! i went for a walk yesterday and lost the little ball off my bracelet!" i read through once more the opening of my dissertation, i trim up the tail of the letter "g" and mean to go on, but the young lady persists. "nikolay andreitch," she says, "won't you see me home? the karelins have such a huge dog that i simply daren't pass it alone." there is no getting out of it. i lay down my pen and go down to her. nadenka (or varenka) takes my arm and we set off in the direction of her villa. when the duty of walking arm-in-arm with a lady falls to my lot, for some reason or other i always feel like a peg with a heavy cloak hanging on it. nadenka (or varenka), between ourselves, of an ardent temperament (her grandfather was an armenian), has a peculiar art of throwing her whole weight on one's arm and clinging to one's side like a leech. and so we walk along. as we pass the karelins', i see a huge dog, who reminds me of the dog licence. i think with despair of the work i have begun and sigh. "what are you sighing for?" asks nadenka (or varenka), and heaves a sigh herself. here i must digress for a moment to explain that nadenka or varenka (now i come to think of it, i believe i have heard her called mashenka) imagines, i can't guess why, that i am in love with her, and therefore thinks it her duty as a humane person always to look at me with compassion and to soothe my wound with words. "listen," said she, stopping. "i know why you are sighing. you are in love, yes; but i beg you for the sake of our friendship to believe that the girl you love has the deepest respect for you. she cannot return your love; but is it her fault that her heart has long been another's?" mashenka's nose begins to swell and turn red, her eyes fill with tears: she evidently expects some answer from me, but, fortunately, at this moment we arrive. mashenka's mamma, a good-natured woman but full of conventional ideas, is sitting on the terrace: glancing at her daughter's agitated face, she looks intently at me and sighs, as though saying to herself: "ah, these young people! they don't even know how to keep their secrets to themselves!" on the terrace with her are several young ladies of various colours and a retired officer who is staying in the villa next to ours. he was wounded during the last war in the left temple and the right hip. this unfortunate man is, like myself, proposing to devote the summer to literary work. he is writing the "memoirs of a military man." like me, he begins his honourable labours every morning, but before he has written more than "i was born in . . ." some varenka or mashenka is sure to appear under his balcony, and the wounded hero is borne off under guard. all the party sitting on the terrace are engaged in preparing some miserable fruit for jam. i make my bows and am about to beat a retreat, but the young ladies of various colours seize my hat with a squeal and insist on my staying. i sit down. they give me a plate of fruit and a hairpin. i begin taking the seeds out. the young ladies of various colours talk about men: they say that so-and-so is nice-looking, that so-and-so is handsome but not nice, that somebody else is nice but ugly, and that a fourth would not have been bad-looking if his nose were not like a thimble, and so on. "and you, _monsieur nicolas_," says varenka's mamma, turning to me, "are not handsome, but you are attractive. . . . there is something about your face. . . . in men, though, it's not beauty but intelligence that matters," she adds, sighing. the young ladies sigh, too, and drop their eyes . . . they agree that the great thing in men is not beauty but intelligence. i steal a glance sideways at a looking-glass to ascertain whether i really am attractive. i see a shaggy head, a bushy beard, moustaches, eyebrows, hair on my cheeks, hair up to my eyes, a perfect thicket with a solid nose sticking up out of it like a watch-tower. attractive! h'm! "but it's by the qualities of your soul, after all, that you will make your way, _nicolas_," sighs nadenka's mamma, as though affirming some secret and original idea of her own. and nadenka is sympathetically distressed on my account, but the conviction that a man passionately in love with her is sitting opposite is obviously a source of the greatest enjoyment to her. when they have done with men, the young ladies begin talking about love. after a long conversation about love, one of the young ladies gets up and goes away. those that remain begin to pick her to pieces. everyone agrees that she is stupid, unbearable, ugly, and that one of her shoulder-blades sticks out in a shocking way. but at last, thank goodness! i see our maid. my _maman_ has sent her to call me in to dinner. now i can make my escape from this uncongenial company and go back to my work. i get up and make my bows. varenka's _maman_, varenka herself, and the variegated young ladies surround me, and declare that i cannot possibly go, because i promised yesterday to dine with them and go to the woods to look for mushrooms. i bow and sit down again. my soul is boiling with rage, and i feel that in another moment i may not be able to answer for myself, that there may be an explosion, but gentlemanly feeling and the fear of committing a breach of good manners compels me to obey the ladies. and i obey them. we sit down to dinner. the wounded officer, whose wound in the temple has affected the muscles of the left cheek, eats as though he had a bit in his mouth. i roll up little balls of bread, think about the dog licence, and, knowing the ungovernable violence of my temper, try to avoid speaking. nadenka looks at me sympathetically. soup, tongue and peas, roast fowl, and compôte. i have no appetite, but eat from politeness. after dinner, while i am standing alone on the terrace, smoking, nadenka's mamma comes up to me, presses my hand, and says breathlessly: "don't despair, _nicolas!_ she has such a heart, . . . such a heart! . . ." we go towards the wood to gather mushrooms. varenka hangs on my arm and clings to my side. my sufferings are indescribable, but i bear them in patience. we enter the wood. "listen, monsieur nicolas," says nadenka, sighing. "why are you so melancholy? and why are you so silent?" extraordinary girl she is, really! what can i talk to her about? what have we in common? "oh, do say something!" she begs me. i begin trying to think of something popular, something within the range of her understanding. after a moment's thought i say: "the cutting down of forests has been greatly detrimental to the prosperity of russia. . . ." "nicolas," sighs nadenka, and her nose begins to turn red, "nicolas, i see you are trying to avoid being open with me. . . . you seem to wish to punish me by your silence. your feeling is not returned, and you wish to suffer in silence, in solitude . . . it is too awful, nicolas!" she cries impulsively seizing my hand, and i see her nose beginning to swell. "what would you say if the girl you love were to offer you her eternal friendship?" i mutter something incoherent, for i really can't think what to say to her. in the first place, i'm not in love with any girl at all; in the second, what could i possibly want her eternal friendship for? and, thirdly, i have a violent temper. mashenka (or varenka) hides her face in her hands and murmurs, as though to herself: "he will not speak; . . . it is clear that he will have me make the sacrifice! i cannot love him, if my heart is still another's . . . but . . . i will think of it. . . . very good, i will think of it . . . i will prove the strength of my soul, and perhaps, at the cost of my own happiness, i will save this man from suffering!" . . . i can make nothing out of all this. it seems some special sort of puzzle. we go farther into the wood and begin picking mushrooms. we are perfectly silent the whole time. nadenka's face shows signs of inward struggle. i hear the bark of dogs; it reminds me of my dissertation, and i sigh heavily. between the trees i catch sight of the wounded officer limping painfully along. the poor fellow's right leg is lame from his wound, and on his left arm he has one of the variegated young ladies. his face expresses resignation to destiny. we go back to the house to drink tea, after which we play croquet and listen to one of the variegated young ladies singing a song: "no, no, thou lovest not, no, no." at the word "no" she twists her mouth till it almost touches one ear. "_charmant!_" wail the other young ladies, "_charmant!_" the evening comes on. a detestable moon creeps up behind the bushes. there is perfect stillness in the air, and an unpleasant smell of freshly cut hay. i take up my hat and try to get away. "i have something i must say to you!" mashenka whispers to me significantly, "don't go away!" i have a foreboding of evil, but politeness obliges me to remain. mashenka takes my arm and leads me away to a garden walk. by this time her whole figure expresses conflict. she is pale and gasping for breath, and she seems absolutely set on pulling my right arm out of the socket. what can be the matter with her? "listen!" she mutters. "no, i cannot! no! . . ." she tries to say something, but hesitates. now i see from her face that she has come to some decision. with gleaming eyes and swollen nose she snatches my hand, and says hurriedly, "_nicolas_, i am yours! love you i cannot, but i promise to be true to you!" then she squeezes herself to my breast, and at once springs away. "someone is coming," she whispers. "farewell! . . . to-morrow at eleven o'clock i will be in the arbour. . . . farewell!" and she vanishes. completely at a loss for an explanation of her conduct and suffering from a painful palpitation of the heart, i make my way home. there the "past and future of the dog licence" is awaiting me, but i am quite unable to work. i am furious. . . . i may say, my anger is terrible. damn it all! i allow no one to treat me like a boy, i am a man of violent temper, and it is not safe to trifle with me! when the maid comes in to call me to supper, i shout to her: "go out of the room!" such hastiness augurs nothing good. next morning. typical holiday weather. temperature below freezing, a cutting wind, rain, mud, and a smell of naphthaline, because my _maman_ has taken all her wraps out of her trunks. a devilish morning! it is the th of august, , the date of the solar eclipse. i may here remark that at the time of an eclipse every one of us may, without special astronomical knowledge, be of the greatest service. thus, for example, anyone of us can ( ) take the measurement of the diameters of the sun and the moon; ( ) sketch the corona of the sun; ( ) take the temperature; ( ) take observations of plants and animals during the eclipse; ( ) note down his own impressions, and so on. it is a matter of such exceptional importance that i lay aside the "past and future of the dog licence" and make up my mind to observe the eclipse. we all get up very early, and i divide the work as follows: i am to measure the diameter of the sun and moon; the wounded officer is to sketch the corona; and the other observations are undertaken by mashenka and the variegated young ladies. we all meet together and wait. "what is the cause of the eclipse?" asks mashenka. i reply: "a solar eclipse occurs when the moon, moving in the plane of the ecliptic, crosses the line joining the centres of the sun and the earth." "and what does the ecliptic mean?" i explain. mashenka listens attentively. "can one see through the smoked glass the line joining the centres of the sun and the earth?" she enquires. i reply that this is only an imaginary line, drawn theoretically. "if it is only an imaginary line, how can the moon cross it?" varenka says, wondering. i make no reply. i feel my spleen rising at this naïve question. "it's all nonsense," says mashenka's _maman_. "impossible to tell what's going to happen. you've never been in the sky, so what can you know of what is to happen with the sun and moon? it's all fancy." at that moment a black patch begins to move over the sun. general confusion follows. the sheep and horses and cows run bellowing about the fields with their tails in the air. the dogs howl. the bugs, thinking night has come on, creep out of the cracks in the walls and bite the people who are still in bed. the deacon, who was engaged in bringing some cucumbers from the market garden, jumped out of his cart and hid under the bridge; while his horse walked off into somebody else's yard, where the pigs ate up all the cucumbers. the excise officer, who had not slept at home that night, but at a lady friend's, dashed out with nothing on but his nightshirt, and running into the crowd shouted frantically: "save yourself, if you can!" numbers of the lady visitors, even young and pretty ones, run out of their villas without even putting their slippers on. scenes occur which i hesitate to describe. "oh, how dreadful!" shriek the variegated young ladies. "it's really too awful!" "mesdames, watch!" i cry. "time is precious!" and i hasten to measure the diameters. i remember the corona, and look towards the wounded officer. he stands doing nothing. "what's the matter?" i shout. "how about the corona?" he shrugs his shoulders and looks helplessly towards his arms. the poor fellow has variegated young ladies on both sides of him, clinging to him in terror and preventing him from working. i seize a pencil and note down the time to a second. that is of great importance. i note down the geographical position of the point of observation. that, too, is of importance. i am just about to measure the diameter when mashenka seizes my hand, and says: "do not forget to-day, eleven o'clock." i withdraw my hand, feeling every second precious, try to continue my observations, but varenka clutches my arm and clings to me. pencil, pieces of glass, drawings--all are scattered on the grass. hang it! it's high time the girl realized that i am a man of violent temper, and when i am roused my fury knows no bounds, i cannot answer for myself. i try to continue, but the eclipse is over. "look at me!" she whispers tenderly. oh, that is the last straw! trying a man's patience like that can but have a fatal ending. i am not to blame if something terrible happens. i allow no one to make a laughing stock of me, and, god knows, when i am furious, i advise nobody to come near me, damn it all! there's nothing i might not do! one of the young ladies, probably noticing from my face what a rage i am in, and anxious to propitiate me, says: "i did exactly what you told me, nikolay andreitch; i watched the animals. i saw the grey dog chasing the cat just before the eclipse, and wagging his tail for a long while afterwards." so nothing came of the eclipse after all. i go home. thanks to the rain, i work indoors instead of on the balcony. the wounded officer has risked it, and has again got as far as "i was born in . . ." when i see one of the variegated young ladies pounce down on him and bear him off to her villa. i cannot work, for i am still in a fury and suffering from palpitation of the heart. i do not go to the arbour. it is impolite not to, but, after all, i can't be expected to go in the rain. at twelve o'clock i receive a letter from mashenka, a letter full of reproaches and entreaties to go to the arbour, addressing me as "thou." at one o'clock i get a second letter, and at two, a third . . . . i must go. . . . but before going i must consider what i am to say to her. i will behave like a gentleman. to begin with, i will tell her that she is mistaken in supposing that i am in love with her. that's a thing one does not say to a lady as a rule, though. to tell a lady that one's not in love with her, is almost as rude as to tell an author he can't write. the best thing will be to explain my views of marriage. i put on my winter overcoat, take an umbrella, and walk to the arbour. knowing the hastiness of my temper, i am afraid i may be led into speaking too strongly; i will try to restrain myself. i find nadenka still waiting for me. she is pale and in tears. on seeing me she utters a cry of joy, flings herself on my neck, and says: "at last! you are trying my patience. . . . listen, i have not slept all night. . . . i have been thinking and thinking. . . . i believe that when i come to know you better i shall learn to love you. . . ." i sit down, and begin to unfold my views of marriage. to begin with, to clear the ground of digressions and to be as brief as possible, i open with a short historical survey. i speak of marriage in ancient egypt and india, then pass to more recent times, a few ideas from schopenhauer. mashenka listens attentively, but all of a sudden, through some strange incoherence of ideas, thinks fit to interrupt me: "nicolas, kiss me!" she says. i am embarrassed and don't know what to say to her. she repeats her request. there seems no avoiding it. i get up and bend over her long face, feeling as i do so just as i did in my childhood when i was lifted up to kiss my grandmother in her coffin. not content with the kiss, mashenka leaps up and impulsively embraces me. at that instant, mashenka's _maman_ appears in the doorway of the arbour. . . . she makes a face as though in alarm, and saying "sh-sh" to someone with her, vanishes like mephistopheles through the trapdoor. confused and enraged, i return to our villa. at home i find varenka's _maman_ embracing my _maman_ with tears in her eyes. and my _maman_ weeps and says: "i always hoped for it!" and then, if you please, nadenka's _maman_ comes up to me, embraces me, and says: "may god bless you! . . . mind you love her well. . . . remember the sacrifice she is making for your sake!" and here i am at my wedding. at the moment i write these last words, my best man is at my side, urging me to make haste. these people have no idea of my character! i have a violent temper, i cannot always answer for myself! hang it all! god knows what will come of it! to lead a violent, desperate man to the altar is as unwise as to thrust one's hand into the cage of a ferocious tiger. we shall see, we shall see! * * * * * and so, i am married. everybody congratulates me and varenka keeps clinging to me and saying: "now you are mine, mine; do you understand that? tell me that you love me!" and her nose swells as she says it. i learn from my best man that the wounded officer has very cleverly escaped the snares of hymen. he showed the variegated young lady a medical certificate that owing to the wound in his temple he was at times mentally deranged and incapable of contracting a valid marriage. an inspiration! i might have got a certificate too. an uncle of mine drank himself to death, another uncle was extremely absent-minded (on one occasion he put a lady's muff on his head in mistake for his hat), an aunt of mine played a great deal on the piano, and used to put out her tongue at gentlemen she did not like. and my ungovernable temper is a very suspicious symptom. but why do these great ideas always come too late? why? in the dark a fly of medium size made its way into the nose of the assistant procurator, gagin. it may have been impelled by curiosity, or have got there through frivolity or accident in the dark; anyway, the nose resented the presence of a foreign body and gave the signal for a sneeze. gagin sneezed, sneezed impressively and so shrilly and loudly that the bed shook and the springs creaked. gagin's wife, marya mihalovna, a full, plump, fair woman, started, too, and woke up. she gazed into the darkness, sighed, and turned over on the other side. five minutes afterwards she turned over again and shut her eyes more firmly but she could not get to sleep again. after sighing and tossing from side to side for a time, she got up, crept over her husband, and putting on her slippers, went to the window. it was dark outside. she could see nothing but the outlines of the trees and the roof of the stables. there was a faint pallor in the east, but this pallor was beginning to be clouded over. there was perfect stillness in the air wrapped in slumber and darkness. even the watchman, paid to disturb the stillness of night, was silent; even the corncrake--the only wild creature of the feathered tribe that does not shun the proximity of summer visitors--was silent. the stillness was broken by marya mihalovna herself. standing at the window and gazing into the yard, she suddenly uttered a cry. she fancied that from the flower garden with the gaunt, clipped poplar, a dark figure was creeping towards the house. for the first minute she thought it was a cow or a horse, then, rubbing her eyes, she distinguished clearly the outlines of a man. then she fancied the dark figure approached the window of the kitchen and, standing still a moment, apparently undecided, put one foot on the window ledge and disappeared into the darkness of the window. "a burglar!" flashed into her mind and a deathly pallor overspread her face. and in one instant her imagination had drawn the picture so dreaded by lady visitors in country places--a burglar creeps into the kitchen, from the kitchen into the dining-room . . . the silver in the cupboard . . . next into the bedroom . . . an axe . . . the face of a brigand . . . jewelry. . . . her knees gave way under her and a shiver ran down her back. "vassya!" she said, shaking her husband, "_basile!_ vassily prokovitch! ah! mercy on us, he might be dead! wake up, _basile_, i beseech you!" "w-well?" grunted the assistant procurator, with a deep inward breath and a munching sound. "for god's sake, wake up! a burglar has got into the kitchen! i was standing at the window looking out and someone got in at the window. he will get into the dining-room next . . . the spoons are in the cupboard! _basile!_ they broke into mavra yegorovna's last year." "wha--what's the matter?" "heavens! he does not understand. do listen, you stupid! i tell you i've just seen a man getting in at the kitchen window! pelagea will be frightened and . . . and the silver is in the cupboard!" "stuff and nonsense!" "_basile_, this is unbearable! i tell you of a real danger and you sleep and grunt! what would you have? would you have us robbed and murdered?" the assistant procurator slowly got up and sat on the bed, filling the air with loud yawns. "goodness knows what creatures women are!" he muttered. "can't leave one in peace even at night! to wake a man for such nonsense!" "but, _basile_, i swear i saw a man getting in at the window!" "well, what of it? let him get in. . . . that's pretty sure to be pelagea's sweetheart, the fireman." "what! what did you say?" "i say it's pelagea's fireman come to see her." "worse than ever!" shrieked marya mihalovna. "that's worse than a burglar! i won't put up with cynicism in my house!" "hoity-toity! we are virtuous! . . . won't put up with cynicism? as though it were cynicism! what's the use of firing off those foreign words? my dear girl, it's a thing that has happened ever since the world began, sanctified by tradition. what's a fireman for if not to make love to the cook?" "no, _basile!_ it seems you don't know me! i cannot face the idea of such a . . . such a . . . in my house. you must go this minute into the kitchen and tell him to go away! this very minute! and to-morrow i'll tell pelagea that she must not dare to demean herself by such proceedings! when i am dead you may allow immorality in your house, but you shan't do it now! . . . please go!" "damn it," grumbled gagin, annoyed. "consider with your microscopic female brain, what am i to go for?" "_basile_, i shall faint! . . ." gagin cursed, put on his slippers, cursed again, and set off to the kitchen. it was as dark as the inside of a barrel, and the assistant procurator had to feel his way. he groped his way to the door of the nursery and waked the nurse. "vassilissa," he said, "you took my dressing-gown to brush last night--where is it?" "i gave it to pelagea to brush, sir." "what carelessness! you take it away and don't put it back--now i've to go without a dressing-gown!" on reaching the kitchen, he made his way to the corner in which on a box under a shelf of saucepans the cook slept. "pelagea," he said, feeling her shoulder and giving it a shake, "pelagea! why are you pretending? you are not asleep! who was it got in at your window just now?" "mm . . . m . . . good morning! got in at the window? who could get in?" "oh come, it's no use your trying to keep it up! you'd better tell your scamp to clear out while he can! do you hear? he's no business to be here!" "are you out of your senses, sir, bless you? do you think i'd be such a fool? here one's running about all day long, never a minute to sit down and then spoken to like this at night! four roubles a month . . . and to find my own tea and sugar and this is all the credit i get for it! i used to live in a tradesman's house, and never met with such insult there!" "come, come--no need to go over your grievances! this very minute your grenadier must turn out! do you understand?" "you ought to be ashamed, sir," said pelagea, and he could hear the tears in her voice. "gentlefolks . . . educated, and yet not a notion that with our hard lot . . . in our life of toil"--she burst into tears. "it's easy to insult us. there's no one to stand up for us." "come, come . . . i don't mind! your mistress sent me. you may let a devil in at the window for all i care!" there was nothing left for the assistant procurator but to acknowledge himself in the wrong and go back to his spouse. "i say, pelagea," he said, "you had my dressing-gown to brush. where is it?" "oh, i am so sorry, sir; i forgot to put it on your chair. it's hanging on a peg near the stove." gagin felt for the dressing-gown by the stove, put it on, and went quietly back to his room. when her husband went out marya mihalovna got into bed and waited. for the first three minutes her mind was at rest, but after that she began to feel uneasy. "what a long time he's gone," she thought. "it's all right if he is there . . . that immoral man . . . but if it's a burglar?" and again her imagination drew a picture of her husband going into the dark kitchen . . . a blow with an axe . . . dying without uttering a single sound . . . a pool of blood! . . . five minutes passed . . . five and a half . . . at last six. . . . a cold sweat came out on her forehead. "_basile!_" she shrieked, "_basile!_" "what are you shouting for? i am here." she heard her husband's voice and steps. "are you being murdered?" the assistant procurator went up to the bedstead and sat down on the edge of it. "there's nobody there at all," he said. "it was your fancy, you queer creature. . . . you can sleep easy, your fool of a pelagea is as virtuous as her mistress. what a coward you are! what a . . . ." and the deputy procurator began teasing his wife. he was wide awake now and did not want to go to sleep again. "you are a coward!" he laughed. "you'd better go to the doctor to-morrow and tell him about your hallucinations. you are a neurotic!" "what a smell of tar," said his wife--"tar or something . . . onion . . . cabbage soup!" "y-yes! there is a smell . . . i am not sleepy. i say, i'll light the candle. . . . where are the matches? and, by the way, i'll show you the photograph of the procurator of the palace of justice. he gave us all a photograph when he said good-bye to us yesterday, with his autograph." gagin struck a match against the wall and lighted a candle. but before he had moved a step from the bed to fetch the photographs he heard behind him a piercing, heartrending shriek. looking round, he saw his wife's large eyes fastened upon him, full of amazement, horror, and wrath. . . . "you took your dressing-gown off in the kitchen?" she said, turning pale. "why?" "look at yourself!" the deputy procurator looked down at himself, and gasped. flung over his shoulders was not his dressing-gown, but the fireman's overcoat. how had it come on his shoulders? while he was settling that question, his wife's imagination was drawing another picture, awful and impossible: darkness, stillness, whispering, and so on, and so on. a play "pavel vassilyevitch, there's a lady here, asking for you," luka announced. "she's been waiting a good hour. . . ." pavel vassilyevitch had only just finished lunch. hearing of the lady, he frowned and said: "oh, damn her! tell her i'm busy." "she has been here five times already, pavel vassilyevitch. she says she really must see you. . . . she's almost crying." "h'm . . . very well, then, ask her into the study." without haste pavel vassilyevitch put on his coat, took a pen in one hand, and a book in the other, and trying to look as though he were very busy he went into the study. there the visitor was awaiting him--a large stout lady with a red, beefy face, in spectacles. she looked very respectable, and her dress was more than fashionable (she had on a crinolette of four storeys and a high hat with a reddish bird in it). on seeing him she turned up her eyes and folded her hands in supplication. "you don't remember me, of course," she began in a high masculine tenor, visibly agitated. "i . . . i have had the pleasure of meeting you at the hrutskys. . . . i am mme. murashkin. . . ." "a. . . a . . . a . . . h'm . . . sit down! what can i do for you?" "you . . . you see . . . i . . . i . . ." the lady went on, sitting down and becoming still more agitated. "you don't remember me. . . . i'm mme. murashkin. . . . you see i'm a great admirer of your talent and always read your articles with great enjoyment. . . . don't imagine i'm flattering you--god forbid!--i'm only giving honour where honour is due. . . . i am always reading you . . . always! to some extent i am myself not a stranger to literature-- that is, of course . . . i will not venture to call myself an authoress, but . . . still i have added my little quota . . . i have published at different times three stories for children. . . . you have not read them, of course. . . . i have translated a good deal and . . . and my late brother used to write for _the cause_." "to be sure . . . er--er--er----what can i do for you?" "you see . . . (the lady cast down her eyes and turned redder) i know your talents . . . your views, pavel vassilyevitch, and i have been longing to learn your opinion, or more exactly . . . to ask your advice. i must tell you i have perpetrated a play, my first-born --_pardon pour l'expression!_--and before sending it to the censor i should like above all things to have your opinion on it." nervously, with the flutter of a captured bird, the lady fumbled in her skirt and drew out a fat manuscript. pavel vassilyevitch liked no articles but his own. when threatened with the necessity of reading other people's, or listening to them, he felt as though he were facing the cannon's mouth. seeing the manuscript he took fright and hastened to say: "very good, . . . leave it, . . . i'll read it." "pavel vassilyevitch," the lady said languishingly, clasping her hands and raising them in supplication, "i know you're busy. . . . your every minute is precious, and i know you're inwardly cursing me at this moment, but . . . be kind, allow me to read you my play . . . . do be so very sweet!" "i should be delighted . . ." faltered pavel vassilyevitch; "but, madam, i'm . . . i'm very busy . . . . i'm . . . i'm obliged to set off this minute." "pavel vassilyevitch," moaned the lady and her eyes filled with tears, "i'm asking a sacrifice! i am insolent, i am intrusive, but be magnanimous. to-morrow i'm leaving for kazan and i should like to know your opinion to-day. grant me half an hour of your attention . . . only one half-hour . . . i implore you!" pavel vassilyevitch was cotton-wool at core, and could not refuse. when it seemed to him that the lady was about to burst into sobs and fall on her knees, he was overcome with confusion and muttered helplessly. "very well; certainly . . . i will listen . . . i will give you half an hour." the lady uttered a shriek of joy, took off her hat and settling herself, began to read. at first she read a scene in which a footman and a house maid, tidying up a sumptuous drawing-room, talked at length about their young lady, anna sergyevna, who was building a school and a hospital in the village. when the footman had left the room, the maidservant pronounced a monologue to the effect that education is light and ignorance is darkness; then mme. murashkin brought the footman back into the drawing-room and set him uttering a long monologue concerning his master, the general, who disliked his daughter's views, intended to marry her to a rich _kammer junker_, and held that the salvation of the people lay in unadulterated ignorance. then, when the servants had left the stage, the young lady herself appeared and informed the audience that she had not slept all night, but had been thinking of valentin ivanovitch, who was the son of a poor teacher and assisted his sick father gratuitously. valentin had studied all the sciences, but had no faith in friendship nor in love; he had no object in life and longed for death, and therefore she, the young lady, must save him. pavel vassilyevitch listened, and thought with yearning anguish of his sofa. he scanned the lady viciously, felt her masculine tenor thumping on his eardrums, understood nothing, and thought: "the devil sent you . . . as though i wanted to listen to your tosh! it's not my fault you've written a play, is it? my god! what a thick manuscript! what an infliction!" pavel vassilyevitch glanced at the wall where the portrait of his wife was hanging and remembered that his wife had asked him to buy and bring to their summer cottage five yards of tape, a pound of cheese, and some tooth-powder. "i hope i've not lost the pattern of that tape," he thought, "where did i put it? i believe it's in my blue reefer jacket. . . . those wretched flies have covered her portrait with spots already, i must tell olga to wash the glass. . . . she's reading the twelfth scene, so we must soon be at the end of the first act. as though inspiration were possible in this heat and with such a mountain of flesh, too! instead of writing plays she'd much better eat cold vinegar hash and sleep in a cellar. . . ." "you don't think that monologue's a little too long?" the lady asked suddenly, raising her eyes. pavel vassilyevitch had not heard the monologue, and said in a voice as guilty as though not the lady but he had written that monologue: "no, no, not at all. it's very nice. . . ." the lady beamed with happiness and continued reading: anna: you are consumed by analysis. too early you have ceased to live in the heart and have put your faith in the intellect. valentin: what do you mean by the heart? that is a concept of anatomy. as a conventional term for what are called the feelings, i do not admit it. anna _(confused)_: and love? surely that is not merely a product of the association of ideas? tell me frankly, have you ever loved? valentin _(bitterly)_: let us not touch on old wounds not yet healed. _(a pause.)_ what are you thinking of? anna: i believe you are unhappy. during the sixteenth scene pavel vassilyevitch yawned, and accidently made with his teeth the sound dogs make when they catch a fly. he was dismayed at this unseemly sound, and to cover it assumed an expression of rapt attention. "scene seventeen! when will it end?" he thought. "oh, my god! if this torture is prolonged another ten minutes i shall shout for the police. it's insufferable." but at last the lady began reading more loudly and more rapidly, and finally raising her voice she read _"curtain."_ pavel vassilyevitch uttered a faint sigh and was about to get up, but the lady promptly turned the page and went on reading. act ii.--_scene, a village street. on right, school. on left, hospital._ villagers, _male and female, sitting on the hospital steps._ "excuse me," pavel vassilyevitch broke in, "how many acts are there?" "five," answered the lady, and at once, as though fearing her audience might escape her, she went on rapidly. valentin _is looking out of the schoolhouse window. in the background_ villagers _can be seen taking their goods to the inn._ like a man condemned to be executed and convinced of the impossibility of a reprieve, pavel vassilyevitch gave up expecting the end, abandoned all hope, and simply tried to prevent his eyes from closing, and to retain an expression of attention on his face. . . . the future when the lady would finish her play and depart seemed to him so remote that he did not even think of it. "trooo--too--too--too . . ." the lady's voice sounded in his ears. "troo--too--too . . . sh--sh--sh--sh . . ." "i forgot to take my soda," he thought. "what am i thinking about? oh--my soda. . . . most likely i shall have a bilious attack. . . . it's extraordinary, smirnovsky swills vodka all day long and yet he never has a bilious attack. . . . there's a bird settled on the window . . . a sparrow. . . ." pavel vassilyevitch made an effort to unglue his strained and closing eyelids, yawned without opening his mouth, and stared at mme. murashkin. she grew misty and swayed before his eyes, turned into a triangle and her head pressed against the ceiling. . . . valentin no, let me depart. anna _(in dismay)_: why? valentin _(aside)_: she has turned pale! _(to her)_ do not force me to explain. sooner would i die than you should know the reason. anna _(after a pause)_: you cannot go away. . . . the lady began to swell, swelled to an immense size, and melted into the dingy atmosphere of the study--only her moving mouth was visible; then she suddenly dwindled to the size of a bottle, swayed from side to side, and with the table retreated to the further end of the room . . . valentin _(holding anna in his arms)_: you have given me new life! you have shown me an object to live for! you have renewed me as the spring rain renews the awakened earth! but . . . it is too late, too late! the ill that gnaws at my heart is beyond cure. . . . pavel vassilyevitch started and with dim and smarting eyes stared at the reading lady; for a minute he gazed fixedly as though understanding nothing. . . . scene xi.--_the same. the_ baron _and the_ police inspector _with assistants._ valentin: take me! anna: i am his! take me too! yes, take me too! i love him, i love him more than life! baron: anna sergyevna, you forget that you are ruining your father . . . . the lady began swelling again. . . . looking round him wildly pavel vassilyevitch got up, yelled in a deep, unnatural voice, snatched from the table a heavy paper-weight, and beside himself, brought it down with all his force on the authoress's head. . . . * * * * * "give me in charge, i've killed her!" he said to the maidservant who ran in, a minute later. the jury acquitted him. a mystery on the evening of easter sunday the actual civil councillor, navagin, on his return from paying calls, picked up the sheet of paper on which visitors had inscribed their names in the hall, and went with it into his study. after taking off his outer garments and drinking some seltzer water, he settled himself comfortably on a couch and began reading the signatures in the list. when his eyes reached the middle of the long list of signatures, he started, gave an ejaculation of astonishment and snapped his fingers, while his face expressed the utmost perplexity. "again!" he said, slapping his knee. "it's extraordinary! again! again there is the signature of that fellow, goodness knows who he is! fedyukov! again!" among the numerous signatures on the paper was the signature of a certain fedyukov. who the devil this fedyukov was, navagin had not a notion. he went over in his memory all his acquaintances, relations and subordinates in the service, recalled his remote past but could recollect no name like fedyukov. what was so strange was that this _incognito_, fedyukov, had signed his name regularly every christmas and easter for the last thirteen years. neither navagin, his wife, nor his house porter knew who he was, where he came from or what he was like. "it's extraordinary!" navagin thought in perplexity, as he paced about the study. "it's strange and incomprehensible! it's like sorcery!" "call the porter here!" he shouted. "it's devilish queer! but i will find out who he is!" "i say, grigory," he said, addressing the porter as he entered, "that fedyukov has signed his name again! did you see him?" "no, your excellency." "upon my word, but he has signed his name! so he must have been in the hall. has he been?" "no, he hasn't, your excellency." "how could he have signed his name without being there?" "i can't tell." "who is to tell, then? you sit gaping there in the hall. try and remember, perhaps someone you didn't know came in? think a minute!" "no, your excellency, there has been no one i didn't know. our clerks have been, the baroness came to see her excellency, the priests have been with the cross, and there has been no one else. . . ." "why, he was invisible when he signed his name, then, was he?" "i can't say: but there has been no fedyukov here. that i will swear before the holy image. . . ." "it's queer! it's incomprehensible! it's ex-traordinary!" mused navagin. "it's positively ludicrous. a man has been signing his name here for thirteen years and you can't find out who he is. perhaps it's a joke? perhaps some clerk writes that name as well as his own for fun." and navagin began examining fedyukov's signature. the bold, florid signature in the old-fashioned style with twirls and flourishes was utterly unlike the handwriting of the other signatures. it was next below the signature of shtutchkin, the provincial secretary, a scared, timorous little man who would certainly have died of fright if he had ventured upon such an impudent joke. "the mysterious fedyukov has signed his name again!" said navagin, going in to see his wife. "again i fail to find out who he is." madame navagin was a spiritualist, and so for all phenomena in nature, comprehensible or incomprehensible, she had a very simple explanation. "there's nothing extraordinary about it," she said. "you don't believe it, of course, but i have said it already and i say it again: there is a great deal in the world that is supernatural, which our feeble intellect can never grasp. i am convinced that this fedyukov is a spirit who has a sympathy for you . . . if i were you, i would call him up and ask him what he wants." "nonsense, nonsense!" navagin was free from superstitions, but the phenomenon which interested him was so mysterious that all sorts of uncanny devilry intruded into his mind against his will. all the evening he was imagining that the incognito fedyukov was the spirit of some long-dead clerk, who had been discharged from the service by navagin's ancestors and was now revenging himself on their descendant; or perhaps it was the kinsman of some petty official dismissed by navagin himself, or of a girl seduced by him. . . . all night navagin dreamed of a gaunt old clerk in a shabby uniform, with a face as yellow as a lemon, hair that stood up like a brush, and pewtery eyes; the clerk said something in a sepulchral voice and shook a bony finger at him. and navagin almost had an attack of inflammation of the brain. for a fortnight he was silent and gloomy and kept walking up and down and thinking. in the end he overcame his sceptical vanity, and going into his wife's room he said in a hollow voice: "zina, call up fedyukov!" the spiritualistic lady was delighted; she sent for a sheet of cardboard and a saucer, made her husband sit down beside her, and began upon the magic rites. fedyukov did not keep them waiting long. . . . "what do you want?" asked navagin. "repent," answered the saucer. "what were you on earth?" "a sinner. . . ." "there, you see!" whispered his wife, "and you did not believe!" navagin conversed for a long time with fedyukov, and then called up napoleon, hannibal, askotchensky, his aunt klavdya zaharovna, and they all gave him brief but correct answers full of deep significance. he was busy with the saucer for four hours, and fell asleep soothed and happy that he had become acquainted with a mysterious world that was new to him. after that he studied spiritualism every day, and at the office, informed the clerks that there was a great deal in nature that was supernatural and marvellous to which our men of science ought to have turned their attention long ago. hypnotism, mediumism, bishopism, spiritualism, the fourth dimension, and other misty notions took complete possession of him, so that for whole days at a time, to the great delight of his wife, he read books on spiritualism or devoted himself to the saucer, table-turning, and discussions of supernatural phenomena. at his instigation all his clerks took up spiritualism, too, and with such ardour that the old managing clerk went out of his mind and one day sent a telegram: "hell. government house. i feel that i am turning into an evil spirit. what's to be done? reply paid. vassily krinolinsky." after reading several hundreds of treatises on spiritualism navagin had a strong desire to write something himself. for five months he sat composing, and in the end had written a huge monograph, entitled: _my opinion_. when he had finished this essay he determined to send it to a spiritualist journal. the day on which it was intended to despatch it to the journal was a very memorable one for him. navagin remembers that on that never-to-be-forgotten day the secretary who had made a fair copy of his article and the sacristan of the parish who had been sent for on business were in his study. navagin's face was beaming. he looked lovingly at his creation, felt between his fingers how thick it was, and with a happy smile said to the secretary: "i propose, filipp sergeyitch, to send it registered. it will be safer. . . ." and raising his eyes to the sacristan, he said: "i have sent for you on business, my good man. i am putting my youngest son to the high school and i must have a certificate of baptism; only could you let me have it quickly?" "very good, your excellency!" said the sacristan, bowing. "very good, i understand. . . ." "can you let me have it by to-morrow?" "very well, your excellency, set your mind at rest! to-morrow it shall be ready! will you send someone to the church to-morrow before evening service? i shall be there. bid him ask for fedyukov. i am always there. . . ." "what!" cried the general, turning pale. "fedyukov." "you, . . . you are fedyukov?" asked navagin, looking at him with wide-open eyes. "just so, fedyukov." "you. . . . you signed your name in my hall?" "yes . . ." the sacristan admitted, and was overcome with confusion. "when we come with the cross, your excellency, to grand gentlemen's houses i always sign my name. . . . i like doing it. . . . excuse me, but when i see the list of names in the hall i feel an impulse to sign mine. . . ." in dumb stupefaction, understanding nothing, hearing nothing, navagin paced about his study. he touched the curtain over the door, three times waved his hands like a _jeune premier_ in a ballet when he sees _her_, gave a whistle and a meaningless smile, and pointed with his finger into space. "so i will send off the article at once, your excellency," said the secretary. these words roused navagin from his stupour. he looked blankly at the secretary and the sacristan, remembered, and stamping, his foot irritably, screamed in a high, breaking tenor: "leave me in peace! lea-eave me in peace, i tell you! what you want of me i don't understand." the secretary and the sacristan went out of the study and reached the street while he was still stamping and shouting: "leave me in peace! what you want of me i don't understand. lea-eave me in peace!" strong impressions it happened not so long ago in the moscow circuit court. the jurymen, left in the court for the night, before lying down to sleep fell into conversation about strong impressions. they were led to this discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. the jurymen decided that before going to sleep, each one of them should ransack among his memories and tell something that had happened to him. man's life is brief, but yet there is no man who cannot boast that there have been terrible moments in his past. one juryman told the story of how he was nearly drowned; another described how, in a place where there were neither doctors nor chemists, he had one night poisoned his own son through giving him zinc vitriol by mistake for soda. the child did not die, but the father nearly went out of his mind. a third, a man not old but in bad health, told how he had twice attempted to commit suicide: the first time by shooting himself and the second time by throwing himself before a train. the fourth, a foppishly dressed, fat little man, told us the following story: "i was not more than twenty-two or twenty-three when i fell head over ears in love with my present wife and made her an offer. now i could with pleasure thrash myself for my early marriage, but at the time, i don't know what would have become of me if natasha had refused me. my love was absolutely the real thing, just as it is described in novels--frantic, passionate, and so on. my happiness overwhelmed me and i did not know how to get away from it, and i bored my father and my friends and the servants, continually talking about the fervour of my passion. happy people are the most sickening bores. i was a fearful bore; i feel ashamed of it even now. . . . "among my friends there was in those days a young man who was beginning his career as a lawyer. now he is a lawyer known all over russia; in those days he was only just beginning to gain recognition and was not rich and famous enough to be entitled to cut an old friend when he met him. i used to go and see him once or twice a week. we used to loll on sofas and begin discussing philosophy. "one day i was lying on his sofa, arguing that there was no more ungrateful profession than that of a lawyer. i tried to prove that as soon as the examination of witnesses is over the court can easily dispense with both the counsels for the prosecution and for the defence, because they are neither of them necessary and are only in the way. if a grown-up juryman, morally and mentally sane, is convinced that the ceiling is white, or that ivanov is guilty, to struggle with that conviction and to vanquish it is beyond the power of any demosthenes. who can convince me that i have a red moustache when i know that it is black? as i listen to an orator i may perhaps grow sentimental and weep, but my fundamental conviction, based for the most part on unmistakable evidence and fact, is not changed in the least. my lawyer maintained that i was young and foolish and that i was talking childish nonsense. in his opinion, for one thing, an obvious fact becomes still more obvious through light being thrown upon it by conscientious, well-informed people; for another, talent is an elemental force, a hurricane capable of turning even stones to dust, let alone such trifles as the convictions of artisans and merchants of the second guild. it is as hard for human weakness to struggle against talent as to look at the sun without winking, or to stop the wind. one simple mortal by the power of the word turns thousands of convinced savages to christianity; odysseus was a man of the firmest convictions, but he succumbed to the syrens, and so on. all history consists of similar examples, and in life they are met with at every turn; and so it is bound to be, or the intelligent and talented man would have no superiority over the stupid and incompetent. "i stuck to my point, and went on maintaining that convictions are stronger than any talent, though, frankly speaking, i could not have defined exactly what i meant by conviction or what i meant by talent. most likely i simply talked for the sake of talking. "'take you, for example,' said the lawyer. 'you are convinced at this moment that your fiancée is an angel and that there is not a man in the whole town happier than you. but i tell you: ten or twenty minutes would be enough for me to make you sit down to this table and write to your fiancée, breaking off your engagement. "i laughed. "'don't laugh, i am speaking seriously,' said my friend. 'if i choose, in twenty minutes you will be happy at the thought that you need not get married. goodness knows what talent i have, but you are not one of the strong sort.' "'well, try it on!' said i. "'no, what for? i am only telling you this. you are a good boy and it would be cruel to subject you to such an experiment. and besides i am not in good form to-day.' "we sat down to supper. the wine and the thought of natasha, my beloved, flooded my whole being with youth and happiness. my happiness was so boundless that the lawyer sitting opposite to me with his green eyes seemed to me an unhappy man, so small, so grey. . . . "'do try!' i persisted. 'come, i entreat you! "the lawyer shook his head and frowned. evidently i was beginning to bore him. "'i know,' he said, 'after my experiment you will say, thank you, and will call me your saviour; but you see i must think of your fiancée too. she loves you; your jilting her would make her suffer. and what a charming creature she is! i envy you.' "the lawyer sighed, sipped his wine, and began talking of how charming my natasha was. he had an extraordinary gift of description. he could knock you off a regular string of words about a woman's eyelashes or her little finger. i listened to him with relish. "'i have seen a great many women in my day,' he said, 'but i give you my word of honour, i speak as a friend, your natasha andreyevna is a pearl, a rare girl. of course she has her defects--many of them, in fact, if you like--but still she is fascinating.' "and the lawyer began talking of my fiancée's defects. now i understand very well that he was talking of women in general, of their weak points in general, but at the time it seemed to me that he was talking only of natasha. he went into ecstasies over her turn-up nose, her shrieks, her shrill laugh, her airs and graces, precisely all the things i so disliked in her. all that was, to his thinking, infinitely sweet, graceful, and feminine. "without my noticing it, he quickly passed from his enthusiastic tone to one of fatherly admonition, and then to a light and derisive one. . . . there was no presiding judge and no one to check the diffusiveness of the lawyer. i had not time to open my mouth, besides, what could i say? what my friend said was not new, it was what everyone has known for ages, and the whole venom lay not in what he said, but in the damnable form he put it in. it really was beyond anything! "as i listened to him then i learned that the same word has thousands of shades of meaning according to the tone in which it is pronounced, and the form which is given to the sentence. of course i cannot reproduce the tone or the form; i can only say that as i listened to my friend and walked up and down the room, i was moved to resentment, indignation, and contempt together with him. i even believed him when with tears in his eyes he informed me that i was a great man, that i was worthy of a better fate, that i was destined to achieve something in the future which marriage would hinder! "'my friend!' he exclaimed, pressing my hand. 'i beseech you, i adjure you: stop before it is too late. stop! may heaven preserve you from this strange, cruel mistake! my friend, do not ruin your youth!' "believe me or not, as you choose, but the long and the short of it was that i sat down to the table and wrote to my fiancée, breaking off the engagement. as i wrote i felt relieved that it was not yet too late to rectify my mistake. sealing the letter, i hastened out into the street to post it. the lawyer himself came with me. "'excellent! capital!' he applauded me as my letter to natasha disappeared into the darkness of the box. 'i congratulate you with all my heart. i am glad for you.' "after walking a dozen paces with me the lawyer went on: "'of course, marriage has its good points. i, for instance, belong to the class of people to whom marriage and home life is everything.' "and he proceeded to describe his life, and lay before me all the hideousness of a solitary bachelor existence. "he spoke with enthusiasm of his future wife, of the sweets of ordinary family life, and was so eloquent, so sincere in his ecstasies that by the time we had reached his door, i was in despair. "'what are you doing to me, you horrible man?' i said, gasping. 'you have ruined me! why did you make me write that cursed letter? i love her, i love her!' "and i protested my love. i was horrified at my conduct which now seemed to me wild and senseless. it is impossible, gentlemen, to imagine a more violent emotion than i experienced at that moment. oh, what i went through, what i suffered! if some kind person had thrust a revolver into my hand at that moment, i should have put a bullet through my brains with pleasure. "'come, come . . .' said the lawyer, slapping me on the shoulder, and he laughed. 'give over crying. the letter won't reach your fiancée. it was not you who wrote the address but i, and i muddled it so they won't be able to make it out at the post-office. it will be a lesson to you not to argue about what you don't understand.' "now, gentlemen, i leave it to the next to speak." the fifth juryman settled himself more comfortably, and had just opened his mouth to begin his story when we heard the clock strike on spassky tower. "twelve . . ." one of the jurymen counted. "and into which class, gentlemen, would you put the emotions that are being experienced now by the man we are trying? he, that murderer, is spending the night in a convict cell here in the court, sitting or lying down and of course not sleeping, and throughout the whole sleepless night listening to that chime. what is he thinking of? what visions are haunting him?" and the jurymen all suddenly forgot about strong impressions; what their companion who had once written a letter to his natasha had suffered seemed unimportant, even not amusing; and no one said anything more; they began quietly and in silence lying down to sleep. drunk a manufacturer called frolov, a handsome dark man with a round beard, and a soft, velvety expression in his eyes, and almer, his lawyer, an elderly man with a big rough head, were drinking in one of the public rooms of a restaurant on the outskirts of the town. they had both come to the restaurant straight from a ball and so were wearing dress coats and white ties. except them and the waiters at the door there was not a soul in the room; by frolov's orders no one else was admitted. they began by drinking a big wine-glass of vodka and eating oysters. "good!" said almer. "it was i brought oysters into fashion for the first course, my boy. the vodka burns and stings your throat and you have a voluptuous sensation in your throat when you swallow an oyster. don't you?" a dignified waiter with a shaven upper lip and grey whiskers put a sauceboat on the table. "what's that you are serving?" asked frolov. "sauce provençale for the herring, sir. . . ." "what! is that the way to serve it?" shouted frolov, not looking into the sauceboat. "do you call that sauce? you don't know how to wait, you blockhead!" frolov's velvety eyes flashed. he twisted a corner of the table-cloth round his finger, made a slight movement, and the dishes, the candlesticks, and the bottles, all jingling and clattering, fell with a crash on the floor. the waiters, long accustomed to pot-house catastrophes, ran up to the table and began picking up the fragments with grave and unconcerned faces, like surgeons at an operation. "how well you know how to manage them!" said almer, and he laughed. "but . . . move a little away from the table or you will step in the caviare." "call the engineer here!" cried frolov. this was the name given to a decrepit, doleful old man who really had once been an engineer and very well off; he had squandered all his property and towards the end of his life had got into a restaurant where he looked after the waiters and singers and carried out various commissions relating to the fair sex. appearing at the summons, he put his head on one side respectfully. "listen, my good man," frolov said, addressing him. "what's the meaning of this disorder? how queerly you fellows wait! don't you know that i don't like it? devil take you, i shall give up coming to you!" "i beg you graciously to excuse it, alexey semyonitch!" said the engineer, laying his hand on his heart. "i will take steps immediately, and your slightest wishes shall be carried out in the best and speediest way." "well, that'll do, you can go. . . ." the engineer bowed, staggered back, still doubled up, and disappeared through the doorway with a final flash of the false diamonds on his shirt-front and fingers. the table was laid again. almer drank red wine and ate with relish some sort of bird served with truffles, and ordered a matelote of eelpouts and a sterlet with its tail in its mouth. frolov only drank vodka and ate nothing but bread. he rubbed his face with his open hands, scowled, and was evidently out of humour. both were silent. there was a stillness. two electric lights in opaque shades flickered and hissed as though they were angry. the gypsy girls passed the door, softly humming. "one drinks and is none the merrier," said frolov. "the more i pour into myself, the more sober i become. other people grow festive with vodka, but i suffer from anger, disgusting thoughts, sleeplessness. why is it, old man, that people don't invent some other pleasure besides drunkenness and debauchery? it's really horrible!" "you had better send for the gypsy girls." "confound them!" the head of an old gypsy woman appeared in the door from the passage. "alexey semyonitch, the gypsies are asking for tea and brandy," said the old woman. "may we order it?" "yes," answered frolov. "you know they get a percentage from the restaurant keeper for asking the visitors to treat them. nowadays you can't even believe a man when he asks for vodka. the people are all mean, vile, spoilt. take these waiters, for instance. they have countenances like professors, and grey heads; they get two hundred roubles a month, they live in houses of their own and send their girls to the high school, but you may swear at them and give yourself airs as much as you please. for a rouble the engineer will gulp down a whole pot of mustard and crow like a cock. on my honour, if one of them would take offence i would make him a present of a thousand roubles." "what's the matter with you?" said almer, looking at him with surprise. "whence this melancholy? you are red in the face, you look like a wild animal. . . . what's the matter with you?" "it's horrid. there's one thing i can't get out of my head. it seems as though it is nailed there and it won't come out." a round little old man, buried in fat and completely bald, wearing a short reefer jacket and lilac waistcoat and carrying a guitar, walked into the room. he made an idiotic face, drew himself up, and saluted like a soldier. "ah, the parasite!" said frolov, "let me introduce him, he has made his fortune by grunting like a pig. come here!" he poured vodka, wine, and brandy into a glass, sprinkled pepper and salt into it, mixed it all up and gave it to the parasite. the latter tossed it off and smacked his lips with gusto. "he's accustomed to drink a mess so that pure wine makes him sick," said frolov. "come, parasite, sit down and sing." the old man sat down, touched the strings with his fat fingers, and began singing: "neetka, neetka, margareetka. . . ." after drinking champagne frolov was drunk. he thumped with his fist on the table and said: "yes, there's something that sticks in my head! it won't give me a minute's peace!" "why, what is it?" "i can't tell you. it's a secret. it's something so private that i could only speak of it in my prayers. but if you like . . . as a sign of friendship, between ourselves . . . only mind, to no one, no, no, no, . . . i'll tell you, it will ease my heart, but for god's sake . . . listen and forget it. . . ." frolov bent down to almer and for a minute breathed in his ear. "i hate my wife!" he brought out. the lawyer looked at him with surprise. "yes, yes, my wife, marya mihalovna," frolov muttered, flushing red. "i hate her and that's all about it." "what for?" "i don't know myself! i've only been married two years. i married as you know for love, and now i hate her like a mortal enemy, like this parasite here, saving your presence. and there is no cause, no sort of cause! when she sits by me, eats, or says anything, my whole soul boils, i can scarcely restrain myself from being rude to her. it's something one can't describe. to leave her or tell her the truth is utterly impossible because it would be a scandal, and living with her is worse than hell for me. i can't stay at home! i spend my days at business and in the restaurants and spend my nights in dissipation. come, how is one to explain this hatred? she is not an ordinary woman, but handsome, clever, quiet." the old man stamped his foot and began singing: "i went a walk with a captain bold, and in his ear my secrets told." "i must own i always thought that marya mihalovna was not at all the right person for you," said almer after a brief silence, and he heaved a sigh. "do you mean she is too well educated? . . . i took the gold medal at the commercial school myself, i have been to paris three times. i am not cleverer than you, of course, but i am no more foolish than my wife. no, brother, education is not the sore point. let me tell you how all the trouble began. it began with my suddenly fancying that she had married me not from love, but for the sake of my money. this idea took possession of my brain. i have done all i could think of, but the cursed thing sticks! and to make it worse my wife was overtaken with a passion for luxury. getting into a sack of gold after poverty, she took to flinging it in all directions. she went quite off her head, and was so carried away that she used to get through twenty thousand every month. and i am a distrustful man. i don't believe in anyone, i suspect everybody. and the more friendly you are to me the greater my torment. i keep fancying i am being flattered for my money. i trust no one! i am a difficult man, my boy, very difficult!" frolov emptied his glass at one gulp and went on. "but that's all nonsense," he said. "one never ought to speak of it. it's stupid. i am tipsy and i have been chattering, and now you are looking at me with lawyer's eyes--glad you know some one else's secret. well, well! . . . let us drop this conversation. let us drink! i say," he said, addressing a waiter, "is mustafa here? fetch him in!" shortly afterwards there walked into the room a little tatar boy, aged about twelve, wearing a dress coat and white gloves. "come here!" frolov said to him. "explain to us the following fact: there was a time when you tatars conquered us and took tribute from us, but now you serve us as waiters and sell dressing-gowns. how do you explain such a change?" mustafa raised his eyebrows and said in a shrill voice, with a sing-song intonation: "the mutability of destiny!" almer looked at his grave face and went off into peals of laughter. "well, give him a rouble!" said frolov. "he is making his fortune out of the mutability of destiny. he is only kept here for the sake of those two words. drink, mustafa! you will make a gre-eat rascal! i mean it is awful how many of your sort are toadies hanging about rich men. the number of these peaceful bandits and robbers is beyond all reckoning! shouldn't we send for the gypsies now? eh? fetch the gypsies along!" the gypsies, who had been hanging about wearily in the corridors for a long time, burst with whoops into the room, and a wild orgy began. "drink!" frolov shouted to them. "drink! seed of pharaoh! sing! a-a-ah!" "in the winter time . . . o-o-ho! . . . the sledge was flying . . ." the gypsies sang, whistled, danced. in the frenzy which sometimes takes possession of spoilt and very wealthy men, "broad natures," frolov began to play the fool. he ordered supper and champagne for the gypsies, broke the shade of the electric light, shied bottles at the pictures and looking-glasses, and did it all apparently without the slightest enjoyment, scowling and shouting irritably, with contempt for the people, with an expression of hatred in his eyes and his manners. he made the engineer sing a solo, made the bass singers drink a mixture of wine, vodka, and oil. at six o'clock they handed him the bill. "nine hundred and twenty-five roubles, forty kopecks," said almer, and shrugged his shoulders. "what's it for? no, wait, we must go into it!" "stop!" muttered frolov, pulling out his pocket-book. "well! . . . let them rob me. that's what i'm rich for, to be robbed! . . . you can't get on without parasites! . . . you are my lawyer. you get six thousand a year out of me and what for? but excuse me, . . . i don't know what i am saying." as he was returning home with almer, frolov murmured: "going home is awful to me! yes! . . . there isn't a human being i can open my soul to. . . . they are all robbers . . . traitors . . . . oh, why did i tell you my secret? yes . . . why? tell me why?" at the entrance to his house, he craned forward towards almer and, staggering, kissed him on the lips, having the old moscow habit of kissing indiscriminately on every occasion. "good-bye . . . i am a difficult, hateful man," he said. "a horrid, drunken, shameless life. you are a well-educated, clever man, but you only laugh and drink with me . . . there's no help from any of you. . . . but if you were a friend to me, if you were an honest man, in reality you ought to have said to me: 'ugh, you vile, hateful man! you reptile!'" "come, come," almer muttered, "go to bed." "there is no help from you; the only hope is that, when i am in the country in the summer, i may go out into the fields and a storm come on and the thunder may strike me dead on the spot. . . . good-bye." frolov kissed almer once more and muttering and dropping asleep as he walked, began mounting the stairs, supported by two footmen. the marshal's widow on the first of february every year, st. trifon's day, there is an extraordinary commotion on the estate of madame zavzyatov, the widow of trifon lvovitch, the late marshal of the district. on that day, the nameday of the deceased marshal, the widow lyubov petrovna has a requiem service celebrated in his memory, and after the requiem a thanksgiving to the lord. the whole district assembles for the service. there you will see hrumov the present marshal, marfutkin, the president of the zemstvo, potrashkov, the permanent member of the rural board, the two justices of the peace of the district, the police captain, krinolinov, two police-superintendents, the district doctor, dvornyagin, smelling of iodoform, all the landowners, great and small, and so on. there are about fifty people assembled in all. precisely at twelve o'clock, the visitors, with long faces, make their way from all the rooms to the big hall. there are carpets on the floor and their steps are noiseless, but the solemnity of the occasion makes them instinctively walk on tip-toe, holding out their hands to balance themselves. in the hall everything is already prepared. father yevmeny, a little old man in a high faded cap, puts on his black vestments. konkordiev, the deacon, already in his vestments, and as red as a crab, is noiselessly turning over the leaves of his missal and putting slips of paper in it. at the door leading to the vestibule, luka, the sacristan, puffing out his cheeks and making round eyes, blows up the censer. the hall is gradually filled with bluish transparent smoke and the smell of incense. gelikonsky, the elementary schoolmaster, a young man with big pimples on his frightened face, wearing a new greatcoat like a sack, carries round wax candles on a silver-plated tray. the hostess, lyubov petrovna, stands in the front by a little table with a dish of funeral rice on it, and holds her handkerchief in readiness to her face. there is a profound stillness, broken from time to time by sighs. everybody has a long, solemn face. . . . the requiem service begins. the blue smoke curls up from the censer and plays in the slanting sunbeams, the lighted candles faintly splutter. the singing, at first harsh and deafening, soon becomes quiet and musical as the choir gradually adapt themselves to the acoustic conditions of the rooms. . . . the tunes are all mournful and sad. . . . the guests are gradually brought to a melancholy mood and grow pensive. thoughts of the brevity of human life, of mutability, of worldly vanity stray through their brains. . . . they recall the deceased zavzyatov, a thick-set, red-cheeked man who used to drink off a bottle of champagne at one gulp and smash looking-glasses with his forehead. and when they sing "with thy saints, o lord," and the sobs of their hostess are audible, the guests shift uneasily from one foot to the other. the more emotional begin to feel a tickling in their throat and about their eyelids. marfutkin, the president of the zemstvo, to stifle the unpleasant feeling, bends down to the police captain's ear and whispers: "i was at ivan fyodoritch's yesterday. . . . pyotr petrovitch and i took all the tricks, playing no trumps. . . . yes, indeed. . . . olga andreyevna was so exasperated that her false tooth fell out of her mouth." but at last the "eternal memory" is sung. gelikonsky respectfully takes away the candles, and the memorial service is over. thereupon there follows a momentary commotion; there is a changing of vestments and a thanksgiving service. after the thanksgiving, while father yevmeny is disrobing, the visitors rub their hands and cough, while their hostess tells some anecdote of the good-heartedness of the deceased trifon lvovitch. "pray come to lunch, friends," she says, concluding her story with a sigh. the visitors, trying not to push or tread on each other's feet, hasten into the dining-room. . . . there the luncheon is awaiting them. the repast is so magnificent that the deacon konkordiev thinks it his duty every year to fling up his hands as he looks at it and, shaking his head in amazement, say: "supernatural! it's not so much like human fare, father yevmeny, as offerings to the gods." the lunch is certainly exceptional. everything that the flora and fauna of the country can furnish is on the table, but the only thing supernatural about it, perhaps, is that on the table there is everything except . . . alcoholic beverages. lyubov petrovna has taken a vow never to have in her house cards or spirituous liquors --the two sources of her husband's ruin. and the only bottles contain oil and vinegar, as though in mockery and chastisement of the guests who are to a man desperately fond of the bottle, and given to tippling. "please help yourselves, gentlemen!" the marshal's widow presses them. "only you must excuse me, i have no vodka. . . . i have none in the house." the guests approach the table and hesitatingly attack the pie. but the progress with eating is slow. in the plying of forks, in the cutting up and munching, there is a certain sloth and apathy. . . . evidently something is wanting. "i feel as though i had lost something," one of the justices of the peace whispers to the other. "i feel as i did when my wife ran away with the engineer. . . . i can't eat." marfutkin, before beginning to eat, fumbles for a long time in his pocket and looks for his handkerchief. "oh, my handkerchief must be in my greatcoat," he recalls in a loud voice, "and here i am looking for it," and he goes into the vestibule where the fur coats are hanging up. he returns from the vestibule with glistening eyes, and at once attacks the pie with relish. "i say, it's horrid munching away with a dry mouth, isn't it?" he whispers to father yevmeny. "go into the vestibule, father. there's a bottle there in my fur coat. . . . only mind you are careful; don't make a clatter with the bottle." father yevmeny recollects that he has some direction to give to luka, and trips off to the vestibule. "father, a couple of words in confidence," says dvornyagin, overtaking him. "you should see the fur coat i've bought myself, gentlemen," hrumov boasts. "it's worth a thousand, and i gave . . . you won't believe it . . . two hundred and fifty! not a farthing more." at any other time the guests would have greeted this information with indifference, but now they display surprise and incredulity. in the end they all troop out into the vestibule to look at the fur coat, and go on looking at it till the doctor's man mikeshka carries five empty bottles out on the sly. when the steamed sturgeon is served, marfutkin remembers that he has left his cigar case in his sledge and goes to the stable. that he may not be lonely on this expedition, he takes with him the deacon, who appropriately feels it necessary to have a look at his horse. . . . on the evening of the same day, lyubov petrovna is sitting in her study, writing a letter to an old friend in petersburg: "to-day, as in past years," she writes among other things, "i had a memorial service for my dear husband. all my neighbours came to the service. they are a simple, rough set, but what hearts! i gave them a splendid lunch, but of course, as in previous years, without a drop of alcoholic liquor. ever since he died from excessive drinking i have vowed to establish temperance in this district and thereby to expiate his sins. i have begun the campaign for temperance at my own house. father yevmeny is delighted with my efforts, and helps me both in word and deed. oh, _ma chère_, if you knew how fond my bears are of me! the president of the zemstvo, marfutkin, kissed my hand after lunch, held it a long while to his lips, and, wagging his head in an absurd way, burst into tears: so much feeling but no words! father yevmeny, that delightful little old man, sat down by me, and looking tearfully at me kept babbling something like a child. i did not understand what he said, but i know how to understand true feeling. the police captain, the handsome man of whom i wrote to you, went down on his knees to me, tried to read me some verses of his own composition (he is a poet), but . . . his feelings were too much for him, he lurched and fell over . . . that huge giant went into hysterics, you can imagine my delight! the day did not pass without a hitch, however. poor alalykin, the president of the judges' assembly, a stout and apoplectic man, was overcome by illness and lay on the sofa in a state of unconsciousness for two hours. we had to pour water on him. . . . i am thankful to doctor dvornyagin: he had brought a bottle of brandy from his dispensary and he moistened the patient's temples, which quickly revived him, and he was able to be moved. . . ." a bad business "who goes there?" no answer. the watchman sees nothing, but through the roar of the wind and the trees distinctly hears someone walking along the avenue ahead of him. a march night, cloudy and foggy, envelopes the earth, and it seems to the watchman that the earth, the sky, and he himself with his thoughts are all merged together into something vast and impenetrably black. he can only grope his way. "who goes there?" the watchman repeats, and he begins to fancy that he hears whispering and smothered laughter. "who's there?" "it's i, friend . . ." answers an old man's voice. "but who are you?" "i . . . a traveller." "what sort of traveller?" the watchman cries angrily, trying to disguise his terror by shouting. "what the devil do you want here? you go prowling about the graveyard at night, you ruffian!" "you don't say it's a graveyard here?" "why, what else? of course it's the graveyard! don't you see it is?" "o-o-oh . . . queen of heaven!" there is a sound of an old man sighing. "i see nothing, my good soul, nothing. oh the darkness, the darkness! you can't see your hand before your face, it is dark, friend. o-o-oh. . ." "but who are you?" "i am a pilgrim, friend, a wandering man." "the devils, the nightbirds. . . . nice sort of pilgrims! they are drunkards . . ." mutters the watchman, reassured by the tone and sighs of the stranger. "one's tempted to sin by you. they drink the day away and prowl about at night. but i fancy i heard you were not alone; it sounded like two or three of you." "i am alone, friend, alone. quite alone. o-o-oh our sins. . . ." the watchman stumbles up against the man and stops. "how did you get here?" he asks. "i have lost my way, good man. i was walking to the mitrievsky mill and i lost my way." "whew! is this the road to mitrievsky mill? you sheepshead! for the mitrievsky mill you must keep much more to the left, straight out of the town along the high road. you have been drinking and have gone a couple of miles out of your way. you must have had a drop in the town." "i did, friend . . . truly i did; i won't hide my sins. but how am i to go now?" "go straight on and on along this avenue till you can go no farther, and then turn at once to the left and go till you have crossed the whole graveyard right to the gate. there will be a gate there. . . . open it and go with god's blessing. mind you don't fall into the ditch. and when you are out of the graveyard you go all the way by the fields till you come out on the main road." "god give you health, friend. may the queen of heaven save you and have mercy on you. you might take me along, good man! be merciful! lead me to the gate." "as though i had the time to waste! go by yourself!" "be merciful! i'll pray for you. i can't see anything; one can't see one's hand before one's face, friend. . . . it's so dark, so dark! show me the way, sir!" "as though i had the time to take you about; if i were to play the nurse to everyone i should never have done." "for christ's sake, take me! i can't see, and i am afraid to go alone through the graveyard. it's terrifying, friend, it's terrifying; i am afraid, good man." "there's no getting rid of you," sighs the watchman. "all right then, come along." the watchman and the traveller go on together. they walk shoulder to shoulder in silence. a damp, cutting wind blows straight into their faces and the unseen trees murmuring and rustling scatter big drops upon them. . . . the path is almost entirely covered with puddles. "there is one thing passes my understanding," says the watchman after a prolonged silence--"how you got here. the gate's locked. did you climb over the wall? if you did climb over the wall, that's the last thing you would expect of an old man." "i don't know, friend, i don't know. i can't say myself how i got here. it's a visitation. a chastisement of the lord. truly a visitation, the evil one confounded me. so you are a watchman here, friend?" "yes." "the only one for the whole graveyard?" there is such a violent gust of wind that both stop for a minute. waiting till the violence of the wind abates, the watchman answers: "there are three of us, but one is lying ill in a fever and the other's asleep. he and i take turns about." "ah, to be sure, friend. what a wind! the dead must hear it! it howls like a wild beast! o-o-oh." "and where do you come from?" "from a distance, friend. i am from vologda, a long way off. i go from one holy place to another and pray for people. save me and have mercy upon me, o lord." the watchman stops for a minute to light his pipe. he stoops down behind the traveller's back and lights several matches. the gleam of the first match lights up for one instant a bit of the avenue on the right, a white tombstone with an angel, and a dark cross; the light of the second match, flaring up brightly and extinguished by the wind, flashes like lightning on the left side, and from the darkness nothing stands out but the angle of some sort of trellis; the third match throws light to right and to left, revealing the white tombstone, the dark cross, and the trellis round a child's grave. "the departed sleep; the dear ones sleep!" the stranger mutters, sighing loudly. "they all sleep alike, rich and poor, wise and foolish, good and wicked. they are of the same value now. and they will sleep till the last trump. the kingdom of heaven and peace eternal be theirs." "here we are walking along now, but the time will come when we shall be lying here ourselves," says the watchman. "to be sure, to be sure, we shall all. there is no man who will not die. o-o-oh. our doings are wicked, our thoughts are deceitful! sins, sins! my soul accursed, ever covetous, my belly greedy and lustful! i have angered the lord and there is no salvation for me in this world and the next. i am deep in sins like a worm in the earth." "yes, and you have to die." "you are right there." "death is easier for a pilgrim than for fellows like us," says the watchman. "there are pilgrims of different sorts. there are the real ones who are god-fearing men and watch over their own souls, and there are such as stray about the graveyard at night and are a delight to the devils. . . ye-es! there's one who is a pilgrim could give you a crack on the pate with an axe if he liked and knock the breath out of you." "what are you talking like that for?" "oh, nothing . . . why, i fancy here's the gate. yes, it is. open it, good man." the watchman, feeling his way, opens the gate, leads the pilgrim out by the sleeve, and says: "here's the end of the graveyard. now you must keep on through the open fields till you get to the main road. only close here there will be the boundary ditch--don't fall in. . . . and when you come out on to the road, turn to the right, and keep on till you reach the mill. . . ." "o-o-oh!" sighs the pilgrim after a pause, "and now i am thinking that i have no cause to go to mitrievsky mill. . . . why the devil should i go there? i had better stay a bit with you here, sir. . . ." "what do you want to stay with me for?" "oh . . . it's merrier with you! . . . ." "so you've found a merry companion, have you? you, pilgrim, are fond of a joke i see. . . ." "to be sure i am," says the stranger, with a hoarse chuckle. "ah, my dear good man, i bet you will remember the pilgrim many a long year!" "why should i remember you?" "why i've got round you so smartly. . . . am i a pilgrim? i am not a pilgrim at all." "what are you then?" "a dead man. . . . i've only just got out of my coffin. . . . do you remember gubaryev, the locksmith, who hanged himself in carnival week? well, i am gubaryev himself! . . ." "tell us something else!" the watchman does not believe him, but he feels all over such a cold, oppressive terror that he starts off and begins hurriedly feeling for the gate. "stop, where are you off to?" says the stranger, clutching him by the arm. "aie, aie, aie . . . what a fellow you are! how can you leave me all alone?" "let go!" cries the watchman, trying to pull his arm away. "sto-op! i bid you stop and you stop. don't struggle, you dirty dog! if you want to stay among the living, stop and hold your tongue till i tell you. it's only that i don't care to spill blood or you would have been a dead man long ago, you scurvy rascal. . . . stop!" the watchman's knees give way under him. in his terror he shuts his eyes, and trembling all over huddles close to the wall. he would like to call out, but he knows his cries would not reach any living thing. the stranger stands beside him and holds him by the arm. . . . three minutes pass in silence. "one's in a fever, another's asleep, and the third is seeing pilgrims on their way," mutters the stranger. "capital watchmen, they are worth their salary! ye-es, brother, thieves have always been cleverer than watchmen! stand still, don't stir. . . ." five minutes, ten minutes pass in silence. all at once the wind brings the sound of a whistle. "well, now you can go," says the stranger, releasing the watchman's arm. "go and thank god you are alive!" the stranger gives a whistle too, runs away from the gate, and the watchman hears him leap over the ditch. with a foreboding of something very dreadful in his heart, the watchman, still trembling with terror, opens the gate irresolutely and runs back with his eyes shut. at the turning into the main avenue he hears hurried footsteps, and someone asks him, in a hissing voice: "is that you, timofey? where is mitka?" and after running the whole length of the main avenue he notices a little dim light in the darkness. the nearer he gets to the light the more frightened he is and the stronger his foreboding of evil. "it looks as though the light were in the church," he thinks. "and how can it have come there? save me and have mercy on me, queen of heaven! and that it is." the watchman stands for a minute before the broken window and looks with horror towards the altar. . . . a little wax candle which the thieves had forgotten to put out flickers in the wind that bursts in at the window and throws dim red patches of light on the vestments flung about and a cupboard overturned on the floor, on numerous footprints near the high altar and the altar of offerings. a little time passes and the howling wind sends floating over the churchyard the hurried uneven clangs of the alarm-bell. . . . in the court at the district town of n. in the cinnamon-coloured government house in which the zemstvo, the sessional meetings of the justices of the peace, the rural board, the liquor board, the military board, and many others sit by turns, the circuit court was in session on one of the dull days of autumn. of the above-mentioned cinnamon-coloured house a local official had wittily observed: "here is justitia, here is policia, here is militia--a regular boarding school of high-born young ladies." but, as the saying is, "too many cooks spoil the broth," and probably that is why the house strikes, oppresses, and overwhelms a fresh unofficial visitor with its dismal barrack-like appearance, its decrepit condition, and the complete absence of any kind of comfort, external or internal. even on the brightest spring days it seems wrapped in a dense shade, and on clear moonlight nights, when the trees and the little dwelling-houses merged in one blur of shadow seem plunged in quiet slumber, it alone absurdly and inappropriately towers, an oppressive mass of stone, above the modest landscape, spoils the general harmony, and keeps sleepless vigil as though it could not escape from burdensome memories of past unforgiven sins. inside it is like a barn and extremely unattractive. it is strange to see how readily these elegant lawyers, members of committees, and marshals of nobility, who in their own homes will make a scene over the slightest fume from the stove, or stain on the floor, resign themselves here to whirring ventilation wheels, the disgusting smell of fumigating candles, and the filthy, forever perspiring walls. the sitting of the circuit court began between nine and ten. the programme of the day was promptly entered upon, with noticeable haste. the cases came on one after another and ended quickly, like a church service without a choir, so that no mind could form a complete picture of all this parti-coloured mass of faces, movements, words, misfortunes, true sayings and lies, all racing by like a river in flood. . . . by two o'clock a great deal had been done: two prisoners had been sentenced to service in convict battalions, one of the privileged class had been sentenced to deprivation of rights and imprisonment, one had been acquitted, one case had been adjourned. at precisely two o'clock the presiding judge announced that the case "of the peasant nikolay harlamov, charged with the murder of his wife," would next be heard. the composition of the court remained the same as it had been for the preceding case, except that the place of the defending counsel was filled by a new personage, a beardless young graduate in a coat with bright buttons. the president gave the order--"bring in the prisoner!" but the prisoner, who had been got ready beforehand, was already walking to his bench. he was a tall, thick-set peasant of about fifty-five, completely bald, with an apathetic, hairy face and a big red beard. he was followed by a frail-looking little soldier with a gun. just as he was reaching the bench the escort had a trifling mishap. he stumbled and dropped the gun out of his hands, but caught it at once before it touched the ground, knocking his knee violently against the butt end as he did so. a faint laugh was audible in the audience. either from the pain or perhaps from shame at his awkwardness the soldier flushed a dark red. after the customary questions to the prisoner, the shuffling of the jury, the calling over and swearing in of the witnesses, the reading of the charge began. the narrow-chested, pale-faced secretary, far too thin for his uniform, and with sticking plaster on his check, read it in a low, thick bass, rapidly like a sacristan, without raising or dropping his voice, as though afraid of exerting his lungs; he was seconded by the ventilation wheel whirring indefatigably behind the judge's table, and the result was a sound that gave a drowsy, narcotic character to the stillness of the hall. the president, a short-sighted man, not old but with an extremely exhausted face, sat in his armchair without stirring and held his open hand near his brow as though screening his eyes from the sun. to the droning of the ventilation wheel and the secretary he meditated. when the secretary paused for an instant to take breath on beginning a new page, he suddenly started and looked round at the court with lustreless eyes, then bent down to the ear of the judge next to him and asked with a sigh: "are you putting up at demyanov's, matvey petrovitch?" "yes, at demyanov's," answered the other, starting too. "next time i shall probably put up there too. it's really impossible to put up at tipyakov's! there's noise and uproar all night! knocking, coughing, children crying. . . . it's impossible!" the assistant prosecutor, a fat, well-nourished, dark man with gold spectacles, with a handsome, well-groomed beard, sat motionless as a statue, with his cheek propped on his fist, reading byron's "cain." his eyes were full of eager attention and his eyebrows rose higher and higher with wonder. . . . from time to time he dropped back in his chair, gazed without interest straight before him for a minute, and then buried himself in his reading again. the council for the defence moved the blunt end of his pencil about the table and mused with his head on one side. . . . his youthful face expressed nothing but the frigid, immovable boredom which is commonly seen on the face of schoolboys and men on duty who are forced from day to day to sit in the same place, to see the same faces, the same walls. he felt no excitement about the speech he was to make, and indeed what did that speech amount to? on instructions from his superiors in accordance with long-established routine he would fire it off before the jurymen, without passion or ardour, feeling that it was colourless and boring, and then--gallop through the mud and the rain to the station, thence to the town, shortly to receive instructions to go off again to some district to deliver another speech. . . . it was a bore! at first the prisoner turned pale and coughed nervously into his sleeve, but soon the stillness, the general monotony and boredom infected him too. he looked with dull-witted respectfulness at the judges' uniforms, at the weary faces of the jurymen, and blinked calmly. the surroundings and procedure of the court, the expectation of which had so weighed on his soul while he was awaiting them in prison, now had the most soothing effect on him. what he met here was not at all what he could have expected. the charge of murder hung over him, and yet here he met with neither threatening faces nor indignant looks nor loud phrases about retribution nor sympathy for his extraordinary fate; not one of those who were judging him looked at him with interest or for long. . . . the dingy windows and walls, the voice of the secretary, the attitude of the prosecutor were all saturated with official indifference and produced an atmosphere of frigidity, as though the murderer were simply an official property, or as though he were not being judged by living men, but by some unseen machine, set going, goodness knows how or by whom. . . . the peasant, reassured, did not understand that the men here were as accustomed to the dramas and tragedies of life and were as blunted by the sight of them as hospital attendants are at the sight of death, and that the whole horror and hopelessness of his position lay just in this mechanical indifference. it seemed that if he were not to sit quietly but to get up and begin beseeching, appealing with tears for their mercy, bitterly repenting, that if he were to die of despair--it would all be shattered against blunted nerves and the callousness of custom, like waves against a rock. when the secretary finished, the president for some reason passed his hands over the table before him, looked for some time with his eyes screwed up towards the prisoner, and then asked, speaking languidly: "prisoner at the bar, do you plead guilty to having murdered your wife on the evening of the ninth of june?" "no, sir," answered the prisoner, getting up and holding his gown over his chest. after this the court proceeded hurriedly to the examination of witnesses. two peasant women and five men and the village policeman who had made the enquiry were questioned. all of them, mud-bespattered, exhausted with their long walk and waiting in the witnesses' room, gloomy and dispirited, gave the same evidence. they testified that harlamov lived "well" with his old woman, like anyone else; that he never beat her except when he had had a drop; that on the ninth of june when the sun was setting the old woman had been found in the porch with her skull broken; that beside her in a pool of blood lay an axe. when they looked for nikolay to tell him of the calamity he was not in his hut or in the streets. they ran all over the village, looking for him. they went to all the pothouses and huts, but could not find him. he had disappeared, and two days later came of his own accord to the police office, pale, with his clothes torn, trembling all over. he was bound and put in the lock-up. "prisoner," said the president, addressing harlamov, "cannot you explain to the court where you were during the three days following the murder?" "i was wandering about the fields. . . . neither eating nor drinking . . . ." "why did you hide yourself, if it was not you that committed the murder?" "i was frightened. . . . i was afraid i might be judged guilty. . . ." "aha! . . . good, sit down!" the last to be examined was the district doctor who had made a post-mortem on the old woman. he told the court all that he remembered of his report at the post-mortem and all that he had succeeded in thinking of on his way to the court that morning. the president screwed up his eyes at his new glossy black suit, at his foppish cravat, at his moving lips; he listened and in his mind the languid thought seemed to spring up of itself: "everyone wears a short jacket nowadays, why has he had his made long? why long and not short?" the circumspect creak of boots was audible behind the president's back. it was the assistant prosecutor going up to the table to take some papers. "mihail vladimirovitch," said the assistant prosecutor, bending down to the president's ear, "amazingly slovenly the way that koreisky conducted the investigation. the prisoner's brother was not examined, the village elder was not examined, there's no making anything out of his description of the hut. . . ." "it can't be helped, it can't be helped," said the president, sinking back in his chair. "he's a wreck . . . dropping to bits!" "by the way," whispered the assistant prosecutor, "look at the audience, in the front row, the third from the right . . . a face like an actor's . . . that's the local croesus. he has a fortune of something like fifty thousand." "really? you wouldn't guess it from his appearance. . . . well, dear boy, shouldn't we have a break?" "we will finish the case for the prosecution, and then. . . ." "as you think best. . . . well?" the president raised his eyes to the doctor. "so you consider that death was instantaneous?" "yes, in consequence of the extent of the injury to the brain substance. . . ." when the doctor had finished, the president gazed into the space between the prosecutor and the counsel for the defence and suggested: "have you any questions to ask?" the assistant prosecutor shook his head negatively, without lifting his eyes from "cain"; the counsel for the defence unexpectedly stirred and, clearing his throat, asked: "tell me, doctor, can you from the dimensions of the wound form any theory as to . . . as to the mental condition of the criminal? that is, i mean, does the extent of the injury justify the supposition that the accused was suffering from temporary aberration?" the president raised his drowsy indifferent eyes to the counsel for the defence. the assistant prosecutor tore himself from "cain," and looked at the president. they merely looked, but there was no smile, no surprise, no perplexity--their faces expressed nothing. "perhaps," the doctor hesitated, "if one considers the force with which . . . er--er--er . . . the criminal strikes the blow. . . . however, excuse me, i don't quite understand your question. . . ." the counsel for the defence did not get an answer to his question, and indeed he did not feel the necessity of one. it was clear even to himself that that question had strayed into his mind and found utterance simply through the effect of the stillness, the boredom, the whirring ventilator wheels. when they had got rid of the doctor the court rose to examine the "material evidences." the first thing examined was the full-skirted coat, upon the sleeve of which there was a dark brownish stain of blood. harlamov on being questioned as to the origin of the stain stated: "three days before my old woman's death penkov bled his horse. i was there; i was helping to be sure, and . . . and got smeared with it. . . ." "but penkov has just given evidence that he does not remember that you were present at the bleeding. . . ." "i can't tell about that." "sit down." they proceeded to examine the axe with which the old woman had been murdered. "that's not my axe," the prisoner declared. "whose is it, then?" "i can't tell . . . i hadn't an axe. . . ." "a peasant can't get on for a day without an axe. and your neighbour ivan timofeyitch, with whom you mended a sledge, has given evidence that it is your axe. . . ." "i can't say about that, but i swear before god (harlamov held out his hand before him and spread out the fingers), before the living god. and i don't remember how long it is since i did have an axe of my own. i did have one like that only a bit smaller, but my son prohor lost it. two years before he went into the army, he drove off to fetch wood, got drinking with the fellows, and lost it. . . ." "good, sit down." this systematic distrust and disinclination to hear him probably irritated and offended harlamov. he blinked and red patches came out on his cheekbones. "i swear in the sight of god," he went on, craning his neck forward. "if you don't believe me, be pleased to ask my son prohor. proshka, what did you do with the axe?" he suddenly asked in a rough voice, turning abruptly to the soldier escorting him. "where is it?" it was a painful moment! everyone seemed to wince and as it were shrink together. the same fearful, incredible thought flashed like lightning through every head in the court, the thought of possibly fatal coincidence, and not one person in the court dared to look at the soldier's face. everyone refused to trust his thought and believed that he had heard wrong. "prisoner, conversation with the guards is forbidden . . ." the president made haste to say. no one saw the escort's face, and horror passed over the hall unseen as in a mask. the usher of the court got up quietly from his place and tiptoeing with his hand held out to balance himself went out of the court. half a minute later there came the muffled sounds and footsteps that accompany the change of guard. all raised their heads and, trying to look as though nothing had happened, went on with their work. . . . boots a piano-tuner called murkin, a close-shaven man with a yellow face, with a nose stained with snuff, and cotton-wool in his ears, came out of his hotel-room into the passage, and in a cracked voice cried: "semyon! waiter!" and looking at his frightened face one might have supposed that the ceiling had fallen in on him or that he had just seen a ghost in his room. "upon my word, semyon!" he cried, seeing the attendant running towards him. "what is the meaning of it? i am a rheumatic, delicate man and you make me go barefoot! why is it you don't give me my boots all this time? where are they?" semyon went into murkin's room, looked at the place where he was in the habit of putting the boots he had cleaned, and scratched his head: the boots were not there. "where can they be, the damned things?" semyon brought out. "i fancy i cleaned them in the evening and put them here. . . . h'm! . . . yesterday, i must own, i had a drop. . . . i must have put them in another room, i suppose. that must be it, afanasy yegoritch, they are in another room! there are lots of boots, and how the devil is one to know them apart when one is drunk and does not know what one is doing? . . . i must have taken them in to the lady that's next door . . . the actress. . . ." "and now, if you please, i am to go in to a lady and disturb her all through you! here, if you please, through this foolishness i am to wake up a respectable woman." sighing and coughing, murkin went to the door of the next room and cautiously tapped. "who's there?" he heard a woman's voice a minute later. "it's i!" murkin began in a plaintive voice, standing in the attitude of a cavalier addressing a lady of the highest society. "pardon my disturbing you, madam, but i am a man in delicate health, rheumatic . . . . the doctors, madam, have ordered me to keep my feet warm, especially as i have to go at once to tune the piano at madame la générale shevelitsyn's. i can't go to her barefoot." "but what do you want? what piano?" "not a piano, madam; it is in reference to boots! semyon, stupid fellow, cleaned my boots and put them by mistake in your room. be so extremely kind, madam, as to give me my boots!" there was a sound of rustling, of jumping off the bed and the flapping of slippers, after which the door opened slightly and a plump feminine hand flung at murkin's feet a pair of boots. the piano-tuner thanked her and went into his own room. "odd . . ." he muttered, putting on the boots, "it seems as though this is not the right boot. why, here are two left boots! both are for the left foot! i say, semyon, these are not my boots! my boots have red tags and no patches on them, and these are in holes and have no tags." semyon picked up the boots, turned them over several times before his eyes, and frowned. "those are pavel alexandritch's boots," he grumbled, squinting at them. he squinted with the left eye. "what pavel alexandritch?" "the actor; he comes here every tuesday. . . . he must have put on yours instead of his own. . . . so i must have put both pairs in her room, his and yours. here's a go!" "then go and change them!" "that's all right!" sniggered semyon, "go and change them. . . . where am i to find him now? he went off an hour ago. . . . go and look for the wind in the fields!" "where does he live then?" "who can tell? he comes here every tuesday, and where he lives i don't know. he comes and stays the night, and then you may wait till next tuesday. . . ." "there, do you see, you brute, what you have done? why, what am i to do now? it is time i was at madame la générale shevelitsyn's, you anathema! my feet are frozen!" "you can change the boots before long. put on these boots, go about in them till the evening, and in the evening go to the theatre. . . . ask there for blistanov, the actor. . . . if you don't care to go to the theatre, you will have to wait till next tuesday; he only comes here on tuesdays. . . ." "but why are there two boots for the left foot?" asked the piano-tuner, picking up the boots with an air of disgust. "what god has sent him, that he wears. through poverty . . . where is an actor to get boots? i said to him 'what boots, pavel alexandritch! they are a positive disgrace!' and he said: 'hold your peace,' says he, 'and turn pale! in those very boots,' says he, 'i have played counts and princes.' a queer lot! artists, that's the only word for them! if i were the governor or anyone in command, i would get all these actors together and clap them all in prison." continually sighing and groaning and knitting his brows, murkin drew the two left boots on to his feet, and set off, limping, to madame la générale shevelitsyn's. he went about the town all day long tuning pianos, and all day long it seemed to him that everyone was looking at his feet and seeing his patched boots with heels worn down at the sides! apart from his moral agonies he had to suffer physically also; the boots gave him a corn. in the evening he was at the theatre. there was a performance of _bluebeard_. it was only just before the last act, and then only thanks to the good offices of a man he knew who played a flute in the orchestra, that he gained admittance behind the scenes. going to the men's dressing-room, he found there all the male performers. some were changing their clothes, others were painting their faces, others were smoking. bluebeard was standing with king bobesh, showing him a revolver. "you had better buy it," said bluebeard. "i bought it at kursk, a bargain, for eight roubles, but, there! i will let you have it for six. . . . a wonderfully good one!" "steady. . . . it's loaded, you know!" "can i see mr. blistanov?" the piano-tuner asked as he went in. "i am he!" said bluebeard, turning to him. "what do you want?" "excuse my troubling you, sir," began the piano-tuner in an imploring voice, "but, believe me, i am a man in delicate health, rheumatic. the doctors have ordered me to keep my feet warm . . ." "but, speaking plainly, what do you want?" "you see," said the piano-tuner, addressing bluebeard. "er . . . you stayed last night at buhteyev's furnished apartments . . . no. . . ." "what's this nonsense?" said king bobesh with a grin. "my wife is at no. ." "your wife, sir? delighted. . . ." murkin smiled. "it was she, your good lady, who gave me this gentleman's boots. . . . after this gentleman--" the piano-tuner indicated blistanov--"had gone away i missed my boots. . . . i called the waiter, you know, and he said: 'i left your boots in the next room!' by mistake, being in a state of intoxication, he left my boots as well as yours at ," said murkin, turning to blistanov, "and when you left this gentleman's lady you put on mine." "what are you talking about?" said blistanov, and he scowled. "have you come here to libel me?" "not at all, sir--god forbid! you misunderstand me. what am i talking about? about boots! you did stay the night at no. , didn't you?" "when?" "last night!" "why, did you see me there?" "no, sir, i didn't see you," said murkin in great confusion, sitting down and taking off the boots. "i did not see you, but this gentleman's lady threw out your boots here to me . . . instead of mine." "what right have you, sir, to make such assertions? i say nothing about myself, but you are slandering a woman, and in the presence of her husband, too!" a fearful hubbub arose behind the scenes. king bobesh, the injured husband, suddenly turned crimson and brought his fist down upon the table with such violence that two actresses in the next dressing-room felt faint. "and you believe it?" cried bluebeard. "you believe this worthless rascal? o-oh! would you like me to kill him like a dog? would you like it? i will turn him into a beefsteak! i'll blow his brains out!" and all the persons who were promenading that evening in the town park by the summer theatre describe to this day how just before the fourth act they saw a man with bare feet, a yellow face, and terror-stricken eyes dart out of the theatre and dash along the principal avenue. he was pursued by a man in the costume of bluebeard, armed with a revolver. what happened later no one saw. all that is known is that murkin was confined to his bed for a fortnight after his acquaintance with blistanov, and that to the words "i am a man in delicate health, rheumatic" he took to adding, "i am a wounded man. . . ." joy it was twelve o'clock at night. mitya kuldarov, with excited face and ruffled hair, flew into his parents' flat, and hurriedly ran through all the rooms. his parents had already gone to bed. his sister was in bed, finishing the last page of a novel. his schoolboy brothers were asleep. "where have you come from?" cried his parents in amazement. "what is the matter with you? "oh, don't ask! i never expected it; no, i never expected it! it's . . . it's positively incredible!" mitya laughed and sank into an armchair, so overcome by happiness that he could not stand on his legs. "it's incredible! you can't imagine! look!" his sister jumped out of bed and, throwing a quilt round her, went in to her brother. the schoolboys woke up. "what's the matter? you don't look like yourself!" "it's because i am so delighted, mamma! do you know, now all russia knows of me! all russia! till now only you knew that there was a registration clerk called dmitry kuldarov, and now all russia knows it! mamma! oh, lord!" mitya jumped up, ran up and down all the rooms, and then sat down again. "why, what has happened? tell us sensibly!" "you live like wild beasts, you don't read the newspapers and take no notice of what's published, and there's so much that is interesting in the papers. if anything happens it's all known at once, nothing is hidden! how happy i am! oh, lord! you know it's only celebrated people whose names are published in the papers, and now they have gone and published mine!" "what do you mean? where?" the papa turned pale. the mamma glanced at the holy image and crossed herself. the schoolboys jumped out of bed and, just as they were, in short nightshirts, went up to their brother. "yes! my name has been published! now all russia knows of me! keep the paper, mamma, in memory of it! we will read it sometimes! look!" mitya pulled out of his pocket a copy of the paper, gave it to his father, and pointed with his finger to a passage marked with blue pencil. "read it!" the father put on his spectacles. "do read it!" the mamma glanced at the holy image and crossed herself. the papa cleared his throat and began to read: "at eleven o'clock on the evening of the th of december, a registration clerk of the name of dmitry kuldarov . . ." "you see, you see! go on!" ". . . a registration clerk of the name of dmitry kuldarov, coming from the beershop in kozihin's buildings in little bronnaia in an intoxicated condition. . ." "that's me and semyon petrovitch. . . . it's all described exactly! go on! listen!" ". . . intoxicated condition, slipped and fell under a horse belonging to a sledge-driver, a peasant of the village of durikino in the yuhnovsky district, called ivan drotov. the frightened horse, stepping over kuldarov and drawing the sledge over him, together with a moscow merchant of the second guild called stepan lukov, who was in it, dashed along the street and was caught by some house-porters. kuldarov, at first in an unconscious condition, was taken to the police station and there examined by the doctor. the blow he had received on the back of his head. . ." "it was from the shaft, papa. go on! read the rest!" ". . . he had received on the back of his head turned out not to be serious. the incident was duly reported. medical aid was given to the injured man. . . ." "they told me to foment the back of my head with cold water. you have read it now? ah! so you see. now it's all over russia! give it here!" mitya seized the paper, folded it up and put it into his pocket. "i'll run round to the makarovs and show it to them. . . . i must show it to the ivanitskys too, natasya ivanovna, and anisim vassilyitch. . . . i'll run! good-bye!" mitya put on his cap with its cockade and, joyful and triumphant, ran into the street. ladies fyodor petrovitch the director of elementary schools in the n. district, who considered himself a just and generous man, was one day interviewing in his office a schoolmaster called vremensky. "no, mr. vremensky," he was saying, "your retirement is inevitable. you cannot continue your work as a schoolmaster with a voice like that! how did you come to lose it?" "i drank cold beer when i was in a perspiration. . ." hissed the schoolmaster. "what a pity! after a man has served fourteen years, such a calamity all at once! the idea of a career being ruined by such a trivial thing. what are you intending to do now?" the schoolmaster made no answer. "are you a family man?" asked the director. "a wife and two children, your excellency . . ." hissed the schoolmaster. a silence followed. the director got up from the table and walked to and fro in perturbation. "i cannot think what i am going to do with you!" he said. "a teacher you cannot be, and you are not yet entitled to a pension. . . . to abandon you to your fate, and leave you to do the best you can, is rather awkward. we look on you as one of our men, you have served fourteen years, so it is our business to help you. . . . but how are we to help you? what can i do for you? put yourself in my place: what can i do for you?" a silence followed; the director walked up and down, still thinking, and vremensky, overwhelmed by his trouble, sat on the edge of his chair, and he, too, thought. all at once the director began beaming, and even snapped his fingers. "i wonder i did not think of it before!" he began rapidly. "listen, this is what i can offer you. next week our secretary at the home is retiring. if you like, you can have his place! there you are!" vremensky, not expecting such good fortune, beamed too. "that's capital," said the director. "write the application to-day." dismissing vremensky, fyodor petrovitch felt relieved and even gratified: the bent figure of the hissing schoolmaster was no longer confronting him, and it was agreeable to recognize that in offering a vacant post to vremensky he had acted fairly and conscientiously, like a good-hearted and thoroughly decent person. but this agreeable state of mind did not last long. when he went home and sat down to dinner his wife, nastasya ivanovna, said suddenly: "oh yes, i was almost forgetting! nina sergeyevna came to see me yesterday and begged for your interest on behalf of a young man. i am told there is a vacancy in our home. . . ." "yes, but the post has already been promised to someone else," said the director, and he frowned. "and you know my rule: i never give posts through patronage." "i know, but for nina sergeyevna, i imagine, you might make an exception. she loves us as though we were relations, and we have never done anything for her. and don't think of refusing, fedya! you will wound both her and me with your whims." "who is it that she is recommending?" "polzuhin!" "what polzuhin? is it that fellow who played tchatsky at the party on new year's day? is it that gentleman? not on any account!" the director left off eating. "not on any account!" he repeated. "heaven preserve us!" "but why not?" "understand, my dear, that if a young man does not set to work directly, but through women, he must be good for nothing! why doesn't he come to me himself?" after dinner the director lay on the sofa in his study and began reading the letters and newspapers he had received. "dear fyodor petrovitch," wrote the wife of the mayor of the town. "you once said that i knew the human heart and understood people. now you have an opportunity of verifying this in practice. k. n. polzuhin, whom i know to be an excellent young man, will call upon you in a day or two to ask you for the post of secretary at our home. he is a very nice youth. if you take an interest in him you will be convinced of it." and so on. "on no account!" was the director's comment. "heaven preserve me!" after that, not a day passed without the director's receiving letters recommending polzuhin. one fine morning polzuhin himself, a stout young man with a close-shaven face like a jockey's, in a new black suit, made his appearance. . . . "i see people on business not here but at the office," said the director drily, on hearing his request. "forgive me, your excellency, but our common acquaintances advised me to come here." "h'm!" growled the director, looking with hatred at the pointed toes of the young man's shoes. "to the best of my belief your father is a man of property and you are not in want," he said. "what induces you to ask for this post? the salary is very trifling!" "it's not for the sake of the salary. . . . it's a government post, any way . . ." "h'm. . . . it strikes me that within a month you will be sick of the job and you will give it up, and meanwhile there are candidates for whom it would be a career for life. there are poor men for whom . . ." "i shan't get sick of it, your excellency," polzuhin interposed. "honour bright, i will do my best!" it was too much for the director. "tell me," he said, smiling contemptuously, "why was it you didn't apply to me direct but thought fitting instead to trouble ladies as a preliminary?" "i didn't know that it would be disagreeable to you," polzuhin answered, and he was embarrassed. "but, your excellency, if you attach no significance to letters of recommendation, i can give you a testimonial. . . ." he drew from his pocket a letter and handed it to the director. at the bottom of the testimonial, which was written in official language and handwriting, stood the signature of the governor. everything pointed to the governor's having signed it unread, simply to get rid of some importunate lady. "there's nothing for it, i bow to his authority. . . i obey . . ." said the director, reading the testimonial, and he heaved a sigh. "send in your application to-morrow. . . . there's nothing to be done. . . ." and when polzuhin had gone out, the director abandoned himself to a feeling of repulsion. "sneak!" he hissed, pacing from one corner to the other. "he has got what he wanted, one way or the other, the good-for-nothing toady! making up to the ladies! reptile! creature!" the director spat loudly in the direction of the door by which polzuhin had departed, and was immediately overcome with embarrassment, for at that moment a lady, the wife of the superintendent of the provincial treasury, walked in at the door. "i've come for a tiny minute . . . a tiny minute. . ." began the lady. "sit down, friend, and listen to me attentively. . . . well, i've been told you have a post vacant. . . . to-day or to-morrow you will receive a visit from a young man called polzuhin. . . ." the lady chattered on, while the director gazed at her with lustreless, stupefied eyes like a man on the point of fainting, gazed and smiled from politeness. and the next day when vremensky came to his office it was a long time before the director could bring himself to tell the truth. he hesitated, was incoherent, and could not think how to begin or what to say. he wanted to apologize to the schoolmaster, to tell him the whole truth, but his tongue halted like a drunkard's, his ears burned, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with vexation and resentment that he should have to play such an absurd part--in his own office, before his subordinate. he suddenly brought his fist down on the table, leaped up, and shouted angrily: "i have no post for you! i have not, and that's all about it! leave me in peace! don't worry me! be so good as to leave me alone!" and he walked out of the office. a peculiar man between twelve and one at night a tall gentleman, wearing a top-hat and a coat with a hood, stops before the door of marya petrovna koshkin, a midwife and an old maid. neither face nor hand can be distinguished in the autumn darkness, but in the very manner of his coughing and the ringing of the bell a certain solidity, positiveness, and even impressiveness can be discerned. after the third ring the door opens and marya petrovna herself appears. she has a man's overcoat flung on over her white petticoat. the little lamp with the green shade which she holds in her hand throws a greenish light over her sleepy, freckled face, her scraggy neck, and the lank, reddish hair that strays from under her cap. "can i see the midwife?" asks the gentleman. "i am the midwife. what do you want?" the gentleman walks into the entry and marya petrovna sees facing her a tall, well-made man, no longer young, but with a handsome, severe face and bushy whiskers. "i am a collegiate assessor, my name is kiryakov," he says. "i came to fetch you to my wife. only please make haste." "very good . . ." the midwife assents. "i'll dress at once, and i must trouble you to wait for me in the parlour." kiryakov takes off his overcoat and goes into the parlour. the greenish light of the lamp lies sparsely on the cheap furniture in patched white covers, on the pitiful flowers and the posts on which ivy is trained. . . . there is a smell of geranium and carbolic. the little clock on the wall ticks timidly, as though abashed at the presence of a strange man. "i am ready," says marya petrovna, coming into the room five minutes later, dressed, washed, and ready for action. "let us go." "yes, you must make haste," says kiryakov. "and, by the way, it is not out of place to enquire--what do you ask for your services?" "i really don't know . . ." says marya petrovna with an embarrassed smile. "as much as you will give." "no, i don't like that," says kiryakov, looking coldly and steadily at the midwife. "an arrangement beforehand is best. i don't want to take advantage of you and you don't want to take advantage of me. to avoid misunderstandings it is more sensible for us to make an arrangement beforehand." "i really don't know--there is no fixed price." "i work myself and am accustomed to respect the work of others. i don't like injustice. it will be equally unpleasant to me if i pay you too little, or if you demand from me too much, and so i insist on your naming your charge." "well, there are such different charges." "h'm. in view of your hesitation, which i fail to understand, i am constrained to fix the sum myself. i can give you two roubles." "good gracious! . . . upon my word! . . ." says marya petrovna, turning crimson and stepping back. "i am really ashamed. rather than take two roubles i will come for nothing . . . . five roubles, if you like." "two roubles, not a kopeck more. i don't want to take advantage of you, but i do not intend to be overcharged." "as you please, but i am not coming for two roubles. . . ." "but by law you have not the right to refuse." "very well, i will come for nothing." "i won't have you for nothing. all work ought to receive remuneration. i work myself and i understand that. . . ." "i won't come for two roubles," marya petrovna answers mildly. "i'll come for nothing if you like." "in that case i regret that i have troubled you for nothing. . . . i have the honour to wish you good-bye." "well, you are a man!" says marya petrovna, seeing him into the entry. "i will come for three roubles if that will satisfy you." kiryakov frowns and ponders for two full minutes, looking with concentration on the floor, then he says resolutely, "no," and goes out into the street. the astonished and disconcerted midwife fastens the door after him and goes back into her bedroom. "he's good-looking, respectable, but how queer, god bless the man! . . ." she thinks as she gets into bed. but in less than half an hour she hears another ring; she gets up and sees the same kiryakov again. "extraordinary the way things are mismanaged. neither the chemist, nor the police, nor the house-porters can give me the address of a midwife, and so i am under the necessity of assenting to your terms. i will give you three roubles, but . . . i warn you beforehand that when i engage servants or receive any kind of services, i make an arrangement beforehand in order that when i pay there may be no talk of extras, tips, or anything of the sort. everyone ought to receive what is his due." marya petrovna has not listened to kiryakov for long, but already she feels that she is bored and repelled by him, that his even, measured speech lies like a weight on her soul. she dresses and goes out into the street with him. the air is still but cold, and the sky is so overcast that the light of the street lamps is hardly visible. the sloshy snow squelches under their feet. the midwife looks intently but does not see a cab. "i suppose it is not far?" she asks. "no, not far," kiryakov answers grimly. they walk down one turning, a second, a third. . . . kiryakov strides along, and even in his step his respectability and positiveness is apparent. "what awful weather!" the midwife observes to him. but he preserves a dignified silence, and it is noticeable that he tries to step on the smooth stones to avoid spoiling his goloshes. at last after a long walk the midwife steps into the entry; from which she can see a big decently furnished drawing-room. there is not a soul in the rooms, even in the bedroom where the woman is lying in labour. . . . the old women and relations who flock in crowds to every confinement are not to be seen. the cook rushes about alone, with a scared and vacant face. there is a sound of loud groans. three hours pass. marya petrovna sits by the mother's bedside and whispers to her. the two women have already had time to make friends, they have got to know each other, they gossip, they sigh together. . . . "you mustn't talk," says the midwife anxiously, and at the same time she showers questions on her. then the door opens and kiryakov himself comes quietly and stolidly into the room. he sits down in the chair and strokes his whiskers. silence reigns. marya petrovna looks timidly at his handsome, passionless, wooden face and waits for him to begin to talk, but he remains absolutely silent and absorbed in thought. after waiting in vain, the midwife makes up her mind to begin herself, and utters a phrase commonly used at confinements. "well now, thank god, there is one human being more in the world!" "yes, that's agreeable," said kiryakov, preserving the wooden expression of his face, "though indeed, on the other hand, to have more children you must have more money. the baby is not born fed and clothed." a guilty expression comes into the mother's face, as though she had brought a creature into the world without permission or through idle caprice. kiryakov gets up with a sigh and walks with solid dignity out of the room. "what a man, bless him!" says the midwife to the mother. "he's so stern and does not smile." the mother tells her that _he_ is always like that. . . . he is honest, fair, prudent, sensibly economical, but all that to such an exceptional degree that simple mortals feel suffocated by it. his relations have parted from him, the servants will not stay more than a month; they have no friends; his wife and children are always on tenterhooks from terror over every step they take. he does not shout at them nor beat them, his virtues are far more numerous than his defects, but when he goes out of the house they all feel better, and more at ease. why it is so the woman herself cannot say. "the basins must be properly washed and put away in the store cupboard," says kiryakov, coming into the bedroom. "these bottles must be put away too: they may come in handy." what he says is very simple and ordinary, but the midwife for some reason feels flustered. she begins to be afraid of the man and shudders every time she hears his footsteps. in the morning as she is preparing to depart she sees kiryakov's little son, a pale, close-cropped schoolboy, in the dining-room drinking his tea. . . . kiryakov is standing opposite him, saying in his flat, even voice: "you know how to eat, you must know how to work too. you have just swallowed a mouthful but have not probably reflected that that mouthful costs money and money is obtained by work. you must eat and reflect. . . ." the midwife looks at the boy's dull face, and it seems to her as though the very air is heavy, that a little more and the very walls will fall, unable to endure the crushing presence of the peculiar man. beside herself with terror, and by now feeling a violent hatred for the man, marya petrovna gathers up her bundles and hurriedly departs. half-way home she remembers that she has forgotten to ask for her three roubles, but after stopping and thinking for a minute, with a wave of her hand, she goes on. at the barber's morning. it is not yet seven o'clock, but makar kuzmitch blyostken's shop is already open. the barber himself, an unwashed, greasy, but foppishly dressed youth of three and twenty, is busy clearing up; there is really nothing to be cleared away, but he is perspiring with his exertions. in one place he polishes with a rag, in another he scrapes with his finger or catches a bug and brushes it off the wall. the barber's shop is small, narrow, and unclean. the log walls are hung with paper suggestive of a cabman's faded shirt. between the two dingy, perspiring windows there is a thin, creaking, rickety door, above it, green from the damp, a bell which trembles and gives a sickly ring of itself without provocation. glance into the looking-glass which hangs on one of the walls, and it distorts your countenance in all directions in the most merciless way! the shaving and haircutting is done before this looking-glass. on the little table, as greasy and unwashed as makar kuzmitch himself, there is everything: combs, scissors, razors, a ha'porth of wax for the moustache, a ha'porth of powder, a ha'porth of much watered eau de cologne, and indeed the whole barber's shop is not worth more than fifteen kopecks. there is a squeaking sound from the invalid bell and an elderly man in a tanned sheepskin and high felt over-boots walks into the shop. his head and neck are wrapped in a woman's shawl. this is erast ivanitch yagodov, makar kuzmitch's godfather. at one time he served as a watchman in the consistory, now he lives near the red pond and works as a locksmith. "makarushka, good-day, dear boy!" he says to makar kuzmitch, who is absorbed in tidying up. they kiss each other. yagodov drags his shawl off his head, crosses himself, and sits down. "what a long way it is!" he says, sighing and clearing his throat. "it's no joke! from the red pond to the kaluga gate." "how are you?" "in a poor way, my boy. i've had a fever." "you don't say so! fever!" "yes, i have been in bed a month; i thought i should die. i had extreme unction. now my hair's coming out. the doctor says i must be shaved. he says the hair will grow again strong. and so, i thought, i'll go to makar. better to a relation than to anyone else. he will do it better and he won't take anything for it. it's rather far, that's true, but what of it? it's a walk." "i'll do it with pleasure. please sit down." with a scrape of his foot makar kuzmitch indicates a chair. yagodov sits down and looks at himself in the glass and is apparently pleased with his reflection: the looking-glass displays a face awry, with kalmuck lips, a broad, blunt nose, and eyes in the forehead. makar kuzmitch puts round his client's shoulders a white sheet with yellow spots on it, and begins snipping with the scissors. "i'll shave you clean to the skin!" he says. "to be sure. so that i may look like a tartar, like a bomb. the hair will grow all the thicker." "how's auntie?" "pretty middling. the other day she went as midwife to the major's lady. they gave her a rouble." "oh, indeed, a rouble. hold your ear." "i am holding it. . . . mind you don't cut me. oy, you hurt! you are pulling my hair." "that doesn't matter. we can't help that in our work. and how is anna erastovna?" "my daughter? she is all right, she's skipping about. last week on the wednesday we betrothed her to sheikin. why didn't you come?" the scissors cease snipping. makar kuzmitch drops his hands and asks in a fright: "who is betrothed?" "anna." "how's that? to whom?" "to sheikin. prokofy petrovitch. his aunt's a housekeeper in zlatoustensky lane. she is a nice woman. naturally we are all delighted, thank god. the wedding will be in a week. mind you come; we will have a good time." "but how's this, erast ivanitch?" says makar kuzmitch, pale, astonished, and shrugging his shoulders. "it's . . . it's utterly impossible. why, anna erastovna . . . why i . . . why, i cherished sentiments for her, i had intentions. how could it happen?" "why, we just went and betrothed her. he's a good fellow." cold drops of perspiration come on the face of makar kuzmitch. he puts the scissors down on the table and begins rubbing his nose with his fist. "i had intentions," he says. "it's impossible, erast ivanitch. i . . . i am in love with her and have made her the offer of my heart . . . . and auntie promised. i have always respected you as though you were my father. . . . i always cut your hair for nothing. . . . i have always obliged you, and when my papa died you took the sofa and ten roubles in cash and have never given them back. do you remember?" "remember! of course i do. only, what sort of a match would you be, makar? you are nothing of a match. you've neither money nor position, your trade's a paltry one." "and is sheikin rich?" "sheikin is a member of a union. he has a thousand and a half lent on mortgage. so my boy . . . . it's no good talking about it, the thing's done. there is no altering it, makarushka. you must look out for another bride. . . . the world is not so small. come, cut away. why are you stopping?" makar kuzmitch is silent and remains motionless, then he takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and begins to cry. "come, what is it?" erast ivanitch comforts him. "give over. fie, he is blubbering like a woman! you finish my head and then cry. take up the scissors!" makar kuzmitch takes up the scissors, stares vacantly at them for a minute, then drops them again on the table. his hands are shaking. "i can't," he says. "i can't do it just now. i haven't the strength! i am a miserable man! and she is miserable! we loved each other, we had given each other our promise and we have been separated by unkind people without any pity. go away, erast ivanitch! i can't bear the sight of you." "so i'll come to-morrow, makarushka. you will finish me to-morrow." "right." "you calm yourself and i will come to you early in the morning." erast ivanitch has half his head shaven to the skin and looks like a convict. it is awkward to be left with a head like that, but there is no help for it. he wraps his head in the shawl and walks out of the barber's shop. left alone, makar kuzmitch sits down and goes on quietly weeping. early next morning erast ivanitch comes again. "what do you want?" makar kuzmitch asks him coldly. "finish cutting my hair, makarushka. there is half the head left to do." "kindly give me the money in advance. i won't cut it for nothing." without saying a word erast ivanitch goes out, and to this day his hair is long on one side of the head and short on the other. he regards it as extravagance to pay for having his hair cut and is waiting for the hair to grow of itself on the shaven side. he danced at the wedding in that condition. an inadvertence pyotr petrovitch strizhin, the nephew of madame ivanov, the colonel's widow--the man whose new goloshes were stolen last year,--came home from a christening party at two o'clock in the morning. to avoid waking the household he took off his things in the lobby, made his way on tiptoe to his room, holding his breath, and began getting ready for bed without lighting a candle. strizhin leads a sober and regular life. he has a sanctimonious expression of face, he reads nothing but religious and edifying books, but at the christening party, in his delight that lyubov spiridonovna had passed through her confinement successfully, he had permitted himself to drink four glasses of vodka and a glass of wine, the taste of which suggested something midway between vinegar and castor oil. spirituous liquors are like sea-water and glory: the more you imbibe of them the greater your thirst. and now as he undressed, strizhin was aware of an overwhelming craving for drink. "i believe dashenka has some vodka in the cupboard in the right-hand corner," he thought. "if i drink one wine-glassful, she won't notice it." after some hesitation, overcoming his fears, strizhin went to the cupboard. cautiously opening the door he felt in the right-hand corner for a bottle and poured out a wine-glassful, put the bottle back in its place, then, making the sign of the cross, drank it off. and immediately something like a miracle took place. strizhin was flung back from the cupboard to the chest with fearful force like a bomb. there were flashes before his eyes, he felt as though he could not breathe, and all over his body he had a sensation as though he had fallen into a marsh full of leeches. it seemed to him as though, instead of vodka, he had swallowed dynamite, which blew up his body, the house, and the whole street. . . . his head, his arms, his legs--all seemed to be torn off and to be flying away somewhere to the devil, into space. for some three minutes he lay on the chest, not moving and scarcely breathing, then he got up and asked himself: "where am i?" the first thing of which he was clearly conscious on coming to himself was the pronounced smell of paraffin. "holy saints," he thought in horror, "it's paraffin i have drunk instead of vodka." the thought that he had poisoned himself threw him into a cold shiver, then into a fever. that it was really poison that he had taken was proved not only by the smell in the room but also by the burning taste in his mouth, the flashes before his eyes, the ringing in his head, and the colicky pain in his stomach. feeling the approach of death and not buoying himself up with false hopes, he wanted to say good-bye to those nearest to him, and made his way to dashenka's bedroom (being a widower he had his sister-in-law called dashenka, an old maid, living in the flat to keep house for him). "dashenka," he said in a tearful voice as he went into the bedroom, "dear dashenka!" something grumbled in the darkness and uttered a deep sigh. "dashenka." "eh? what?" a woman's voice articulated rapidly. "is that you, pyotr petrovitch? are you back already? well, what is it? what has the baby been christened? who was godmother?" "the godmother was natalya andreyevna velikosvyetsky, and the godfather pavel ivanitch bezsonnitsin. . . . i . . . i believe, dashenka, i am dying. and the baby has been christened olimpiada, in honour of their kind patroness. . . . i . . . i have just drunk paraffin, dashenka!" "what next! you don't say they gave you paraffin there?" "i must own i wanted to get a drink of vodka without asking you, and . . . and the lord chastised me: by accident in the dark i took paraffin. . . . what am i to do?" dashenka, hearing that the cupboard had been opened without her permission, grew more wide-awake. . . . she quickly lighted a candle, jumped out of bed, and in her nightgown, a freckled, bony figure in curl-papers, padded with bare feet to the cupboard. "who told you you might?" she asked sternly, as she scrutinized the inside of the cupboard. "was the vodka put there for you?" "i . . . i haven't drunk vodka but paraffin, dashenka . . ." muttered strizhin, mopping the cold sweat on his brow. "and what did you want to touch the paraffin for? that's nothing to do with you, is it? is it put there for you? or do you suppose paraffin costs nothing? eh? do you know what paraffin is now? do you know?" "dear dashenka," moaned strizhin, "it's a question of life and death, and you talk about money!" "he's drunk himself tipsy and now he pokes his nose into the cupboard!" cried dashenka, angrily slamming the cupboard door. "oh, the monsters, the tormentors! i'm a martyr, a miserable woman, no peace day or night! vipers, basilisks, accursed herods, may you suffer the same in the world to come! i am going to-morrow! i am a maiden lady and i won't allow you to stand before me in your underclothes! how dare you look at me when i am not dressed!" and she went on and on. . . . knowing that when dashenka was enraged there was no moving her with prayers or vows or even by firing a cannon, strizhin waved his hand in despair, dressed, and made up his mind to go to the doctor. but a doctor is only readily found when he is not wanted. after running through three streets and ringing five times at dr. tchepharyants's, and seven times at dr. bultyhin's, strizhin raced off to a chemist's shop, thinking possibly the chemist could help him. there, after a long interval, a little dark and curly-headed chemist came out to him in his dressing gown, with drowsy eyes, and such a wise and serious face that it was positively terrifying. "what do you want?" he asked in a tone in which only very wise and dignified chemists of jewish persuasion can speak. "for god's sake . . . i entreat you . . ." said strizhin breathlessly, "give me something. i have just accidentally drunk paraffin, i am dying!" "i beg you not to excite yourself and to answer the questions i am about to put to you. the very fact that you are excited prevents me from understanding you. you have drunk paraffin. yes?" "yes, paraffin! please save me!" the chemist went coolly and gravely to the desk, opened a book, became absorbed in reading it. after reading a couple of pages he shrugged one shoulder and then the other, made a contemptuous grimace and, after thinking for a minute, went into the adjoining room. the clock struck four, and when it pointed to ten minutes past the chemist came back with another book and again plunged into reading. "h'm," he said as though puzzled, "the very fact that you feel unwell shows you ought to apply to a doctor, not a chemist." "but i have been to the doctors already. i could not ring them up." "h'm . . . you don't regard us chemists as human beings, and disturb our rest even at four o'clock at night, though every dog, every cat, can rest in peace. . . . you don't try to understand anything, and to your thinking we are not people and our nerves are like cords." strizhin listened to the chemist, heaved a sigh, and went home. "so i am fated to die," he thought. and in his mouth was a burning and a taste of paraffin, there were twinges in his stomach, and a sound of boom, boom, boom in his ears. every moment it seemed to him that his end was near, that his heart was no longer beating. returning home he made haste to write: "let no one be blamed for my death," then he said his prayers, lay down and pulled the bedclothes over his head. he lay awake till morning expecting death, and all the time he kept fancying how his grave would be covered with fresh green grass and how the birds would twitter over it. . . . and in the morning he was sitting on his bed, saying with a smile to dashenka: "one who leads a steady and regular life, dear sister, is unaffected by any poison. take me, for example. i have been on the verge of death. i was dying and in agony, yet now i am all right. there is only a burning in my mouth and a soreness in my throat, but i am all right all over, thank god. . . . and why? it's because of my regular life." "no, it's because it's inferior paraffin!" sighed dashenka, thinking of the household expenses and gazing into space. "the man at the shop could not have given me the best quality, but that at three farthings. i am a martyr, i am a miserable woman. you monsters! may you suffer the same, in the world to come, accursed herods. . . ." and she went on and on. . . . the album kraterov, the titular councillor, as thin and slender as the admiralty spire, stepped forward and, addressing zhmyhov, said: "your excellency! moved and touched to the bottom of our hearts by the way you have ruled us during long years, and by your fatherly care. . . ." "during the course of more than ten years. . ." zakusin prompted. "during the course of more than ten years, we, your subordinates, on this so memorable for us . . . er . . . day, beg your excellency to accept in token of our respect and profound gratitude this album with our portraits in it, and express our hope that for the duration of your distinguished life, that for long, long years to come, to your dying day you may not abandon us. . . ." "with your fatherly guidance in the path of justice and progress. . ." added zakusin, wiping from his brow the perspiration that had suddenly appeared on it; he was evidently longing to speak, and in all probability had a speech ready. "and," he wound up, "may your standard fly for long, long years in the career of genius, industry, and social self-consciousness." a tear trickled down the wrinkled left cheek of zhmyhov. "gentlemen!" he said in a shaking voice, "i did not expect, i had no idea that you were going to celebrate my modest jubilee. . . . i am touched indeed . . . very much so. . . . i shall not forget this moment to my dying day, and believe me . . . believe me, friends, that no one is so desirous of your welfare as i am . . . and if there has been anything . . . it was for your benefit." zhmyhov, the actual civil councillor, kissed the titular councillor kraterov, who had not expected such an honour, and turned pale with delight. then the chief made a gesture that signified that he could not speak for emotion, and shed tears as though an expensive album had not been presented to him, but on the contrary, taken from him . . . . then when he had a little recovered and said a few more words full of feeling and given everyone his hand to shake, he went downstairs amid loud and joyful cheers, got into his carriage and drove off, followed by their blessings. as he sat in his carriage he was aware of a flood of joyous feelings such as he had never known before, and once more he shed tears. at home new delights awaited him. there his family, his friends, and acquaintances had prepared him such an ovation that it seemed to him that he really had been of very great service to his country, and that if he had never existed his country would perhaps have been in a very bad way. the jubilee dinner was made up of toasts, speeches, and tears. in short, zhmyhov had never expected that his merits would be so warmly appreciated. "gentlemen!" he said before the dessert, "two hours ago i was recompensed for all the sufferings a man has to undergo who is the servant, so to say, not of routine, not of the letter, but of duty! through the whole duration of my service i have constantly adhered to the principle;--the public does not exist for us, but we for the public, and to-day i received the highest reward! my subordinates presented me with an album . . . see! i was touched." festive faces bent over the album and began examining it. "it's a pretty album," said zhmyhov's daughter olya, "it must have cost fifty roubles, i do believe. oh, it's charming! you must give me the album, papa, do you hear? i'll take care of it, it's so pretty." after dinner olya carried off the album to her room and shut it up in her table drawer. next day she took the clerks out of it, flung them on the floor, and put her school friends in their place. the government uniforms made way for white pelerines. kolya, his excellency's little son, picked up the clerks and painted their clothes red. those who had no moustaches he presented with green moustaches and added brown beards to the beardless. when there was nothing left to paint he cut the little men out of the card-board, pricked their eyes with a pin, and began playing soldiers with them. after cutting out the titular councillor kraterov, he fixed him on a match-box and carried him in that state to his father's study. "papa, a monument, look!" zhmyhov burst out laughing, lurched forward, and, looking tenderly at the child, gave him a warm kiss on the cheek. "there, you rogue, go and show mamma; let mamma look too." oh! the public "here goes, i've done with drinking! nothing. . . n-o-thing shall tempt me to it. it's time to take myself in hand; i must buck up and work. . . you're glad to get your salary, so you must do your work honestly, heartily, conscientiously, regardless of sleep and comfort. chuck taking it easy. you've got into the way of taking a salary for nothing, my boy--that's not the right thing . . . not the right thing at all. . . ." after administering to himself several such lectures podtyagin, the head ticket collector, begins to feel an irresistible impulse to get to work. it is past one o'clock at night, but in spite of that he wakes the ticket collectors and with them goes up and down the railway carriages, inspecting the tickets. "t-t-t-ickets . . . p-p-p-please!" he keeps shouting, briskly snapping the clippers. sleepy figures, shrouded in the twilight of the railway carriages, start, shake their heads, and produce their tickets. "t-t-t-tickets, please!" podtyagin addresses a second-class passenger, a lean, scraggy-looking man, wrapped up in a fur coat and a rug and surrounded with pillows. "tickets, please!" the scraggy-looking man makes no reply. he is buried in sleep. the head ticket-collector touches him on the shoulder and repeats impatiently: "t-t-tickets, p-p-please!" the passenger starts, opens his eyes, and gazes in alarm at podtyagin. "what? . . . who? . . . eh?" "you're asked in plain language: t-t-tickets, p-p-please! if you please!" "my god!" moans the scraggy-looking man, pulling a woebegone face. "good heavens! i'm suffering from rheumatism. . . . i haven't slept for three nights! i've just taken morphia on purpose to get to sleep, and you . . . with your tickets! it's merciless, it's inhuman! if you knew how hard it is for me to sleep you wouldn't disturb me for such nonsense. . . . it's cruel, it's absurd! and what do you want with my ticket! it's positively stupid!" podtyagin considers whether to take offence or not--and decides to take offence. "don't shout here! this is not a tavern!" "no, in a tavern people are more humane. . ." coughs the passenger. "perhaps you'll let me go to sleep another time! it's extraordinary: i've travelled abroad, all over the place, and no one asked for my ticket there, but here you're at it again and again, as though the devil were after you. . . ." "well, you'd better go abroad again since you like it so much." "it's stupid, sir! yes! as though it's not enough killing the passengers with fumes and stuffiness and draughts, they want to strangle us with red tape, too, damn it all! he must have the ticket! my goodness, what zeal! if it were of any use to the company--but half the passengers are travelling without a ticket!" "listen, sir!" cries podtyagin, flaring up. "if you don't leave off shouting and disturbing the public, i shall be obliged to put you out at the next station and to draw up a report on the incident!" "this is revolting!" exclaims "the public," growing indignant. "persecuting an invalid! listen, and have some consideration!" "but the gentleman himself was abusive!" says podtyagin, a little scared. "very well. . . . i won't take the ticket . . . as you like . . . . only, of course, as you know very well, it's my duty to do so. . . . if it were not my duty, then, of course. . . you can ask the station-master . . . ask anyone you like. . . ." podtyagin shrugs his shoulders and walks away from the invalid. at first he feels aggrieved and somewhat injured, then, after passing through two or three carriages, he begins to feel a certain uneasiness not unlike the pricking of conscience in his ticket-collector's bosom. "there certainly was no need to wake the invalid," he thinks, "though it was not my fault. . . .they imagine i did it wantonly, idly. they don't know that i'm bound in duty . . . if they don't believe it, i can bring the station-master to them." a station. the train stops five minutes. before the third bell, podtyagin enters the same second-class carriage. behind him stalks the station-master in a red cap. "this gentleman here," podtyagin begins, "declares that i have no right to ask for his ticket and . . . and is offended at it. i ask you, mr. station-master, to explain to him. . . . do i ask for tickets according to regulation or to please myself? sir," podtyagin addresses the scraggy-looking man, "sir! you can ask the station-master here if you don't believe me." the invalid starts as though he had been stung, opens his eyes, and with a woebegone face sinks back in his seat. "my god! i have taken another powder and only just dozed off when here he is again. . . again! i beseech you have some pity on me!" "you can ask the station-master . . . whether i have the right to demand your ticket or not." "this is insufferable! take your ticket. . . take it! i'll pay for five extra if you'll only let me die in peace! have you never been ill yourself? heartless people!" "this is simply persecution!" a gentleman in military uniform grows indignant. "i can see no other explanation of this persistence." "drop it . . ." says the station-master, frowning and pulling podtyagin by the sleeve. podtyagin shrugs his shoulders and slowly walks after the station-master. "there's no pleasing them!" he thinks, bewildered. "it was for his sake i brought the station-master, that he might understand and be pacified, and he . . . swears!" another station. the train stops ten minutes. before the second bell, while podtyagin is standing at the refreshment bar, drinking seltzer water, two gentlemen go up to him, one in the uniform of an engineer, and the other in a military overcoat. "look here, ticket-collector!" the engineer begins, addressing podtyagin. "your behaviour to that invalid passenger has revolted all who witnessed it. my name is puzitsky; i am an engineer, and this gentleman is a colonel. if you do not apologize to the passenger, we shall make a complaint to the traffic manager, who is a friend of ours." "gentlemen! why of course i . . . why of course you . . ." podtyagin is panic-stricken. "we don't want explanations. but we warn you, if you don't apologize, we shall see justice done to him." "certainly i . . . i'll apologize, of course. . . to be sure. . . ." half an hour later, podtyagin having thought of an apologetic phrase which would satisfy the passenger without lowering his own dignity, walks into the carriage. "sir," he addresses the invalid. "listen, sir. . . ." the invalid starts and leaps up: "what?" "i . . . what was it? . . . you mustn't be offended. . . ." "och! water . . ." gasps the invalid, clutching at his heart. "i'd just taken a third dose of morphia, dropped asleep, and . . . again! good god! when will this torture cease!" "i only . . . you must excuse . . ." "oh! . . . put me out at the next station! i can't stand any more . . . . i . . . i am dying. . . ." "this is mean, disgusting!" cry the "public," revolted. "go away! you shall pay for such persecution. get away!" podtyagin waves his hand in despair, sighs, and walks out of the carriage. he goes to the attendants' compartment, sits down at the table, exhausted, and complains: "oh, the public! there's no satisfying them! it's no use working and doing one's best! one's driven to drinking and cursing it all . . . . if you do nothing--they're angry; if you begin doing your duty, they're angry too. there's nothing for it but drink!" podtyagin empties a bottle straight off and thinks no more of work, duty, and honesty! a tripping tongue natalya mihalovna, a young married lady who had arrived in the morning from yalta, was having her dinner, and in a never-ceasing flow of babble was telling her husband of all the charms of the crimea. her husband, delighted, gazed tenderly at her enthusiastic face, listened, and from time to time put in a question. "but they say living is dreadfully expensive there?" he asked, among other things. "well, what shall i say? to my thinking this talk of its being so expensive is exaggerated, hubby. the devil is not as black as he is painted. yulia petrovna and i, for instance, had very decent and comfortable rooms for twenty roubles a day. everything depends on knowing how to do things, my dear. of course if you want to go up into the mountains . . . to aie-petri for instance . . . if you take a horse, a guide, then of course it does come to something. it's awful what it comes to! but, vassitchka, the mountains there! imagine high, high mountains, a thousand times higher than the church. . . . at the top--mist, mist, mist. . . . at the bottom --enormous stones, stones, stones. . . . and pines. . . . ah, i can't bear to think of it!" "by the way, i read about those tatar guides there, in some magazine while you were away . . . . such abominable stories! tell me is there really anything out of the way about them?" natalya mihalovna made a little disdainful grimace and shook her head. "just ordinary tatars, nothing special . . ." she said, "though indeed i only had a glimpse of them in the distance. they were pointed out to me, but i did not take much notice of them. you know, hubby, i always had a prejudice against all such circassians, greeks . . . moors!" "they are said to be terrible don juans." "perhaps! there are shameless creatures who . . . ." natalya mihalovna suddenly jumped up from her chair, as though she had thought of something dreadful; for half a minute she looked with frightened eyes at her husband and said, accentuating each word: "vassitchka, i say, the im-mo-ral women there are in the world! ah, how immoral! and it's not as though they were working-class or middle-class people, but aristocratic ladies, priding themselves on their _bon-ton!_ it was simply awful, i could not believe my own eyes! i shall remember it as long as i live! to think that people can forget themselves to such a point as . . . ach, vassitchka, i don't like to speak of it! take my companion, yulia petrovna, for example. . . . such a good husband, two children . . . she moves in a decent circle, always poses as a saint--and all at once, would you believe it. . . . only, hubby, of course this is _entre nous_. . . . give me your word of honour you won't tell a soul?" "what next! of course i won't tell." "honour bright? mind now! i trust you. . . ." the little lady put down her fork, assumed a mysterious air, and whispered: "imagine a thing like this. . . . that yulia petrovna rode up into the mountains . . . . it was glorious weather! she rode on ahead with her guide, i was a little behind. we had ridden two or three miles, all at once, only fancy, vassitchka, yulia cried out and clutched at her bosom. her tatar put his arm round her waist or she would have fallen off the saddle. . . . i rode up to her with my guide. . . . 'what is it? what is the matter?' 'oh,' she cried, 'i am dying! i feel faint! i can't go any further' fancy my alarm! 'let us go back then,' i said. 'no, _natalie_,' she said, 'i can't go back! i shall die of pain if i move another step! i have spasms.' and she prayed and besought my suleiman and me to ride back to the town and fetch her some of her drops which always do her good." "stay. . . . i don't quite understand you," muttered the husband, scratching his forehead. "you said just now that you had only seen those tatars from a distance, and now you are talking of some suleiman." "there, you are finding fault again," the lady pouted, not in the least disconcerted. "i can't endure suspiciousness! i can't endure it! it's stupid, stupid!" "i am not finding fault, but . . . why say what is not true? if you rode about with tatars, so be it, god bless you, but . . . why shuffle about it?" "h'm! . . . you are a queer one!" cried the lady, revolted. "he is jealous of suleiman! as though one could ride up into the mountains without a guide! i should like to see you do it! if you don't know the ways there, if you don't understand, you had better hold your tongue! yes, hold your tongue. you can't take a step there without a guide." "so it seems!" "none of your silly grins, if you please! i am not a yulia. . . . i don't justify her but i . . . ! though i don't pose as a saint, i don't forget myself to that degree. my suleiman never overstepped the limits. . . . no-o! mametkul used to be sitting at yulia's all day long, but in my room as soon as it struck eleven: 'suleiman, march! off you go!' and my foolish tatar boy would depart. i made him mind his p's and q's, hubby! as soon as he began grumbling about money or anything, i would say 'how? wha-at? wha-a-a-t?' and his heart would be in his mouth directly. . . . ha-ha-ha! his eyes, you know, vassitchka, were as black, as black, like coals, such an amusing little tatar face, so funny and silly! i kept him in order, didn't i just!" "i can fancy . . ." mumbled her husband, rolling up pellets of bread. "that's stupid, vassitchka! i know what is in your mind! i know what you are thinking . . . but i assure you even when we were on our expeditions i never let him overstep the limits. for instance, if we rode to the mountains or to the u-chan-su waterfall, i would always say to him, 'suleiman, ride behind! do you hear!' and he always rode behind, poor boy. . . . even when we . . . even at the most dramatic moments i would say to him, 'still, you must not forget that you are only a tatar and i am the wife of a civil councillor!' ha-ha. . . ." the little lady laughed, then, looking round her quickly and assuming an alarmed expression, whispered: "but yulia! oh, that yulia! i quite see, vassitchka, there is no reason why one shouldn't have a little fun, a little rest from the emptiness of conventional life! that's all right, have your fling by all means--no one will blame you, but to take the thing seriously, to get up scenes . . . no, say what you like, i cannot understand that! just fancy, she was jealous! wasn't that silly? one day mametkul, her _grande passion_, came to see her . . . she was not at home. . . . well, i asked him into my room . . . there was conversation, one thing and another . . . they're awfully amusing, you know! the evening passed without our noticing it. . . . all at once yulia rushed in. . . . she flew at me and at mametkul --made such a scene . . . fi! i can't understand that sort of thing, vassitchka." vassitchka cleared his throat, frowned, and walked up and down the room. "you had a gay time there, i must say," he growled with a disdainful smile. "how stu-upid that is!" cried natalya mihalovna, offended. "i know what you are thinking about! you always have such horrid ideas! i won't tell you anything! no, i won't!" the lady pouted and said no more. overdoing it glyeb gavrilovitch smirnov, a land surveyor, arrived at the station of gnilushki. he had another twenty or thirty miles to drive before he would reach the estate which he had been summoned to survey. (if the driver were not drunk and the horses were not bad, it would hardly be twenty miles, but if the driver had had a drop and his steeds were worn out it would mount up to a good forty.) "tell me, please, where can i get post-horses here?" the surveyor asked of the station gendarme. "what? post-horses? there's no finding a decent dog for seventy miles round, let alone post-horses. . . . but where do you want to go?" "to dyevkino, general hohotov's estate." "well," yawned the gendarme, "go outside the station, there are sometimes peasants in the yard there, they will take passengers." the surveyor heaved a sigh and made his way out of the station. there, after prolonged enquiries, conversations, and hesitations, he found a very sturdy, sullen-looking pock-marked peasant, wearing a tattered grey smock and bark-shoes. "you have got a queer sort of cart!" said the surveyor, frowning as he clambered into the cart. "there is no making out which is the back and which is the front." "what is there to make out? where the horse's tail is, there's the front, and where your honour's sitting, there's the back." the little mare was young, but thin, with legs planted wide apart and frayed ears. when the driver stood up and lashed her with a whip made of cord, she merely shook her head; when he swore at her and lashed her once more, the cart squeaked and shivered as though in a fever. after the third lash the cart gave a lurch, after the fourth, it moved forward. "are we going to drive like this all the way?" asked the surveyor, violently jolted and marvelling at the capacity of russian drivers for combining a slow tortoise-like pace with a jolting that turns the soul inside out. "we shall ge-et there!" the peasant reassured him. "the mare is young and frisky. . . . only let her get running and then there is no stopping her. . . . no-ow, cur-sed brute!" it was dusk by the time the cart drove out of the station. on the surveyor's right hand stretched a dark frozen plain, endless and boundless. if you drove over it you would certainly get to the other side of beyond. on the horizon, where it vanished and melted into the sky, there was the languid glow of a cold autumn sunset. . . . on the left of the road, mounds of some sort, that might be last year's stacks or might be a village, rose up in the gathering darkness. the surveyor could not see what was in front as his whole field of vision on that side was covered by the broad clumsy back of the driver. the air was still, but it was cold and frosty. "what a wilderness it is here," thought the surveyor, trying to cover his ears with the collar of his overcoat. "neither post nor paddock. if, by ill-luck, one were attacked and robbed no one would hear you, whatever uproar you made. . . . and the driver is not one you could depend on. . . . ugh, what a huge back! a child of nature like that has only to move a finger and it would be all up with one! and his ugly face is suspicious and brutal-looking." "hey, my good man!" said the surveyor, "what is your name?" "mine? klim." "well, klim, what is it like in your parts here? not dangerous? any robbers on the road?" "it is all right, the lord has spared us. . . . who should go robbing on the road?" "it's a good thing there are no robbers. but to be ready for anything i have got three revolvers with me," said the surveyor untruthfully. "and it doesn't do to trifle with a revolver, you know. one can manage a dozen robbers. . . ." it had become quite dark. the cart suddenly began creaking, squeaking, shaking, and, as though unwillingly, turned sharply to the left. "where is he taking me to?" the surveyor wondered. "he has been driving straight and now all at once to the left. i shouldn't wonder if he'll take me, the rascal, to some den of thieves . . . and. . . . things like that do happen." "i say," he said, addressing the driver, "so you tell me it's not dangerous here? that's a pity. . . i like a fight with robbers. . . . i am thin and sickly-looking, but i have the strength of a bull . . . . once three robbers attacked me and what do you think? i gave one such a dressing that. . . that he gave up his soul to god, you understand, and the other two were sent to penal servitude in siberia. and where i got the strength i can't say. . . . one grips a strapping fellow of your sort with one hand and . . . wipes him out." klim looked round at the surveyor, wrinkled up his whole face, and lashed his horse. "yes . . ." the surveyor went on. "god forbid anyone should tackle me. the robber would have his bones broken, and, what's more, he would have to answer for it in the police court too. . . . i know all the judges and the police captains, i am a man in the government, a man of importance. here i am travelling and the authorities know . . . they keep a regular watch over me to see no one does me a mischief. there are policemen and village constables stuck behind bushes all along the road. . . . sto . . . sto . . . . stop!" the surveyor bawled suddenly. "where have you got to? where are you taking me to?" "why, don't you see? it's a forest!" "it certainly is a forest," thought the surveyor. "i was frightened! but it won't do to betray my feelings. . . . he has noticed already that i am in a funk. why is it he has taken to looking round at me so often? he is plotting something for certain. . . . at first he drove like a snail and now how he is dashing along!" "i say, klim, why are you making the horse go like that?" "i am not making her go. she is racing along of herself. . . . once she gets into a run there is no means of stopping her. it's no pleasure to her that her legs are like that." "you are lying, my man, i see that you are lying. only i advise you not to drive so fast. hold your horse in a bit. . . . do you hear? hold her in!" "what for?" "why . . . why, because four comrades were to drive after me from the station. we must let them catch us up. . . . they promised to overtake us in this forest. it will be more cheerful in their company. . . . they are a strong, sturdy set of fellows. . . . and each of them has got a pistol. why do you keep looking round and fidgeting as though you were sitting on thorns? eh? i, my good fellow, er . . . my good fellow . . . there is no need to look around at me . . . there is nothing interesting about me. . . . except perhaps the revolvers. well, if you like i will take them out and show you. . . ." the surveyor made a pretence of feeling in his pockets and at that moment something happened which he could not have expected with all his cowardice. klim suddenly rolled off the cart and ran as fast as he could go into the forest. "help!" he roared. "help! take the horse and the cart, you devil, only don't take my life. help!" there was the sound of footsteps hurriedly retreating, of twigs snapping--and all was still. . . . the surveyor had not expected such a _dénouement_. he first stopped the horse and then settled himself more comfortably in the cart and fell to thinking. "he has run off . . . he was scared, the fool. well, what's to be done now? i can't go on alone because i don't know the way; besides they may think i have stolen his horse. . . . what's to be done?" "klim! klim," he cried. "klim," answered the echo. at the thought that he would have to sit through the whole night in the cold and dark forest and hear nothing but the wolves, the echo, and the snorting of the scraggy mare, the surveyor began to have twinges down his spine as though it were being rasped with a cold file. "klimushka," he shouted. "dear fellow! where are you, klimushka?" for two hours the surveyor shouted, and it was only after he was quite husky and had resigned himself to spending the night in the forest that a faint breeze wafted the sound of a moan to him. "klim, is it you, dear fellow? let us go on." "you'll mu-ur-der me!" "but i was joking, my dear man! i swear to god i was joking! as though i had revolvers! i told a lie because i was frightened. for goodness sake let us go on, i am freezing!" klim, probably reflecting that a real robber would have vanished long ago with the horse and cart, came out of the forest and went hesitatingly up to his passenger. "well, what were you frightened of, stupid? i . . . i was joking and you were frightened. get in!" "god be with you, sir," klim muttered as he clambered into the cart, "if i had known i wouldn't have taken you for a hundred roubles. i almost died of fright. . . ." klim lashed at the little mare. the cart swayed. klim lashed once more and the cart gave a lurch. after the fourth stroke of the whip when the cart moved forward, the surveyor hid his ears in his collar and sank into thought. the road and klim no longer seemed dangerous to him. the orator one fine morning the collegiate assessor, kirill ivanovitch babilonov, who had died of the two afflictions so widely spread in our country, a bad wife and alcoholism, was being buried. as the funeral procession set off from the church to the cemetery, one of the deceased's colleagues, called poplavsky, got into a cab and galloped off to find a friend, one grigory petrovitch zapoikin, a man who though still young had acquired considerable popularity. zapoikin, as many of my readers are aware, possesses a rare talent for impromptu speechifying at weddings, jubilees, and funerals. he can speak whenever he likes: in his sleep, on an empty stomach, dead drunk or in a high fever. his words flow smoothly and evenly, like water out of a pipe, and in abundance; there are far more moving words in his oratorical dictionary than there are beetles in any restaurant. he always speaks eloquently and at great length, so much so that on some occasions, particularly at merchants' weddings, they have to resort to assistance from the police to stop him. "i have come for you, old man!" began poplavsky, finding him at home. "put on your hat and coat this minute and come along. one of our fellows is dead, we are just sending him off to the other world, so you must do a bit of palavering by way of farewell to him. . . . you are our only hope. if it had been one of the smaller fry it would not have been worth troubling you, but you see it's the secretary . . . a pillar of the office, in a sense. it's awkward for such a whopper to be buried without a speech." "oh, the secretary!" yawned zapoikin. "you mean the drunken one?" "yes. there will be pancakes, a lunch . . . you'll get your cab-fare. come along, dear chap. you spout out some rigmarole like a regular cicero at the grave and what gratitude you will earn!" zapoikin readily agreed. he ruffled up his hair, cast a shade of melancholy over his face, and went out into the street with poplavsky. "i know your secretary," he said, as he got into the cab. "a cunning rogue and a beast--the kingdom of heaven be his--such as you don't often come across." "come, grisha, it is not the thing to abuse the dead." "of course not, _aut mortuis nihil bene_, but still he was a rascal." the friends overtook the funeral procession and joined it. the coffin was borne along slowly so that before they reached the cemetery they were able three times to drop into a tavern and imbibe a little to the health of the departed. in the cemetery came the service by the graveside. the mother-in-law, the wife, and the sister-in-law in obedience to custom shed many tears. when the coffin was being lowered into the grave the wife even shrieked "let me go with him!" but did not follow her husband into the grave probably recollecting her pension. waiting till everything was quiet again zapoikin stepped forward, turned his eyes on all present, and began: "can i believe my eyes and ears? is it not a terrible dream this grave, these tear-stained faces, these moans and lamentations? alas, it is not a dream and our eyes do not deceive us! he whom we have only so lately seen, so full of courage, so youthfully fresh and pure, who so lately before our eyes like an unwearying bee bore his honey to the common hive of the welfare of the state, he who . . . he is turned now to dust, to inanimate mirage. inexorable death has laid his bony hand upon him at the time when, in spite of his bowed age, he was still full of the bloom of strength and radiant hopes. an irremediable loss! who will fill his place for us? good government servants we have many, but prokofy osipitch was unique. to the depths of his soul he was devoted to his honest duty; he did not spare his strength but worked late at night, and was disinterested, impervious to bribes. . . . how he despised those who to the detriment of the public interest sought to corrupt him, who by the seductive goods of this life strove to draw him to betray his duty! yes, before our eyes prokofy osipitch would divide his small salary between his poorer colleagues, and you have just heard yourselves the lamentations of the widows and orphans who lived upon his alms. devoted to good works and his official duty, he gave up the joys of this life and even renounced the happiness of domestic existence; as you are aware, to the end of his days he was a bachelor. and who will replace him as a comrade? i can see now the kindly, shaven face turned to us with a gentle smile, i can hear now his soft friendly voice. peace to thine ashes, prokofy osipitch! rest, honest, noble toiler!" zapoikin continued while his listeners began whispering together. his speech pleased everyone and drew some tears, but a good many things in it seemed strange. in the first place they could not make out why the orator called the deceased prokofy osipitch when his name was kirill ivanovitch. in the second, everyone knew that the deceased had spent his whole life quarelling with his lawful wife, and so consequently could not be called a bachelor; in the third, he had a thick red beard and had never been known to shave, and so no one could understand why the orator spoke of his shaven face. the listeners were perplexed; they glanced at each other and shrugged their shoulders. "prokofy osipitch," continued the orator, looking with an air of inspiration into the grave, "your face was plain, even hideous, you were morose and austere, but we all know that under that outer husk there beat an honest, friendly heart!" soon the listeners began to observe something strange in the orator himself. he gazed at one point, shifted about uneasily and began to shrug his shoulders too. all at once he ceased speaking, and gaping with astonishment, turned to poplavsky. "i say! he's alive," he said, staring with horror. "who's alive?" "why, prokofy osipitch, there he stands, by that tombstone!" "he never died! it's kirill ivanovitch who's dead." "but you told me yourself your secretary was dead." "kirill ivanovitch was our secretary. you've muddled it, you queer fish. prokofy osipitch was our secretary before, that's true, but two years ago he was transferred to the second division as head clerk." "how the devil is one to tell?" "why are you stopping? go on, it's awkward." zapoikin turned to the grave, and with the same eloquence continued his interrupted speech. prokofy osipitch, an old clerk with a clean-shaven face, was in fact standing by a tombstone. he looked at the orator and frowned angrily. "well, you have put your foot into it, haven't you!" laughed his fellow-clerks as they returned from the funeral with zapoikin. "burying a man alive!" "it's unpleasant, young man," grumbled prokofy osipitch. "your speech may be all right for a dead man, but in reference to a living one it is nothing but sarcasm! upon my soul what have you been saying? disinterested, incorruptible, won't take bribes! such things can only be said of the living in sarcasm. and no one asked you, sir, to expatiate on my face. plain, hideous, so be it, but why exhibit my countenance in that public way! it's insulting." malingerers marfa petrovna petchonkin, the general's widow, who has been practising for ten years as a homeopathic doctor, is seeing patients in her study on one of the tuesdays in may. on the table before her lie a chest of homeopathic drugs, a book on homeopathy, and bills from a homeopathic chemist. on the wall the letters from some petersburg homeopath, in marfa petrovna's opinion a very celebrated and great man, hang under glass in a gilt frame, and there also is a portrait of father aristark, to whom the lady owes her salvation --that is, the renunciation of pernicious allopathy and the knowledge of the truth. in the vestibule patients are sitting waiting, for the most part peasants. all but two or three of them are barefoot, as the lady has given orders that their ill-smelling boots are to be left in the yard. marfa petrovna has already seen ten patients when she calls the eleventh: "gavrila gruzd!" the door opens and instead of gavrila gruzd, zamuhrishen, a neighbouring landowner who has sunk into poverty, a little old man with sour eyes, and with a gentleman's cap under his arm, walks into the room. he puts down his stick in the corner, goes up to the lady, and without a word drops on one knee before her. "what are you about, kuzma kuzmitch?" cries the lady in horror, flushing crimson. "for goodness sake!" "while i live i will not rise," says zamuhrishen, bending over her hand. "let all the world see my homage on my knees, our guardian angel, benefactress of the human race! let them! before the good fairy who has given me life, guided me into the path of truth, and enlightened my scepticism i am ready not merely to kneel but to pass through fire, our miraculous healer, mother of the orphan and the widowed! i have recovered. i am a new man, enchantress!" "i . . . i am very glad . . ." mutters the lady, flushing with pleasure. "it's so pleasant to hear that. . . sit down please! why, you were so seriously ill that tuesday." "yes indeed, how ill i was! it's awful to recall it," says zamuhrishen, taking a seat. "i had rheumatism in every part and every organ. i have been in misery for eight years, i've had no rest from it . . . by day or by night, my benefactress. i have consulted doctors, and i went to professors at kazan; i have tried all sorts of mud-baths, and drunk waters, and goodness knows what i haven't tried! i have wasted all my substance on doctors, my beautiful lady. the doctors did me nothing but harm. they drove the disease inwards. drive in, that they did, but to drive out was beyond their science. all they care about is their fees, the brigands; but as for the benefit of humanity--for that they don't care a straw. they prescribe some quackery, and you have to drink it. assassins, that's the only word for them. if it hadn't been for you, our angel, i should have been in the grave by now! i went home from you that tuesday, looked at the pilules that you gave me then, and wondered what good there could be in them. was it possible that those little grains, scarcely visible, could cure my immense, long-standing disease? that's what i thought--unbeliever that i was!--and i smiled; but when i took the pilule--it was instantaneous! it was as though i had not been ill, or as though it had been lifted off me. my wife looked at me with her eyes starting out of her head and couldn't believe it. 'why, is it you, kolya?' 'yes, it is i,' i said. and we knelt down together before the ikon, and fell to praying for our angel: 'send her, o lord, all that we are feeling!'" zamuhrishen wipes his eyes with his sleeve gets up from his chair, and shows a disposition to drop on one knee again; but the lady checks him and makes him sit down. "it's not me you must thank," she says, blushing with excitement and looking enthusiastically at the portrait of father aristark. "it's not my doing. . . . i am only the obedient instrument . . it's really a miracle. rheumatism of eight years' standing by one pilule of scrofuloso!" "excuse me, you were so kind as to give me three pilules. one i took at dinner and the effect was instantaneous! another in the evening, and the third next day; and since then not a touch! not a twinge anywhere! and you know i thought i was dying, i had written to moscow for my son to come! the lord has given you wisdom, our lady of healing! now i am walking, and feel as though i were in paradise. the tuesday i came to you i was hobbling, and now i am ready to run after a hare. . . . i could live for a hundred years. there's only one trouble, our lack of means. i'm well now, but what's the use of health if there's nothing to live on? poverty weighs on me worse than illness. . . . for example, take this . . . it's the time to sow oats, and how is one to sow it if one has no seed? i ought to buy it, but the money . . . everyone knows how we are off for money. . . ." "i will give you oats, kuzma kuzmitch. . . . sit down, sit down. you have so delighted me, you have given me so much pleasure that it's not you but i that should say thank you!" "you are our joy! that the lord should create such goodness! rejoice, madam, looking at your good deeds! . . . while we sinners have no cause for rejoicing in ourselves. . . . we are paltry, poor-spirited, useless people . . . a mean lot. . . . we are only gentry in name, but in a material sense we are the same as peasants, only worse. . . . we live in stone houses, but it's a mere make-believe . . . for the roof leaks. and there is no money to buy wood to mend it with." "i'll give you the wood, kuzma kuzmitch." zamuhrishen asks for and gets a cow too, a letter of recommendation for his daughter whom he wants to send to a boarding school, and . . . touched by the lady's liberality he whimpers with excess of feeling, twists his mouth, and feels in his pocket for his handkerchief . . . . marfa petrovna sees a red paper slip out of his pocket with his handkerchief and fall noiselessly to the floor. "i shall never forget it to all eternity . . ." he mutters, "and i shall make my children and my grandchildren remember it . . . from generation to generation. 'see, children,' i shall say, 'who has saved me from the grave, who . . .'" when she has seen her patient out, the lady looks for a minute at father aristark with eyes full of tears, then turns her caressing, reverent gaze on the drug chest, the books, the bills, the armchair in which the man she had saved from death has just been sitting, and her eyes fall on the paper just dropped by her patient. she picks up the paper, unfolds it, and sees in it three pilules--the very pilules she had given zamuhrishen the previous tuesday. "they are the very ones," she thinks puzzled. ". . . the paper is the same. . . . he hasn't even unwrapped them! what has he taken then? strange. . . . surely he wouldn't try to deceive me!" and for the first time in her ten years of practice a doubt creeps into marfa petrovna's mind. . . . she summons the other patients, and while talking to them of their complaints notices what has hitherto slipped by her ears unnoticed. the patients, every one of them as though they were in a conspiracy, first belaud her for their miraculous cure, go into raptures over her medical skill, and abuse allopath doctors, then when she is flushed with excitement, begin holding forth on their needs. one asks for a bit of land to plough, another for wood, a third for permission to shoot in her forests, and so on. she looks at the broad, benevolent countenance of father aristark who has revealed the truth to her, and a new truth begins gnawing at her heart. an evil oppressive truth. . . . the deceitfulness of man! in the graveyard "the wind has got up, friends, and it is beginning to get dark. hadn't we better take ourselves off before it gets worse?" the wind was frolicking among the yellow leaves of the old birch trees, and a shower of thick drops fell upon us from the leaves. one of our party slipped on the clayey soil, and clutched at a big grey cross to save himself from falling. "yegor gryaznorukov, titular councillor and cavalier . ." he read. "i knew that gentleman. he was fond of his wife, he wore the stanislav ribbon, and read nothing. . . . his digestion worked well . . . . life was all right, wasn't it? one would have thought he had no reason to die, but alas! fate had its eye on him. . . . the poor fellow fell a victim to his habits of observation. on one occasion, when he was listening at a keyhole, he got such a bang on the head from the door that he sustained concussion of the brain (he had a brain), and died. and here, under this tombstone, lies a man who from his cradle detested verses and epigrams. . . . as though to mock him his whole tombstone is adorned with verses. . . . there is someone coming!" a man in a shabby overcoat, with a shaven, bluish-crimson countenance, overtook us. he had a bottle under his arm and a parcel of sausage was sticking out of his pocket. "where is the grave of mushkin, the actor?" he asked us in a husky voice. we conducted him towards the grave of mushkin, the actor, who had died two years before. "you are a government clerk, i suppose?" we asked him. "no, an actor. nowadays it is difficult to distinguish actors from clerks of the consistory. no doubt you have noticed that. . . . that's typical, but it's not very flattering for the government clerk." it was with difficulty that we found the actor's grave. it had sunken, was overgrown with weeds, and had lost all appearance of a grave. a cheap, little cross that had begun to rot, and was covered with green moss blackened by the frost, had an air of aged dejection and looked, as it were, ailing. ". . . forgotten friend mushkin . . ." we read. time had erased the _never_, and corrected the falsehood of man. "a subscription for a monument to him was got up among actors and journalists, but they drank up the money, the dear fellows . . ." sighed the actor, bowing down to the ground and touching the wet earth with his knees and his cap. "how do you mean, drank it?" that's very simple. they collected the money, published a paragraph about it in the newspaper, and spent it on drink. . . . i don't say it to blame them. . . . i hope it did them good, dear things! good health to them, and eternal memory to him." "drinking means bad health, and eternal memory nothing but sadness. god give us remembrance for a time, but eternal memory--what next!" "you are right there. mushkin was a well-known man, you see; there were a dozen wreaths on the coffin, and he is already forgotten. those to whom he was dear have forgotten him, but those to whom he did harm remember him. i, for instance, shall never, never forget him, for i got nothing but harm from him. i have no love for the deceased." "what harm did he do you?" "great harm," sighed the actor, and an expression of bitter resentment overspread his face. "to me he was a villain and a scoundrel--the kingdom of heaven be his! it was through looking at him and listening to him that i became an actor. by his art he lured me from the parental home, he enticed me with the excitements of an actor's life, promised me all sorts of things--and brought tears and sorrow. . . . an actor's lot is a bitter one! i have lost youth, sobriety, and the divine semblance. . . . i haven't a half-penny to bless myself with, my shoes are down at heel, my breeches are frayed and patched, and my face looks as if it had been gnawed by dogs. . . . my head's full of freethinking and nonsense. . . . he robbed me of my faith--my evil genius! it would have been something if i had had talent, but as it is, i am ruined for nothing. . . . it's cold, honoured friends. . . . won't you have some? there is enough for all. . . . b-r-r-r. . . . let us drink to the rest of his soul! though i don't like him and though he's dead, he was the only one i had in the world, the only one. it's the last time i shall visit him. . . . the doctors say i shall soon die of drink, so here i have come to say good-bye. one must forgive one's enemies." we left the actor to converse with the dead mushkin and went on. it began drizzling a fine cold rain. at the turning into the principal avenue strewn with gravel, we met a funeral procession. four bearers, wearing white calico sashes and muddy high boots with leaves sticking on them, carried the brown coffin. it was getting dark and they hastened, stumbling and shaking their burden. . . . "we've only been walking here for a couple of hours and that is the third brought in already. . . . shall we go home, friends?" hush! ivan yegoritch krasnyhin, a fourth-rate journalist, returns home late at night, grave and careworn, with a peculiar air of concentration. he looks like a man expecting a police-raid or contemplating suicide. pacing about his rooms he halts abruptly, ruffles up his hair, and says in the tone in which laertes announces his intention of avenging his sister: "shattered, soul-weary, a sick load of misery on the heart . . . and then to sit down and write. and this is called life! how is it nobody has described the agonizing discord in the soul of a writer who has to amuse the crowd when his heart is heavy or to shed tears at the word of command when his heart is light? i must be playful, coldly unconcerned, witty, but what if i am weighed down with misery, what if i am ill, or my child is dying or my wife in anguish!" he says this, brandishing his fists and rolling his eyes. . . . then he goes into the bedroom and wakes his wife. "nadya," he says, "i am sitting down to write. . . . please don't let anyone interrupt me. i can't write with children crying or cooks snoring. . . . see, too, that there's tea and . . . steak or something. . . . you know that i can't write without tea. . . . tea is the one thing that gives me the energy for my work." returning to his room he takes off his coat, waistcoat, and boots. he does this very slowly; then, assuming an expression of injured innocence, he sits down to his table. there is nothing casual, nothing ordinary on his writing-table, down to the veriest trifle everything bears the stamp of a stern, deliberately planned programme. little busts and photographs of distinguished writers, heaps of rough manuscripts, a volume of byelinsky with a page turned down, part of a skull by way of an ash-tray, a sheet of newspaper folded carelessly, but so that a passage is uppermost, boldly marked in blue pencil with the word "disgraceful." there are a dozen sharply-pointed pencils and several penholders fitted with new nibs, put in readiness that no accidental breaking of a pen may for a single second interrupt the flight of his creative fancy. ivan yegoritch throws himself back in his chair, and closing his eyes concentrates himself on his subject. he hears his wife shuffling about in her slippers and splitting shavings to heat the samovar. she is hardly awake, that is apparent from the way the knife and the lid of the samovar keep dropping from her hands. soon the hissing of the samovar and the spluttering of the frying meat reaches him. his wife is still splitting shavings and rattling with the doors and blowers of the stove. all at once ivan yegoritch starts, opens frightened eyes, and begins to sniff the air. "heavens! the stove is smoking!" he groans, grimacing with a face of agony. "smoking! that insufferable woman makes a point of trying to poison me! how, in god's name, am i to write in such surroundings, kindly tell me that?" he rushes into the kitchen and breaks into a theatrical wail. when a little later, his wife, stepping cautiously on tiptoe, brings him in a glass of tea, he is sitting in an easy chair as before with his eyes closed, absorbed in his article. he does not stir, drums lightly on his forehead with two fingers, and pretends he is not aware of his wife's presence. . . . his face wears an expression of injured innocence. like a girl who has been presented with a costly fan, he spends a long time coquetting, grimacing, and posing to himself before he writes the title. . . . he presses his temples, he wriggles, and draws his legs up under his chair as though he were in pain, or half closes his eyes languidly like a cat on the sofa. at last, not without hesitation, he stretches out his hand towards the inkstand, and with an expression as though he were signing a death-warrant, writes the title. . . . "mammy, give me some water!" he hears his son's voice. "hush!" says his mother. "daddy's writing! hush!" daddy writes very, very quickly, without corrections or pauses, he has scarcely time to turn over the pages. the busts and portraits of celebrated authors look at his swiftly racing pen and, keeping stock still, seem to be thinking: "oh my, how you are going it!" "sh!" squeaks the pen. "sh!" whisper the authors, when his knee jolts the table and they are set trembling. all at once krasnyhin draws himself up, lays down his pen and listens. . . . he hears an even monotonous whispering. . . . it is foma nikolaevitch, the lodger in the next room, saying his prayers. "i say!" cries krasnyhin. "couldn't you, please, say your prayers more quietly? you prevent me from writing!" "very sorry. . . ." foma nikolaevitch answers timidly. after covering five pages, krasnyhin stretches and looks at his watch. "goodness, three o'clock already," he moans. "other people are asleep while i . . . i alone must work!" shattered and exhausted he goes, with his head on one side, to the bedroom to wake his wife, and says in a languid voice: "nadya, get me some more tea! i . . . feel weak." he writes till four o'clock and would readily have written till six if his subject had not been exhausted. coquetting and posing to himself and the inanimate objects about him, far from any indiscreet, critical eye, tyrannizing and domineering over the little anthill that fate has put in his power are the honey and the salt of his existence. and how different is this despot here at home from the humble, meek, dull-witted little man we are accustomed to see in the editor's offices! "i am so exhausted that i am afraid i shan't sleep . . ." he says as he gets into bed. "our work, this cursed, ungrateful hard labour, exhausts the soul even more than the body. . . . i had better take some bromide. . . . god knows, if it were not for my family i'd throw up the work. . . . to write to order! it is awful." he sleeps till twelve or one o'clock in the day, sleeps a sound, healthy sleep. . . . ah! how he would sleep, what dreams he would have, how he would spread himself if he were to become a well-known writer, an editor, or even a sub-editor! "he has been writing all night," whispers his wife with a scared expression on her face. "sh!" no one dares to speak or move or make a sound. his sleep is something sacred, and the culprit who offends against it will pay dearly for his fault. "hush!" floats over the flat. "hush!" in an hotel "let me tell you, my good man," began madame nashatyrin, the colonel's lady at no. , crimson and spluttering, as she pounced on the hotel-keeper. "either give me other apartments, or i shall leave your confounded hotel altogether! it's a sink of iniquity! mercy on us, i have grown-up daughters and one hears nothing but abominations day and night! it's beyond everything! day and night! sometimes he fires off such things that it simply makes one's ears blush! positively like a cabman. it's a good thing that my poor girls don't understand or i should have to fly out into the street with them. . . he's saying something now! you listen!" "i know a thing better than that, my boy," a husky bass floated in from the next room. "do you remember lieutenant druzhkov? well, that same druzhkov was one day making a drive with the yellow into the pocket and as he usually did, you know, flung up his leg. . . . all at once something went crrr-ack! at first they thought he had torn the cloth of the billiard table, but when they looked, my dear fellow, his united states had split at every seam! he had made such a high kick, the beast, that not a seam was left. . . . ha-ha-ha, and there were ladies present, too . . . among others the wife of that drivelling lieutenant okurin. . . . okurin was furious. . . . 'how dare the fellow,' said he, 'behave with impropriety in the presence of my wife?' one thing led to another . . . you know our fellows! . . . okurin sent seconds to druzhkov, and druzhkov said 'don't be a fool' . . . ha-ha-ha, 'but tell him he had better send seconds not to me but to the tailor who made me those breeches; it is his fault, you know.' ha-ha-ha! ha-ha-ha. . . ." lilya and mila, the colonel's daughters, who were sitting in the window with their round cheeks propped on their fists, flushed crimson and dropped their eyes that looked buried in their plump faces. "now you have heard him, haven't you?" madame nashatyrin went on, addressing the hotel-keeper. "and that, you consider, of no consequence, i suppose? i am the wife of a colonel, sir! my husband is a commanding officer. i will not permit some cabman to utter such infamies almost in my presence!" "he is not a cabman, madam, but the staff-captain kikin. . . . a gentleman born." "if he has so far forgotten his station as to express himself like a cabman, then he is even more deserving of contempt! in short, don't answer me, but kindly take steps!" "but what can i do, madam? you are not the only one to complain, everybody's complaining, but what am i to do with him? one goes to his room and begins putting him to shame, saying: 'hannibal ivanitch, have some fear of god! it's shameful! and he'll punch you in the face with his fists and say all sorts of things: 'there, put that in your pipe and smoke it,' and such like. it's a disgrace! he wakes up in the morning and sets to walking about the corridor in nothing, saving your presence, but his underclothes. and when he has had a drop he will pick up a revolver and set to putting bullets into the wall. by day he is swilling liquor and at night he plays cards like mad, and after cards it is fighting. . . . i am ashamed for the other lodgers to see it!" "why don't you get rid of the scoundrel?" "why, there's no getting him out! he owes me for three months, but we don't ask for our money, we simply ask him to get out as a favour . . . . the magistrate has given him an order to clear out of the rooms, but he's taking it from one court to another, and so it drags on. . . . he's a perfect nuisance, that's what he is. and, good lord, such a man, too! young, good-looking and intellectual. . . . when he hasn't had a drop you couldn't wish to see a nicer gentleman. the other day he wasn't drunk and he spent the whole day writing letters to his father and mother." "poor father and mother!" sighed the colonel's lady. "they are to be pitied, to be sure! there's no comfort in having such a scamp! he's sworn at and turned out of his lodgings, and not a day passes but he is in trouble over some scandal. it's sad!" "his poor unhappy wife!" sighed the lady. "he has no wife, madam. a likely idea! she would have to thank god if her head were not broken. . . ." the lady walked up and down the room. "he is not married, you say?" "certainly not, madam." the lady walked up and down the room again and mused a little. "h'm, not married . . ." she pronounced meditatively. "h'm. lilya and mila, don't sit at the window, there's a draught! what a pity! a young man and to let himself sink to this! and all owing to what? the lack of good influence! there is no mother who would. . . . not married? well . . . there it is. . . . please be so good," the lady continued suavely after a moment's thought, "as to go to him and ask him in my name to . . . refrain from using expressions. . . . tell him that madame nashatyrin begs him. . . . tell him she is staying with her daughters in no. . . . that she has come up from her estate in the country. . . ." "certainly." "tell him, a colonel's lady and her daughters. he might even come and apologize. . . . we are always at home after dinner. oh, mila, shut the window!" "why, what do you want with that . . . black sheep, mamma?" drawled lilya when the hotel-keeper had retired. "a queer person to invite! a drunken, rowdy rascal!" "oh, don't say so, ma chère! you always talk like that; and there . . . sit down! why, whatever he may be, we ought not to despise him. . . . there's something good in everyone. who knows," sighed the colonel's lady, looking her daughters up and down anxiously, "perhaps your fate is here. change your dresses anyway. . . ." in a strange land sunday, midday. a landowner, called kamyshev, is sitting in his dining-room, deliberately eating his lunch at a luxuriously furnished table. monsieur champoun, a clean, neat, smoothly-shaven, old frenchman, is sharing the meal with him. this champoun had once been a tutor in kamyshev's household, had taught his children good manners, the correct pronunciation of french, and dancing: afterwards when kamyshev's children had grown up and become lieutenants, champoun had become something like a _bonne_ of the male sex. the duties of the former tutor were not complicated. he had to be properly dressed, to smell of scent, to listen to kamyshev's idle babble, to eat and drink and sleep--and apparently that was all. for this he received a room, his board, and an indefinite salary. kamyshev eats and as usual babbles at random. "damnation!" he says, wiping away the tears that have come into his eyes after a mouthful of ham thickly smeared with mustard. "ough! it has shot into my head and all my joints. your french mustard would not do that, you know, if you ate the whole potful." "some like the french, some prefer the russian. . ." champoun assents mildly. "no one likes french mustard except frenchmen. and a frenchman will eat anything, whatever you give him--frogs and rats and black beetles. . . brrr! you don't like that ham, for instance, because it is russian, but if one were to give you a bit of baked glass and tell you it was french, you would eat it and smack your lips. . . . to your thinking everything russian is nasty." "i don't say that." "everything russian is nasty, but if it's french--o say tray zholee! to your thinking there is no country better than france, but to my mind. . . why, what is france, to tell the truth about it? a little bit of land. our police captain was sent out there, but in a month he asked to be transferred: there was nowhere to turn round! one can drive round the whole of your france in one day, while here when you drive out of the gate--you can see no end to the land, you can ride on and on. . ." "yes, monsieur, russia is an immense country." "to be sure it is! to your thinking there are no better people than the french. well-educated, clever people! civilization! i agree, the french are all well-educated with elegant manners. . . that is true. . . . a frenchman never allows himself to be rude: he hands a lady a chair at the right minute, he doesn't eat crayfish with his fork, he doesn't spit on the floor, but . . . there's not the same spirit in him! not the spirit in him! i don't know how to explain it to you but, however one is to express it, there's nothing in a frenchman of . . . something . . . (the speaker flourishes his fingers) . . . of something . . . fanatical. i remember i have read somewhere that all of you have intelligence acquired from books, while we russians have innate intelligence. if a russian studies the sciences properly, none of your french professors is a match for him." "perhaps," says champoun, as it were reluctantly. "no, not perhaps, but certainly! it's no use your frowning, it's the truth i am speaking. the russian intelligence is an inventive intelligence. only of course he is not given a free outlet for it, and he is no hand at boasting. he will invent something--and break it or give it to the children to play with, while your frenchman will invent some nonsensical thing and make an uproar for all the world to hear it. the other day iona the coachman carved a little man out of wood, if you pull the little man by a thread he plays unseemly antics. but iona does not brag of it. . . . i don't like frenchmen as a rule. i am not referring to you, but speaking generally. . . . they are an immoral people! outwardly they look like men, but they live like dogs. take marriage for instance. with us, once you are married, you stick to your wife, and there is no talk about it, but goodness knows how it is with you. the husband is sitting all day long in a café, while his wife fills the house with frenchmen, and sets to dancing the can-can with them." "that's not true!" champoun protests, flaring up and unable to restrain himself. "the principle of the family is highly esteemed in france." "we know all about that principle! you ought to be ashamed to defend it: one ought to be impartial: a pig is always a pig. . . . we must thank the germans for having beaten them. . . . yes indeed, god bless them for it." "in that case, monsieur, i don't understand. . ." says the frenchman leaping up with flashing eyes, "if you hate the french why do you keep me?" "what am i to do with you?" "let me go, and i will go back to france." "wha-at? but do you suppose they would let you into france now? why, you are a traitor to your country! at one time napoleon's your great man, at another gambetta. . . . who the devil can make you out?" "monsieur," says champoun in french, spluttering and crushing up his table napkin in his hands, "my worst enemy could not have thought of a greater insult than the outrage you have just done to my feelings! all is over!" and with a tragic wave of his arm the frenchman flings his dinner napkin on the table majestically, and walks out of the room with dignity. three hours later the table is laid again, and the servants bring in the dinner. kamyshev sits alone at the table. after the preliminary glass he feels a craving to babble. he wants to chatter, but he has no listener. "what is alphonse ludovikovitch doing?" he asks the footman. "he is packing his trunk, sir." "what a noodle! lord forgive us!" says kamyshev, and goes in to the frenchman. champoun is sitting on the floor in his room, and with trembling hands is packing in his trunk his linen, scent bottles, prayer-books, braces, ties. . . . all his correct figure, his trunk, his bedstead and the table--all have an air of elegance and effeminacy. great tears are dropping from his big blue eyes into the trunk. "where are you off to?" asks kamyshev, after standing still for a little. the frenchman says nothing. "do you want to go away?" kamyshev goes on. "well, you know, but . . . i won't venture to detain you. but what is queer is, how are you going to travel without a passport? i wonder! you know i have lost your passport. i thrust it in somewhere between some papers, and it is lost. . . . and they are strict about passports among us. before you have gone three or four miles they pounce upon you." champoun raises his head and looks mistrustfully at kamyshev. "yes. . . . you will see! they will see from your face you haven't a passport, and ask at once: who is that? alphonse champoun. we know that alphonse champoun. wouldn't you like to go under police escort somewhere nearer home!" "are you joking?" "what motive have i for joking? why should i? only mind now; it's a compact, don't you begin whining then and writing letters. i won't stir a finger when they lead you by in fetters!" champoun jumps up and, pale and wide-eyed, begins pacing up and down the room. "what are you doing to me?" he says in despair, clutching at his head. "my god! accursed be that hour when the fatal thought of leaving my country entered my head! . . ." "come, come, come . . . i was joking!" says kamyshev in a lower tone. "queer fish he is; he doesn't understand a joke. one can't say a word!" "my dear friend!" shrieks champoun, reassured by kamyshev's tone. "i swear i am devoted to russia, to you and your children. . . . to leave you is as bitter to me as death itself! but every word you utter stabs me to the heart!" "ah, you queer fish! if i do abuse the french, what reason have you to take offence? you are a queer fish really! you should follow the example of lazar isaakitch, my tenant. i call him one thing and another, a jew, and a scurvy rascal, and i make a pig's ear out of my coat tail, and catch him by his jewish curls. he doesn't take offence." "but he is a slave! for a kopeck he is ready to put up with any insult!" "come, come, come . . . that's enough! peace and concord!" champoun powders his tear-stained face and goes with kamyshev to the dining-room. the first course is eaten in silence, after the second the same performance begins over again, and so champoun's sufferings have no end. proofreading team from images provided by the million book project note-book of anton chekhov translated by s. s. koteliansky and leonard woolf this volume consists of notes, themes, and sketches for works which anton chekhov intended to write, and are characteristic of the methods of his artistic production. among his papers was found a series of sheets in a special cover with the inscription: "themes, thoughts, notes, and fragments." madame l.o. knipper-chekhov, chekhov's wife, also possesses his note-book, in which he entered separate themes for his future work, quotations which he liked, etc. if he used any material, he used to strike it out in the note-book. the significance which chekhov attributed to this material may be judged from the fact that he recopied most of it into a special copy book. anton chekhov's diary. my neighbor v.n.s. told me that his uncle fet-shenshin, the famous poet, when driving through the mokhovaia street, would invariably let down the window of his carriage and spit at the university. he would expectorate and spit: bah! his coachman got so used to this that every time he drove past the university, he would stop. in january i was in petersburg and stayed with souvorin. i often saw potapenko. met korolenko. i often went to the maly theatre. as alexander [chekhov's brother] came downstairs one day, b.v.g. simultaneously came out of the editorial office of the _novoye vremya_ and said to me indignantly: "why do you set the old man (i.e. souvorin) against burenin?" i have never spoken ill of the contributors to the _novoye vremya_ in souvorin's presence, although i have the deepest disrespect for the majority of them. in february, passing through moscow, i went to see l.n. tolstoi. he was irritated, made stinging remarks about the _décadents_, and for an hour and a half argued with b. tchitcherin, who, i thought, talked nonsense all the time. tatyana and mary [tolstoi's daughters] laid out a patience; they both wished, and asked me to pick a card out; i picked out the ace of spades separately for each of them, and that annoyed them. by accident there were two aces of spades in the pack. both of them are extraordinarily sympathetic, and their attitude to their father is touching. the countess denounced the painter gé all the evening. she too was irritated. may . the sexton ivan nicolayevitch brought my portrait, which he has painted from a photograph. in the evening v.n.s. brought his friend n. he is director of the foreign department ... editor of a magazine ... and doctor of medicine. he gives the impression of being an unusually stupid person and a reptile. he said: "there's nothing more pernicious on earth than a rascally liberal paper," and told us that, apparently, the peasants whom he doctors, having got his advice and medicine free of charge, ask him for a tip. he and s. speak of the peasants with exasperation and loathing. june . i was at the vagankov cemetery and saw the graves there of the victims of the khodinka. [during the coronation of nicholas ii in moscow hundreds of people were crushed to death in the khodinka fields.] i. pavlovsky, the paris correspondent of the _novoye vremya_, came with me to melikhovo. august . opening of the school in talezh. the peasants of talezh, bershov, doubechnia and sholkovo presented me with four loaves, an icon and two silver salt-cellars. the sholkovo peasant postnov made a speech. n. stayed with me from the th to the th august. he has been forbidden [by the authorities] to publish anything: he speaks contemptuously now of the younger g., who said to the new chief of the central press bureau that he was not going to sacrifice his weekly _nedelya_ for n.'s sake and that "we have always anticipated the wishes of the censorship." in fine weather n. walks in goloshes, and carries an umbrella, so as not to die of sunstroke; he is afraid to wash in cold water, and complains of palpitations of the heart. from me he went on to l.n. tolstoi. i left taganrog on august . in rostov i had supper with a school-friend, l. volkenstein, the barrister, who has already a house in town and a villa in kislovodsk [in the caucasus]. i was in nakhichevan--what a change! all the streets are lit by electric light. in kislovodsk, at the funeral of general safonov, i met a.i. tchouprov [a famous economist], later i met a.n. vesselovsky [littérateur] in the park. on the th i went on a hunting party with baron steingel, passed the night in bermamut. it was cold with a violent wind. september in novorissisk. steamer _alexander ii_. on the rd i arrived at feodossia and stopped with souvorin. i saw i.k. aivasovsky [famous painter] who said to me: "you no longer come to see me, an old man." in his opinion i ought to have paid him a visit. on the th in kharkov, i was in the theatre at the performance of "the dangers of intelligence." th at home: wonderful weather. vladimir sloviov [famous philosopher] told me that he always carried an oak-gall in his trouser pocket,--in his opinion, it is a radical cure for piles. october . performance of my "seagull" at the alexandrinsky theatre. it was not a success. th. i was at a meeting of the zemstvo council at sezpukhovo. on the th november i had a letter from a.f. koni who says he liked my "seagull" very much. november th. a fire broke out in our house. count s.i. shakhovsky helped to put it out. when it was over, sh. related that once, when a fire broke out in his house at night, he lifted a tank of water weighing - / cwt. and poured the water on the flames. december . for the performance [of the "seagull"] on the th october see "theatral," no. , page . it is true that i fled from the theatre, but only when the play was over. in l.'s dressing-room during two or three acts. during the intervals there came to her officials of the state theatres in uniform, wearing their orders, p.--with a star; a handsome young official of the department of the state police also came to her. if a man takes up work which is alien to him, art for instance, then, since it is impossible for him to become an artist, he becomes an official. what a lot of people thus play the parasite round science, the theatre, the painting,--by putting on a uniform! likewise the man to whom life is alien, who is incapable of living, nothing else remains for him, but to become an official. the fat actresses, who were in the dressing-room, made themselves pleasant to the officials--respectfully and flatteringly. (l. expressed her delight that p., so young, had already got the star.) they were old, respectable house-keepers, serf-women, whom the masters honored with their presence. december . levitan suffers from dilation of the aorta. he carries clay on his chest. he has superb studies for pictures, and a passionate thirst for life. december . p.i. seryogin, the landscape painter, came. . from january to february busy with the census. i am enumerator of the th district, and have to instruct the other (fifteen) enumerators of our bavykin section. they all work superbly, except the priest of the starospassky parish and the government official, appointed to the zemstvo, g., (who is in charge of the census district); he is away nearly all the time in serpukhovo, spends every evening at the club and keeps on wiring that he is not well. all the rest of the government officials of our district are also said to do nothing. with such critics as we have, authors like n.s. lyeskov and s.v. maximov cannot be a success. between "there is a god" and "there is no god" lies a whole vast tract, which the really wise man crosses with great effort. a russian knows one or other of these two extremes, and the middle tract between them does not interest him; and therefore he usually knows nothing, or very little. the ease with which jews change their religion is justified by many on the ground of indifference. but this is not a justification. one has to respect even one's indifference, and not change it for anything, since indifference in a decent man is also a religion. february . dinner at mme. morosov's. tchouprov, sololevsky, blaramberg, sablin and myself were present. february . pancakes at soldatienkov's [a moscow publisher]. only golziev [editor of _russian thought_] and myself were present. many fine pictures, nearly all badly hung. after the pancakes we drove to levitan, from whom soldatienkov bought a picture and two studies for , roubles. met polyenov [famous painter]. in the evening i was at professor ostroumov's; he says that levitan "can't help dying." o. himself is ill and obviously frightened. february . several of us met in the evening in the offices of _russian thought_ to discuss the people's theatre. every one liked shekhtel's plan. february . dinner at the "continental" to commemorate the great reform [the abolition of the serfdom in ]. tedious and incongruous. to dine, drink champagne, make a racket, and deliver speeches about national consciousness, the conscience of the people, freedom, and such things, while slaves in tail-coats are running round your tables, veritable serfs, and your coachmen wait outside in the street, in the bitter cold--that is lying to the holy ghost. february . i went to serpukhovo to an amateur performance in aid of the school at novossiolki. as far as zarizin i was accompanied by ... a little queen in exile,--an actress who imagines herself great; uneducated and a bit vulgar. from march till april i was laid up in ostroumov's clinic. hæmorrhage. creaking, moisture in the apices of both my lungs; congestion in the apex of the right. on march l.n. tolstoi came to see me. we spoke of immortality. i told him the gist of nossilov's story "the theatre of the voguls," and he evidently listened with great pleasure. may . n. arrived. he is always thanking you for tea and dinner, apologizing, afraid of being late for the train; he talks a great deal, keeps mentioning his wife, like gogol's mijniev, pushes the proofs of his play over to you, first one sheet then another, giggles, attacks menshikov, whom tolstoi has "swallowed"; assures you that he would shoot stassiulevitch, if the latter were to show himself at a review, as president of the russian republic; giggles again, wets his mustaches with the soup, eats hardly anything, and yet is quite a nice man after all. may . the monks from the monastery paid us a visit. dasha moussin-poushkin, the wife of the engineer gliebov, who has been killed hunting, was there. she sang a great deal. may . i was present at the examination of two schools in tchirkov. [the tchirkov and mikhailovo schools.] july . opening of the school at novossiolki which i have had built. the peasants gave me an icon with an inscription. the zemstvo people were absent. braz [painter] does my portrait (for the tretiakov gallery). two sittings a day. july . i received a medal for my work on the census. july . in petersburg. stopped at souvorin's, in the drawing-room. met vi. t.... who complained of his hysteria and praised his own books. i saw p. gnyeditch and e. karpov, who imitated leykin showing off as a spanish grandee. july . at leykin's at ivanovsk. th in moscow. in the editorial offices of _russian thought_, bugs in the sofa. september . arrived in paris. "moulin rouge," danse du ventre, café du néon with coffins, café du ciel, etc. september . in biarritz. v.m. sobolevsky and mme. v.a. morosov are here. every russian in biarritz complains of the number of russians here. september . bayonne. grande course landoise. bull-fight. september . from biarritz to nice via toulouse. september . nice. i settled into the pension russe. met maxim kovalevsky; lunched at his house at beaulieu, with n.i. yurassov and yakobi, the artist. in monte carlo. october . confession of a spy. october . i saw b.'s mother playing roulette. unpleasant sight. november . monte carlo. i saw how the croupier stole a louis d'or. . april . in paris. acquaintance with m.m. antokolsky [sculptor] and negotiations for a statue of peter the great. may . returned home. may . sobolevsky came to melikhovo. must put down the fact that, in paris, in spite of the rain and cold, i spent two or three weeks without being bored. arrived here with m. kovalevsky. many interesting acquaintances: paul boyer, art roë, bonnie, m. dreyfus, de roberti, waliczewsky, onieguin. luncheons and dinners, at i.i. schoukin's house. left by nord-express for petersburg, whence to moscow. at home, found wonderful weather. an example of clerical boorishness. at a dinner party the critic protopopov came up to m. kovalevsky, clinked glasses and said: "i drink to science, so long as it does no harm to the people." . september . i was at l. tolstoi's. december . talked to l. tolstoi over the telephone. . january . "istorichesky vestnik," november , "the artistic life of moscow in the seventies," by i.n. zakharin. it is said in that article that i sent in my "three sisters" to the theatrical and literary committee. it is not true. anton chekhov's note-books ( - ) mankind has conceived history as a series of battles; hitherto it has considered fighting as the main thing in life. * * * * * solomon made a great mistake when he asked for wisdom.[ ] [footnote : among chekhov's papers the following monologue was found, written in his own hand: _solomon_ (alone): oh! how dark is life! no night, when i was a child, so terrified me by its darkness as does my invisible existence. lord, to david my father thou gavest only the gift of harmonizing words and sounds, to sing and praise thee on strings, to lament sweetly, to make people weep or admire beauty; but why hast thou given me a meditative, sleepless, hungry mind? like an insect born of the dust, i hide in darkness; and in fear and despair, all shaking and shivering, i see and hear in everything an invisible mystery. why this morning? why does the sun come out from behind the temple and gild the palm tree? why this beauty of women? where does the bird hurry, what is the meaning of its flight, if it and its young and the place to which it hastens will, like myself, turn to dust? it were better i had never been born or were a stone, to which god has given neither eyes nor thoughts. in order to tire out my body by nightfall, all day yesterday, like a mere workman i carried marble to the temple; but now the night has come and i cannot sleep ... i'll go and lie down. phorses told me that if one imagines a flock of sheep running and fixes one's attention upon it, the mind gets confused and one falls asleep, i'll do it ...(exit).] * * * * * ordinary hypocrites pretend to be doves; political and literary hypocrites pretend to be eagles. but don't be disconcerted by their aquiline appearance. they are not eagles, but rats or dogs. * * * * * those who are more stupid and more dirty than we are called the people. the administration classifies the population into taxpayers and non-taxpayers. but neither classification will do; we are all the people and all the best we are doing is the people's work. * * * * * if the prince of monaco has a roulette table, surely convicts may play at cards. * * * * * iv. (chekhov's brother ivan) could philosophize about love, but he could not love. * * * * * _aliosha_: "my mind, mother, is weakened by illness and i am now like a child: now i pray to god, now i cry, now i am happy." * * * * * why did hamlet trouble about ghosts after death, when life itself is haunted by ghosts so much more terrible? * * * * * _daughter_: "felt boots are not the correct thing." _father_: "yes they are clumsy, i'll have to get leather ones." the father fell ill and his deportation to siberia was postponed. _daughter_: "you are not at all ill, father. look, you have your coat and boots on...." _father_: "i long to be exiled to siberia. one could sit somewhere by the yenissey or obi river and fish, and on the ferry there would be nice little convicts, emigrants.... here i hate everything: this lilac tree in front of the window, these gravel paths...." * * * * * a bedroom. the light of the moon shines so brightly through the window that even the buttons on his night shirt are visible. * * * * * a nice man would feel ashamed even before a dog.... * * * * * a certain councillor of state, looking at a beautiful landscape, said: "what a marvelous function of nature!" from the note-book of an old dog: "people don't eat slops and bones which the cooks throw away. fools!" * * * * * he had nothing in his soul except recollections of his schooldays. * * * * * the french say: "laid comme un chenille"--as ugly as a caterpillar. * * * * * people are bachelors or old maids because they rouse no interest, not even a physical one. * * * * * the children growing up talked at meals about religion and laughed at fasts, monks, etc. the old mother at first lost her temper, then, evidently getting used to it, only smiled, but at last she told the children that they had convinced her, that she is now of their opinion. the children felt awkward and could not imagine what their old mother would do without her religion. * * * * * there is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science. * * * * * the dog walked in the street and was ashamed of its crooked legs. * * * * * the difference between man and woman: a woman, as she grows old gives herself up more and more to female affairs; a man, as he grows old, withdraws himself more and more from female affairs. * * * * * that sudden and ill-timed love-affair may be compared to this: you take boys somewhere for a walk; the walk is jolly and interesting--and suddenly one of them gorges himself with oil paint. * * * * * the character in the play says to every one: "you've got worms." he cures his daughter of the worms, and she turns yellow. * * * * * a scholar, without talent, a blockhead, worked for twenty-four years and produced nothing good, gave the world only scholars as untalented and as narrow-minded as himself. at night he secretly bound books--that was his true vocation: in that he was an artist and felt the joy of it. there came to him a bookbinder, who loved learning and studied secretly at night. * * * * * but perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster. * * * * * keep to the right, you of the yellow eye! * * * * * do you want to eat? no, on the contrary. * * * * * a pregnant woman with short arms and a long neck, like a kangaroo. * * * * * how pleasant it is to respect people! when i see books, i am not concerned with how the authors loved or played cards; i see only their marvelous works. * * * * * to demand that the woman one loves should be pure is egotistical: to look for that in a woman which i have not got myself is not love, but worship, since one ought to love one's equals. * * * * * the so-called pure childlike joy of life is animal joy. * * * * * i cannot bear the crying of children, but when my child cries, i don't hear. * * * * * a schoolboy treats a lady to dinner in a restaurant. he has only one rouble, twenty kopecks. the bill comes to four roubles thirty kopecks. he has no money and begins to cry. the proprietor boxes his ears. he was talking to the lady about abyssinia. * * * * * a man, who, to judge from his appearance, loves nothing but sausages and sauerkraut. * * * * * we judge human activities by their goal; that activity is great of which the goal is great. * * * * * you drive on the nevski, you look to the left on the haymarket; the clouds are the color of smoke, the ball of the setting sun purple--dante's hell! * * * * * his income is twenty-five to fifty thousand, and yet out of poverty he shoots himself. * * * * * terrible poverty, desperate situation. the mother a widow, her daughter a very ugly girl. at last the mother takes courage and advises the daughter to go on the streets. she herself when young went on the streets without her husband's knowledge in order to get money for her dresses; she has some experience. she instructs her daughter. the latter goes out, walks all night; not a single man takes her; she is ugly. a couple of days later, three young rascals on the boulevard take her. she brought home a note which turned out to be a lottery ticket no longer valid. * * * * * two wives: one in petersburg, the other in kertch. constant rows, threats, telegrams. they nearly reduce him to suicide. at last he finds a way: he settles them both in the same house. they are perplexed, petrified; they grow silent and quiet down. * * * * * his character is so undeveloped that one can hardly believe that he has been to the university. * * * * * and i dreamt that, as it were, what i considered reality was a dream, and the dream was reality. * * * * * i observed that after marriage people cease to be curious. * * * * * it usually takes as much time to feel happy as to wind up one's watch. * * * * * a dirty tavern near the station. and in every tavern like that you will find salted white sturgeon with horse radish. what a lot of sturgeon must be salted in russia! * * * * * z. goes on sundays to the sukharevka (a market-place in moscow) to look for books; he finds a book, written by his father, with the inscription: "to darling nadya from the author." * * * * * a government official wears on his chest the portrait of the governor's wife; he feeds a turkey on nuts and makes her a present of it. * * * * * one should be mentally clear, morally pure, and physically tidy. * * * * * it was said of a certain lady that she had a cat's factory; her lover tortured the cats by treading on their tails. * * * * * an officer and his wife went to the baths together, and both were bathed by the orderly, whom they evidently did not consider a man. * * * * * "and now he appeared with all his decorations." "and what decorations has he got?" "he has a bronze medal for the census of ." * * * * * a government clerk gave his son a thrashing because he had only obtained five marks in all his subjects at school. it seemed to him not good enough. when he was told that he was in the wrong, that five is the highest mark obtainable, he thrashed his son again--out of vexation with himself. * * * * * a very good man has such a face that people take him for a detective; he is suspected of having stolen shirt-studs. * * * * * a serious phlegmatic doctor fell in love with a girl who danced very well, and, to please her, he started to learn a mazurka. * * * * * the hen sparrow believes that her cock sparrow is not chirping but singing beautifully. * * * * * when one is peacefully at home, life seems ordinary, but as soon as one walks into the street and begins to observe, to question women, for instance, then life becomes terrible. the neighborhood of patriarshi prudy (a park and street in moscow) looks quiet and peaceful, but in reality life there is hell. * * * * * these red-faced young and old women are so healthy that steam seems to exhale from them. * * * * * the estate will soon be brought under the hammer; there is poverty all round; and the footmen are still dressed like jesters. * * * * * there has been an increase not in the number of nervous diseases and nervous patients, but in the number of doctors able to study those diseases. * * * * * the more refined the more unhappy. * * * * * life does not agree with philosophy: there is no happiness which is not idleness and only the useless is pleasurable. * * * * * the grandfather is given fish to eat, and if it does not poison him and he remains alive, then all the family eat it. * * * * * a correspondence. a young man dreams of devoting himself to literature and constantly writes to his father about it; at last he gives up the civil service, goes to petersburg, and devotes himself to literature--he becomes a censor. * * * * * first class sleeping car. passengers numbers , , and . they discuss daughters-in-law. simple people suffer from mothers-in-law, intellectuals from daughters-in-law. "my elder son's wife is educated, arranges sunday schools and libraries, but she is tactless, cruel, capricious, and physically revolting. at dinner she will suddenly go off into sham hysterics because of some article in the newspaper. an affected thing." another daughter-in-law: "in society she behaves passably, but at home she is a dolt, smokes, is miserly, and when she drinks tea, she keeps the sugar between her lips and teeth and speaks at the same time." * * * * * miss mieschankina. * * * * * in the servants' quarters roman, a more or less dissolute peasant, thinks it his duty to look after the morals of the women servants. * * * * * a large fat barmaid--a cross between a pig and white sturgeon. * * * * * at malo-bronnaya (a street in moscow). a little girl who has never been in the country feels it and raves about it, speaks about jackdaws, crows and colts, imagining parks and birds on trees. * * * * * two young officers in stays. * * * * * a certain captain taught his daughter the art of fortification. * * * * * new literary forms always produce new forms of life and that is why they are so revolting to the conservative human mind. * * * * * a neurasthenic undergraduate comes home to a lonely country-house, reads french monologues, and finds them stupid. * * * * * people love talking of their diseases, although they are the most uninteresting things in their lives. * * * * * an official, who wore the portrait of the governor's wife, lent money on interest; he secretly becomes rich. the late governor's wife, whose portrait he has worn for fourteen years, now lives in a suburb, a poor widow; her son gets into trouble and she needs , roubles. she goes to the official, and he listens to her with a bored look and says: "i can't do anything for you, my lady." * * * * * women deprived of the company of men pine, men deprived of the company of women become stupid. * * * * * a sick innkeeper said to the doctor: "if i get ill, then for the love of god come without waiting for a summons. my sister will never call you in, whatever happens; she is a miser, and your fee is three roubles a visit." a month or two later the doctor heard that the innkeeper was seriously ill, and while he was making his preparations to go and see him, he received a letter from the sister saying: "my brother is dead." five days later the doctor happened to go to the village and was told there that the innkeeper had died that morning. disgusted he went to the inn. the sister dressed in black stood in the corner reading a psalm book. the doctor began to upbraid her for her stinginess and cruelty. the sister went on reading the psalms, but between every two sentences she stopped to quarrel with him--"lots of your like running about here.... the devils brought you here." she belongs to the old faith, hates passionately and swears desperately. * * * * * the new governor made a speech to his clerks. he called the merchants together--another speech. at the annual prize-giving of the secondary school for girls--a speech on true enlightenment. to the representatives of the press a speech. he called the jews together: "jews, i have summoned you." ... a month or two passes--he does nothing. again he calls the merchants together--a speech. again the jews: "jews, i have summoned you."... he has wearied them all. at last he says to his chancellor: "no, the work is too much for me, i shall have to resign." * * * * * a student at a village theological school was learning latin by heart. every half-hour he runs down to the maids' room and, closing his eyes, feels and pinches them; they scream and giggle; he returns to his book again. he calls it "refreshing oneself." * * * * * the governor's wife invited an official, who had a thin voice and was her adorer, to have a cup of chocolate with her, and for a week afterwards he was in bliss. he had saved money and lent it but not on interest. "i can't lend you any, your son-in-law would gamble it away. no, i can't." the son-in-law is the husband of the daughter who once sat in a box in a boa; he lost at cards and embezzled government money. the official, who was accustomed to herring and vodka, and who had never before drunk chocolate, felt sick after the chocolate. the expression on the lady's face: "aren't i a darling?"; she spent any amount of money on dresses and looked forward to making a display of them--so she gave parties. * * * * * going to paris with one's wife is like going to tula[ ] with one's samovar. [footnote : tula is a russian city where samovars are manufactured.] * * * * * the young do not go in for literature, because the best of them work on steam engines, in factories, in industrial undertakings. all of them have now gone into industry, and industry is making enormous progress. * * * * * families where the woman is bourgeoise easily breed adventurers, swindlers, and brutes without ideals. * * * * * a professor's opinion: not shakespeare, but the commentaries on him are the thing. * * * * * let the coming generation attain happiness; but they surely ought to ask themselves, for what did their ancestors live and for what did they suffer. * * * * * love, friendship, respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something. * * * * * th december. i saw the owner of a mill, the mother of a family, a rich russian woman, who has never seen a lilac bush in russia. * * * * * in a letter: "a russian abroad, if not a spy, is a fool." the neighbor goes to florence to cure himself of love, but at a distance his love grows stronger. * * * * * yalta. a young man, interesting, liked by a lady of forty. he is indifferent to her, avoids her. she suffers and at last, out of spite, gets up a scandal about him. * * * * * pete's mother even in her old age beaded her eyes. * * * * * viciousness is a bag with which man is born. * * * * * b. said seriously that he is the russian maupassant. and so did s. * * * * * a jewish surname: cap. * * * * * a lady looking like a fish standing on its head; her mouth like a slit, one longs to put a penny in it. * * * * * russians abroad: the men love russia passionately, but the women don't like her and soon forget her. * * * * * chemist propter. * * * * * rosalie ossipovna aromat. * * * * * it is easier to ask of the poor than of the rich. * * * * * and she began to engage in prostitution, got used to sleeping on the bed, while her aunt, fallen into poverty, used to lie on the little carpet by her side and jumped up each time the bell rang; when they left, she would say mindingly, with a pathetic grimace; "something for the chamber-maid." and they would tip her sixpence. * * * * * prostitutes in monte carlo, the whole tone is prostitutional; the palm trees, it seems, are prostitutes, and the chickens are prostitutes. * * * * * a big dolt, z., a qualified nurse, of the petersburg rozhdestvensky school, having ideals, fell in love with x., a teacher, and believed him to be ideal, a public spirited worker after the manner of novels and stories of which she was so fond. little by little she found him out, a drunkard, an idler, good-natured and not very clever. dismissed, he began to live on his wife, sponged on her. he was an excrescence, a kind of sarcoma, who wasted her completely. she was once engaged to attend some intellectual country people, she went to them every day; they felt it awkward to give her money--and, to her great vexation, gave her husband a suit as a present. he would drink tea for hours and this infuriated her. living with her husband she grew thin, ugly, spiteful, stamped her foot and shouted at him: "leave me, you low fellow." she hated him. she worked, and people paid the money to him, for, being a zemstvo worker, she took no money, and it enraged her that their friends did not understand him and thought him ideal. * * * * * a young man made a million marks, lay down on them, and shot himself. * * * * * "that woman." ... "i married when i was twenty; i have not drunk a glass of vodka all my life, haven't smoked a single cigarette." after he had run off with another woman, people got to like him more and to believe him more, and, when he walked in the street, he began to notice that they had all become kinder and nicer to him--because he had fallen. * * * * * a man and woman marry because both of them don't know what to do with themselves. * * * * * the power and salvation of a people lie in its intellegentsia, in the intellectuals who think honestly, feel, and can work. * * * * * a man without a mustache is like a woman with a mustache. * * * * * a man who cannot win a woman by a kiss will not win her by a blow. * * * * * for one sensible person there are a thousand fools, and for one sensible word there are a thousand stupid ones; the thousand overwhelms the one, and that is why cities and villages progress so slowly. the majority, the mass, always remain stupid; it will always overwhelm; the sensible man should give up hope of educating and lifting it up to himself; he had better call in the assistance of material force, build railways, telegraphs, telephones--in that way he will conquer and help life forward. * * * * * really decent people are only to be found amongst men who have definite, either conservative or radical, convictions; so-called moderate men are much inclined to rewards, commissions, orders, promotions. * * * * * "what did your uncle die of?" "instead of fifteen botkin drops,[ ] as the doctor prescribed, he took sixteen." [footnote : a very harmless purgative.] * * * * * a young philologist, who has just left the university, comes home to his native town. he is elected churchwarden. he does not believe in god, but goes to church regularly, makes the sign of the cross when passing near a church or chapel, thinking that that sort of thing is necessary for the people and that the salvation of russia is bound up with it. he is elected chairman of the zemstvo board and a justice of the peace, he wins orders and medals; he does not notice that he has reached the age of forty-five; then suddenly he realizes that all the time he has been acting and making a fool of himself, but it is now too late to change his way of life. once in his sleep he suddenly hears like the report of a gun the words: "what are you doing?"--and he starts up all in a sweat. * * * * * one cannot resist evil, but one can resist good. * * * * * he flatters the authorities like a priest. * * * * * instead of sheets--dirty tablecloths. * * * * * a jewish surname: perchik (little pepper). * * * * * a man in conversation: "and all the rest of it." * * * * * a rich man, usually insolent, his conceit enormous, but bears his riches like a cross. if the ladies and generals did not dispense charity on his account, if it were not for the poor students and the beggars, he would feel the anguish of loneliness. if the beggars struck and agreed not to beg from him, he would go to them himself. * * * * * the husband invites his friends to his country-house in the crimea, and afterwards his wife, without her husband's knowledge, brings them the bill and is paid for board and lodging. * * * * * potapov becomes attached to the brother, and this is the beginning of his falling in love with the sister. divorces his wife. afterwards the son sends him plans for a rabbit-hutch. * * * * * "i have sown clover and oats."' "no good; you had much better sow lucerne." "i have begun to keep a pig." "no good. it does not pay. you had better go in for mares." * * * * * a girl, a devoted friend, out of the best of motives, went about with a subscription list for x., who was not in want. * * * * * why are the dogs of constantinople so often described? * * * * * disease: "he has got hydropathy." * * * * * i visit a friend, find him at supper; there are many guests. it is very gay; i am glad to chatter with the women and drink wine. a wonderfully pleasant mood. suddenly up gets n. with an air of importance, as though he were a public prosecutor, and makes a speech in my honor. "the magician of words ... ideals ... in our time when ideals grow dim ... you are sowing wisdom, undying things...." i feel as if i had had a cover over me and that now the cover had been taken off and some one was aiming a pistol at me. * * * * * after the speech--a murmur of conversation, then silence. the gayety has gone. "you must speak now," says my neighbor. but what can i say? i would gladly throw the bottle at him. and i go to bed with some sediment in my soul. "look what a fool sits among you!" * * * * * the maid, when she makes the bed, always puts the slippers under the bed close to the wall. the fat master, unable to bear it any longer, gives the maid notice. it turns out that the doctor told her to put the slippers as far as possible under the bed so as to cure the man of his obesity. * * * * * the club blackballed a respectable man because all of the members were out of humor; they ruined his prospects. * * * * * a large factory. the young employer plays the superior to all and is rude to the employees who have university degrees. only the gardener, a german, has the courage to be offended: "how dare you, gold bag?" * * * * * a tiny little schoolboy with the name of trachtenbauer. * * * * * whenever he reads in the newspaper about the death of a great man, he wears mourning. * * * * * in the theatre. a gentleman asks a lady to take her hat off, as it is in his way. grumbling, disagreeableness, entreaties. at last a confession: "madam, i am the author of the play." she answered: "i don't care." * * * * * in order to act wisely it is not enough to be wise (dostoevsky). * * * * * a. and b. have a bet. a. wins the wager, by eating twelve cutlets; b. does not pay even for the cutlets. * * * * * it is terrible to dine every day with a person who stammers and says stupid things. * * * * * glancing at a plump, appetizing woman: "it is not a woman, it is a full moon." * * * * * from her face one would imagine that under her stays she has got gills. * * * * * for a farce: kapiton ivanovitch boil. * * * * * an income-tax inspector and an excise official, in order to justify their occupations to themselves, say spontaneously: "it is an interesting profession, there is a lot of work, it is a live occupation." * * * * * at twenty she loved z., at twenty-four she married n. not because she loved him, but because she thought him a good, wise, ideal man. the couple lived happily; every one envies them, and indeed their life passes smoothly and placidly; she is satisfied, and, when people discuss love, she says that for family life not love nor passion is wanted, but affection. but once the music played suddenly, and, inside her heart, everything broke up like ice in spring: she remembered z. and her love for him, and she thought with despair that her life was ruined, spoilt for ever, and that she was unhappy. then it happened to her with the new year greetings; when people wished her "new happiness," she indeed longed for new happiness. * * * * * z. goes to a doctor, who examines him and finds that he is suffering from heart disease. z. abruptly changes his way of life, takes medicine, can only talk about his disease; the whole town knows that he has heart disease and all the doctors, whom he regularly consults, say that he has got heart disease. he does not marry, gives up amateur theatricals, does not drink, and when he walks does so slowly and hardly breathes. eleven years later he has to go to moscow and there he consults a specialist. the latter finds that his heart is perfectly sound. z. is overjoyed, but he can no longer return to a normal life, for he has got accustomed to going to bed early and to walking slowly, and he is bored if he cannot speak of his disease. the only result is that he gets to hate doctors--that is all. * * * * * a woman is fascinated not by art, but by the noise made by those who have to do with art. * * * * * n., a dramatic critic, has a mistress x., an actress. her benefit night. the play is rotten, the acting poor, but n. has to praise. he writes briefly: "the play and the leading actress had an enormous success. particulars to-morrow." as he wrote the last two words, he gave a sigh of relief. next day he goes to x.; she opens the door, allows him to kiss and embrace her, and in a cutting tone says: "particulars to-morrow." * * * * * in kislovodsk or some other watering-place z. picked up a girl of twenty-two; she was poor, straightforward, he took pity on her and, in addition to her fee, he left twenty-five roubles on the chest of drawers; he left her room with the feeling of a man who has done a good deed. the next time he visited her, he noticed an expensive ash-tray and a man's fur cap, bought out of his twenty-five roubles--the girl again starving, her cheeks hollow. * * * * * n. mortgages his estate with the bank of the nobility at per cent, and then lends the money on mortgage at per cent. * * * * * aristocrats? the same ugly bodies and physical uncleanliness, the same toothless old age and disgusting death, as with market-women. * * * * * n., when a group is being photographed, always stands in the front row; on addresses he always signs the first; at anniversaries he is always the first to speak. always wonders: "o soup! o pastries!" * * * * * z. got tired of having visitors, and he hired a french woman to live in his house as if she were his mistress. this shocked the ladies and he no longer had visitors. * * * * * z. is a torch-bearer at funerals. he is an idealist. "in the undertaker's shop." * * * * * n. and z. are intimate friends, but when they meet in society, they at once make fun of one another--out of shyness. * * * * * complaint: "my son stepan was delicate, and i therefore sent him to school in the crimea, but there he was caned with a vine-branch, and that gave him philoxera in the behind and now the doctors can not cure him." * * * * * mitya and katya were told that their papa blasted rocks in the quarry. they wanted to blow up their cross grandpapa, so they took a pound of powder from their father's room, put it in a bottle, inserted a wick, and placed it under their grandfather's chair, when he was dozing after dinner; but soldiers marched by with the band playing--and this was the only thing that prevented them from carrying out their plan. * * * * * sleep is a marvelous mystery of nature which renews all the powers of man, bodily and spiritual. (bishop porphyrius usgensky, "the book of my life.") * * * * * a woman imagines that she has a peculiar, exceptional constitution, whose ailments are different from other people's and which cannot stand ordinary medicine. she thinks that her son is unlike other people's sons, that he has to be brought up differently. she believes in principles, but she thinks that they apply to every one but herself, because she lives in exceptional circumstances. the son grows up, and she tries to find an exceptional wife for him. those around her suffer. the son turns out a scoundrel. * * * * * poor long-suffering art! * * * * * a man whose madness takes the form of an idea that he is a ghost: walks at night. * * * * * a sentimental man, like lavrov, has moments of pleasant emotion and makes the request: "write a letter to my auntie in briansk; she is a darling...." * * * * * there is a bad smell in the barn: ten years ago haymakers slept the night in it and ever since it smells. * * * * * an officer at a doctor's. the money on a plate. the doctor can see in the looking-glass that the patient takes twenty-five roubles from the plate and pays him with it. * * * * * russia is a nobody's country! * * * * * z. who is always saying banal things: "with the agility of a bear," "on one's favorite corn." * * * * * a savings bank: the clerk, a very nice man, looks down on the bank, considers it useless--and yet goes on working there. * * * * * a radical lady, who crosses herself at night, is secretly full of prejudice and superstition, hears that in order to be happy one should boil a black cat by night. she steals a cat and tries to boil it. * * * * * a publisher's twenty-fifth anniversary. tears, a speech: "i offer ten roubles to the literary fund, the interest to be paid to the poorest writer, but on condition that a special committee is appointed to work out the rules according to which the distribution shall be made." * * * * * he wore a blouse and despised those who wore frock coats. a stew of trousers. * * * * * the ice cream is made of milk in which, as it were, the patients bathed. * * * * * it was a grand forest of timber, but a government conservator was appointed, and in two years time there was no more timber; the caterpillar pest. * * * * * x.: "choleraic disorder in my stomach started with the cider." * * * * * of some writers each work taken separately is brilliant, but taken as a whole they are indefinite; of others each particular work represents nothing outstanding; but, for all that, taken as a whole they are distinct and brilliant. * * * * * n. rings at the door of an actress; he is nervous, his heart beats, at the critical moment he gets into a panic and runs away; the maid opens the door and sees nobody. he returns, rings again--but has not the courage to go in. in the end the porter comes out and gives him a thrashing. * * * * * a gentle quiet schoolmistress secretly beats her pupils, because she believes in the good of corporal punishment. * * * * * n.: "not only the dog, but even the horses howled." * * * * * n. marries. his mother and sister see a great many faults in his wife; they are distressed, and only after four or five years realize that she is just like themselves. * * * * * the wife cried. the husband took her by the shoulders and shook her, and she stopped crying. * * * * * after his marriage everything--politics, literature, society--did not seem to him as interesting as they had before; but now every trifle concerning his wife and child became a most important matter. * * * * * "why are thy songs so short?" a bird was once asked. "is it because thou art short of breath?" "i have very many songs and i should like to sing them all." (a. daudet.) * * * * * the dog hates the teacher; they tell it not to bark at him; it looks, does not bark, only whimpers with rage. * * * * * faith is a spiritual faculty; animals have not got it; savages and uncivilized people have merely fear and doubt. only highly developed natures can have faith. * * * * * death is terrible, but still more terrible is the feeling that you might live for ever and never die. * * * * * the public really loves in art that which is banal and long familiar, that to which they have grown accustomed. * * * * * a progressive, educated, young, but stingy school guardian inspects the school every day, makes long speeches there, but does not spend a penny on it: the school is falling to pieces, but he considers himself useful and necessary. the teacher hates him, but he does not notice it. the harm is great. once the teacher, unable to stand it any longer, facing him with anger and disgust, bursts out swearing at him. * * * * * _teacher_: "poushkin's centenary should not be celebrated; he did nothing for the church." * * * * * miss guitarov (actress). * * * * * if you wish to become an optimist and understand life, stop believing what people say and write, observe and discover for yourself. * * * * * husband and wife zealously followed x.'s idea and built up their life according to it as if it were a formula. only just before death they asked themselves: "perhaps that idea is wrong? perhaps the saying 'mens sana in corpore sano' is untrue?" * * * * * i detest: a playful jew, a radical ukrainian, and a drunken german. * * * * * the university brings out all abilities, including stupidity. * * * * * taking into consideration, dear sir, as a result of this view, dear sir.... * * * * * the most intolerable people are provincial celebrities. * * * * * owing to our flightiness, because the majority of us are unable and unaccustomed to think or to look deeply into life's phenomena, nowhere else do people so often say: "how banal!" nowhere else do people regard so superficially, and often contemptuously other people's merits or serious questions. on the other hand nowhere else does the authority of a name weigh so heavily as with us russians, who have been abased by centuries of slavery and fear freedom.... * * * * * a doctor advised a merchant to eat soup and chicken. the merchant thought the advice ironical. at first he ate a dinner of botvinia and pork, and then, as if recollecting the doctor's orders, ordered soup and chicken and swallowed them down too, thinking it a great joke. * * * * * father epaminond catches fish and puts them in his pocket; then, when he gets home, he takes out a fish at a time, as he wants it, and fries it. * * * * * the nobleman x. sold his estate to n. with all the furniture according to an inventory, but he took away everything else, even the oven dampers, and after that n. hated all noblemen. * * * * * the rich, intellectual x., of peasant origin, implored his son:--"mike, don't get out of your class. be a peasant until you die, do not become a nobleman, nor a merchant, nor a bourgeois. if, as you say, the zemstvo officer now has the right to inflict corporal punishment on peasants, then let him also have the right to punish you." he was proud of his peasant origin, he was even haughty about it. * * * * * they celebrated the birthday of an honest man. took the opportunity to show off and praise one another. only towards the end of the dinner they suddenly discovered that the man had not been invited; they had forgotten. * * * * * a gentle quiet woman, getting into a temper, says: "if i were a man, i would just bash your filthy mug." * * * * * a mussulman for the salvation of his soul digs a well. it would be a pleasant thing if each of us left a school, a well, or something like that, so that life should not pass away into eternity without leaving a trace behind it. * * * * * we are tired out by servility and hypocrisy. * * * * * n. once had his clothes torn by dogs, and now, when he pays a call anywhere, he asks: "aren't there any dogs here?" * * * * * a young pimp, in order to keep up his powers, always eats garlic. * * * * * school guardian. widowed priest plays the harmonium and sings: "rest with the saints." * * * * * in july the red bird sings the whole morning. * * * * * "a large selection of _cigs"_[ ]--so read x. every day when he went down the street, and wondered how one could deal only in _cigs_ and who wanted them. it took him thirty years before he read it correctly: "a large selection of cigars." [footnote : _cigs_ in russian is a kind of fish.] * * * * * a bride to an engineer: a dynamite cartridge filled with one-hundred-rouble notes. * * * * * "i have not read herbert spencer. tell me his subjects. what does he write about?" "i want to paint a panel for the paris exhibition. suggest a subject." (a wearisome lady.) * * * * * the idle, so-called governing, classes cannot remain long without war. when there is no war they are bored, idleness fatigues and irritates them, they do not know what they live for; they bite one another, try to say unpleasant things to one another, if possible with impunity, and the best of them make the greatest efforts not to bore the others and themselves. but when war comes, it possesses all, takes hold of the imagination, and the common misfortune unites all. * * * * * an unfaithful wife is a large cold cutlet which one does not want to touch, because some one else has had it in his hands. * * * * * an old maid writes a treatise: "the tramline of piety." * * * * * ryzeborsky, tovbin, gremoukhin, koptin. * * * * * she had not sufficient skin on her face; in order to open her eyes she had to shut her mouth and _vice versa_. * * * * * when she raises her skirt and shows her lace petticoat, it is obvious that she dresses like a woman who is accustomed to be seen by men. * * * * * x. philosophizes: "take the word 'nose.' in russia it seems something unmentionable means the deuce knows what, one may say the indecent part of the body, and in french it means wedding." and indeed x.'s nose was an indecent part of the body. * * * * * a girl, flirting, chatters: "all are afraid of me ... men, and the wind ... all leave me alone! i shall never marry." and at home poverty, her father a regular drunkard. and if people could see how she and her mother work, how she screens her father, they would feel the deepest respect for her and would wonder why she is so ashamed of poverty and work, and is not ashamed of that chatter. * * * * * a restaurant. an advanced conversation andrey andreyevitch, a good-natured bourgeois, suddenly declares: "do you know gentlemen, i was once an anarchist!" every one is astonished. a.a. tells the following tale: a strict father; a technical school opened in the provincial town in a craze for technical education; they have no ideas and they did not know what to teach (since, if you are going to make shoemakers of all the inhabitants, who will buy the shoes?); he was expelled and his father turned him out of the house; he had to take a job as an assistant clerk on the squire's estate; he became enraged with the rich, the well-fed, and the fat; the squire planted cherry trees, a.a. helped him, and suddenly a desire came over him to cut off the squire's white fat fingers with the spade, as if it were by accident; and closing his eyes he struck a blow with the shovel as hard as he could, but it missed. then he went away; the forest, the quiet in the fields, rain; he longed for warmth, went to his aunt, she gave him tea and rolls--and his anarchism was gone. after the story there passed by the table councillor of state l. immediately a.a. gets up and explains how l., councillor of state, owns houses, etc. * * * * * i was apprenticed to a tailor. he cut the trousers; i did the sewing, but the stripe came down here right over the knee. then i was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker. i was planing once when the plane flew out of my hands and hit the window; it broke the glass. the squire was a lett, his name shtoppev[ ]; and he had an expression on his face as if he were going to wink and say: "wouldn't it be nice to have a drink?" in the evenings he drank, drank by himself--and i felt hurt. [footnote : _shtopov_ means "cork-screw."] * * * * * a dealer in cider puts labels on his bottles with a crown printed on them. it irritates and vexes x. who torments himself with the idea that a mere trader is usurping the crown. x complains to the authorities, worries every one, seeks redress and so on; he dies from irritation and worry. * * * * * a governess is teased with the nickname gesticulation. * * * * * shaptcherigin, zambisebulsky, sveentchutka, chemburaklya. * * * * * senile pomposity, senile vindictiveness. what a number of despicable old men i have known! * * * * * how delightful when on a bright frosty morning a new sleigh with a rug comes to the door. * * * * * x. arrived to take up duty at n., he shows himself a despot: he is annoyed when some one else is a success; he becomes quite different in the presence of a third person; when a woman is present, his tone changes; when he pours out wine, he first puts a little in his own glass and then helps the company; when he walks with a lady he takes her arm; in general he tries to show refinement. he does not laugh at other people's jokes: "you repeat yourself." "there is nothing new in that." every one is sick of him; he sermonizes. the old women nickname him "the top." * * * * * a man who can not do anything, does not know how to act, how to enter a room, how to ask for anything. * * * * * utiujny * * * * * a man who always insists: "i haven't got syphilis. i'm an honest man. my wife is an honest woman." * * * * * x. all his life spoke and wrote about the vices of servants and about the way to manage and control them, and he died deserted by every one except his valet and his cook. * * * * * a little girl with rapture about her aunt: "she is very beautiful, as beautiful as our dog!" * * * * * marie ivanovna kolstovkin. * * * * * in a love letter: "stamp enclosed for a reply." * * * * * the best men leave the villages for the towns, and therefore the villages decline and will continue to decline. * * * * * pavel was a cook for forty years; he loathed the things which he cooked and he never ate. * * * * * he ceased to love a woman; the sensation of not being in love; a peaceful state of mind; long peaceful thoughts. * * * * * conservative people do so little harm because they are timid and have no confidence in themselves; harm is done not by conservative but by malicious people. * * * * * one of two things: either sit in the carriage or get out of it. * * * * * for a play: an old woman of radical views dresses like a girl, smokes, cannot exist without company, sympathetic. * * * * * in a pullman car--these are the dregs of society. * * * * * on the lady's bosom was the portrait of a fat german. * * * * * a man who at all elections all his life long always voted against the left. * * * * * they undressed the corpse, but had no time to take the gloves off; a corpse in gloves. * * * * * a farmer at dinner boasts: "life in the country is cheap--one has one's own chickens, one's own pigs--life is cheap." * * * * * a customs official, from want of love for his work, searches the passengers, looking for documents of a suspicious political nature, and makes even the gendarmes indignant. * * * * * a real male (mouzhtchina) consists of man (mouzh) and title (tchin). * * * * * education: "masticate your food properly," their father told them. and they masticated properly, and walked two hours every day, and washed in cold water, and yet they turned out unhappy and without talent. * * * * * commercial and industrial medicine. * * * * * n. forty years old married a girl seventeen. the first night, when they returned to his mining village, she went to bed and suddenly burst into tears, because she did not love him. he is a good soul, is overwhelmed with distress, and goes off to sleep in his little working room. * * * * * on the spot where the former manor house stood there is no trace left; only one lilac bush remains and that for some reason does not bloom. * * * * * son: "to-day i believe is thursday." mother: (not having heard) "what?" son: (angrily) "thursday!" (quietly) "i ought to take a bath." mother: "what?" son: (angry and offended) "bath!" * * * * * n. goes to x. every day, talks to him, and shows real sympathy in his grief; suddenly x. leaves his house, where he was so comfortable. n. asks x.'s mother why he went away. she answers: "because you came to see him every day." * * * * * it was such a romantic wedding, and later--what fools! what babies! * * * * * love. either it is a remnant of something degenerating, something which once has been immense, or it is a particle of what will in the future develop into something immense; but in the present it is unsatisfying, it gives much less than one expects. * * * * * a very intellectual man all his life tells lies about hypnotism, spiritualism--and people believe him; yet he is quite a nice man. * * * * * in act i, x., a respectable man, borrows a hundred roubles from n., and in the course of all four acts he does not pay it back. * * * * * a grandmother has six sons and three daughters, and best of all she loves the failure, who drinks and has been in prison. * * * * * n., the manager of a factory, rich, with a wife and children, happy, has written "an investigation into the mineral spring at x." he was much praised for it and was invited to join the staff of a newspaper; he gave up his post, went to petersburg, divorced his wife, spent his money--and went to the dogs. * * * * * (looking at a photograph album): "whose ugly face is that?" "that's my uncle." * * * * * alas, what is terrible is not the skeletons, but the fact that i am no longer terrified by them. * * * * * a boy of good family, capricious, full of mischief, obstinate, wore out his whole family. the father, an official who played the piano, got to hate him, took him into a corner of the garden, flogged him with considerable pleasure, and then felt disgusted with himself. the son has grown up and is an officer. * * * * * n. courted z. for a long time. she was very religious, and, when he proposed to her, she put a dried flower, which he had once given to her, into her prayer-book. * * * * * z: "as you are going to town, post my letter in the letter-box." n: (alarmed) "where? i don't know where the letter-box is." z: "will you also call at the chemist's and get me some naphthaline?" n: (alarmed) "i'll forget the naphthaline, i'll forget." * * * * * a storm at sea. lawyers ought to regard it as a crime. * * * * * x. went to stay with his friend in the country. the place was magnificent, but the servants treated him badly, he was uncomfortable, although his friend considered him a big man. the bed was hard, he was not provided with a night shirt and he felt ashamed to ask for one. * * * * * at a rehearsal. the wife: "how does that melody in pagliacci go? whistle it." "one must not whistle on the stage; the stage is a temple." * * * * * he died from fear of cholera. * * * * * as like as a nail is to a requiem. * * * * * a conversation on another planet about the earth a thousand years hence. "do you remember that white tree?" * * * * * anakhthema! * * * * * zigzagovsky, oslizin, svintchulka, derbaliguin. * * * * * a woman with money, the money hidden everywhere, in her bosom and between her legs.... * * * * * all that procedure. * * * * * treat your dismissal as you would an atmospheric phenomenon. * * * * * a conversation at a conference of doctors. first doctor: "all diseases can be cured by salt." second doctor, military: "every disease can be cured by prescribing no salt." the first points to his wife, the second to his daughter. * * * * * the mother has ideals, the father too; they delivered lectures; they built schools, museums, etc. they grow rich. and their children are most ordinary; spend money, gamble on the stock exchange. * * * * * n. married a german when she was seventeen. he took her to live in berlin. at forty she became a widow and by that time spoke russian badly and german badly. * * * * * the husband and wife loved having visitors, because, when there were no visitors they quarreled. * * * * * it is an absurdity! it is an anachronism! * * * * * "shut the window! you are perspiring! put on an overcoat! put on goloshes!" * * * * * if you wish to have little spare time, do nothing. * * * * * on a sunday morning in summer is heard the rumble of a carriage--people driving to mass. * * * * * for the first time in her life a man kissed her hand; it was too much for her, it turned her head. * * * * * what wonderful names: the little tears of our lady, warbler, crows-eyes.[ ] [footnote : the names of flowers.] * * * * * a government forest officer with shoulder straps, who has never seen a forest. * * * * * a gentleman owns a villa near mentone; he bought it out of the proceeds of the sale of his estate in the tula province. i saw him in kharkhov to which he had come on business; he gambled away the villa at cards and became a railway clerk; after that he died. * * * * * at supper he noticed a pretty woman and choked; a little later he caught sight of another pretty woman and choked again, so that he did not eat his supper--there were a lot of pretty women. * * * * * a doctor, recently qualified, supervises the food in a restaurant. "the food is tinder the special supervision of a doctor." he copies out the chemical composition of the mineral water; the students believe him--and all is well. * * * * * he did not eat, he partook of food. * * * * * a man, married to an actress, during a performance of a play in which his wife was acting, sat in a box, with beaming face, and from time to time got up and bowed to the audience. * * * * * dinner at count o.d.'s. fat lazy footmen; tasteless cutlets; a feeling that a lot of money is being spent, that the situation is hopeless, and that it is impossible to change the course of things. * * * * * a district doctor: "what other damned creature but a doctor would have to go out in such weather?"--he is proud of it, grumbles about it to every one, and is proud to think that his work is so troublesome; he does not drink and often sends articles to medical journals that do not publish them. * * * * * when n. married her husband, he was junior public prosecutor; he became judge of the high court and then judge of the court of appeals; he is an average uninteresting man. n. loves her husband very much. she loves him to the grave, writes him meek and touching letters when she hears of his unfaithfulness, and dies with a touching expression of love on her lips. evidently she loved, not her husband, but some one else, superior, beautiful, non-existent, and she lavished that love upon her husband. and after her death footsteps could be heard in her house. * * * * * they are members of a temperance society and now and again take a glass of wine. * * * * * they say: "in the long run truth will triumph;" but it is untrue. * * * * * a clever man says: "this is a lie, but since the people can not do without the lie, since it has the sanction of history, it is dangerous to root it out all at once; let it go on for the time being but with certain corrections." but the genius says: "this is a lie, therefore it must not exist." * * * * * marie ivanovna kladovaya. * * * * * a schoolboy with mustaches, in order to show off, limps with one leg. * * * * * a writer of no talent, who has been writing for a long time, with his air of importance reminds one of a high priest. * * * * * mr. n. and miss z. in the city of x. both clever, educated, of radical views, and both working for the good of their fellow men, but both hardly know each other and in conversation always rail at each other in order to please the stupid and coarse crowd. * * * * * he flourished his hand as if he were going to seize him by the hair and said: "you won't escape by that there trick." * * * * * n. has never been in the country and thinks that in the winter country people use skis. "how i would enjoy ski-ing now!" * * * * * madam n., who sells herself, says to each man who has her: "i love you because you are not like the rest." * * * * * an intellectual woman, or rather a woman who belongs to an intellectual circle, excels in deceit. * * * * * n. struggled all his life investigating a disease and studying its bacilli; he devoted his whole life to the struggle, expended on it all his powers, and suddenly just before his death it turned out that the disease is not in the least infectious or dangerous. * * * * * a theatrical manager, lying in bed, read a new play. he read three or four pages and then in irritation threw the play on to the floor, put out the candle, and drew the bedclothes over him; a little later, after thinking over it, he took the play up again and began to read it; then, getting angry with the uninspired tedious work, he again threw it on the floor and put out the candle. a little later he once more took up the play and read it, then he produced it and it was a failure. * * * * * n., heavy, morose, gloomy, says: "i love a joke, i am always joking." * * * * * the wife writes; the husband does not like her writing, but out of delicacy says nothing and suffers all his life. * * * * * the fate of an actress: the beginning--a well-to-do family in kertch, life dull and empty; the stage, virtue, passionate love, then lovers; the end: unsuccessful attempt to poison herself, then kertch, life at her fat uncle's house, the delight of being left alone. experience shows that an artist must dispense with wine, marriage, pregnancy. the stage will become art only in the future, now it is only struggling for the future. * * * * * (angrily and sententiously) "why don't you give me your wife's letters to read? aren't we relations?" * * * * * lord, don't allow me to condemn or to speak of what i do not know or do not understand. * * * * * why do people describe only the weak, surly and frail as sinners? and every one when he advises others to describe only the strong, healthy, and interesting, means himself. * * * * * for a play: a character always lying without rhyme or reason. * * * * * sexton catacombov. * * * * * n.n., a littérateur, critic, plausible, self-confident, very liberal minded, talks about poetry; condescendingly agrees with one--and i see that he is a man absolutely without talent (i haven't read him). some one suggests going to ai-petri. i say that it is going to rain, but we set out. the road is muddy, it rains; the critic sits next to me, i feel his lack of talent. he is wooed and made a fuss of as if he were a bishop. and when it cleared up, i went back on foot. how easily people deceive themselves, how they love prophets and soothsayers; what a herd it is! another person went with us, a councillor of state, middle-aged, silent, because he thinks he is right and despises the critic, because he too is without talent. a girl afraid to smile because she is among clever people. * * * * * alexey ivanitch prokhladitelny (refreshing) or doushespasitelny (soul-saving). a girl: "i would marry him, but am afraid of the name--madam refreshing." * * * * * a dream of a keeper in the zoological gardens. he dreams that there was presented to the zoo first a marmot, then an emu, then a vulture, then a she-goat, then another emu; the presentations are made without end and the zoo is crowded out--the keeper wakes up in horror wet with perspiration. * * * * * "to harness slowly but drive rapidly is in the nature of this people," said bismarck. * * * * * when an actor has money, he doesn't send letters but telegrams. * * * * * with insects, out of the caterpillar comes the butterfly; with mankind it is the other way round, out of the butterfly comes the caterpillar.[ ] [footnote : there is a play on words here, the russian word for butterfly also means a woman.] * * * * * the dogs in the house became attached not to their masters who fed and fondled them, but to the cook, a foreigner, who beat them. * * * * * sophie was afraid that her dog might catch cold, because of the draught. * * * * * the soil is so good, that, were you to plant a shaft, in a year's time a cart would grow out of it. * * * * * x. and z., very well educated and of radical views, married. in the evening they talked together pleasantly, then quarreled, then came to blows. in the morning both are ashamed and surprised, they think that it must have been the result of some exceptional state of their nerves. next night again a quarrel and blows. and so every night until at last they realize that they are not at all educated, but savage, just like the majority of people. * * * * * a play: in order to avoid having visitors, z. pretends to be a regular tippler, although he drinks nothing. * * * * * when children appear on the scene, then we justify all our weaknesses, our compromises, and our snobbery, by saying: "it's for the children's sake." * * * * * count, i am going away to mordegundia. (a land of horrible faces.) * * * * * barbara nedotyopin. * * * * * z., an engineer or doctor, went on a visit to his uncle, an editor; he became interested, began to go there frequently; then became a contributor to the paper, little by little gave up his profession; one night he came out of the newspaper office, remembered, and seized his head in his hands--"all is lost!" he began to go gray. then it became a habit, he was quite white now and flabby, an editor, respectable but obscure. * * * * * a privy councillor, an old man, looking at his children, became a radical himself. * * * * * a newspaper: "cracknel." * * * * * the clown in the circus--that is talent, and the waiter in the frock coat speaking to him--that is the crowd; the waiter with an ironical smile on his face. * * * * * auntie from novozybkov. * * * * * he has a rarefaction of the brain and his brains have leaked into his ears. * * * * * "what? writers? if you like, for a shilling i'll make a writer of you." * * * * * instead of translator, contractor. * * * * * an actress, forty years old, ugly, ate a partridge for dinner, and i felt sorry for the partridge, for it occurred to me that in its life it had been more talented, more sensible, and more honest than that actress. * * * * * the doctor said to me: "if," says he, "your constitution holds out, drink to your heart's content." (gorbunov.) * * * * * carl kremertartarlau. * * * * * a field with a distant view, one tiny birch tree. the inscription under the picture: loneliness. * * * * * the guests had gone: they had played cards and everything was in disorder: tobacco smoke, scraps of paper, and chiefly--the dawn and memories. * * * * * better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them. * * * * * why do trees grow and so luxuriantly, when the owners are dead? * * * * * the character keeps a library, but he is always away visiting; there are no readers. * * * * * life seems great, enormous, and yet one sits on one's _piatachok_.[ ] [footnote : the word means five kopecks and also a pig's snout.] * * * * * zolotonosha?[ ] there is no such town! no! [footnote : the name of a russian town, meaning literally "gold-carrier."] * * * * * when he laughs, he shows his teeth and gums. * * * * * he loved the sort of literature which did not upset him, schiller, homer, etc. * * * * * n., a teacher, on her way home in the evening was told by her friend that x. had fallen in love with her, n., and wanted to propose. n., ungainly, who had never before thought of marriage, when she got home, sat for a long time trembling with fear, could not sleep, cried, and towards morning fell in love with x.; next day she heard that the whole thing was a supposition on the part of her friend and that x. was going to marry not her but y. * * * * * he had a liaison with a woman of forty-five after which he began to write ghost stories. * * * * * i dreamt that i was in india and that one of the local princes presented me with an elephant, two elephants even. i was so worried about the elephant that i woke up. * * * * * an old man of eighty says to another old man of sixty: "you ought to be ashamed, young man." * * * * * when they sang in church, "now is the beginning of our salvation," he ate _glavizna_ at home; on the day of st. john the baptist he ate no food that was circular and flogged his children.[ ] [footnote : _glavizna_ in russian is the name of a fish and also means beginning; the root of the verbs "to behead" and "to flog" are the same.] * * * * * a journalist wrote lies in the newspaper, but he thought he was writing the truth. * * * * * if you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry. * * * * * he himself is rich, but his mother is in the workhouse. * * * * * he married, furnished a house, bought a writing-table, got everything in order, but found he had nothing to write. * * * * * faust: "what you don't know is just what you want; what you know is what you can't use." * * * * * although you may tell lies, people will believe you, if only you speak with authority. * * * * * as i shall lie in the grave alone, so in fact i live alone. * * * * * a german: "lord have mercy on us, _grieshniki_."[ ] [footnote : _grieshniki_ means "sinners," but sounds like _grietchnieviki_ which means "buckwheat cakes."] * * * * * "o my dear little pimple!" said the bride tenderly. the bridegroom thought for a while, then felt hurt--they parted. * * * * * they were mineral water bottles with preserved cherries in them. * * * * * an actress who spoilt all her parts by very bad acting--and this continued all her life long until she died. nobody liked her; she ruined all the best parts; and yet she went on acting until she was seventy. * * * * * he alone is all right and can repent who feels himself to be wrong. * * * * * the archdeacon curses the "doubters," and they stand in the choir and sing anathema to themselves (skitalez). * * * * * he imagined that his wife lay with her legs cut off and that he nursed her in order to save his soul.... * * * * * madame snuffley. * * * * * the black-beetles have left the house; the house will be burnt down. * * * * * "dmitri, the pretender, and actors." "turgenev and the tigers." articles like that can be and are written. * * * * * a title: lemon peel. * * * * * i am your legitimate husband. * * * * * an abortion, because while birthing a wave struck her, a wave of the ocean; because of the eruption of vesuvius. * * * * * it seems to me: the sea and myself--and nothing else. * * * * * education: his three-year-old son wore a black frock-coat, boots, and waistcoat. * * * * * with pride: "i'm not of yuriev, but of dorpat university."[ ] [footnote : yuriev is the russian name of the town dorpat.] * * * * * his beard looked like the tail of a fish. * * * * * a jew, ziptchik. * * * * * a girl, when she giggles, makes noises as if she were putting her head in cold water. * * * * * "mamma, what is a thunderbolt made of?" * * * * * on the estate there is a bad smell, and bad taste; the trees are planted anyhow, stupidly; and away in a remote corner the lodge-keeper's wife all day long washes the guest's linen--and nobody sees her; and the owners are allowed to talk away whole days about their rights and their nobility. * * * * * she fed her dog on the best caviare. * * * * * our self-esteem and conceit are european, but our culture and actions are asiatic. * * * * * a black dog--he looks as if he were wearing goloshes. * * * * * a russian's only hope--to win two hundred thousand roubles in a lottery. * * * * * she is wicked, but she taught her children good. * * * * * every one has something to hide. * * * * * the title of n.'s story: the power of harmonies. * * * * * o how nice it would be if bachelors or widowers were appointed governors. * * * * * a moscow actress never in her life saw a turkey-hen. * * * * * on the lips of the old i hear either stupidity or malice. * * * * * "mamma, pete did not say his prayers." pete is woken up, he says his prayers, cries, then lies down and shakes his fist at the child who made the complaint. * * * * * he imagined that only doctors could say whether it is male or female. * * * * * one became a priest, the other a _dukhobor_, the third a philosopher, and in each case instinctively because no one wants really to work with bent back from morning to night. * * * * * a passion for the word uterine: my uterine brother, my uterine wife, my uterine brother-in-law, etc. * * * * * to doctor n., an illegitimate child, who has never lived with his father and knew him very little, his bosom friend z., says with agitation: "you see, the fact of the matter is that your father misses you very much, he is ill and wants to have a look at you." the father keeps "switzerland," furnished apartments. he takes the fried fish out of the dish with his hands and only afterwards uses a fork. the vodka smells rank. n. went, looked about him, had dinner--his only feeling that that fat peasant, with the grizzled beard, should sell such filth. but once, when passing the house at midnight, he looked in at the window: his father was sitting with bent back reading a book. he recognized himself and his own manners. * * * * * as stupid as a gray gelding. * * * * * they teased the girl with castor oil, and therefore she did not marry. * * * * * n. all his life used to write abusive letters to famous singers, actors, and authors: "you think, you scamp,..."--without signing his name. * * * * * when the man who carried the torch at funerals came out in his three-cornered hat, his frock coat with laces and stripes, she fell in love with him. * * * * * a sparkling, joyous nature, a kind of living protest against grumblers; he is fat and healthy, eats a great deal, every one likes him but only because they are afraid of the grumblers; he is a nobody, a ham, only eats and laughs loud, and that's all; when he dies, every one sees that he had done nothing, that they had mistaken him for some one else. * * * * * after the inspection of the building, the commission, which was bribed, lunched heartily, and it was precisely a funeral feast over honesty. * * * * * he who tells lies is dirty. * * * * * at three o'clock in the morning they wake him: he has to go to his job at the railway station, and so every day for the last fourteen years. * * * * * a lady grumbles: "i write to my son that he should change his linen every saturday. he replies: 'why saturday, not monday?' i answer: 'well, all right, let it be monday.' and he: 'why monday, not tuesday?' he is a nice honest man, but i get worried by him." * * * * * a clever man loves learning but is a fool at teaching. * * * * * the sermons of priests, archimandrites, and bishops are wonderfully like one another. * * * * * one remembers the arguments about the brotherhood of man, public good, and work for the people, but really there were no such arguments, one only drank at the university. they write: "one feels ashamed of the men with university degrees who once fought for human rights and freedom of religion and conscience"--but they never fought. * * * * * every day after dinner the husband threatens his wife that he will become a monk, and the wife cries. * * * * * mordokhvostov. * * * * * husband and wife have lived together and quarreled for eighteen years. at last he makes a confession, which was in fact untrue, of having been false to her, and they part to his great pleasure and to the wrath of the whole town. * * * * * a useless thing, an album with forgotten, uninteresting photographs, lies in the corner on a chair; it has been lying there for the last twenty years and no one makes up his mind to throw it away. * * * * * n. tells how forty years ago x., a wonderful and extraordinary man, had saved the lives of five people, and n. feels it strange that every one listened with indifference, that the history of x. is already forgotten, uninteresting.... * * * * * they fell upon the soft caviare greedily, and devoured it in a minute. * * * * * in the middle of a serious conversation he says to his little son: "button up your trousers." * * * * * man will only become better when you make him see what he is like. * * * * * dove-colored face. * * * * * the squire feeds his pigeons, canaries, and fowls on pepper, acids, and all kinds of rubbish in order that the birds may change their color--and that is his sole occupation: he boasts of it to every visitor. * * * * * they invited a famous singer to recite the acts of the apostles at the wedding; he recited it, but they have not paid his fee. * * * * * for a farce: i have a friend by name krivomordy (crooked face) and he's all right. not crooked leg or crooked arm but crooked face: he was married and his wife loved him. * * * * * n. drank milk every day, and every time he put a fly in the glass and then, with the air of a victim, asked the old butler: "what's that?" he could not live a single day without that. * * * * * she is surly and smells of a vapor bath. * * * * * n. learned of his wife's adultery. he is indignant, distressed, but hesitates and keeps silent. he keeps silence and ends by borrowing money from z., the lover, and continues to consider himself an honest man. * * * * * when i stop drinking tea and eating bread and butter, i say: "i have had enough." but when i stop reading poems or novels, i say: "no more of that, no more of that." * * * * * a solicitor lends money at a high rate of interest, and justifies himself because he is leaving everything to the university of moscow. * * * * * a little sexton, with radical views: "nowadays our fellows crawl out from all sorts of unexpected holes." * * * * * the squire n. always quarrels with his neighbors who are molokans[ ]; he goes to court, abuses and curses them; but when at last they leave, he feels there is an empty place; he ages rapidly and pines away. [footnote : molokans are a religious sect in russia.] * * * * * mordukhanov. * * * * * with n. and his wife there lives the wife's brother, a lachrymose young man who at one time steals, at another tells lies, at another attempts suicide; n. and his wife do not know what to do, they are afraid to turn him out because he might kill himself; they would like to turn him out, but they do not know how to manage it. for forging a bill he gets into prison, and n. and his wife feel that they are to blame; they cry, grieve. she died from grief; he too died some time later and everything was left to the brother who squandered it and got into prison again. * * * * * suppose i had to marry a woman and live in her house, i would run away in two days, but a woman gets used so quickly to her husband's house, as though she had been born there. * * * * * well, you are a councillor; but whom do you counsel? god forbid that any one should listen to your counsels. * * * * * the little town of torjok. a sitting of the town council. subject: the raising of the rates. decision: to invite the pope to settle down in torjok--to choose it as his residence. * * * * * s.'s logic: i am for religious toleration, but against religious freedom; one cannot allow what is not in the strict sense orthodox. * * * * * st. piony and epinach. ii march, pupli m. * * * * * poetry and works of art contain not what is needed but what people desire; they do not go further than the crowd and they express only what the best in the crowd desire. * * * * * a little man is very cautious; he sends even letters of congratulation by registered post in order to get a receipt. * * * * * russia is an enormous plain across which wander mischievous men. * * * * * platonida ivanovna. * * * * * if you are politically sound, that is enough for you to be considered a perfectly satisfactory citizen; the same thing with radicals, to be politically unsound is enough, everything else will be ignored. * * * * * a man who when he fails opens his eyes wide. * * * * * ziuzikov. * * * * * a councillor of state, a respectable man; it suddenly comes out that he has secretly kept a brothel. * * * * * n. has written a good play; no one praises him or is pleased; they all say: "we'll see what you write next." * * * * * the more important people came in by the front door, the simple folk by the back door. * * * * * he: "and in our town there lived a man whose name was kishmish (raisin). he called himself kishmish, but every one knew that he was kishmish." she (after some thought): "how annoying ... if only his name had been sultana, but kishmish!..." * * * * * blagovospitanny. * * * * * most honored iv-iv-itch! * * * * * how intolerable people are sometimes who are happy and successful in everything. * * * * * they begin gossiping that n. is living with z.; little by little an atmosphere is created in which a liaison of n. and z. becomes inevitable. * * * * * when the locust was a plague, i wrote against the locust and enchanted every one, i was rich and famous; but now, when the locust has long ago disappeared and is forgotten, i am merged in the crowd, forgotten, and not wanted. * * * * * merrily, joyfully: "i have the honor to introduce you to iv. iv. izgoyev, my wife's lover." * * * * * everywhere on the estate are notices: "trespassers will be prosecuted," "keep off the flowers," etc. * * * * * in the great house is a fine library which is talked about but is never used; they give you watery coffee which you cannot drink; the garden is tasteless with no flowers in it--and they pretend that all this is something tolstoian. * * * * * he learnt swedish in order to study ibsen, spent a lot of time and trouble, and suddenly realized that ibsen is not important; he could not conceive what use he could now make of the swedish language.[ ] [footnote : ibsen wrote in norwegian of course. responding to a request for his interpretation of this curious paragraph. mr. koteliansky writes: "chekhov had a very high opinion of ibsen; the paragraph, i am sure, is by no means aimed at ibsen. most probably the paragraph, as well as many others in the notes, is something which c. either personally or indirectly heard someone say. you will see that kuprin ["reminiscences of chekhov," by gorky, kuprin and bunin, new york: huebsch.] told c. the anecdote about the actor whose wife asked him to whistle a melody on the stage during a rehearsal. in c.'s notes you have that anecdote, somewhat shortened and the names changed, without mentioning the source." "the reader, on the whole, may puzzle his head over many paragraphs in the notes, but he will hardly find explanations each time. what the reader has to remember is that the notes are material used by c. in his creative activity and as such it throws a great deal of light on c.'s mentality and process of working."] * * * * * n. makes a living by exterminating bugs; and for the purposes of his trade he reads the works of ----. if in "the cossacks," bugs are not mentioned, it means that "the cossacks" is a bad book. * * * * * man is what he believes. * * * * * a clever girl: "i cannot pretend ... i never tell a lie ... i have principles"--and all the time "i ... i ... i ..." * * * * * n. is angry with his wife who is an actress, and without her knowledge gets abusive criticisms published about her in the newspapers. * * * * * a nobleman boasts "this house of mine was built in the time of dmitry donskoy." * * * * * "your worship, he called my dog a bad name: 'son of a bitch.'" * * * * * the snow fell and did not lie on the ground reddened with blood. * * * * * he left everything to charity, so that nothing should go to his relations and children, whom he hated. * * * * * a very amorous man; he is no sooner introduced to a girl than he becomes a he-goat. * * * * * a nobleman drekoliev. * * * * * i dread the idea that a chamberlain will be present at the opening of my petition. * * * * * he was a rationalist, but he had to confess that he liked the ringing of church bells. * * * * * the father a famous general, nice pictures, expensive furniture; he died; the daughters received a good education, but are slovenly, read little, ride, and are dull. * * * * * they are honest and truthful so long as it is unnecessary. * * * * * a rich merchant would like to have a shower bath in his w.c. * * * * * in the early morning they ate _okroshka_.[ ] [footnote : a cold dish composed of cider and hash.] * * * * * "if you lose this talisman," said grandmother, "you will die." and suddenly i lost it, tortured myself, was afraid that i would die. and now, imagine, a miracle happened: i found it and continued to live. * * * * * everybody goes to the theatre to see my play, to learn something instantly from it, to make some sort of profit, and i tell you: i have not the time to bother about that canaille. * * * * * the people hate and despise everything new and useful; when there was cholera, they hated and killed the doctors and they love vodka; by the people's love or hatred one can estimate the value of what they love or hate. * * * * * looking out of the window at the corpse which is being borne to the cemetery: "you are dead, you are being carried to the cemetery, and i will go and have my breakfast." * * * * * a tchech vtitchka. * * * * * a man, forty years old, married a girl of twenty-two who read only the very latest writers, wore green ribbons, slept on yellow pillows, and believed in her taste and her opinions as if they were law; she is nice, not silly, and gentle, but he separates from her. * * * * * when one longs for a drink, it seems as though one could drink a whole ocean--that is faith; but when one begins to drink, one can only drink altogether two glasses--that is science. * * * * * for a farce: fildekosov, poprygunov. * * * * * in former times a nice man, with principles, who wanted to be respected, would try to become a general or priest, but now he goes in for being a writer, professor.... * * * * * there is nothing which history will not justify. * * * * * zievoulia.[ ] [footnote : a name or word invented by chekhov meaning "one who yawns for a long time with pleasure."] * * * * * the crying of a nice child is ugly; so in bad verses you may recognize that the author is a nice man. * * * * * if you wish women to love you, be original; i know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him. * * * * * i arrive at yalta. every room is engaged. i go to the "italy"--not a room available. "what about my room number "--"it is engaged." a lady. they say: "would you like to stay with this lady? the lady has no objection." i stay in her room. conversation. evening. the tartar guide comes in. my ears are stopped, my eyes blindfolded; i sit and see nothing and hear nothing.... * * * * * a young lady complains: "my poor brother gets such a small salary--only seven thousand!" * * * * * she: "i see only one thing now: you have a large mouth! a large mouth! an enormous mouth!" * * * * * the horse is a useless and pernicious animal; a great deal of land has to be tilled for it, it accustoms man not to employ his own muscles, it is often an object of luxury; it makes man effeminate. for the future not a single horse. * * * * * n. a singer; speaks to nobody, his throat muffled up--he takes care of his voice, but no one has ever heard him sing. * * * * * about absolutely everything: "what's the good of that? it's useless!" * * * * * he wears felt boots summer and winter and gives this explanation: "it's better for the head, because the blood, owing to the heat, is drawn down into the feet, and the thoughts are clearer." * * * * * a woman is jocularly called fiodor ivanovitch. * * * * * a farce: n., in order to marry, greased the bald patch on his head with an ointment which he read of in an advertisement, and suddenly there began to grow on his head pig's bristles. * * * * * what does your husband do?--he takes castor oil. * * * * * a girl writes: "we shall live intolerably near you." * * * * * n. has been for long in love with z. who married x.; two years after the marriage z. comes to n., cries, wishes to tell him something; n. expects to hear her complain against her husband; but it turns out that z. has come to tell of her love for k. * * * * * n. a well known lawyer in moscow; z., who like n. was born in taganrog, comes to moscow and goes to see the celebrity; he is received warmly, but he remembers the school to which they both went, remembers how n. looked in his uniform, becomes agitated by envy, sees that n.'s flat is in bad taste, that n. himself talks a great deal; and he leaves disenchanted by envy and by the meanness which before he did not even suspect was in him. * * * * * the title of a play: the bat. * * * * * everything which the old cannot enjoy is forbidden or considered wrong. * * * * * when he was getting on in years, he married a very young girl, and so she faded and withered away with him. * * * * * all his life he wrote about capitalism and millions, and he had never had any money. * * * * * a young lady fell in love with a handsome constable. * * * * * n. was a very good, fashionable tailor; but he was spoiled and ruined by trifles; at one time he made an overcoat without pockets, at another a collar which was much too high. * * * * * a farce: agent of freight transport company and of fire insurance company. * * * * * any one can write a play which might be produced. * * * * * a country house. winter. n., ill, sits in his room. in the evening there suddenly arrives from the railway station a stranger z., a young girl, who introduces herself and says that she has come to look after the invalid. he is perplexed, frightened, he refuses; then z. says that at any rate she will stay the night. a day passes, two, and she goes on living there. she has an unbearable temper, she poisons one's existence. * * * * * a private room in a restaurant. a rich man z., tying his napkin round his neck, touching the sturgeon with his fork: "at least i'll have a snack before i die"--and he has been saying this for a long time, daily. * * * * * by his remarks on strindberg and literature generally l.l. tolstoi reminds one very much of madam loukhmav.[ ] [footnote : l.l. tolstoi was leo nicolaievitch'a son, madame loukhmav a tenth rate woman-writer.] * * * * * diedlov, when he speaks of the deputy governor or the governor, becomes a romanticist, remembering "the arrival of the deputy governor" in the book _a hundred russian writers_. * * * * * a play: the bean of life. * * * * * a vet. belongs to the stallion class of people. * * * * * consultation. * * * * * the sun shines and in my soul is darkness. * * * * * in s. i made the acquaintance of the barrister z.--a sort of nika, the fair ... he has several children; with all of them he is magisterial, gentle, kind, not a single rude word; i soon learn that he has another family. then he invites me to his daughter's wedding; he prays, makes a genuflection, and says: "i still preserve religious feeling; i am a believer." and when in his presence people speak of education, of women, he has a naïve expression, exactly as if he did not understand. when he makes a speech in court, his face looks as if he were praying. * * * * * "mammy, don't show yourself to the guests, you are very fat." * * * * * love? in love? never! i am a government clerk. * * * * * he knows little, even as a babe who has not yet come out of his mother's womb. * * * * * from childhood until extreme old age n. has had a passion for spying. * * * * * he uses clever words, that's all--philosophy ... equator ... (for a play). * * * * * the stars have gone out long ago, but they still shine for the crowd. * * * * * as soon as he became a scholar, he began to expect honors. * * * * * he was a prompter, but got disgusted and gave it up; for about fifteen years he did not go to the theatre; then he went and saw a play, cried with emotion, felt sad, and, when his wife asked him on his return how he liked the theatre, he answered: "i do not like it." * * * * * the parlormaid nadya fell in love with an exterminator of bugs and black beetles. * * * * * a councillor of state; it came out after his death that, in order to earn a rouble, he was employed at the theatre to bark like a dog; he was poor. * * * * * you must have decent, well-dressed children, and your children too must have a nice house and children, and their children again children and nice houses; and what is it all for?--the devil knows. * * * * * perkaturin. * * * * * every day he forces himself to vomit--for the sake of his health, on the advice of a friend. * * * * * a government official began to live an original life; a very tall chimney on his house, green trousers, blue waistcoat, a dyed dog, dinner at midnight; after a week he gave it up. * * * * * success has already given that man a lick with its tongue. * * * * * in the bill presented by the hotel-keeper: was among other things: "bugs--fifteen kopecks." explanation. * * * * * "n. has fallen into poverty."--"what? i can't hear."--"i say n. has fallen into poverty."--"what exactly do you say? i can't make out. what n.?"--"the n. who married z."--"well, what of it?"--"i say we ought to help him."--"eh? what him? why help? what do you mean?"--and so on. * * * * * how pleasant to sit at home, when the rain is drumming on the roof, and to feel that there are no heavy dull guests coming to one's house. * * * * * n. always even after five glasses of wine, takes valerian drops. * * * * * he lives with a parlormaid who respectfully calls him your honor. * * * * * i rented a country house for the summer; the owner, a very fat old lady, lived in the lodge, i in the great house; her husband was dead and so were all her children, she was left alone, very fat, the estate sold for debt, her furniture old and in good taste; all day long she reads letters which her husband and son had written to her. yet she is an optimist. when some one fell ill in my house, she smiled and said again and again: "my dear, god will help." * * * * * n. and z. are school friends, each seventeen or eighteen years old; and suddenly n. learns that z. is with child by n.'s father. * * * * * the priezt came ... zaint ... praize to thee, o lord. * * * * * what empty words these discussions about the rights of women! if a dog writes a work of talent, they will even accept the dog. * * * * * hæmorrhage: "it's an abscess that's just burst inside you ... it's all right, have some more vodka." * * * * * the intelligentsia are good for nothing, because they drink a lot of tea, talk a lot in stuffy rooms, with empty bottles. * * * * * when she was young, she ran away with a doctor, a jew, and had a daughter by him; now she hates her past, hates the red-haired daughter, and the father still loves her as well as the daughter, and walks under her window, chubby and handsome. * * * * * he picked his teeth and put the toothpick back into the glass. * * * * * the husband and wife could not sleep; they began to discuss how bad literature had become and how nice it would be to publish a magazine: the idea carried them away; they lay awake silent for awhile. "shall we ask boborykin to write?" he asked. "certainly, do ask him." at five in the morning he starts for his work at the depot; she sees him off walking in the snow to the gate, shuts the gate after him.... "and shall we ask potapenko?" he asks, already outside the gate. * * * * * when he learnt that his father had been raised to the nobility he began to sign himself alexis. * * * * * teacher: "'the collision of a train with human victims' ... that is wrong ... it ought to be 'the collision of a train that resulted in human victims' ... for the cause of the people on the line." * * * * * title of play: golden rain. * * * * * there is not a single criterion which can serve as the measure of the non-existent, of the non-human. * * * * * a patriot: "and do you know that our russian macaroni is better than the italian? i'll prove it to you. once at nice they brought me sturgeon--do you know, i nearly cried." and the patriot did not see that he was only gastronomically patriotic. * * * * * a grumbler: "but is turkey food? is caviare food?" * * * * * a very sensible, clever young woman; when she was bathing, he noticed that she had a narrow pelvis and pitifully thin hips--and he got to hate her. * * * * * a clock. yegor the locksmith's clock at one time loses and at another gains exactly as if to spite him; deliberately it is now at twelve and then quite suddenly at eight. it does it out of animosity as though the devil were in it. the locksmith tries to find out the cause, and once he plunges it in holy water. * * * * * formerly the heroes in novels and stories (e.g. petchorin, onyeguin) were twenty years old, but now one cannot have a hero under thirty to thirty-five years. the same will soon happen with heroines. * * * * * n. is the son of a famous father; he is very nice, but, whatever he does, every one says: "that is very well, but it is nothing to the father." once he gave a recitation at an evening party; all the performers had a success, but of him they said: "that is very well, but still it is nothing to the father." he went home and got into bed and, looking at his father's portrait, shook his fist at him. * * * * * we fret ourselves to reform life, in order that posterity may be happy, and posterity will say as usual: "in the past it used to be better, the present is worse than the past." * * * * * my motto: i don't want anything. * * * * * when a decent working-man takes himself and his work critically, people call him grumbler, idler, bore; but when an idle scoundrel shouts that it is necessary to work, he is applauded. * * * * * when a woman destroys things like a man, people think it natural and everybody understands it; but when like a man, she wishes or tries to create, people think it unnatural and cannot reconcile themselves to it. * * * * * when i married, i became an old woman. * * * * * he looked down on the world from the height of his baseness. * * * * * "your fiancée is very pretty." "to me all women are alike." * * * * * he dreamt of winning three hundred thousand in lottery, twice in succession, because three hundred thousand would not be enough for him. * * * * * n., a retired councillor of state, lives in the country; he is sixty-six. he is educated, liberal-minded, reads, likes an argument. he learns from his guests that the new coroner z. walks about with a slipper on one foot and a boot on the other, and lives with another man's wife. n. thinks all the time of z.; he does nothing but talk about him, how he walks about in one slipper and lives with another man's wife; he talks of nothing else; at last he goes to sleep with his own wife (he has not slept with her for the last eight years), he is agitated and the whole time talks about z. finally he has a stroke, his arm and leg are paralyzed--and all this from agitation about z. the doctor comes. with him too n. talks about z. the doctor says that he knows z., that z. now wears two boots, his leg being well, and that he has married the lady. * * * * * i hope that in the next world i shall be able to look back at this life and say: "those were beautiful dreams...." * * * * * the squire n., looking at the undergraduate and the young girl, the children of his steward z.: "i am sure z. steals from me, lives grandly on stolen money, the undergraduate and the girl know it or ought to know it; why then do they look so decent?" * * * * * she is fond of the word "compromise," and often uses it; "i am incapable of compromise...." "a board which has the shape of a parallelepiped." * * * * * the hereditary honorable citizen oziaboushkin always tries to make out that his ancestors had the right to the title of count. * * * * * "he is a perfect dab at it." "o, o, don't use that expression; my mother is very particular." * * * * * i have just married my third husband ... the name of the first was ivan makarivitch ... of the second peter ... peter ... i have forgotten. * * * * * the writer gvozdikov thinks that he is very famous, that every one knows him. he arrives at s., meets an officer who shakes his hand for a long time, looking with rapture into his face. g. is glad, he too shakes hands warmly.... at last the officer: "and how is your orchestra? aren't you the conductor?" * * * * * morning; m.'s mustaches are in curl papers. * * * * * and it seemed to him that he was highly respected and valued everywhere, anywhere, even in railway buffets, and so he always ate with a smile on his face. * * * * * the birds sing, and already it begins to seem to him that they do not sing, but whine. * * * * * n., father of a family, listens to his son reading aloud j.j. rousseau to the family, and thinks: "well, at any rate, j.j. rousseau had no gold medal on his breast, but i have one." * * * * * n. has a spree with his step-son, an undergraduate, and they go to a brothel. in the morning the undergraduate is going away, his leave is up; n. sees him off. the undergraduate reads him a sermon on their bad behavior; they quarrel. n: "as your father, i curse you."--"and i curse you." * * * * * a doctor is called in, but a nurse sent for. * * * * * n.n.v. never agrees with anyone: "yes, the ceiling is white, that can be admitted; but white, as far as is known, consists of the seven colors of the spectrum, and it is quite possible that in this case one of the colors is darker or brighter than is necessary for the production of pure white; i had rather think a bit before saying that the ceiling is white." * * * * * he holds himself exactly as though he were an icon. * * * * * "are you in love?"--"there's a little bit of that in it." * * * * * whatever happens, he says: "it is the priests." * * * * * firzikov. * * * * * n. dreams that he is returning from abroad, and that at verzhbolovo, in spite of his protests, they make him pay duty on his wife. * * * * * when that radical, having dined with his coat off, walked into his bedroom and i saw the braces on his back, it became clear to me that that radical is a bourgeois, a hopeless bourgeois. * * * * * some one saw z., an unbeliever and blasphemer, secretly praying in front of the icon in the cathedral, and they all teased him. * * * * * they called the manager "four-funneled cruiser," because he had already gone "through the chimney" (bankrupt) four times. * * * * * he is not stupid, he was at the university, has studied long and assiduously, but in writing he makes gross mistakes. * * * * * countess nadin's daughter gradually turns into a housekeeper; she is very timid, and can only say "no-o," "yes-s," and her hands always tremble. somehow or other a zemstvo official wished to marry her; he is a widower and she marries him, with him too it was "yes-s," "no-o"; she was very much afraid of her husband and did not love him; one day he happened to give a loud cough, it gave her a fright, and she died. * * * * * caressing her lover: "my vulture." * * * * * for a play: if only you would say something funny. but for twenty years we have lived together and you have always talked of serious things; i hate serious things. * * * * * a cook, with a cigarette in her mouth, lies: "i studied at a high school ... i know what for the earth is round." * * * * * "society for finding and raising anchors of steamers and barges," and the society's agent at all functions without fail makes a speech, à la n., and without fail promises. * * * * * super-mysticism. * * * * * when i become rich, i shall have a harem in which i shall keep fat naked women, with their buttocks painted green. * * * * * a shy young man came on a visit for the night: suddenly a deaf old woman came into his room, carrying a cupping-glass, and bled him; he thought that this must be the usual thing and so did not protest; in the morning it turned out that the old woman had made a mistake. * * * * * surname: verstax. * * * * * the more stupid the peasant, the better does the horse understand him. themes, thoughts, notes, and fragments. ... how stupid and for the most part how false, since if one man seeks to devour another or tell him something unpleasant it has nothing to do with granovsky.[ ] [footnote : a well-known radical professor, a westerner.] * * * * * i left gregory ivanovitch's feeling crushed and mortally offended. i was irritated by smooth words and by those who speak them, and on reaching home i meditated thus: some rail at the world, others at the crowd, that is to say praise the past and blame the present; they cry out that there are no ideals and so on, but all this has already been said twenty or thirty years ago; these are worn-out forms which have already served their time, and whoever repeats them now, he too is no longer young and is himself worn out. with last year's foliage there decay too those who live in it. i thought, we uncultured, worn-out people, banal in speech, stereotyped in intentions, have grown quite mouldy, and, while we intellectuals are rummaging among old rags and, according to the old russian custom, biting one another, there is boiling up around us a life which we neither know nor notice. great events will take us unawares, like sleeping fairies, and you will see that sidorov, the merchant, and the teacher of the school at yeletz, who see and know more than we do, will push us far into the background, because they will accomplish more than all of us put together. and i thought that were we now to obtain political liberty, of which we talk so much, while engaged in biting one another, we should not know what to do with it, we should waste it in accusing one another in the newspapers of being spies and money-grubbers, we should frighten society with the assurance that we have neither men, nor science, nor literature, nothing! nothing! and to scare society as we are doing now, and as we shall continue to do, means to deprive it of courage; it means simply to declare that we have no social or political sense in us. and i also thought that, before the dawn of a new life has broken, we shall turn into sinister old men and women and we shall be the first who, in our hatred of that dawn, will calumniate it. * * * * * mother never stops talking about poverty. it is very strange. in the first place, it is strange that we are poor, beg like beggars, and at the same time eat superbly, live in a large house; in the summer we go to our own country house, and generally speaking we do not look like beggars. evidently this is not poverty, but something else, and rather worse. secondly, it is strange that for the last ten years mother has been spending all her energy solely on getting money to pay interest. it seems to me that were mother to spend that terrible energy on something else, we could have twenty such houses. thirdly, it seems to me strange that the hardest work in the family is done by mother, not by me. to me that is the strangest thing of all, most terrible. she has, as she has just said, a thought on her brain, she begs, she humiliates herself; our debts grow daily and up till now i have not done a single thing to help her. what can i do? i think and think and cannot make it out. i only see clearly that we are rushing down an inclined plane, but to what, the devil knows. they say that poverty threatens us and that in poverty there is disgrace, but that too i cannot understand, since i was never poor. * * * * * the spiritual life of these women is as gray and dull as their faces and dresses; they speak of science, literature, tendencies, and the like, only because they are the wives and sisters of scholars and literary men; were they the wives and sisters of inspectors or of dentists, they would speak with the same zeal of fires or teeth. to allow them to speak of science, which is foreign to them, and to listen to them, is to flatter their ignorance. * * * * * essentially all this is crude and meaningless, and romantic love appears as meaningless as an avalanche which involuntarily rolls down a mountain and overwhelms people. but when one listens to music, all this is: that some people lie in their graves and sleep, and that one woman is alive--gray-haired, she is sitting in a box in the theatre, quiet and majestic, and the avalanche seems no longer meaningless, since in nature everything has a meaning. and everything is forgiven, and it would be strange not to forgive. * * * * * olga ivanovna regarded old chairs, stools, sofas, with the same respectful tenderness as she regarded old dogs and horses, and her room, therefore, was something like an alms-house for furniture. round the mirror, on all tables and shelves, stood photographs of uninteresting, half-forgotten people; on the walls hung pictures at which nobody ever looked; and it was always dark in the room, because there burnt there only one lamp with a blue shade. * * * * * if you cry "forward," you must without fail explain in which direction one must go. do you not see that, if without explaining the direction, you fire off this word simultaneously at a monk and at a revolutionary, they will proceed in precisely opposite directions? * * * * * it is said in holy writ: "fathers, do not irritate your children," even the wicked and good-for-nothing children; but the fathers irritate me, irritate me terribly. my contemporaries chime in with them and the youngsters follow, and every minute they strike me in the face with their smooth words. * * * * * that the aunt suffered and did not show it gave him the impression of a trick. * * * * * o.i. was in constant motion; such women, like bees, carry about a fertilizing pollen.... * * * * * don't marry a rich woman--she will drive you out of the house; don't marry a poor woman--you won't sleep; but marry the freest freedom, the lot and life of a cossack. (ukrainian saying.) * * * * * _aliosha_: "i often hear people say: 'before marriage there is romance, and then--goodbye, illusion!' how heartless and coarse it is." * * * * * so long as a man likes the splashing of a fish, he is a poet; but when he knows that the splashing is nothing but the chase of the weak by the strong, he is a thinker; but when he does not understand what sense there is in the chase, or what use in the equilibrium which results from destruction, he is becoming silly and dull, as he was when a child. and the more he knows and thinks, the sillier he becomes. * * * * * _the death of a child_. i have no sooner sat down in peace than--bang--fate lets fly at me. * * * * * the she-wolf, nervous and anxious, fond of her young, dragged away a foal into her winter-shelter, thinking him a lamb. she knew that there was a ewe there and that the ewe had young. while she was dragging the foal away, suddenly some one whistled; she was alarmed and dropped him, but he followed her. they arrived at the shelter. he began to suck like the young wolves. throughout the winter he changed but little; he only grew thin and his legs longer, and the spot on his forehead turned into a triangle. the she-wolf was in delicate health.[ ] [footnote : a sketch of part of the story "whitehead."] * * * * * they invited celebrities to these evening parties, and it was dull because there are few people of talent in moscow, and the same singers and reciters performed at all evening parties. * * * * * she has not before felt herself so free and easy with a man. * * * * * you wait until you grow up and i'll teach you declamation. * * * * * it seemed to her that at the show many of the pictures were alike. * * * * * there filed up before you a whole line of laundry-maids. * * * * * kostya insisted that the women had robbed themselves. * * * * * l. put himself in the place of the juryman and interpreted it thus: if it was a case of house-breaking, then there was no theft, because the laundresses themselves sold the linen and spent the money on drink; but if it was a case of theft, then there could have been no house-breaking. * * * * * fiodor was flattered that his brother had found him at the same table with a famous actor. * * * * * when y. spoke or ate, his beard moved as if he had no teeth in his mouth. * * * * * ivashin loved nadya vishnyevsky and was afraid of his love. when the butler told him that the old lady had just gone out, but the young lady was at home, he fumbled in his fur coat and dress-coat pocket, found his card, and said: "right." but it was not all right. driving from his house in the morning, to pay a visit, he thought that he was compelled to it by conventions of society, which weighed heavily upon him. but now it was clear to him that he went to pay calls only because somewhere far away in the depths of his soul, as under a veil, there lay hidden a hope that he would see nadya.... and he suddenly felt pitiful, sad, and a little frightened.... * * * * * in his soul, it seemed to him, it was snowing, and everything faded away. he was afraid to love nadya, because he was too old for her, thought his appearance unattractive, and did not believe that young girls like nadya could love men for their minds and spiritual qualities. still there would at times rise in him something like a hope. but now, from the moment when the officer's spurs jingled and then died away, there also died away his timid love.... all was at an end, hope was impossible.... "yes, now all is finished," he thought, "i am glad, very glad." * * * * * he imagined his wife to be not nadya, but always, for some reason, a stout woman with a large bosom, covered with venetian lace. * * * * * the clerks in the office of the governor of the island have a drunken headache. they long for a drink. they have no money. what is to be done? one of them, a convict who is serving his time here for forgery, devises a plan. he goes to the church, where a former officer, now exiled for giving his superior a box on the ears, sings in the choir, and says to him panting: "here! there's a pardon come for you! they have got a telegram in the office." the late officer turns pale, trembles, and can hardly walk for excitement. "but for such news you ought to give something for a drink," says the clerk. "take all i have! all!" and he hands him some five roubles.... he arrives at the office. the officer is afraid that he may die from joy and presses his hand to his heart. "where is the telegram?" "the bookkeeper has put it away." (he goes to the bookkeeper.) general laughter and an invitation to drink with them. "how terrible!" after that the officer was ill for a week.[ ] [footnote : an episode which chekhov heard during his journey in the island, saghalien.] * * * * * fedya, the steward's brother-in-law, told ivanov that wild-duck were feeding on the other side of the wood. he loaded his gun with slugs. suddenly a wolf appeared. he fired and smashed both the wolf's hips. the wolf was mad with pain and did not see him. "what can i do for you, dear?" he thought and thought, and then went home and called peter.... peter took a stick, and with an awful grimace, began to beat the wolf.... he beat and beat and beat until it died.... he broke into a sweat and went away, without saying a single word. * * * * * _vera_: "i do not respect you, because you married so strangely, because nothing came of you.... that is why i have secrets from you." * * * * * it is unfortunate that we try to solve the simplest questions cleverly, and therefore make them unusually complicated. we should seek a simple solution. * * * * * there is no monday which will not give its place to tuesday. * * * * * i am happy and satisfied, sister, but if i were born a second time and were asked: "do you want to marry?" i should answer: "no." "do you want to have money?" "no...." * * * * * lenstchka liked dukes and counts in novels, not ordinary persons. she loved the chapters in which there is love, pure and ideal not sensual. descriptions of nature she did not like. she preferred conversations to descriptions. while reading the beginning she would glance impatiently at the end. she did not remember the names of authors. she wrote with a pencil in the margins: "wonderful!" "beautiful!" or "serve him right!" * * * * * lenstchka sang without opening her mouth. * * * * * _post coitum_: we balderiovs always excelled in vigor and health. * * * * * he drove in a cab, and, as he watched his son walking away, thought: "perhaps, he belongs to the race of men who will no longer trundle in scurvy cabs, as i do, but will fly through the skies in balloons." * * * * * she is so beautiful that it is even frightening; dark eye-brows. * * * * * the son says nothing, but the wife feels him to be an enemy; she feels that he has overheard everything.... * * * * * what a lot of idiots there are among ladies. people get so used to it that they do not notice it. * * * * * they often go to the theatre and read serious magazines--and yet are spiteful and immoral. * * * * * _nat_: "i never have fits of hysterics. i am not a pampered darling."[ ] [footnote : this and the following few passages are from the rough draft of chekhov's play _three sisters_.] * * * * * _nat_: (continually to her sisters): "o, how ugly you have grown. o, how old you do look!" * * * * * to live one must have something to hang on to.... in the provinces only the body works, not the spirit. * * * * * you won't become a saint through other people's sins. * * * * * _koulyguin_: "i am a jolly fellow, i infect every one with my mood." * * * * * _koul_. gives lessons at rich houses. * * * * * _koul_. in act iv without mustaches. * * * * * the wife implores the husband: "don't get fat." * * * * * o if there were a life in which every one grew younger and more beautiful. * * * * * _irene_: "it is hard to live without a father, without a mother."--"and without a husband."--"yes, without a husband. whom could one confide in? to whom could one complain? with whom could one share ones's joy? one must love some one strongly." * * * * * _koulyguin_ (to his wife): "i am so happy to be married to you, that i consider it ungentlemanly and improper to speak of or even mention a dowry. hush, don't say anything...." * * * * * the doctor enjoys being at the duel. * * * * * it is difficult to live without orderlies. you cannot make the servants answer your bell. * * * * * the nd, rd, and th companies left at , and we leave at sharp.[ ] [footnote : here the fragments from the rough draft of _three sisters_ end.] * * * * * in the daytime conversations about the loose manners of the girls in secondary schools, in the evening a lecture on degeneration and the decline of everything, and at night, after all this, one longs to shoot oneself. * * * * * in the life of our towns there is no pessimism, no marxism, and no movements, but there is stagnation, stupidity, mediocrity. * * * * * he had a thirst for life, but it seemed to him to mean that he wanted a drink--and he drank wine. * * * * * f. in the town-hall: serguey nik. in a plaintive voice: "gentlemen, where can we get the means? our town is poor." * * * * * to be idle involuntarily means to listen to what is being said, to see what is being done; but he who works and is occupied hears little and sees little. * * * * * in the skating rink he raced after l.; he wanted to overtake her and it seemed as if it were life which he wanted to overtake, that life which one cannot bring back or overtake or catch, just as one cannot catch one's shadow. * * * * * only one thought reconciled him to the doctor: just as he had suffered from the doctor's ignorance, so perhaps some one was suffering from his mistakes. * * * * * but isn't it strange? in the whole town there is not a single musician, not a single orator, not a prominent man. * * * * * honorable justice of the peace, honorable member of the children's shelter--all honorable. * * * * * l. studied and studied--but people who had finished developing could not understand her, nor could the young. _ut consecutivum_. * * * * * he is dark, with little side-whiskers, dressed like a dandy, dark eyes, a warm brunet. he exterminates bugs, talks about earthquakes and china. his fiancée has a dowry of , roubles; she is very handsome, as her aunt says. he is an agent for a fire-insurance company, etc. "you're awfully pretty, my darling, awfully. and , into the bargain! you are a beauty; when i looked at you to-day, a shiver ran down my back." * * * * * _he_: earthquakes are caused by the evaporation of water. * * * * * names: goose, pan, oyster. "were i abroad, they would give me a medal for such a surname." * * * * * i can't be said to be handsome, but i am rather pretty. in an extended version,also linking to free sources for education worldwide ... mooc's, educational materials,...) images generously made available by the internet archive.) the black monk and other stories by anton tchekhoff translated from the russian by r. e. c. long new york frederick a. stokes company preface anton tchekhoff, the writer of the stories and sketches here translated, although hardly known in this country, and but little better known on the western continent of europe, has during the last fifteen years been regarded as the most talented of the younger generation of russian writers. even the remarkable popularity attained during the last few years by maxim gorky has not eclipsed his fame, though it has probably done much to prevent the recognition of his talents abroad. tchekhoff's stories lack the striking incidents and lurid colouring of the younger writer's, and thus, while they appeal more strongly to the cultivated russian, they are devoid of the more obvious qualities that attract the translator and the public which read translations. though they have gone into numberless editions in russia, they are almost unknown abroad, being, in fact, represented only by a few scattered translations and small volumes published in france and germany, and by a few critical articles in the reviews of those countries. in england, tchekhoff is only a name to most of those interested in eastern literature, and not even a name to the general public. anton pavlovitch tchekhoff was born in , spent his infancy in south russia, and was educated in the medical faculty of moscow university. although a doctor by profession, and actually practising for some years as a municipal medical officer, he began his literary career as a story writer before completing his professional education, contributing, when a student, sketches to the weekly comic journals, and _feuilletons_ to the st. petersburg newspapers. tchekhoff's early stories turn largely upon domestic misunderstandings; they are brief, avowedly humorous, and even farcical. they attracted early attention by their irresponsible gaiety, seldom untinged with a certain bitterness. _the steppe_, a panorama of travel through the great plains of south russia, published serially in the now extinct _sieverni viestnik_, was the first of his productions of sustained merit. it was followed by a series of stories and sketches and one volume of dramas, which have, in the opinion of russian critics, established the writer on a level with the best native fiction writers, and on a much higher level than any of his contemporaries. tchekhoff in his manner of thought is essentially a russian; as an artist essentially western, having perhaps only one thing in common with the writers of his own country. russian novelists, with few exceptions--turgenieff, a man of western training and sympathies, was one--have commonly lacked the instinct of coherency, the lack of which in fiction is redeemed only by genius. the novels of dostoyeffsky and tolstoy are notoriously defective in this respect. tchekhoff and gorky suffer from the same deficiency. unlike gorky, tchekhoff has never essayed the long novel; and even his longer short stories, one of which is included in this volume, are redeemed from failure chiefly by their humour and close observation of russian life. with this exception, tchekhoff has little in common with other russian writers. he is more objective, less diffuse, less inspiring, and less human. his compatriots, count tolstoy among them, compare him with maupassant his method of treatment presents many parallels; he has the same brevity, the same remorselessness, the same insistence upon the significantly little. but in his teaching, if teaching it can be called, tchekhoff is thoroughly russian. a french critic[ ] has lately reviewed his stories in a chapter called _l'impuissance de vivre_, and this phrase summarises admirably what tchekhoff has to say. the political condition of modern russia involves the repression of all intellect and initiative, or, at best, their diversion into unproductive official channels; hence, the distaste for life and intellectual stagnation which, represented here in "ward no. ," run through all tchekhoff's longer stories, and particularly through his dramas, most of which end in disillusion and suicide. russian life presents itself to tchekhoff as the unprofitable struggle of the exceptional few against the trivial and insignificant many. his pages are peopled with psychopaths, degenerates of genius and virtue, who succumb in feeble revolt against the baseness and banality of life, and are quite unfit to combat the healthy, rude, but unintelligent forces around them. kovrin, likharyóff, and doctor andréi yéfimitch, three heroes in this collection, are characteristic of tchekhoff's outlook. all aspiring men, he says, are predestined martyrs; only the base achieve immunity from ruin: and as martyrdom is the exception, not the rule, it results that tchekhoff's ordinary men, and the secondary characters in most of his stories, are insignificant and mean. the life depicted is in itself uninteresting; its colour is grey, its keynote tedium, its only humour the humour of the satirist, not of the sympathiser, and its only tragedy, failure. tchekhoff is essentially an objective writer, and this gives him an undue detachment from the life which he describes; he never points a moral, delays over an explanation, or shrinks from the incompleteness which, truthful to life, is often unsatisfactory in art. but his attitude towards life is not the less unmistakable because never openly expressed; pessimism, inspired by fatalism and denial of the will, but tempered by humour and apathy, is its note. that note appears perhaps less in this volume than it would in a more representative collection of tchekhoff's writings. but in choosing these stories from among more than a hundred, i have been guided not merely by what was best, but also by what seemed most likely to be understood by a public unfamiliar with russian manners and russian thought. the stories "the black monk," "in exile," "rothschild's fiddle," "a father," and "at the manor," have been translated from the volume _poviesti i razskazni_, st. petersburg, ; "a family council," from _razskazni_, th edition, st. petersburg, ; "ward no. ," from _palata no. shestoi_, th edition, st. petersburg, ; "on the way," "at home," "two tragedies," and "an event," from _v sumerkakh_, th edition, st. petersburg, ; and "sleepyhead," from _khmuriye liudi_, th edition, st. petersburg, . "in exile" was published in the _fortnightly review_ in september, , and is reprinted here with the editor's permission. r. e. c. l. [footnote : ivan strannik. _la pensée russe contemporaine_. paris, librairie armand colin, .] contents the black monk on the way a family council at home in exile rothschild's fiddle a father we tragedies sleepyhead at the manor an event ward no. the black monk andrei vasilyevitch kovrin, magister, had worn himself out, and unsettled his nerves. he made no effort to undergo regular treatment; but only incidentally, over a bottle of wine, spoke to his friend the doctor; and his friend the doctor advised him to spend all the spring and summer in the country. and in the nick of time came a long letter from tánya pesótsky, asking him to come and stay with her father at borisovka. he decided to go. but first (it was in april) he travelled to his own estate, to his native kovrinka, and spent three weeks in solitude; and only when the fine weather came drove across the country to his former guardian and second parent, pesótsky, the celebrated russian horti-culturist. from kovrinka to borisovka, the home of the pesótskys, was a distance of some seventy versts, and in the easy, springed calêche the drive along the roads, soft in springtime, promised real enjoyment. the house at borisovka was, large, faced with a colonnade, and adorned with figures of lions with the plaster falling off. at the door stood a servant in livery. the old park, gloomy and severe, laid out in english fashion, stretched for nearly a verst from the house down to the river, and ended there in a steep clay bank covered with pines whose bare roots resembled shaggy paws. below sparkled a deserted stream; overhead the snipe circled about with melancholy cries--all, in short, seemed to invite a visitor to sit down and write a ballad. but the gardens and orchards, which together with the seed-plots occupied some eighty acres, inspired very different feelings. even in the worst of weather they were bright and joy-inspiring. such wonderful roses, lilies, camelias, such tulips, such a host of flowering plants of every possible kind and colour, from staring white to sooty black,--such a wealth of blossoms kovrin had never seen before. the spring was only beginning, and the greatest rareties were hidden under glass; but already enough bloomed in the alleys and beds to make up an empire of delicate shades. and most charming of all was it in the early hours of morning, when dewdrops glistened on every petal and leaf. in childhood the decorative part of the garden, called contemptuously by pesótsky "the rubbish," had produced on kovrin a fabulous impression. what miracles of art, what studied monstrosities, what monkeries of nature! espaliers of fruit trees, a pear tree shaped like a pyramidal poplar, globular oaks and lindens, apple-tree houses, arches, monograms, candelabra--even the date in plum trees, to commemorate the year in which pesótsky first engaged in the art of gardening. there were stately, symmetrical trees, with trunks erect as those of palms, which after examination proved to be gooseberry or currant trees. but what most of all enlivened the garden and gave it its joyous tone was the constant movement of pesótsky's gardeners. from early morning to late at night, by the trees, by the bushes, in the alleys, and on the beds swarmed men as busy as ants, with barrows, spades, and watering-pots. kovrin arrived at borisovka at nine o'clock. he found tánya and her father in great alarm. the clear starlight night foretold frost, and the head gardener, ivan karlitch, had gone to town, so that there was no one who could be relied upon. at supper they spoke only of the impending frost; and it was decided that tánya should not go to bed at all, but should inspect the gardens at one o'clock and see if all were in order, while yegor semiónovitch should rise at three o'clock, or even earlier. kovrin sat with tánya all the evening, and after midnight accompanied her to the garden. the air already smelt strongly of burning. in the great orchard, called "the commercial," which every year brought yegor semiónovitch thousands of roubles profit, there already crept along the ground the thick, black, sour smoke which was to clothe the young leaves and save the plants. the trees were marshalled like chessmen in straight rows--like ranks of soldiers; and this pedantic regularity, together with the uniformity of height, made the garden seem monotonous and even tiresome. kovrin and tánya walked up and down the alleys, and watched the fires of dung, straw, and litter; but seldom met the workmen, who wandered in the smoke like shadows. only the cherry and plum trees and a few apple trees were in blossom, but the whole garden was shrouded in smoke, and it was only when they reached the seed-plots that kovrin was able to breathe. "i remember when i was a child sneezing from the smoke," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "but to this day i cannot understand how smoke saves plants from the frost." "smoke is a good substitute when there are no clouds," answered tánya. "but what do you want the clouds for?" "in dull and cloudy weather we have no morning frosts." "is that so?" said kovrin. he laughed and took tánya by the hand. her broad, very serious, chilled face; her thick, black eyebrows; the stiff collar on her jacket which prevented her from moving her head freely; her dress tucked up out of the dew; and her whole figure, erect and slight, pleased him. "heavens! how she has grown!" he said to himself. "when i was here last time, five years ago, you were quite a child. you were thin, long-legged, and untidy, and wore a short dress, and i used to tease you. what a change in five years!" "yes, five years!" sighed tánya. "a lot of things have happened since then. tell me, andrei, honestly," she said, looking merrily into his face, "do you feel that you have got out of touch with us? but why do i ask? you are a man, you live your own interesting life, you.... some estrangement is natural. but whether that is so or not, andrusha, i want you now to look on us as your own. we have a right to that." "i do, already, tánya." "your word of honour?" "my word of honour." "you were surprised that we had so many of your photographs. but surely you know how my father adores you, worships you. you are a scholar, and not an ordinary man; you have built up a brilliant career, and he is firmly convinced that you turned out a success because he educated you. i do not interfere with his delusion. let him believe it!" already dawn. the sky paled, and the foliage and clouds of smoke began to show themselves more clearly. the nightingale sang, and from the fields came the cry of quails. "it is time for bed!" said tánya. "it is cold too." she took kovrin by the hand. "thanks, andrusha, for coming. we are cursed with most uninteresting acquaintances, and not many even of them. with us it is always garden, garden, garden, and nothing else. trunks, timbers," she laughed, "pippins, rennets, budding, pruning, grafting.... all our life goes into the garden, we never even dream of anything but apples and pears. of course this is all very good and useful, but sometimes i cannot help wishing for change. i remember when you used to come and pay us visits, and when you came home for the holidays, how the whole house grew fresher and brighter, as if someone had taken the covers off the furniture; i was then a very little girl, but i understood...." tánya spoke for a time, and spoke with feeling. then suddenly it came into kovrin's head that during the summer he might become attached to this little, weak, talkative being, that he might get carried away, fall in love--in their position what was more probable and natural? the thought pleased him, amused him, and as he bent down to the kind, troubled face, he hummed to himself pushkin's couplet: "oniégin; i will not conceal that i love tatyana madly." by the time they reached the house yegor semiónovitch had risen. kovrin felt no desire to sleep; he entered into conversation with the old man, and returned with him to the garden. yegor semiónovitch was tall, broad-shouldered, and fat. he suffered from shortness of breath, yet walked so quickly that it was difficult to keep up with him. his expression was always troubled and hurried, and he seemed to be thinking that if he were a single second late everything would be destroyed. "there, brother, is a mystery for you!" he began, stopping to recover breath. "on the surface of the ground, as you see, there is frost, but raise the thermometer a couple of yards on your stick, and it is quite warm.... why is that?" "i confess i don't know," said kovrin, laughing. "no!... you can't know everything.... the biggest brain cannot comprehend everything. you are still engaged with your philosophy?" "yes, ... i am studying psychology, and philosophy generally." "and it doesn't bore you?" "on the contrary, i couldn't live without it." "well, god grant ..." began yegor semiónovitch, smoothing his big whiskers thoughtfully. "well, god grant ... i am very glad for your sake, brother, very glad...." suddenly he began to listen, and making a terrible face, ran off the path and soon vanished among the trees in a cloud of smoke. "who tethered this horse to the tree?" rang out a despairing voice. "which of you thieves and murderers dared to tether this horse to the apple tree? my god, my god! ruined, ruined, spoiled, destroyed! the garden is ruined, the garden is destroyed! my god!" when he returned to kovrin his face bore an expression of injury and impotence. "what on earth can you do with these accursed people?" he asked in a whining voice, wringing his hands. "stepka brought a manure cart here last night and tethered the horse to an apple tree ... tied the reins, the idiot, so tight, that the bark is rubbed off in three places. what can you do with men like this? i speak to him and he blinks his eyes and looks stupid. he ought to be hanged!" when at last he calmed down, he embraced kovrin and kissed him on the cheek. "well, god grant ... god grant!..." he stammered. "i am very, very glad that you have come. i cannot say how glad. thanks!" then, with the same anxious face, and walking with the same quick step, he went round the whole garden, showing his former ward the orangery, the hothouses, the sheds, and two beehives which he described as the miracle of the century. as they walked about, the sun rose, lighting up the garden. it grew hot. when he thought of the long, bright day before him, kovrin remembered that it was but the beginning of may, and that he had before him a whole summer of long, bright, and happy days; and suddenly through him pulsed the joyous, youthful feeling which he had felt when as a child he played in this same garden. and in turn, he embraced the old man and kissed him tenderly. touched by remembrances, the pair went into the house and drank tea out of the old china cups, with cream and rich biscuits; and these trifles again reminded kovrin of his childhood and youth. the splendid present and the awakening memories of the past mingled, and a feeling of intense happiness filled his heart. he waited until tánya awoke, and having drunk coffee with her, walked through the garden, and then went to his room and began to work. he read attentively, making notes; and only lifted his eyes from his books when he felt that he must look out of the window or at the fresh roses, still wet with dew, which stood in vases on his table. it seemed to hint that every little vein in his body trembled and pulsated with joy. ii but in the country kovrin continued to live the same nervous and untranquil life as he had lived in town. he read much, wrote much, studied italian; and when he went for walks, thought all the time of returning to work. he slept so little that he astonished the household; if by chance he slept in the daytime for half an hour, he could not sleep all the following night. yet after these sleepless nights he felt active and gay. he talked much, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. often, nearly every day, young girls from the neighbouring country-houses drove over to borisovka, played the piano with tánya, and sang. sometimes the visitor was a young man, also a neighbour, who played the violin well. kovrin listened eagerly to their music and singing, but was exhausted by it, so exhausted sometimes that his eyes closed involuntarily, and his head drooped on his shoulder. one evening after tea he sat upon the balcony, reading. in the drawing-room tánya--a soprano, one of her friends--a contralto, and the young violinist studied the well-known serenade of braga. kovrin listened to the words, but though they were russian, could not understand their meaning. at last, laying down his book and listening attentively, he understood. a girl with a disordered imagination heard by night in a garden some mysterious sounds, sounds so beautiful and strange that she was forced to recognise their harmony and holiness, which to us mortals are incomprehensible, and therefore flew back to heaven. kovrin's eyelids drooped. he rose, and in exhaustion walked up and down the drawing-room, and then up and down the hall. when the music ceased, he took tánya by the hand and went out with her to the balcony. "all day--since early morning," he began, "my head has been taken up with a strange legend. i cannot remember whether i read it, or where i heard it, but the legend is very remarkable and not very coherent. i may begin by saying that it is not very clear. a thousand years ago a monk, robed in black, wandered in the wilderness--somewhere in syria or arabia ... some miles away the fishermen saw another black monk moving slowly over the surface of the lake. the second monk was a mirage. now put out of your mind all the laws of optics, which legend, of course, does not recognise, and listen. from the first mirage was produced another mirage, from the second a third, so that the image of the black monk is eternally reflected from one stratum of the atmosphere to another. at one time it was seen in africa, then in spain, then in india, then in the far north. at last it issued from the limits of the earth's atmosphere, but never came across conditions which would cause it to disappear. maybe it is seen to-day in mars or in the constellation of the southern cross. now the whole point, the very essence of the legend, lies in the prediction that exactly a thousand years after the monk went into the wilderness, the mirage will again be cast into the atmosphere of the earth and show itself to the world of men. this term of a thousand years, it appears, is now expiring.... according to the legend we must expect the black monk to-day or to-morrow." "it is a strange story," said tánya, whom the legend did not please. "but the most astonishing thing," laughed kovrin, "is that i cannot remember how this legend came into my head. did i read it? did i hear it? or can it be that i dreamed of the black monk? i cannot remember. but the legend interests me. all day long i thought of nothing else." releasing tánya, who returned to her visitors, he went out of the house, and walked lost in thought beside the flower-beds. already the sun was setting. the freshly watered flowers exhaled a damp, irritating smell. in the house the music had again begun, and from the distance the violin produced the effect of a human voice. straining his memory in an attempt to recall where he had heard the legend, kovrin walked slowly across the park, and then, not noticing where he went, to the river-bank. by the path which ran down among the uncovered roots to the water's edge kovrin descended, frightening the snipe, and disturbing two ducks. on the dark pine trees glowed the rays of the setting sun, but on the surface of the river darkness had already fallen. kovrin crossed the stream. before him now lay a broad field covered with young rye. neither human dwelling nor human soul was visible in the distance; and it seemed that the path must lead to the unexplored, enigmatical region in the west where the sun had already set--where still, vast and majestic, flamed the afterglow. "how open it is--how peaceful and free!" thought kovrin, walking along the path. "it seems as if all the world is looking at me from a hiding-place and waiting for me to comprehend it." a wave passed over the rye, and the light evening breeze blew softly on his uncovered head. yet a minute more and the breeze blew again, this time more strongly, the rye rustled, and from behind came the dull murmur of the pines. kovrin stopped in amazement on the horizon, like a cyclone or waterspout, a great, black pillar rose up from earth to heaven. its outlines were undefined; but from the first it might be seen that it was not standing still, but moving with inconceivable speed towards kovrin; and the nearer it came the smaller and smaller it grew. involuntarily kovrin rushed aside and made a path for it. a monk in black clothing, with grey hair and black eyebrows, crossing his hands upon his chest, was borne past. his bare feet were above the ground. having swept some twenty yards past kovrin, he looked at him, nodded his head, and smiled kindly and at the same time slyly. his face was pale and thin. when he had passed by kovrin he again began to grow, flew across the river, struck inaudibly against the clay bank and pine trees, and, passing through them, vanished like smoke. "you see," stammered kovrin, "after all, the legend was true!" making no attempt to explain this strange phenomenon; satisfied with the fact that he had so closely and so plainly seen not only the black clothing but even the face and eyes of the monk; agitated agreeably, he returned home. in the park and in the garden visitors were walking quietly; in the house the music continued. so he alone had seen the black monk. he felt a strong desire to tell what he had seen to tánya and yegor semiónovitch, but feared that they would regard it as a hallucination, and decided to keep his counsel. he laughed loudly, sang, danced a mazurka, and felt in the best of spirits; and the guests and tánya noticed upon his face a peculiar expression of ecstasy and inspiration, and found him very interesting. iii when supper was over and the visitors had gone, he went to his own room, and lay on the sofa. he wished to think of the monk. but in a few minutes tánya entered. "there, andrusha, you can read father's articles ..." she said. "they are splendid articles. he writes very well." "magnificent!" said yegor semiónovitch, coming in after her, with a forced smile. "don't listen to her, please!... or read them only if you want to go to sleep--they are a splendid soporific." "in my opinion they are magnificent," said tánya, deeply convinced. "read them, andrusha, and persuade father to write more often. he could write a whole treatise on gardening." yegor semiónovitch laughed, blushed, and stammered out the conventional phrases used by abashed authors. at last he gave in. "if you must read them, read first these papers of gauche's, and the russian articles," he stammered, picking out the papers with trembling hands. "otherwise you won't understand them. before you read my replies you must know what i am replying to. but it won't interest you ... stupid. and it's time for bed." tánya went out. yegor semiónovitch sat on the end of the sofa and sighed loudly. "akh, brother mine ..." he began after a long silence. as you see, my dear magister, i write articles, and exhibit at shows, and get medals sometimes. ... pesótsky, they say, has apples as big as your head.... pesótsky has made a fortune out of his gardens.... in one word: "'rich and glorious is kotchubéi.'" "but i should like to ask you what is going to be the end of all this? the gardens--there is no question of that--are splendid, they are models.... not gardens at all, in short, but a whole institution of high political importance, and a step towards a new era in russian agriculture and russian industry.... but for what purpose? what ultimate object?" "that question is easily answered." "i do not mean in that sense. what i want to know is what will happen with the garden when i die? as things are, it would not last without me a single month. the secret does not lie in the fact that the garden is big and the workers many, but in the fact that i love the work--you understand? i love it, perhaps, more than i love myself. just look at me! i work from morning to night. i do everything with my own hands. all grafting, all pruning, all planting--everything is done by me. when i am helped i feel jealous, and get irritated to the point of rudeness. the whole secret is in love, in a sharp master's eye, in a master's hands, and in the feeling when i drive over to a friend and sit down for half an hour, that i have left my heart behind me and am not myself--all the time i am in dread that something has happened to the garden. now suppose i die to-morrow, who will replace all this? who will do the work? the head gardeners? the workmen? why the whole burden of my present worries is that my greatest enemy is not the hare or the beetle or the frost, but the hands of the stranger." "but tánya?" said kovrin, laughing. "surely she is not more dangerous than a hare?... she loves and understands the work." "yes, tánya loves it and understands it. if after my death the garden should fall to her as mistress, then i could wish for nothing better. but suppose--which god forbid--she should marry!" yegor semiónovitch whispered and look at kovrin with frightened eyes. "that's the whole crux. she might marry, there would be children, and there would be no time to attend to the garden. that is bad enough. but what i fear most of all is that she may marry some spendthrift who is always in want of money, who will lease the garden to tradesmen, and the whole thing will go to the devil in the first year. in a business like this a woman, is the scourge of god." yegor semiónovitch sighed and was silent for a few minutes. "perhaps you may call it egoism. but i do not want tánya to marry. i am afraid! you've seen that fop who comes along with a fiddle and makes a noise. i know tánya would never marry him, yet i cannot bear the sight of him.... in short, brother, i am a character ... and i know it." yegor semiónovitch rose and walked excitedly up and down the room. it was plain that he had something very serious to say, but could not bring himself to the point. "i love you too sincerely not to talk to you frankly," he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "in all delicate questions i say what i think, and dislike mystification. i tell you plainly, therefore, that you are the only man whom i should not be afraid of tánya marrying. you are a clever man, you have a heart, and you would not see my life's work ruined. and what is more, i love you as my own son ... and am proud of you. so if you and tánya were to end ... in a sort of romance ... i should be very glad and very happy. i tell you this straight to your face, without shame, as becomes an honest man." kovrin smiled. yegor semiónovitch opened the door, and was leaving the room, but stopped suddenly on the threshold. "and if you and tánya had a son, i could make a horti-culturist out of him," he added. "but that is an idle fancy. good night!" left alone, kovrin settled himself comfortably, and took up his host's articles. the first was entitled "intermediate culture," the second "a few words in reply to the remarks of mr. z. about the treatment of the soil of a new garden," the third "more about grafting." the others were similar in scope. but all breathed restlessness and sickly irritation. even a paper with the peaceful title of "russian apple trees" exhaled irritability. yegor semiónovitch began with the words "audi alteram partem," and ended it with "sapienti sat"; and between these learned quotations flowed a whole torrent of acid words directed against "the learned ignorance of our patent horticulturists who observe nature from their academic chairs," and against m. gauche, "whose fame is founded on the admiration of the profane and dilletanti" and finally kovrin came across an uncalled-for and quite insincere expression of regret that it is no longer legal to flog peasants who are caught stealing fruit and injuring trees. "his is good work, wholesome and fascinating," thought kovrin, "yet in these pamphlets we have nothing but bad temper and war to the knife. i suppose it is the same everywhere; in all careers men of ideas are nervous, and victims of this kind of exalted sensitiveness. i suppose it must be so." he thought of tánya, so delighted with her father's articles, and then of yegor semiónovitch. tánya, small, pale, and slight, with her collar-bone showing, with her widely-opened, her dark and clever eyes, which it seemed were always searching for something. and yegor semiónovitch with his little, hurried steps. he thought again of tánya, fond of talking, fond of argument, and always accompanying even the most insignificant phrases with mimicry and gesticulation. nervous--she must be nervous in the highest degree. again kovrin began to read, but he understood nothing, and threw down his books. the agreeable emotion with which he had danced the mazurka and listened to the music still held possession of him, and aroused a multitude of thoughts. it flashed upon him that if this strange, unnatural monk had been seen by him alone, he must be ill, ill to the point of suffering from hallucinations. the thought frightened him, but not for long. he sat on the sofa, and held his head in his hands, curbing the inexplicable joy which filled his whole being; and then walked up and down the room for a minute, and returned to his work. but the thoughts which he read in books no longer satisfied him. he longed for something vast, infinite, astonishing. towards morning he undressed and went unwillingly to bed; he felt that he had better rest. when at last he heard yegor semiónovitch going to his work in the garden, he rang, and ordered the servant to bring him some wine. he drank several glasses; his consciousness became dim, and he slept. iv yegor semiónovitch and tánya often quarrelled and said disagreeable things to one another. this morning they had both been irritated, and tánya burst out crying and went to her room, coming down neither to dinner nor to tea at first yegor semiónovitch marched about, solemn and dignified, as if wishing to give everyone to understand that for him justice and order were the supreme interests of life. but he was unable to keep this up for long; his spirits fell, and he wandered about the park and sighed, "akh, my god!" at dinner he ate nothing, and at last, tortured by his conscience, he knocked softly at the closed door, and called timidly: "tánya! tánya!" through the door came a weak voice, tearful but determined: "leave me alone!... i implore you." the misery of father and daughter reacted on the whole household, even on the labourers in the garden. kovrin, as usual, was immersed in his own interesting work, but at last even he felt tired and uncomfortable. he determined to interfere, and disperse the cloud before evening. he knocked at tánya's door, and was admitted. "come, come! what a shame!" he began jokingly; and then looked with surprise at her tear-stained and afflicted face covered with red spots. "is it so serious, then? well, well!" "but if you knew how he tortured me!" she said, and a flood of tears gushed out of her big eyes. "he tormented me!" she continued, wringing her hands. "i never said a word to him.... i only said there was no need to keep unnecessary labourers, if ... if we can get day workmen.... you know the men have done nothing for the whole week. i ... i only said this, and he roared at me, and said a lot of things ... most offensive ... deeply insulting. and all for nothing." "never mind!" said kovrin, straightening her hair. "you have had your scoldings and your cryings, and that is surely enough. you can't keep up this for ever ... it is not right ... all the more since you know he loves you infinitely." "he has ruined my whole life," sobbed tánya. "i never hear anything but insults and affronts. he regards me as superfluous in his own house. let him! he will have cause! i shall leave here to-morrow, and study for a position as telegraphist.... let him!" "come, come. stop crying, tánya. it does you no good.... you are both irritable and impulsive, and both in the wrong. come, and i will make peace!" kovrin spoke gently and persuasively, but tánya continued to cry, twitching her shoulders and wringing her hands as if she had been overtaken by a real misfortune. kovrin felt all the sorrier owing to the smallness of the cause of her sorrow. what a trifle it took to make this little creature unhappy for a whole day, or, as she had expressed it, for a whole life! and as he consoled tánya, it occurred to him that except this girl and her father there was not one in the world who loved him as a kinsman; and had it not been for them, he, left fatherless and motherless in early childhood, must have lived his whole life without feeling one sincere caress, or tasting ever that simple, unreasoning love which we feel only for those akin to us by blood. and he felt that his tired, strained nerves, like magnets, responded to the nerves of this crying, shuddering girl. he felt, too, that he could never love a healthy, rosy-cheeked woman; but pale, weak, unhappy tánya appealed to him. he felt pleasure in looking at her hair and her shoulders; and he pressed her hand, and wiped away her tears.... at last she ceased crying. but she still continued to complain of her father, and of her insufferable life at home, imploring kovrin to try to realise her position. then by degrees she began to smile, and to sigh that god had cursed her with such a wicked temper; and in the end laughed aloud, called herself a fool, and ran out of the room. a little later kovrin went into the garden. yegor semiónovitch and tánya, as if nothing had happened, we were walking side by side up the alley, eating rye-bread and salt, we both were very hungry. v pleased with his success as peacemaker, kovrin went into the park. as he sat on a bench and mused, he heal'd the rattle of a carnage and a woman's laugh--visitors evidently again. shadows fell in the garden, the sound of a violin, the music of a woman's voice reached him almost inaudibly; and this reminded him of the black monk. whither, to what country, to what planet, had that optical absurdity flown? hardly had he called to mind the legend and painted in imagination the black apparition in the rye-field when from behind the pine trees opposite to him, walked inaudibly--without the faintest rustling--a man of middle height. his grey head was uncovered, he was dressed in black, and barefooted like a beggar. on his pallid, corpse-like face stood out sharply a number of black spots. nodding his head politely the stranger or beggar walked noiselessly to the bench and sat down, and kovrin recognised the black monk. for a minute they looked at one another, kovrin with astonishment, but the monk kindly and, as before, with a sly expression on his face. "but you are a mirage," said kovrin. "why are you here, and why do you sit in one place? that is not in accordance with the legend." "it is all the same," replied the monk softly, turning his face towards kovrin. "the legend, the mirage, i--all are products of your own excited imagination. i am a phantom." "that is to say you don't exist?" asked kovrin. "think as you like," replied the monk, smiling faintly. "i exist in your imagination, and as your imagination is a part of nature, i must exist also in nature." "you have a clever, a distinguished face--it seems to me as if in reality you had lived more than a thousand years," said kovrin. "i did not know that my imagination was capable of creating such a phenomenon. why do you look at me with such rapture? are you pleased with me?" "yes. for you are one of the few who can justly be named the elected of god. you serve eternal truth. your thoughts, your intentions, your astonishing science, all your life bear the stamp of divinity, a heavenly impress; they are dedicated to the rational and the beautiful, and that is, to the eternal." "you say, to eternal truth. then can eternal truth be accessible and necessary to men if there is no eternal life?" "there is eternal life," said the monk. "you believe in the immortality of men." "of course. for you, men, there awaits a great and a beautiful future. and the more the world has of men like you the nearer will this future be brought. without you, ministers to the highest principles, living freely and consciously, humanity would be nothing; developing in the natural order it must wait the end of its earthly history. but you, by some thousands of years, hasten it into the kingdom of eternal truth--and in this is your high service. you embody in yourself the blessing of god which rested upon the people." "and what is the object of eternal life?" asked kovrin. "the same as all life--enjoyment. true enjoyment is in knowledge, and eternal life presents innumerable, inexhaustible fountains of knowledge; it is in this sense it was said: 'in my father's house are many mansions....'" "you cannot conceive what a joy it is to me to listen to you," said kovrin, rubbing his hands with delight. "i am glad." "yet i know that when you leave me i shall be tormented by doubt as to your reality. you are a phantom, a hallucination. but that means that i am psychically diseased, that i am not in a normal state?" "what if you are? that need not worry you. you are ill because you have overstrained your powers, because you have borne your health in sacrifice to one idea, and the time is near when you will sacrifice not merely it but your life also. what more could you desire? it is what all gifted and noble natures aspire to." "but if i am psychically diseased, how can i trust myself?" "and how do you know that the men of genius whom all the world trusts have not also seen visions? genius, they tell you now, is akin to insanity. believe me, the healthy and the normal are but ordinary men--the herd. fears as to a nervous age, over-exhaustion and degeneration can trouble seriously only those whose aims in life lie in the present--that is the herd." "the romans had as their ideal: _mens sana in corpore sano._" "all that the greeks and romans said is not true. exaltations, aspirations, excitements, ecstacies--all those things which distinguish poets, prophets, martyrs to ideas from ordinary men are incompatible with the animal life, that is, with physical health. i repeat, if you wish to be healthy and normal go with the herd." "how strange that you should repeat what i myself have so often thought!" said kovrin. "it seems as if you had watched me and listened to my secret thoughts. but do not talk about me. what do you imply by the words: eternal truth?" the monk made no answer. kovrin looked at him, but could not make out his face. his features clouded and melted away; his head and arms disappeared; his body faded into the bench and into the twilight, and vanished utterly. "the hallucination has gone," said kovrin, laughing. "it is a pity." he returned to the house lively and happy. what the black monk had said to him flattered, not his self-love, but his soul, his whole being. to be the elected, to minister to eternal truth, to stand in the ranks of those who hasten by thousands of years the making mankind worthy of the kingdom of christ, to deliver humanity from thousands of years of struggle, sin, and suffering, to give to one idea everything, youth, strength, health, to die for the general welfare--what an exalted, what a glorious ideal! and when through his memory flowed his past life, a life pure and chaste and full of labour, when he remembered what he had learnt and what he had taught, he concluded that in the words of the monk there was no exaggeration. through the park, to meet him, came tánya. she was wearing a different dress from that in which he had last seen her. "you here?" she cried. "we were looking for you, looking.... but what has happened?" she asked in surprise, looking into his glowing, enraptured face, and into his eyes, now full of tears. "how strange you are, andrusha!" "i am satisfied, tánya," said kovrin, laying his hand upon her shoulder. "i am more than satisfied; i am happy! tánya, dear tánya, you are inexpressibly dear to me. tánya, i am so glad!" he kissed both her hands warmly, and continued: "i have just lived through the brightest, most wonderful, most unearthly moments.... but i cannot tell you all, for you would call me mad, or refuse to believe me.... let me speak of you! tánya, i love you, and have long loved you. to have you near me, to meet you ten times a day, has become a necessity for me. i do not know how i shall live without you when i go home." "no!" laughed tánya. "you will forget us all in two days. we are little people, and you are a great man." "let us talk seriously," said he. "i will take you with me, tánya! yes? you will come? you will be mine?" tánya cried "what?" and tried to laugh again. but the laugh did not come, and, instead, red spots stood out on her cheeks. she breathed quickly, and walked on rapidly into the park. "i did not think ... i never thought of this ... never thought," she said, pressing her hands together as if in despair. but kovrin hastened after her, and, with the same glowing, enraptured face, continued to speak. "i wish for a love which will take possession of me altogether, and this love only you, tánya, can give me. i am happy! how happy!" she was overcome, bent, withered up, and seemed suddenly to have aged ten years. but kovrin found her beautiful, and loudly expressed his ecstacy: "how lovely she is!" vi when he learned from kovrin that not only had a romance resulted, but that a wedding was to follow, yegor semiónovitch walked from corner to corner, and tried to conceal his agitation. his hands shook, his neck seemed swollen and purple; he ordered the horses to be put into his racing droschky, and drove away. tánya, seeing how he whipped the horses and how he pushed his cap down over his ears, understood his mood, locked herself into her room, and cried all day. in the orangery the peaches and plums were already ripe. the packing and despatch to moscow of such a delicate load required much attention, trouble, and bustle. owing to the heat of the summer every tree had to be watered; the process was costly in time and working-power; and many caterpillars appeared, which the workmen, and even yegor semiónovitch and tánya, crushed with their fingers, to the great disgust of kovrin. the autumn orders for fruit and trees had to be attended to, and a vast correspondence carried on. and at the very busiest time, when it seemed no one had a free moment, work began in the fields and deprived the garden of half its workers. yegor semiónovitch, very sunburnt, very irritated, and very worried, galloped about, now to the garden, now to the fields; and all the time shouted that they were tearing him to bits, and that he would put a bullet through his brain. on top of all came the bustle over tánya's trousseau, to which the pesótskys attributed infinite significance. with the eternal snipping of scissors, rattle of sewing-machines, smell of flat-irons, and the caprices of the nervous and touchy dressmaker, the whole house seemed to spin round. and, to make matters worse, visitors arrived every day, and these visitors had to be amused, fed, and lodged for the night. yet work and worry passed unnoticed in a mist of joy. tánya felt as if love and happiness had suddenly burst upon her, although ever since her fourteenth year she had been certain that kovrin would marry nobody but herself. she was eternally in a state of astonishment, doubt, and disbelief in herself. at one moment she was seized by such great joy that she felt she must fly away to the clouds and pray to god; but a moment later she remembered that when august came she would have to leave the home of her childhood and forsake her father; and she was frightened by the thought--god knows whence it came--that she was trivial, insignificant, and unworthy of a great man like kovrin. when such thoughts came she would run up to her room, lock herself in, and cry bitterly for hours. but when visitors were present, it broke in upon her that kovrin was a singularly handsome man, that all the women loved him and envied her; and in these moments her heart was as full of rapture and pride as if she had conquered the whole world. when he dared to smile on any other woman she trembled with jealousy, went to her room, and again--tears. these new feelings possessed her altogether; she helped her father mechanically, noticing neither pears nor caterpillars, nor workmen, nor how swiftly time was passing by. yegor semiónovitch was in much the same state of mind. he still worked from morning to night, hew about the gardens, and lost his temper; but all the while he was wrapped in a magic reverie. in his sturdy body contended two men, one the real yegor semiónovitch, who, when he listened to the gardener, ivan karlovitch's report of some mistake or disorder, went mad with excitement, and tore his hair; and the other the unreal yegor semiónovitch--a half-intoxicated old man, who broke off an important conversation in the middle of a word, seized the gardener by the shoulder, and stammered: "you may say what you like, but blood is thicker than water. his mother was an astonishing, a most noble, a most brilliant woman. it was a pleasure to see her good, pure, open, angel face. she painted beautifully, wrote poetry, spoke five foreign languages, and sang.... poor thing, heaven rest her soul, she died of consumption!" the unreal yegor semiónovitch sighed, and after a moment's silence continued: "when he was a boy growing up to manhood in my house he had just such an angel face, open and good. his looks, his movements, his words were as gentle and graceful as his mother's. and his intellect it is not for nothing he has the degree of magister. but you just wait, ivan karlovitch; you'll see what he'll be in ten years' time. why, he'll be out of sight!" but here the real yegor semiónovitch remembered himself, seized his head and roared: "devils! frost-bitten! ruined, destroyed! the garden is ruined; the garden is destroyed!" kovrin worked with all his former ardour, and hardly noticed the bustle about him. love only poured oil on the flames. after every meeting with tánya, he returned to his rooms in rapture and happiness, and set to work with his books and manuscripts with the same passion with which he had kissed her and sworn his love. what the black monk had told him of his election by god, of eternal truth, and of the glorious future of humanity, gave to all his work a peculiar, unusual significance. once or twice every week, either in the park or in the house, he met the monk, and talked with him for hours; but this did not frighten, but on the contrary delighted him, for he was now assured that such apparitions visit only the elect and exceptional who dedicate themselves to the ministry of ideas. assumption passed unobserved. then came the wedding, celebrated by the determined wish of yegor semiónovitch with what was called _éclat_, that is, with meaningless festivities which lasted for two days. three thousand roubles were consumed in food and drink; but what with the vile music, the noisy toasts, the fussing servants, the clamour, and the closeness of the atmosphere, no one appreciated the expensive wines or the astonishing _hors d'oeuvres_ specially ordered from moscow. vii one of the long winter nights. kovrin lay in bed, reading a french novel. poor tánya, whose head every evening ached as the result of the unaccustomed life in town, had long been sleeping, muttering incoherent phrases in her dreams. the dock struck three. kovrin put out the candle and lay down, lay for a long time with dosed eyes unable to sleep owing to the heat of the room and tánya's continued muttering. at half-past four he again lighted the candle. the black monk was sitting in a chair beside his bed. "good night!" said the monk, and then, after a moment's silence, asked, "what are you thinking of now?" "of glory," answered kovrin. "in a french novel which i have just been reading, the hero is a young man who does foolish things, and dies from a passion for glory. to me this passion is inconceivable." "because you are too clever. you look indifferently on fame as a toy which cannot interest you." "that is true." "celebrity has no attractions for you. what flattery, joy, or instruction can a man draw from the knowledge that his name will be graven on a monument, when time will efface the inscription sooner or later? yes, happily there are too many of you for brief human memory to remember all your names." "of course," said kovrin. "and why remember them?... but let us talk of something else. of happiness, for instance. what is this happiness?" when the clock struck five he was sitting on the bed with his feet trailing on the carpet and his head turned to the monk, and saying: "in ancient times a man became frightened at his happiness, so great it was, and to placate the gods laid before them in sacrifice his beloved ring. you have heard? now i, like polycrates, am a little frightened at my own happiness. from morning to night i experience only joy--joy absorbs me and stifles all other feelings. i do not know the meaning of grief affliction, or weariness. i speak seriously, i am beginning to doubt." "why?" asked the monk in an astonished tone. "then you think joy is a supernatural feeling? you think it is not the normal condition of things? no! the higher a man has climbed in mental and moral development the freer he is, the greater satisfaction he draws from life. socrates, diogenes, marcus aurelius knew joy and not sorrow. and the apostle said, 'rejoice exceedingly.' rejoice and be happy!" "and suddenly the gods will be angered," said kovrin jokingly. "but it would hardly be to my taste if they were to steal my happiness and force me to shiver and starve." tánya awoke, and looked at her husband with amazement and terror. he spoke, he turned to the chair, he gesticulated, and laughed; his eyes glittered and his laughter sounded strange. "andrusha, whom are you speaking to?" she asked, seizing the hand which he had stretched out to the monk. "andrusha, who is it?" "who?" answered kovrin. "why, the monk!... he is sitting there." he pointed to the black monk. "there is no one there,... no one, andrusha; you are ill." tánya embraced her husband, and, pressing against him as if to defend him against the apparition, covered his eyes with her hand. "you are ill," she sobbed, trembling all over. "forgive me, darling, but for a long time i have fancied you were unnerved in some way.... you are ill, ... psychically, andrusha." the shudder communicated itself to him. he looked once more at the chair, now empty, and suddenly felt weakness in his arms and legs. he began to dress. "it is nothing, tánya, nothing, ..." he stammered, and still shuddered. "but i am a little unwell.... it is time to recognise it." "i have noticed it for a long time, and father noticed it," she said, trying to restrain her sobs. "you have been speaking so funnily to yourself, and smiling so strangely, ... and you do not sleep. o, my god, my god, save us!" she cried in terror. "but do not be afraid, andrusha, do not fear, ... for god's sake do not be afraid...." she also dressed.... it was only as he looked at her that kovrin understood the danger of his position, and realised the meaning of the black monk and of their conversations. it became plain to him that he was mad. both, themselves not knowing why, dressed and went into the hall; she first, he after her. there they found yegor semiónovitch in his dressing-gown. he was staying with them, and had been awakened by tánya's sobs. "do not be afraid, andrusha," said tánya, trembling as if in fever. "do not be afraid ... father, this will pass off ... it will pass off." kovrin was so agitated that he could hardly speak. but he tried to treat the matter as a joke. he turned to his father-in-law and attempted to say: "congratulate me ... it seems i have gone out of my mind." but his lips only moved, and he smiled bitterly. at nine o'clock they put on his overcoat and a fur cloak, wrapped him up in a shawl, and drove him to the doctor's. he began a course of treatment. viii again summer. by the doctor's orders kovrin returned to the country. he had recovered his health, and no longer saw the black monk. it only remained for him to recruit his physical strength. he lived with his father-in-law, drank much milk, worked only two hours a day, never touched wine, and gave up smoking. on the evening of the th june, before elijah's day, a vesper service was held in the house. when the priest took the censor from the sexton, and the vast hall began to smell like a church, kovrin felt tired. he went into the garden. taking no notice of the gorgeous blossoms around him he walked up and down, sat for a while on a bench, and then walked through the park. he descended the sloping bank to the margin of the river, and stood still, looking questioningly at the water. the great pines, with their shaggy roots, which a year before had seen him so young, so joyous, so active, no longer whispered, but stood silent and motionless, as if not recognising him.... and, indeed, with his short-dipped hair, his feeble walk, and his changed face, so heavy and pale and changed since last year, he would hardly have been recognised anywhere. he crossed the stream. in the field, last year covered with rye, lay rows of reaped oats. the sun had set, and on the horizon flamed a broad, red afterglow, fore-telling stormy weather. all was quiet; and, gazing towards the point at which a year before he had first seen the black monk, kovrin stood twenty minutes watching the crimson fade. when he returned to the house, tired and unsatisfied, yegor semiónovitch and tánya were sitting on the steps of the terrace, drinking tea. they were talking together, and, seeing kovrin, stopped. but kovrin knew by their faces that they had been speaking of him. "it is time for you to have your milk," said tánya to her husband. "no, not yet," he answered, sitting down on the lowest step. "you drink it. i do not want it." tánya timidly exchanged glances with her father, and said in a guilty voice: "you know very well that the milk does you good." "yes, any amount of good," laughed kovrin. "i congratulate you, i have gained a pound in weight since last friday." he pressed his hands to his head and said in a pained voice: "why ... why have you cured me? bromide mixtures, idleness, warm baths, watching in trivial terror over every mouthful, every step ... all this in the end will drive me to idiocy. i had gone out of my mind ... i had the mania of greatness. ... but for all that i was bright, active, and even happy.... i was interesting and original. now i have become rational and solid, just like the rest of the world. i am a mediocrity, and it is tiresome for me to live.... oh, how cruelly... how cruelly you have treated me! i had hallucinations ... but what harm did that cause to anyone? i ask you what harm?" "god only knows what you mean!" sighed yegor semiónovitch. "it is stupid even to listen to you." "then you need not listen." the presence of others, especially of yegor semiónovitch, now irritated kovrin; he answered his father-in-law drily, coldly, even rudely, and could not look on him without contempt and hatred. and yegor semiónovitch felt confused, and coughed guiltily, although he could not see how he was in the wrong. unable to understand the cause of such a sudden reversal of their former hearty relations, tánya leaned against her father, and looked with alarm into his eyes. it was becoming plain to her that their relations every day grew worse and worse, that her father had aged greatly, and that her husband had become irritable, capricious, excitable, and uninteresting. she no longer laughed and sang, she ate nothing, and whole nights never slept, but lived under the weight of some impending terror, torturing herself so much that she lay insensible from dinner-time till evening. when the service was being held, it had seemed to her that her father was crying; and now as she sat on the terrace she made an effort not to think of it. "how happy were buddha and mahomet and shakespeare that their kind-hearted kinsmen and doctors did not cure them of ecstacy and inspiration!" said kovrin. "if mahomet had taken potassium bromide for his nerves, worked only two hours a day, and drunk milk, that astonishing man would have left as little behind him as his dog. doctors and kind-hearted relatives only do their best to make humanity stupid, and the time will come when mediocrity will be considered genius, and humanity will perish. if you only had some idea," concluded kovrin peevishly, "if you only had some idea how grateful i am!" he felt strong irritation, and to prevent himself saying too much, rose and went into the house. it was a windless night, and into the window was borne the smell of tobacco plants and jalap. through the windows of the great dark hall, on the floor and on the piano, fell the moonrays. kovrin recalled the raptures of the summer before, when the air, as now, was full of the smell of jalap and the moonrays poured through the window.... to awaken the mood of last year he went to his room, lighted a strong cigar, and ordered the servant to bring him wine. but now the cigar was bitter and distasteful, and the wine had lost its flavour of the year before. how much it means to get out of practice! from a single cigar, and two sips of wine, his head went round, and he was obliged to take bromide of potassium. before going to bed tánya said to him: "listen. father worships you, but you are annoyed with him about something, and that is killing him. look at his face; he is growing old, not by days but by hours! i implore you, andrusha, for the love of christ, for the sake of your own dead father, for the sake of my peace of mind--be kind to him again!" "i cannot, and i do not want to." "but why?" tánya trembled all over. "explain to me why!" "because i do not like him; that is all," answered kovrin carelessly, shrugging his shoulders. "but better not talk of that; he is your father." "i cannot, cannot understand," said tánya. she pressed her hands to her forehead and fixed her eyes on one point. "something terrible, something incomprehensible is going on in this house. you, ahdrusha, have changed; you are no longer yourself.... you--a clever, an exceptional man--get irritated over trifles. ... you are annoyed by such little things that at any other time you yourself would have refused to believe it. no ... do not be angry, do not be angry," she continued, kissing his hands, and frightened by her own words. "you are clever, good, and noble. you will be just to father. he is so good." "he is not good, but merely good-humoured. these vaudeville uncles--of your father's type--with well-fed, easy-going faces, are characters in their way, and once used to amuse me, whether in novels, in comedies, or in life. but they are now hateful to me. they are egoists to the marrow of their bones.... most disgusting of all is their satiety, and this stomachic, purely bovine--or swinish--optimism." tánya sat on the bed, and laid her head on a pillow. "this is torture!" she said; and from her voice it was plain that she was utterly weary and found it hard to speak. "since last winter not a moment of rest. ... it is terrible, my god! i suffer ..." "yes, of course! i am herod, and you and your papa the massacred infants. of course!" his face seemed to tánya ugly and disagreeable. the expression of hatred and contempt did not suit it. she even observed that something was lacking in his face; ever since his hair had been cut off, it seemed changed. she felt an almost irresistible desire to say something insulting, but restrained herself in time, and overcome with terror, went out of the bedroom. ix kovrin received an independent chair. his inaugural address was fixed for the nd of december, and a notice to that effect was posted in the corridors of the university. but when the day came a telegram was received by the university authorities that he could not fulfil the engagement, owing to illness. blood came from his throat. he spat it up, and twice in one month it flowed in streams. he felt terribly weak, and fell into a somnolent condition. but this illness did not frighten him, for he knew that his dead mother had lived with the same complaint more than ten years. his doctors, too, declared that there was no danger, and advised him merely not to worry, to lead a regular life, and to talk less. in january the lecture was postponed for the same reason, and in february it was too late to begin the course. it was postponed till the following year. he no longer lived with tánya, but with another woman, older than himself, who looked after him as if he were a child. his temper was calm and obedient; he submitted willingly, and when varvara nikolaievna--that was her name--made arrangements for taking him to the crimea, he consented to go, although he felt that from the change no good would come. they reached sevastopol late one evening, and stopped there to rest, intending to drive to yalta on the following day. both were tired by the journey. varvara nikolaievna drank tea, and went to bed. but kovrin remained up. an hour before leaving home for the railway station he had received a letter from tánya, which he had not read; and the thought of this letter caused him unpleasant agitation. in the depths of his heart he knew that his marriage with tánya had been a mistake. he was glad that he was finally parted from her; but the remembrance of this woman, who towards the last had seemed to turn into a walking, living mummy, in which all had died except the great, clever eyes, awakened in him only pity and vexation against himself. the writing on the envelope reminded him that two years before he had been guilty of cruelty and injustice, and that he had avenged on people in no way guilty his spiritual vacuity, his solitude, his disenchantment with life.... he remembered how he had once torn into fragments his dissertation and all the articles written by him since the time of his illness, and thrown them out of the window, how the fragments flew in the wind and rested on the trees and flowers; in every page he had seen strange and baseless pretensions, frivolous irritation, and a mania for greatness. and all this had produced upon him an impression that he had written a description of his own faults. yet when the last copybook had been tom up and thrown out of the window, he felt bitterness and vexation, and went to his wife and spoke to her cruelly. heavens, how he had ruined her life! he remembered how once, wishing to cause her pain, he had told her that her father had played in their romance an unusual role, and had even asked him to marry her; and yegor semiónovitch, happening to overhear him, had rushed into the room, so dumb with consternation that he could not utter a word, but only stamped his feet on one spot and bellowed strangely as if his tongue had been cut out. and tánya, looking at her father, cried out in a heartrending voice, and fell insensible on the floor. it was hideous. the memory of all this returned to him at the sight of the well-known handwriting. he went out on to the balcony. it was warm and calm, and a salt smell came to him from the sea. the moonlight, and the lights around, were imaged on the surface of the wonderful bay--a surface of a hue impossible to name. it was a tender and soft combination of dark blue and green; in parts the water resembled copperas, and in parts, instead of water, liquid moonlight filled the bay. and all these combined in a harmony of hues which exhaled tranquillity and exaltation. in the lower story of the inn, underneath the balcony, the windows were evidently open, for women's voices and laughter could plainly be heard. there must be an entertainment. kovrin made an effort over himself, unsealed the letter, and, returning to his room, began to read: "my father has just died. for this i am indebted to you, for it was you who killed him. our garden is being ruined; it is managed by strangers; what my poor father so dreaded is taking place. for this also i am indebted to you. i hate you with all my soul, and wish that you may perish soon! oh, how i suffer i my heart bums with an intolerable pain!... may you be accursed! i took you for an exceptional man, for a genius; i loved you, and you proved a madman...." kovrin could read no more; he tore up the letter and threw the pieces away.... he was overtaken by restlessness--almost by terror.... on the other side of the screen, slept varvara nikolaievna; he could hear her breathing. from the story beneath came the women's voices and laughter, but he felt that in the whole hotel there was not one living soul except himself. the fact that wretched, overwhelmed tánya had cursed him in her letter, and wished him ill, caused him pain; and he looked fearfully at the door as if fearing to see again that unknown power which in two years had brought about so much ruin in his own life and in the lives of all who were dearest to him. by experience he knew that when the nerves give way the best refuge lies in work. he used to sit at the table and concentrate his mind upon some definite thought. he took from his red portfolio a copybook containing the conspect of a small work of compilation which he intended to carry out during his stay in the crimea, if he became tired of inactivity.... he sat at the table, and worked on this conspect, and it seemed to him that he was regaining his former peaceful, resigned, impersonal mood. his conspect led him to speculation on the vanity of the world. he thought of the great price which life demands for the most trivial and ordinary benefits which it gives to men. to reach a chair of philosophy under forty years of age; to be an ordinary professor; to expound commonplace thoughts--and those thoughts the thoughts of others--in feeble, tiresome, heavy language; in one word, to attain the position of a learned mediocrity, he had studied fifteen years, worked day and night, passed through a severe psychical disease, survived an unsuccessful marriage--been guilty of many follies and injustices which it was torture to remember. kovrin now clearly realised that he was a mediocrity, and he was willingly reconciled to it, for he knew that every man must be satisfied with what he is. the conspect calmed him, but the tom letter lay upon the floor and hindered the concentration of his thoughts. he rose, picked up the fragments, and threw them out of the window. but a light wind blew from the sea, and the papers fluttered back on to the window sill. again he was overtaken by restlessness akin to terror, and it seemed to him that in the whole hotel except himself there was not one living soul.... he went on to the balcony. the bay, as if alive, stared up at him from its multitude of light-and dark-blue eyes, its eyes of turquoise and fire, and beckoned him. it was warm and stifling; how delightful, he thought, to bathe! suddenly beneath the balcony a violin was played, and two women's voices sang. all this was known to him. the song which they sang told of a young girl, diseased in imagination, who heard by night in a garden mysterious sounds, and found in them a harmony and a holiness incomprehensible to us mortals. ... kovrin held his breath, his heart ceased to beat, and the magical, ecstatic rapture which he had long forgotten trembled in his heart again. a high, black pillar, like a cyclone or waterspout, appeared on the opposite coast. it swept with incredible swiftness across the bay towards the hotel; it became smaller and smaller, and kovrin stepped aside to make room for it.... the monk, with uncovered grey head, with black eyebrows, barefooted, folding his arms upon his chest, swept past him, and stopped in the middle of the room. "why did you not believe me?" he asked in a tone of reproach, looking caressingly at kovrin. "if you had believed me when i said you were a genius, these last two years would not have been passed so sadly and so barrenly." kovrin again believed that he was the elected of god and a genius; he vividly remembered all his former conversation with the black monk, and wished to reply. but the blood flowed from his throat on to his chest, and he, not knowing what to do, moved his hands about his chest till his cuffs were red with the blood. he wished to call varvara nikolaievna, who slept behind the screen, and making an effort to do so, cried: "tánya!" he fell on the floor, and raising his hands, again cried: "tánya!" he cried to tánya, cried to the great garden with the miraculous flowers, cried to the park, to the pines with their shaggy roots, to the rye-field, cried to his marvellous science, to his youth, his daring, his joy, cried to the life which had been so beautiful. he saw on the floor before him a great pool of blood, and from weakness could not utter a single word. but an inexpressible, infinite joy filled his whole being. beneath the balcony the serenade was being played, and the black monk whispered to him that he was a genius, and died only because his feeble, mortal body had lost its balance, and could no longer serve as the covering of genius. when varvara nikolaievna awoke, and came from behind her screen, kovrin was dead. but on his face was frozen an immovable smile of happiness. on the way in the room which the innkeeper, the cossack semión tchistoplui, called "the traveller,"--meaning thereby, "reserved exclusively for travellers,"--at a big, unpainted table, sat a tall and broad-shouldered man of about forty years of age. with his elbows on the table and his head lasting on his hands, he slept. a fragment of a tallow candle, stuck in a pomade jar, illumined his fair hair, his thick, broad nose, his sunburnt cheeks, and the beetling brows that hung over his closed eyes.... taken one by one, all his features--his nose, his cheeks, his eyebrows--were as rude and heavy as the furniture in "the traveller" taken together they produced an effect of singular harmony and beauty. such, indeed, is often the character of the russian face; the bigger, the sharper the individual features, the softer and more benevolent the whole. the sleeper was dressed as one of good class, in a threadbare jacket bound with new wide braid, a plush waistcoat, and loose black trousers, vanishing in big boots. on a bench which stretched the whole way round the room slept a girl some eight years of age. she lay upon a foxskin overcoat, and wore a brown dress and long black stockings. her face was pale, her hair fair, her shoulders narrow, her body slight and frail; but her nose ended in just such an ugly lump as the man's. she slept soundly, and did not seem to feel that the crescent comb which had fallen from her hair was cutting into her cheek. "the traveller" had a holiday air. the atmosphere smelt of newly-washed floors; there were no rags on the line which stretched diagonally across the room; and in the ikon corner, casting a red reflection upon the image of st. george the victory-bringer, burned a lamp. with a severe and cautious gradation from the divine to the earthly, there stretched from each side of the image row of gaudily-painted pictures. in the dim light thrown from the lamp and candle-end these pictures seemed to form a continuous belt covered with black patches; but when the tiled stove, wishing to sing in accord with the weather, drew in the blast with a howl, and the logs, as if angered, burst into ruddy flames and roared with rage, rosy patches quivered along the walls; and above the head of the sleeping man might be seen first the faces of seraphim, then the shah nasr edin, and finally a greasy, sunburnt boy, with staring eyes, whispering something into the ear of a girl with a singularly blunt and indifferent face. the storm howled outside. something wild and angry, but deeply miserable, whirled round the inn with the fury of a beast, and strove to burst its way in. it banged against the doors, it beat on the windows and roof, it tore the walls, it threatened, it implored, it quieted down, and then with the joyous howl of triumphant treachery it rushed up the stove pipe; but here the logs burst into flame, and the fire, like a chained hound, rose up in rage to meet its enemy. there was a sobbing, a hissing, and an angry roar. in all this might be distinguished both irritated weariness and unsatisfied hate, and the angered impotence of one accustomed to victory. enchanted by the wild, inhuman music, "the traveller" seemed numbed into immobility for ever. but the door creaked on its hinges, and into the inn came the potboy in a new calico shirt he walked with a limp, twitched his sleepy eyes, snuffed the candle with his fingers, and went out the bells of the village church of rogatchi, three hundred yards away, began to strike twelve. it was midnight the storm played with the sounds as with snowflakes, it chased them to infinite distances, it cut some short and stretched some into long undulating notes; and it smothered others altogether in the universal tumult but suddenly a chime resounded so loudly through the room that it might have been rung under the window. the girl on the foxskin overcoat started and raised hex head. for a moment she gazed vacantly at the black window, then turned her eyes upon nasr edin, on whose face the firelight gleamed, and finally looked at the sleeping man. "papa!" she cried. but her father did not move. the girl peevishly twitched her eyebrows, and lay down again with her legs bent under her. a loud yawn sounded outside the door. again the hinges squeaked, and indistinct voices were heard. someone entered, shook the snow from his coat, and stamped his feet heavily. "who is it?" drawled a female voice. "mademoiselle ilováisky," answered a bass. again the door creaked. the storm tore into the cabin and howled. someone, no doubt the limping boy, went to the door of "the traveller," coughed respectfully, and raised the latch. "come in, please," said the female voice. "it is all quite clean, honey!" the door flew open. on the threshold appeared a bearded muzhik, dressed in a coachman's caftan, covered with snow from head to foot. he stooped under the weight of a heavy portmanteau. behind him entered a little female figure, not half his height, faceless and handless, rolled into a shapeless bundle, and covered also with snow. both coachman and bundle smelt of damp. the candle-flame trembled. "what nonsense!" cried the bundle angrily. "of course we can go on! it is only twelve versts more, chiefly wood. there is no fear of our losing the way." "lose our way or not, it's all the same ... the horses won't go an inch farther," answered the coachman. "lord bless you, miss.... as if i had done it on purpose!" "heaven knows where you've landed me!..." "hush! there's someone asleep. you may go!" the coachman shook the caked snow from his shoulders, set down the portmanteau, snuffled, and went out and the little girl, watching, saw two tiny hands creeping out of the middle of the bundle, stretching upward, and undoing the network of shawls, handkerchiefs, and scarfs. first on the floor fell a heavy shawl, then a hood, and after it a white knitted muffler. having freed its head, the bundle removed its cloak, and shrivelled suddenly into half its former size. now it appeared in a long, grey ulster, with immense buttons and yawning pockets. from one pocket it drew a paper parcel. from the other came a bunch of keys, which the bundle put down so incautiously that the sleeping man started and opened his eyes. for a moment he looked around him vacantly, as if not realising where he was, then shook his head, walked to the corner of the room, and sat down. the bundle took off its ulster, again reduced itself by half, drew off its shoes, and also sat down. it no longer resembled a bundle. it was a woman, a tiny, fragile brunette of some twenty years of age, thin as a serpent, with a long pale face, and curly hair. her nose was long and sharp, her chin long and sharp, her eyelashes long; and thanks to a general sharpness the expression of her face was stinging. dressed in a tight-fitting black gown, with lace on the neck and sleeves, with sharp elbows and long, rosy fingers, she called to mind portraits of english ladies of the middle of the century. the serious, self-centred expression of her face served only to increase the resemblance. the brunette looked around the room, glanced sidelong at the man and girl, and, shrugging her shoulders, went over and sat at the window. the dark windows trembled in the damp west wind. outside great flakes of snow, flashing white, darted against the glass, clung to it for a second, and were whirled away by the storm. the wild music grew louder. there was a long silence. at last the little girl rose suddenly, and, angrily ringing out every word, exclaimed: "lord! lord! how unhappy i am! the most miserable being in the world!" the man rose, and with a guilty air, ill-suited to his gigantic stature and long beard, went to the bench. "you're not sleeping, dearie? what do you want?" he spoke in the voice of a man who is excusing himself. "i don't want anything! my shoulder hurts! you are a wicked man, father, and god will punish you. wait! you'll see how he'll punish you!" "i know it's painful, darling ... but what can i do?" he spoke in the tone employed by husbands when they make excuses to their angry wives. "if your shoulder hurts it is the long journey that is guilty. to-morrow it will be over, then we shall rest, and the pain will stop...." "to-morrow! to-morrow!... every day you say to-morrow! we shall go on for another twenty days!" "listen, friend, i give you my word of honour that this is the last day. i never tell you untruths. if the storm delayed us, that is not my fault." "i can bear it no longer! i cannot! i cannot!" sasha pulled in her leg sharply, and filled the room with a disagreeable whining cry. her father waved his arm, and looked absent-mindedly at the brunette. the brunette shrugged her shoulders, and walked irresolutely towards sasha. "tell me, dear," she said, "why are you crying? it is very nasty to have a sore shoulder ... but what can be done?" "the fact is, mademoiselle," said the man apologetically, "we have had no sleep for two nights, and drove here in a villainous cart. no wonder she is ill and unhappy. a drunken driver ... the luggage stolen ... all the time in a snowstorm ... but what's the good of crying?... i, too, am tired out with sleeping in a sitting position, so tired that i feel almost drunk. listen, sasha ... even as they are things are bad enough ... yet you must cry!" he turned his head away, waved his arm, and sat down. "of course, you mustn't cry!" said the brunette. "only babies cry. if you are ill, dearie, you must undress and go to sleep.... come, let me undress you!" with the girl undressed and comforted, silence again took possession of the room. the brunette sat at the window, and looked questioningly at the wall, the ikon, and the stove. apparently things around seemed very strange to her, the room, the girl with her fat nose and boy's short nightgown, and the girl's father. that strange man sat in the corner, looking vacantly about him like a drunken man, and nibbing his face with his hands. he kept silence, blinked his eyes; and judging from his guilty figure no one would expect that he would be the first to break the silence. yet it was he who began. he smoothed his trousers, coughed, laughed, and said: "a comedy, i swear to god!.. i look around, and can't believe my eyes. why did destiny bring us to this accursed inn p what did she mean to express by it? but life sometimes makes such a salto mortale, that you look and can't believe your eyes. are you going far, miss?" "not very far," answered the brunette. "i was going from home, about twenty versts away, to a farm of ours where my father and brother are staying. i am mademoiselle ilováisky, and the farm is ilováisk. it is twelve versts from this. what disagreeable weather!" "it could hardly be worse." the lame pot-boy entered the room, and stuck a fresh candle end in the pomade jar. "get the samovar!" said the man. "nobody drinks tea at this hour," grinned the boy. "it is a sin before mass." "don't you mind ... it is not you that'll burn in hell, but we...." while they drank their tea the conversation continued. mdlle. ilováisky learned that the stranger's name was grigóri petróvitch likharyóff, that he was a brother of likharyóff, the marshal of the nobility in the neighbouring district, that he had himself once been a landed proprietor, but had gone through everything. and in turn likharyóff learned that his companion was márya mikháilovna ilováisky, that her father had a large estate, and that all the management fell upon her shoulders, as both father and brother were improvident, looked at life through their fingers, and thought of little but greyhounds.... "my father and brother are quite alone on the farm," said mdlle. ilováisky, moving her fingers (she had a habit in conversation of moving her fingers before her stinging face, and after every phrase, licking her lips with a pointed tongue); "they are the mast helpless creatures on the face of the earth, and can't lift a finger to help themselves. my father is muddle-headed, and my brother every evening tired off his feet. imagine!... who is to get them food after the fast? mother is dead, and our servants cannot lay a cloth without my supervision. they will be without proper food, while i spend all night here. it is very funny!" mdlle. ilováisky shrugged her shoulders, sipped her tea, and said: "there are certain holidays which have a peculiar smell. easter, trinity, and christinas each has its own smell. even atheists love these holidays. my brother, for instance, says there is no god, but at easter he is the first to run off to the morning service." likharyóff lifted his eyes, turned them on his companion and laughed. "they say that there is no god," continued mdlle. ilováisky, also laughing, "but why then, be so good as to tell me, do all celebrated writers, scholars, and clever men generally, believe at the close of their lives?" "the man who in youth has not learnt to believe does not believe in old age, be he a thousand times a writer." judged by his cough, likharyóff had a bass voice, but now either from fear of speaking too loud, or from a needless bashfulness, he spoke in a tenor. after a moment's silence, he sighed and continued: "this is how i understand it. faith is a quality of the soul. it is the same as talent ... it is congenital. as far as i can judge from my own case, from those whom i have met in life, from all that i see around me, this congenital faith is inherent in all russians to an astonishing degree.... may i have another cup? ... russian life presents itself as a continuous series of faiths and infatuations, but unbelief or negation it has not--if i may so express it--even smelt. that a russian does not believe in god is merely a way of saying that he believes in something else." likharyóff took from mdlle. ilováisky another cup of tea, gulped down half of it at once, and continued: "let me tell you about myself. in my soul nature planted exceptional capacity for belief. half my life have i lived an atheist and a nihilist, yet never was there a single moment when i did not believe. natural gifts display themselves generally in early childhood, and my capacity for faith showed itself at a time when i could walk upright underneath the table. my mother used to make us children eat a lot, and when she gave us our meals, she had a habit of saying, 'eat, children; there's nothing on earth like soup!' i believed this; i ate soup ten times a day, swallowed it like a shark to the point of vomiting and disgust. my nurse used to tell me fairy tales, and i believed in ghosts, in fairies, in wood-demons, in every kind of monster. i remember well! i used to steal corrosive sublimate from father's room, sprinkle it on gingerbread, and leave it in the attic, so that the ghosts might eat it and die. but when i learned to read and to understand what i read, my beliefs got beyond description. i even ran away to america, i joined a gang of robbers, i tried to enter a monastery, i hired boys to torture me for christ's sake. when i ran away to america i did not go alone, but took with me just such another fool, and i was glad when we froze nearly to death, and when i was flogged. when i ran away to join the robbers, i returned every time with a broken skin. most untranquil childhood! but when i was sent to school, and learned that the earth goes round the sun, and that white light so far from being white is composed of seven primary colours, my head went round entirely. at home everything seemed hideous, my mother, in the name of elijah, denying lightning conductors, my father indifferent to the truths i preached. my new enlightenment inspired me! like a madman i rushed about the house; i preached my truths to the stable boys, i was driven to despair by ignorance, i flamed with hatred against all who saw in white light only white.... but this is nonsense.... serious, so to speak, manly infatuations began with me only at college.... have you completed a university course?" "at novotcherkask--in the don institute." "but that is not a university course. you can hardly know what this science is. all sciences, whatever they may be, have only one and the same passport, without which they are meaningless--an aspiration to truth! every one of them--even your wretched pharmacology--has its end, not in profit, not in convenience and advantage to life, but in truth. it is astonishing! when you begin the study of any science you are captivated from the first. i tell you, there is nothing more seductive and gracious, nothing so seizes and overwhelms the human soul, as the beginning of a science. in the first five or six lectures you are exalted by the very brightest hopes--you seem already the master of eternal truth.... well, i gave myself to science passionately, as to a woman loved. i was its slave, and, except it, would recognise no other sun. day and night, night and day, without unbending my back, i studied. i learnt off formulas by heart; i ruined myself on books; i wept when i saw with my own eyes others exploiting science for personal aims. ... but i got over my infatuation soon. the fact is, every science has a beginning, but it has no end--it is like a recurring decimal. zoology discovered thirty-five thousand species of insects; chemistry counts sixty elementary substances. if, as time goes by, you add to these figures ten ciphers, you will be just as far from the end as now, for all contemporary scientific research consists in the multiplication of figures.... this i began to understand when i myself discovered the thirty-five-thousand-and-first species, and gained no satisfaction. but i had no disillusion to outlive, for a new faith immediately appeared. i thrust myself into nihilism with its proclamations, its hideous deeds, its tricks of all sorts. i went down to the people; i served as factory-hand; i greased the axles of railway carriages; i turned myself into a bargee. it was while thus wandering all over the face of russia that i first saw russian life. i became an impassioned admirer of that life. i loved the russian people to distraction; i loved and trusted in its god, in its language, in its creations.... and so on eternally.... in my time i have been a slavophile, and bored aksakoff with my letters; and an ukrainophile, and an archaeologist, and a collector of specimens of popular creative art ... i have been earned away by ideas, by men, by events, by places.... i have been carried away unceasingly.... five years ago i embodied as the negation of property; my latest faith was non-resistance to evil." sasha sighed gustily and moved. likharyóff rose and went over to her. "will you have some tea, darling?" he asked tenderly "drink it yourself!" answered sasha. "you have lived a varied life," said márya mikháilovna. "you have something to remember." "yes, yes; it is all very genial when you sit at the tea-table and gossip with a good companion; but you do not ask me what has all this gaiety cast me. with what have i paid for the diversity of my life? you must remember, in the first place, that i did not believe like a german doctor of philosophy. i did not live as a hermit, but my every faith bent me as a bow, and tore my body to pieces. judge for yourself! once i was as rich as my brother: now i am a beggar. into this whirlpool of infatuation i cast my own estate, the property of my wife, the money of many others. i am forty-two to-day, with old age staring me in the face, and i am homeless as a dog that has lost his master by night. in my whole life i have never known repose. my soul was in constant torment; i suffered even from my hopes.... i have worn myself out with heavy unregulated work; i have suffered deprivation; five times i have been in prison. i have wandered through archangel and tobolsk ... the very memory sickens me. i lived, but in the vortex never felt the process of life. will you believe it, i never noticed how my wife loved me--when my children were born. what more can i tell you? to all who loved me i brought misfortune.... my mother has mourned for me now fifteen years, and my own brothers, who through me have been made to blush, who have been made to bend their backs, whose hearts have been sickened, whose money has been wasted, have grown at last to hate me like poison." likharyóff rose and again sat down. "if i were only unhappy i should be thankful to god," he continued, looking at mdlle. ilováisky. "but my personal unhappiness fades away when i remember how often in my infatuations i was ridiculous, far from the truth, unjust, cruel, dangerous! how often with my whole soul have i hated and despised those whom i ought to have loved, and loved those whom i ought to have hated! to-day, i believe; i fall down on my face and worship: to-morrow, like a coward, i flee from the gods and friends of yesterday, and silently swallow some scoundrel! god alone knows how many times i have wept with shame for my infatuations! never in my life have i consciously lied or committed a wrong, yet my conscience is unclean! i cannot even boast that my hands are unstained with blood, for before my own eyes my wife faded to death--worn out by my improvidence. my own wife!... listen; there are now in fashion two opposing opinions of woman. one class measures her skull to prove that she is lower than man, to determine her defects, to justify their own animality. the other would employ all their strength in lifting woman to their own level--that is to say, force her to learn by heart thirty-five thousand species of insects, to talk and write the same nonsense as they themselves talk and write." likharyóff's face darkened. "but i tell you that woman always was and always will be the slave of man!" he said in a bass voice, thumping his fist upon the table. "she is wax--tender, plastic wax--from which man can mould what he will. lord in heaven! yet out of some trumpery infatuation for manhood she cuts her hair, forsakes her family, dies in a foreign land.... of all the ideas to which she sacrifices herself not one is feminine!... devoted, unthinking slave! skulls i have never measured; but this i say from bitter, grievous experience: the proudest, the most independent women--once i had succeeded in communicating to them my inspiration, came after me, unreasoning, asking no questions, obeying my every wish. of a nun i made a nihilist, who, as i afterwards learned, killed a gendarme. my wife never forsook me in all my wanderings, and like a weathercock changed her faith as i changed my infatuations." with excitement likharyóff jumped up, and walked up and down the room. "noble, exalted slavery!" he exclaimed, gesticulating. "in this, in this alone, is hidden the true significance of woman's life.... out of all the vile nonsense which accumulated in my head during my relations with women, one thing, as water from a filter, has come out pure, and that is neither ideas, nor philosophy, nor clever phrases, but this extraordinary submissiveness to fate, this uncommon benevolence, this all-merciful kindness." likharyóff clenched his fists, concentrated his eyes upon a single point, and, as if tasting every word, filtered through his clenched teeth: "this magnanimous endurance, faith to the grave, the poetry of the heart. it is in this ... yes, it is in this that the meaning of life is found, in this unmurmuring martyrdom, in the tears that soften stone, in the infinite all-forgiving love, which sweeps into the chaos of life in lightness and warmth...." márya mikháilovna rose slowly, took a step towards likharyóff, and set her eyes piercingly upon his face. by the tears which sparkled on his eyelashes, by the trembling, passionate voice, by the flushed cheeks, she saw at a glance that women were not the accidental theme of his conversation. no, they were the object of his new infatuation, or, as he had put it, of his new belief. for the first time in her life she saw before her a man in the ecstacy of a burning, prophetic faith. gesticulating--rolling his eyes, he seemed insane and ecstatical; but in the fire of his eyes, in the torrent of his words, in all the movements of his gigantic body, she saw only such beauty, that, herself not knowing what she did, she stood silently before him as if rooted to the ground, and looked with rapture into his face. "take my mother, for example!" he said, with an imploring look, stretching out his arms to her. "i poisoned her life, i disgraced in her eyes the race of likharyóff, i brought her only such evil as is brought by the bitterest foe, and ... what? my brothers give her odd kopecks for wafers and collections, and she, violating her religious feeling, hoards up those kopecks, and sends them secretly to me! such deeds as this educate and ennoble the soul more than all your theories, subtle phrases, thirty-five thousand species!... but i might give you a thousand instances! take your own case! outside storm and darkness, yet through storm and darkness and cold, you drive, fearless, to your father and brother, that their holidays may be warmed by your caresses, although they, it may well be, have forgotten your existence. but wait! the day will come when you will learn to love a man, and you will go after him to the north pole.... you would go!" "yes ... if i loved him." "you see!" rejoiced likharyóff, stamping his feet. "oh, god, how happy i am to have met you here! ... such has always been my good fortune ... everywhere i meet with kind acquaintances. not a day passes that i do not meet some man for whom i would give my own soul! in this world there are many more good people than evil! already you and i have spoken frankly and out of the heart, as if we had known one another a thousand years. it is possible for a man to live his own life, to keep silent for ten years, to be reticent with his own wife and friends, and then some day suddenly he meets a cadet in a railway carriage, and reveals to him his whole soul. ... you ... i have the honour to see you for the first time, but i have confessed myself as i never did before. why?" likharyóff rubbed his hands and smiled gaily. then he walked up and down the room and talked again of women. the church bell chimed for the morning service. "heavens!" wept sasha. "he won't let me sleep with his talk!" "_akh_, yes!" stammered likharyóff. "forgive me, darling. sleep, sleep.... in addition to her, i have two boys," he whispered. "they live with their uncle, but she cannot bear to be a day without her father.... suffers, grumbles, but sticks to me as a fly to honey. ... but i have been talking nonsense, mademoiselle, and have prevented you also from sleeping. shall i make your bed?" without waiting for an answer, he shook out the wet cloak, and stretched it on the bench with the fur on top, picked up the scattered mufflers and shawls, and rolled the ulster into a pillow--all this silently, with an expression of servile adoration, as though he were dealing not with women's rags, but with fragments of holy vessels. his whole figure seemed-to express guilt and confusion, as if in the presence of such a tiny being he were ashamed of his height and strength.... when mdlle. ilováisky had lain down he extinguished the candle, and sat on a stool near the stove.... "yes," he whispered, smoking a thick cigarette, and puffing the smoke into the stove. "nature has set in every russian an enquiring mind, a tendency to speculation, and extraordinary capacity for belief; but all these are broken into dust against our improvidence, indolence, and fantastic triviality...." márya mikháilovna looked in astonishment into the darkness, but she could see only the red spot on the ikon, and the quivering glare from the stove on likharyóff's face. the darkness, the clang of the church bells, the roar of the storm, the limping boy, peevish sasha and unhappy likharyóff--all these mingled, fused in one great impression, and the whole of god's world seemed to her fantastic, full of mystery and magical forces. the words of likharyóff resounded in her ears, and human life seemed to her a lovely, poetical fairy-tale, to which there was no end. the great impression grew and grew, until it absorbed all consciousness and was transformed into a sweet sleep. mdlle. ilováisky slept. but in sleep she continued to see the lamp, and the thick nose with the red light dancing upon it. she was awakened by a cry. "papa, dear," tenderly implored a child's voice. "let us go back to uncle's! there is a christmas tree. stepa and kolya are there!" "what can i do, darling?" reasoned a soft, male bass. "try and understand me...." and to the child's crying was added the man's. the cry of this double misery breaking through the howl of the storm, touched upon the ears of the girl with such soft, human music, that she could not withstand the emotion, and wept also. and she listened as the great black shadow walked across the room, lifted up the fallen shawl and wrapped it round her feet. awakened again by a strange roar, she sprang up and looked around her. through the windows, covered half-way up in snow, gleamed the blue dawn. the room itself was full of a grey twilight, through which she could see the stove, the sleeping girl, and nasr edin. the lamp and stove had both gone out. through the wide-opened door of the room could be seen the public hall of the inn with its tables and benches. a man with a blunt, gipsy face and staring eyes stood in the middle of the room in a pool of melted snow, and held up a stick with a red star on the top. around him was a throng of boys, immovable as statues, and covered with snow. the light of the star, piercing though its red paper covering, flushed their wet faces. the crowd roared in discord, and out of their roar mdlle. ilováisky understood only one quatrain:-- "hey, boy, bold and fearless, take a knife sharp and shiny. come, kill and kill the jew, the sorrowing son ..." at the counter stood likharyóff, looking with emotion at the singers, and tramping his feet in time. seeing márya mikháilovna he smiled broadly, and entered the room. she also smiled. "congratulations!" he said. "i see you have slept well." mdlle. ilováisky looked at him silently, and continued to smile. after last night's conversation he seemed to her no monger tall and broad-shouldered, but a little man. a big steamer seems small to those who have crossed the ocean. "it is time for me to go," she said. "i must get ready. tell me, where are you going to?" "i? first to klinushka station, thence to siergievo, and from sergievo a drive of forty versts to the coalmines of a certain general shashkovsky. my brothers have got me a place as manager.... i will dig coal." "allow me ... i know these mines. shashkovsky is my uncle. but ... why are you going there?" asked márya mikháilovna in surprise. "as manager. i am to manage the mines." "i don't understand." she shrugged her shoulders. "you say you are going to these mines. do you know what that means? do you know that it is all bare steppe, that there is not a soul near ... that the tedium is such that you could not live there a single day? the coal is bad, nobody buys it, and my uncle is a maniac, a despot, a bankrupt.... he will not even pay your salary." "it is the same," said likharyóff indifferently. "even for the mines, thanks!" mdlle. ilováisky again shrugged her shoulders, and walked up and down the room in agitation. "i cannot understand, i cannot understand," she said, moving her fingers before her face. "this is inconceivable ... it is madness. surely you must realise that this ... it is worse than exile. it is a grave for a living man. akh, heavens!" she said passionately, approaching likharyóff and moving her fingers before his smiling face. her upper lip trembled, and her stinging face grew pale. "imagine it, a bare steppe ... and solitude. not a soul to say a word to ... and you ... infatuated with women! mines and women!" mdlle. ilováisky seemed ashamed of her warmth, and, turning away from likharyóff, went over to the window. "no ... no ... you cannot go there!" she said, rubbing her finger down the window-pane. not only through her head, but through her whole body ran a feeling that here behind her stood an unhappy, forsaken, perishing man. but he, as if unconscious of his misery, as if he had not wept the night before, looked at her and smiled good-humouredly. it would have been better if he had continued to cry. for a few minutes in agitation she walked up and down the room, and then stopped in the corner and began to think. likharyóff said something, but she did not hear him. turning her back to him, she took a credit note from her purse, smoothed it in her hand, and then, looking at him, blushed and thrust it into her pocket. outside the inn resounded the coachman's voice. silently, with a severe, concentrated expression, mdlle. ilováisky began to put on her wraps. likharyóff rolled her up in them, and chattered gaily. but every word caused her intolerable pain. it is not pleasant to listen to the jests of the wretched or dying. when the transformation of a living woman into a formless bundle was complete, mdlle. ilováisky, looked for the last time around "the traveller," stood silent a moment, and then went out slowly. likharyóff escorted her. outside, god alone knows why, the storm still raged. great clouds of big, soft snowflakes restlessly whirled over the ground, finding no abiding place. horses, sledge, trees, the bull tethered to the post--all were white, and seemed made of down. "well, god bless you!" stammered likharyóff, as he helped márya mikháilovna into the sledge. "don't think ill of me!" mdlle. ilováisky said nothing. when the sledge started and began to circle round a great snowdrift, she looked at likharyóff as if she wished to say something. likharyóff ran up to the sledge, but she said not a word, and only gazed at him through her long eyelashes to which the snowflakes already clung. whether it be that his sensitive mind read this glance aright, or whether, as it may have been, that his imagination led him astray, it suddenly struck him that but a little more and this girl would have forgiven him his age, his failures, his misfortunes, and followed him, neither questioning nor reasoning, to the ends of the earth. for a long time he stood as if rooted to the spot, and gazed at the track left by the sledge-runners. the snowflakes settled swiftly on his hair, his beard, his shoulders. but soon the traces of the sledge-runners vanished, and he, covered with snow, began to resemble a white boulder, his eyes all the time continuing to search for something through the clouds of snow. a family council to prevent the skeleton in the uskoff family cup-board escaping into the street, the most rigorous measures were taken. one half of the servants was packed off to the theatre and circus, and the other half sat imprisoned in the kitchen. orders were given to admit no one. the wife of the culprit's uncle, her sister, and the governess, although initiated into the mystery, pretended that they knew nothing whatever about it; they sat silently in the dining-room, and dared not show their faces in the drawing-room or hall. sasha uskoff, aged twenty-five, the cause of all this upheaval, arrived some time ago; and on the advice of kind-hearted ivan markovitch, his maternal uncle, sat demurely in the corridor outside the study door, and prepared himself for sincere, open-hearted confession. on the other side of the door the family council was being held. the discussion ran on a ticklish and very disagreeable subject. the facts of the matter were as follows. sasha uskoff had discounted at a bankers a forged bill of exchange, the term of which expired three days before; and now his two paternal uncles, and ivan markovitch, an uncle on his mother's side, were discussing the solemn problem: should the money be paid and the family honour saved, or should they wash their hands of the whole matter, and leave the law to take its course? to people unconcerned and uninterested such questions seem very trivial, but for those with whom the solution lies they are extraordinarily complex. the three uncles had already had their say, yet the matter had not advanced a step. "heavens!" cried the colonel, a paternal uncle, in a voice betraying both weariness and irritation. "heavens! who said that family honour was a prejudice? i never said anything of the kind. i only wanted to save you from looking at the matter from a false standpoint--to point out how easily you may make an irremediable mistake. yet you don't seem to understand me! i suppose i am speaking russian, not chinese!" "my dear fellow, we understand you perfectly," interposed ivan markovitch soothingly. "then why do you say that i deny family honour? i repeat what i have said! fam--ily hon--our falsely under--stood is a pre--ju--dice! falsely under--stood, mind you! that is my point of view. from any conviction whatever, to screen and leave unpunished a rascal, no matter who he is, is both contrary to law and unworthy of an honourable man. it is not the saving of the family honour, but civic cowardice. take the army, for example! the honour of the army is dearer to a soldier than any other honour. but we do not screen our guilty members ... we judge them! do you imagine that the honour of the army suffers thereby? on the contrary!" the other paternal uncle, an official of the crown council, a rheumatic, taciturn, and not very intelligent man, held his peace all the time, or spoke only of the fact that if the matter came into court the name of the uskoffs would appear in the newspapers; in his opinion, therefore, to avoid publicity it would be better to hush up the matter while there was still time. but with the exception of this reference to the newspapers, he gave no reason for his opinion. but kind-hearted ivan markovitch, the maternal uncle, spoke fluently and softly with a tremula in his voice. he began with the argument that youth has its claims and its peculiar temptations. which of us was not once young, and which of us did not sometimes go a step too far? even leaving aside ordinary mortals, did not history teach that the greatest minds in youth were not always able to avoid infatuations and mistakes. take for instance the biographies of great writers. what one of them did not gamble and drink, and draw upon himself the condemnation of all right-minded men? while on the one hand we remembered that sasha's errors had overstepped the boundary into crime, on the other we must take into account that sasha hardly received any education; he was expelled from the gymnasium when in the fifth form; he lost his parents in early childhood, and thus at the most susceptible age was deprived of control and all beneficent influences. he was a nervous boy, easily excited, without any naturally strong moral convictions, and he had been spoiled by happiness. even if he were guilty, still he deserved the sympathy and concern of all sympathetic souls. punished, of course, he must be; but then, had he not already been punished by his conscience, and the tortures which he must now be feeling as he awaited the decision of his relatives. the comparison with the army which the colonel had made was very flattering, and did great honour to his generous mind; the appeal to social feelings showed the nobility of his heart. but it must not be forgotten that the member of society in every individual was closely bound up with the christian. "and how should we violate our social duty," asked ivan markovitch, "if instead of punishing a guilty boy we stretch out to him the hand of mercy?" then ivan markovitch reverted to the question of the family honour. he himself had not the honour to belong to the distinguished family of uskoff, but he knew very well that that illustrious race dated its origin from the thirteenth century, and he could not forget for a moment that his beloved, unforgotten sister was the wife of a scion of the race. in one word--the uskoff family was dear to him for many reasons, and he could not for a moment entertain the thought that for a paltry fifteen hundred roubles a shadow should be cast for ever upon the ancestral tree. and if all the arguments already adduced were insufficiently convincing then he, in conclusion, asked his brothers-in-law to explain the problem: what is a crime? a crime was an immoral action, having its impulse in an evil will. so most people thought. but could we affirm that the human will was free to decide? to this important question science could give no conclusive answer. metaphysicians maintained various divergent theories. for instance, the new school of lombroso refused to recognise free-will, and held that every crime was the product of purely anatomical peculiarities in the individual. "ivan markovitch!" interrupted the colonel imploringly. "do, for heaven's sake, talk sense. we are speaking seriously about a serious matter ... and you, about lombroso! you are a clever man, but think for a moment--how can all this rattle-box rhetoric help us to decide the question?" sasha uskoff sat outside the door and listened. he felt neither fear nor shame nor tedium--only weariness and spiritual vacuity. he felt that it did not matter a kopeck whether he was forgiven or not; he had come here to await his sentence and to offer a frank explanation, only because he was begged to do so by kindly ivan markovitch. he was not afraid of the future. it was all the same to him, here in the corridor, in prison, or in siberia. "siberia is only siberia--the devil take it!" life has wearied sasha, and has become insufferably tedious. he is inextricably in debt, he has not a kopeck in his pocket, his relatives have become odious to him; with his friends and with women he must part sooner or later, for they are already beginning to look at him contemptuously as a parasite. the future is dark. sasha, in fact, is indifferent, and only one thing affects him. that is, that through the door he can hear himself being spoken of as a scoundrel and a criminal. all the time he is itching to jump up, burst into the room, and, in answer to the detestable metallic voice of the colonel, to cry: "you are a liar!" a criminal--it is a horrid word. it is applied as a rule to murderers, thieves, robbers, and people incorrigibly wicked and morally hopeless. but sasha is far from this.... true, he is up to his neck in debts, and never attempts to pay them. but then indebtedness is not a crime, and there are very few men who are not in debt. the colonel and ivan markovitch are both in debt. "what on earth am i guilty of?" asked sasha. he had obtained money by presenting a forged bill. but this was done by every young man he knew. khandrikoff and von burst, for instance, whenever they wanted money, discounted bills with forged acceptance of their parents and friends, and when their own money came in met them. sasha did exactly the same thing, and only failed to meet his bill owing to khandrikoff's failure to lend the money which he had promised. it was not he, but circumstance which was at fault. ... it was true that imitating another man's signature was considered wrong, but that did not make it a crime but merely an ugly formality, a manoeuvre constantly adopted which injured nobody; and sasha when he forged the colonel's name had no intention of causing loss to anyone. "it is absurd to pretend that i have been guilty of a crime," thought sasha. "i have not the character of men who commit crimes. on the contrary, i am easy-going and sensitive ... when i have money i help the poor...." while sasha reasoned thus, the discussion continued on the other side of the door. "but, gentlemen, this is only the beginning!" cried the colonel. "suppose, for the sake of argument, that we let him off and pay the money! he will go on still in the same way and continue to lead his unprincipled life. he will indulge in dissipation, run into debt, go to our tailors and order clothes in our names. what guarantee have we that this scandal will be the last? as far as i am concerned, i tell you frankly that i do not believe in his reformation for one moment." the official of the crown council muttered something in reply. then ivan markovitch began to speak softly and fluently. the colonel impatiently shifted his chair, and smothered ivan markovitch's argument with his detestable, metallic voice. at last the door opened, and out of the study came ivan markovitch with red spots on his meagre, clean-shaven face. "come!" he said, taking sasha by the arm. "come in and make an open-hearted confession. without pride, like a good boy ... humbly and from the heart." sasha went into the study. the official of the crown council continued to sit, but the colonel, hands in pockets, and with one knee resting on his chair, stood before the table. the room was full of smoke and stiflingly hot. sasha did not look at either the colonel or his brother, but suddenly feeling ashamed and hurt, glanced anxiously at ivan markovitch and muttered: "i will pay ... i will give...." "may i ask you on what you relied when you obtained the money on this bill?" rang out the metallic voice. "i ... khandrikoff promised to lend me the money in time." sasha said nothing more. he went out of the study and again sat on the chair outside the door. he would have gone away at once had he not been stifled with hatred and with a desire to tear the colonel to pieces or at least to insult him to his face. but at this moment in the dim twilight around the dining-room door appeared a woman's figure. it was the colonel's wife. she beckoned sasha, and, wringing her hands, said with tears in her voice: "alexandre, i know that you do not love me, but ... listen for a moment! my poor boy, how can this have happened p it is awful, awful! for heaven's sake beg their forgiveness ... justify yourself, implore them!" sasha looked at her twitching shoulders, and at the big tears which flowed down her cheeks; he heard behind him the dull, nervous voices of his exhausted uncles, and shrugged his shoulders. he had never expected that his aristocratic relatives would raise such a storm over a paltry fifteen hundred roubles. and he could understand neither the tears nor the trembling voices. an hour later he heard indications that the colonel was gaining the day. the other uncles were being won over to his determination to leave the matter to the law. "it is decided!" said the colonel stiffly. "basta!" but having decided thus, the three uncles, even the inexorable colonel, perceptibly lost heart. "heavens!" sighed ivan markovitch. "my poor sister!" and he began in a soft voice to announce his conviction that his sister, sasha's mother, was invisibly present in the room. he felt in his heart that this unhappy, sainted woman was weeping, anguishing, interceding for her boy. for the sake of her repose in the other world it would have been better to spare sasha. sasha heard someone whimpering. it was ivan markovitch. he wept and muttered something inaudible through the door. the colonel rose and walked from corner to corner. the discussion began anew.... the clock in the drawing-room struck two. the council was over at last. the colonel, to avoid meeting a man who had caused him so much shame, left the room through the antechamber. ivan markovitch came into the corridor. he was plainly agitated, but rubbed his hands cheerfully. his tear-stained eyes glanced happily around him, and his mouth was twisted into a smile. "it is all right, my boy!" he said to sasha. "heaven be praised! you may go home, child, and sleep quietly. we have decided to pay the money, but only on the condition that you repent sincerely, and agree to come with me to the country to-morrow, and set to work." a minute afterwards, ivan markovitch and sasha, having put on their overcoats and hats, went downstairs together. uncle ivan muttered something edifying. but sasha didn't listen; he felt only that something heavy and painful had fallen from his shoulders. he was forgiven--he was free! joy like a breeze burst into his breast and wrapped his heart with refreshing coolness. he wished to breathe, to move, to live. and looking at the street lamps and at the black sky he remembered that to-day at "the bear," von burst would celebrate his name-day. a new joy seized his soul. "i will go!" he decided. but suddenly he remembered that he had not a kopeck, and that his friends already despised him for his penuriousness. he must get money at all cost. "uncle, lend me a hundred roubles!" he said to ivan markovitch. ivan markovitch looked at him in amazement, and staggered back against a lamp-post. "lend me a hundred roubles!" cried sasha, impatiently shifting from foot to foot, and beginning to lose his temper. "uncle, i beg of you ... lend me a hundred roubles!" his face trembled with excitement, and he nearly rushed at his uncle. "you won't give them?" he cried, seeing that his uncle was too dumfounded to understand. "listen, if you refuse to lend them, i'll inform on myself to-morrow. i'll refuse to let you pay the money. i'll forge another to-morrow!" thunderstruck, terror-stricken, ivan markovitch muttered something incoherent, took from his pocket a hundred-rouble note, and handed it silently to sasha. and sasha took it and hurriedly walked away. and sitting in a droschky, sasha grew cool again, and felt his heart expand with renewed joy. the claims of youth of which kind-hearted uncle ivan had spoken at the council-table had inspired and taken possession of him again. he painted in imagination the coming feast, and in his mind, among visions of bottles, women, and boon companions, twinkled a little thought: "now i begin to see that i was in the wrong." at home "they sent over from grigorievitch's for some book, but i said that you were not at home. the postman has brought the newspapers and two letters. and, yevgéniï petróvitch, i really must ask you to do something in regard to serózha. i caught him smoking the day before yesterday, and again to-day. when i began to scold him, in his usual way he put his hands over his ears, and shouted so us to drown my voice." yevgéniï petróvitch buikovsky, procurer of the district court, who had only just returned from the session house and was taking off his gloves in his study, looked for a moment at the complaining governess and laughed: "serózha smoking!" he shrugged his shoulders. "i can imagine that whipper-snapper with a cigarette! how old is he?" "seven. of course you may not take it seriously, but at his age smoking is a bad and injurious habit, and bad habits should be rooted out in their beginning." "very true. but where does he get the tobacco?" "on your table." "on my table! ask him to come here." when the governess left the room, buikovsky sat in his armchair in front of his desk, shut his eyes, and began to think. he pictured in imagination his serózha with a gigantic cigarette a yard long, surrounded by clouds of tobacco smoke. the caricature made him laugh in spite of himself; but at the same time the serious, worried face of his governess reminded him of a time, now long passed by, a half-forgotten time, when smoking in the schoolroom or nursery inspired in teachers and parents a strange and not quite comprehensible horror. no other word but horror would describe it. the culprits were mercilessly flogged, expelled from school, their lives marred, and this, although not one of the schoolmasters or parents could say what precisely constitutes the danger and guilt of smoking. even very intelligent men did not hesitate to fight a vice which they did not understand. yevgéniï petróvitch remembered the director of his own school, a benevolent and highly educated old man, who was struck with such terror when he caught a boy with a cigarette that he became pale, immediately convoked an extraordinary council of masters, and condemned the offender to expulsion. such indeed appears to be the law of life; the more intangible the evil the more fiercely and mercilessly is it combated. the procurer remembered two or three cases of expulsion, and recalling the subsequent lives of the victims, he could not but conclude that such punishment was often a much greater evil than the vice itself.... but the animal organism is gifted with capacity to adapt itself rapidly, to accustom itself to changes, to different atmospheres, otherwise every man would feel that his rational actions were based upon an irrational foundation, and that there was little reasoned truth and conviction even in such responsibilities--responsibilities terrible in their results--as those of the schoolmaster, and lawyer, the writer.... and such thoughts, light and inconsequential, which enter only a tired and resting brain, wandered about in yevgéniï petróvitch's head; they spring no one knows where or why, vanish soon, and, it would seem, wander only on the outskirts of the brain without penetrating far. for men who are obliged for whole hours, even for whole days, to think official thoughts all in the same direction, such free, domestic speculations are an agreeable comfort. it was nine o'clock. overhead from the second story came the footfalls of someone walking from corner to corner; and still higher, on the third story, someone was playing scales. the footsteps of the man who, judging by his walk, was thinking tensely or suffering from toothache, and the monotonous scales in the evening stillness, combined to create a drowsy atmosphere favourable to idle thoughts. from the nursery came the voices of serózha and his governess. "papa has come?" cried the boy, "papa has co-o-me! papa! papa!" "_votre père vous appelle, allez vite,_" cried the governess, piping like a frightened bird.... "do you hear?" "what shall i say to him?" thought yevgéniï petróvitch. and before he had decided what to say, in came his son serózha, a boy of seven years old. he was one of those little boys whose sex can be distinguished only by their clothes--weakly, pale-faced, delicate.... everything about him seemed tender and soft; his movements, his curly hair, his looks, his velvet jacket. "good evening, papa," he began in a soft voice, climbing on his father's knee, and kissing his neck. "you wanted me?" "wait a minute, wait a minute, sergéï yevgénitch," answered the procuror, pushing him off. "before i allow you to kiss me i want to talk to you, and to talk seriously.... i am very angry with you, and do not love you any more ... understand that, brother; i do not love you, and you are not my son.... no!" serózha looked earnestly at his father, turned his eyes on to the chair, and shrugged his shoulders. "what have i done?" he asked in doubt, twitching his eyes. "i have not been in your study all day and touched nothing." "natálya semiónovna has just been complaining to me that she caught you smoking.... is it true? do you smoke?" "yes, i smoked once, father.... it is true." "there, you see, you tell lies also," said the procurer, frowning, and trying at the same time to smother a smile. "natálya semiónovna saw you smoking twice. that is to say, you are found out in three acts of misconduct--you smoke, you take another person's tobacco, and you lie. three faults!" "akh, yes," remembered serózha, with smiling eyes. "it is true. i smoked twice--to-day and once before." "that is to say you smoked not once but twice. i am very, very displeased with you! you used to be a good boy, but now i see you are spoiled and have become naughty." yevgéniï petróvitch straightened serózha's collar, and thought: "what else shall i say to him?" "it is very bad," he continued. "i did not expect this from you. in the first place you have no right to go to another person's table and take tobacco which does not belong to you. a man has a right to enjoy only his own property, and if he takes another's then he is a wicked man." (this is not the way to go about it, thought the procuror.) "for instance, natálya semiónovna has a boxful of dresses. that is her box, and we have not, that is neither you nor i have, any right to touch it, as it is not ours.... isn't that plain? you have your horses and pictures ... i do not take them. perhaps i have often felt that i wanted to take them ... but they are yours, not mine!" "please, father, take them if you like," said serózha, raising his eyebrows. "always take anything of mine, father. this yellow dog which is on your table is mine, but i don't mind...." "you don't understand me," said buikovsky. "the dog you gave me, it is now mine, and i can do with it what i like; but the tobacco i did not give to you. the tobacco is mine." (how can i make him understand? thought the procurer. not in this way). "if i feel that i want to smoke someone else's tobacco i first of all ask for permission...." and idly joining phrase to phrase, and imitating the language of children, buikovsky began to explain what is meant by property. serózha looked at his chest, and listened attentively (he loved to talk to his father in the evenings), then set his elbows on the table edge and began to concentrate his short-sighted eyes upon the papers and inkstand. his glance wandered around the table, and paused on a bottle of gum-arabic. "papa, what is gum made of?" he asked, suddenly lifting the bottle to his eyes. buikovsky took the bottle, put it back on the table, and continued: "in the second place, you smoke.... that is very bad! if i smoke, then ... it does not follow that everyone may. i smoke, and know ... that it is not clever, and i scold myself, and do not love myself on account of it ... (i am a nice teacher, thought the procurer.) tobacco seriously injures the health, and people who smoke die sooner than they ought to. it is particularly injurious to little boys like you. you have a weak chest, you have not yet got strong, and in weak people tobacco smoke produces consumption and other complaints. uncle ignatius died of consumption. if he had not smoked perhaps he would have been alive to-day." serózha looked thoughtfully at the lamp, touched the shade with his fingers, and sighed. "uncle ignatius played splendidly on the fiddle!" he said. "his fiddle is now at grigorievitch's." serózha again set his elbows on the table and lost himself in thought. on his pale face was the expression of one who is listening intently or following the course of his own thoughts; sorrow and something like fright showed themselves in his big, staring eyes. probably he was thinking of death, which had so lately carried away his mother and uncle ignatius. death is a tiling which carries away mothers and uncles and leaves on the earth only children and fiddles. dead people live in the sky somewhere, near the stars, and thence look down upon the earth. how do they bear the separation? "what shall i say to him?" asked the procuror. "he is not listening. apparently he thinks there is nothing serious either in his faults or in my arguments. how can i explain it to him?" the procurer rose and walked up and down the room. "in my time these questions were decided very simply," he thought. "every boy caught smoking was flogged. the cowards and babies, therefore, gave up smoking, but the brave and cunning bore their floggings, carried the tobacco in their boots and smoked in the stable. when they were caught in the stable and again flogged, they smoked on the river-bank ... and so on until they were grown up. my own mother in order to keep me from smoking used to give me money and sweets. nowadays all these methods are regarded as petty or immoral. taking logic as his standpoint, the modern teacher tries to inspire in the child good principles not out of fear, not out of wish for distinction or reward, but consciously." while he walked and talked, serózha climbed on the chair next the table and began to draw. to prevent the destruction of business papers and the splashing of ink, his father had provided a packet of paper, cut especially for him, and a blue pencil. "to-day the cook was chopping cabbage and cut her finger," he said, meantime sketching a house and twitching his eyebrows. "she cried so loud that we were all frightened and ran into the kitchen. such a stupid! natálya semiónovna ordered her to bathe her finger in cold water, but she sucked it.... how could she put her dirty finger in her mouth! papa, that is bad manners!" he further told how during dinner-time an organ-grinder came into the yard with a little girl who sang and danced to his music. "he has his own current of thoughts," thought the procuror. "in his head he has a world of his own, and he knows better than anyone else what is serious and what is not. to gain his attention and conscience it is no use imitating his language ... what is wanted is to understand and reason also in his manner. he would understand me perfectly if i really disliked tobacco, if i were angry, or cried.... for that reason mothers are irreplaceable in bringing up children, for they alone can feel and cry and laugh like children.... with logic and morals nothing can be done. what shall i say to him?" and yevgéniï petróvitch found it strange and absurd that he, an experienced jurist, half his life struggling with all kinds of interruptions, prejudices, and punishments, was absolutely at a loss for something to say to his son. "listen, give me your word of honour that you will not smoke!" he said. "word of honour!" drawled serózha, pressing hard on his pencil and bending down to the sketch. "word of honour!" "but has he any idea what 'word of honour' means?" buikovsky asked himself. "no, i am a bad teacher! if a schoolmaster or any of our lawyers were to see me now, he would call me a rag, and suspect me of super-subtlety.... but in school and in court all these stupid problems are decided much more simply than at home when you are dealing with those whom you love. love is exacting and complicates the business. if this boy were not my son, but a pupil or a prisoner at the bar, i should not be such a coward and scatterbrains...." yevgéniï petróvitch sat at the table and took up one of serózha's sketches. it depicted a house with a crooked roof, and smoke which, like lightning, zigzagged from the chimney to the edge of the paper; beside the house stood a soldier with dots for eyes, and a bayonet shaped like the figure four. "a man cannot be taller than a house," said the procuror. "look! the roof of your house only goes up to the soldier's shoulder." serózha climbed on his father's knee, and wriggled for a long time before he felt comfortable. "no, papa," he said, looking at the drawing. "if you drew the soldier smaller you wouldn't be able to see his eyes." was it necessary to argue? from daily observation the procuror had become convinced that children, like savages, have their own artistic outlook, and their own requirements, inaccessible to the understanding of adults. under close observation serózha to an adult seemed abnormal. he found it possible and reasonable to draw men taller than houses, and to express with the pencil not only objects but also his own sentiments. thus, the sound of an orchestra he drew as a round, smoky spot; whistling as a spiral thread.... according to his ideas, sounds were closely allied with forms and colour, and when painting letters he always coloured l yellow, m red, a black, and so on. throwing away his sketch, serózha again wriggled, settled himself more comfortably, and occupied himself with his father's beard. first he carefully smoothed it down, then divided it in two, and arranged it to look like whiskers. "now you are like iván stepánovitch," he muttered; "but wait, in a minute you will be like ... like the porter. papa, why do porters stand in doorways? is it to keep out robbers?" the procurer felt on his face the child's breath, touched with his cheek the child's hair. in his heart rose a sudden feeling of warmth and softness, a softness that made it seem that not only his hands but all his soul lay upon the velvet of serózha's coat. he looked into the great, dark eyes of his child, and it seemed to him that out of their big pupils looked at him his mother, and his wife, and all whom he had ever loved. "what is the good of thrashing him?" he asked. "punishment is ... and why turn myself into a schoolmaster?... formerly men were simple; they thought less, and solved problems bravely.... now, we think too much; logic has eaten us up.... the more cultivated a man, the more he thinks, the more he surrenders himself to subtleties, the less firm is his will, the greater his timidity in the face of affairs. and, indeed, if you look into it, what a lot of courage and faith in one's self does it need to teach a child, to judge a criminal, to write a big book...." the clock struck ten. "now, child, time for bed," said the procuror. "say good night, and go." "no, papa," frowned serózha. "i may stay a little longer. talk to me about something. tell me a story." "i will, only after the story you must go straight to bed." yevgéniï petróvitch sometimes spent his free evenings telling serózha stories. like most men of affairs he could not repeat by heart a single verse or remember a single fairy tale; and every time was obliged to improvise. as a rule he began with the jingle, "once upon a time, and a very good time it was," and followed this up with all kinds of innocent nonsense, at the beginning having not the slightest idea of what would be the middle and the end. scenery, characters, situations all came at hazard, and fable and moral flowed out by themselves without regard to the teller's will serózha dearly loved these improvisations, and the procuror noticed that the simpler and less pretentious the plots, the more they affected the child. "listen," he began, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "once upon a time, and a very good time it was, there lived an old, a very, very old tsar, with a long grey beard, and ... this kind of moustaches. well! he lived in a glass palace which shone and sparkled in the sun like a big lump of clean ice.... the palace ... brother mine ... the palace stood in a great garden where, you know, grew oranges ... pears, cherry trees .,. and blossomed tulips, roses, water lilies ... and birds of different colours sang.... yes.... on the trees hung glass bells which, when the breeze blew, sounded so musically that it was a joy to listen. glass gives out a softer and more tender sound than metal. ... well? where was i? in the garden were fountains. ... you remember you saw a fountain in the country, at aunt sonia's. just the same kind of fountains stood in the king's garden, only they were much bigger, and the jets of water rose as high as the tops of the tallest poplars." yevgéniï petróvitch thought for a moment and continued: "the old tsar had an only son, the heir to his throne--a little boy about your size. he was a good boy. he was never peevish, went to bed early, never touched anything on the table ... and in all ways was a model. but he had one fault--he smoked." serózha listened intently, and without blinking looked straight in his father's eyes. the procuror continued, and thought: "what next?" he hesitated for a moment, and ended his story thus: "from too much smoking, the tsarevitch got ill with consumption, and died ... when he was twenty years old. his sick and feeble old father was left without any help. there was no one to govern the kingdom and defend the palace. his enemies came and killed the old man, and destroyed the palace, and now in the garden are neither cherry trees nor birds nor bells.... so it was, brother." the end of the plot seemed to yevgéniï petróvitch naive and ridiculous. but on serózha the whole story produced a strong impression. again his eyes took on an expression of sorrow and something like fright; he looked thoughtfully at the dark window, shuddered, and said in a weak voice: "i will not smoke any more." "they will tell me that this parable acted by means of beauty and artistic form," he speculated. "that may be so, but that is no consolation.... that does not make it an honest method.... why is it morals and truth cannot be presented in a raw form, but only with mixtures, always sugared and gilded like a pill. this is not normal.... it is falsification, deception ... a trick." and he thought of those assessors who find it absolutely necessary to make a "speech of the public which understands history only through epics and historical novels; and of himself drawing a philosophy of life not from sermons and laws, but from fables, romances, poetry.... "medicine must be sweetened, truth made beautiful. ... and this good fortune man has taken advantage of from the time of adam.... and after all maybe it is natural thus, and cannot be otherwise ... there are in nature many useful and expedient deceits and illusions...." he sat down to his work, but idle, domestic thoughts long wandered in his brain. from the third story no longer came the sound of the scales. but the occupant of the second story long continued to walk up and down.... in exile old semión, nicknamed wiseacre, and a young tartar, whom nobody knew by name, sat by the bonfire at the side of the river. the other three ferrymen lay in the hut. semión, an old man of sixty, gaunt and toothless, but broad-shouldered and healthy in appearance, was drunk; he would have been asleep long ago if it had not been for the flagon in his pocket, and his fear that his companions in the hut might ask him for vodka. the tartar was ill and tired; and sat there, wrapped up in his rags, holding forth on the glories of life in simbirsk, and boasting of the handsome and clever wife he had left behind him. he was about twenty-five years old, but now in the light of the camp fire his pale face, with its melancholy and sickly expression, seemed the face of a lad. "yes, you can hardly call it paradise," said wiseacre. "you can take it all in at a glance--water, bare banks, and clay about you, and nothing more. holy week is over, but there is still ice floating down the river, and this very morning snow." "misery, misery!" moaned the tartar, looking round him in terror. ten paces below them lay the river, dark and cold, grumbling, it seemed, at itself, as it clove a path through the steep clay banks, and bore itself swiftly to the sea. up against the bank lay one of the great barges which the ferrymen call _karbases_. on the opposite side, far away, rising and falling, and mingling with one another, crept little serpents of fire. it was the burning of last year's grass. and behind the serpents of fire darkness again. from the river came the noise of little ice floes crashing against the barge. darkness only, and cold! the tartar looked at the sky. there were as many stars there as in his own country, just the same blackness above him. but something was lacking. at home in simbirsk government there were no such stars and no such heaven. "misery, misery!" he repeated. "you'll get used to it," said wiseacre, grinning. "you're young and foolish now--your mother's milk is still wet on your lips, only youth and folly could make you imagine there's no one more miserable than you. but the time'll come when you'll say, 'god grant every one such a life as this!' look at me, for instance. in a week's time the water will have fallen, we'll launch the small boat, you'll be off to siberia to amuse yourselves, and i'll remain here and row from one side to another. twenty years now i've been ferrying. day and night! salmon and pike beneath the water and i above it! and god be thanked! i don't want for anything! god grant everyone such a life!" the tartar thrust some brushwood into the fire, lay closer to it, and said: "my father is ill. when he dies my mother and wife are coming. they promised me." "what do you want with a mother and wife?" asked wiseacre, "put that out of your head, it's all nonsense, brother! it's the devil's doing to make you think such thoughts. don't listen to him, accursed! if he begins about women, answer him back, 'don't want them.' if he comes about freedom, answer him back, 'don't want it.' you don't want anything. neither father, nor mother, nor wife, nor freedom, nor house, nor home. you don't want anything, d----n them!" wiseacre took a drink from his flask and continued: "i, brother, am no simple mujik, but a sexton's son, and when i lived in freedom in kursk wore a frockcoat, yet now i have brought myself to such a point that i can sleep naked on the earth and eat grass. and god grant everyone such a life! i don't want anything, and i don't fear anyone, and i know there is no one richer and freer than i in the world. the first day i came here from russia i persisted, don't want anything.' the devil took me on also about wife, and home, and freedom, but i answered him back 'i don't want anything.' i tired him out, and now, as you see, i live well, and don't complain. if any one bates an inch to the devil, or listens to him even once, he's lost--there's no salvation for him--he sinks in the bog to the crown of his head, and never gets out. "don't think it's only our brother, the stupid mujik, that gets lost. the well-born and educated lose themselves also. fifteen years ago they sent a gentleman here from russia. he wouldn't share something with his brothers, and did something dishonest with a will. belonged, they said, to a prince's or a baron's family--maybe he was an official, who can tell? well, anyway he came, and the first thing he did was to buy himself a house and land in mukhortinsk. 'i want,' he says, 'to live by my work, by the sweat of my brow, because,' he says, 'i am no longer a gentleman, but a convict.' 'well,' i said, 'may god help him, he can do nothing better.' he was a young man, fussy, and fond of talking; mowed his own grass, caught fish, and rode on horseback sixty versts a day. that was the cause of the misfortune. from the first year he used to ride to guirino, to the post office. he would stand with me in the boat and sigh: 'akh, semión, how long they are sending me money from home.' 'you don't want it, vassili sergeyitch,' i answered,' what good is money to you? give up the old ways, forget them as if they never were, as if you had dreamt them, and begin to live anew. pay no attention,' i said, 'to the devil, he'll bring you nothing but ill. at present, you want only money, but in a little time you'll want something more. if you want to be happy, don't wish for anything at all. yes.... already,' i used to say to him, 'fortune has done you and me a bad turn--there's no good begging charity from her, and bowing down to her--you must despise and laugh at her. then she'll begin to laugh herself.' so i used to talk to him. "well, two years after he came, he drove down to the ferry in good spirits. he was rubbing his hands and laughing. 'i am going to guirino,' he says, 'to meet my wife. she has taken pity on me, and is coming. she is a good wife.' he was out of breath from joy. "the next day he came back with his wife. she was a young woman, a good-looking one, in a hat, with a little girl in her arms. and my vassili sergeyitch bustles about her, feasts his eyes on her, and praises her up to the skies, 'yes, brother semión, even in siberia people live.' 'well,' i thought, 'he won't always think so.' from that time out, every week, he rode to guirino to inquire whether money had been sent to him from russia. money he wanted without end. 'for my sake,' he used to say, 'she is burying her youth and beauty in siberia, and sharing my miserable life. for this reason i must procure her every enjoyment.' and to make things gayer for her, he makes acquaintance with officials and all kinds of people. all this company, of course, had to be fed and kept in drink, a piano must be got, and a shaggy dog for the sofa--in one word, extravagance, luxury.... she didn't live with him long. how could she? mud, water, cold, neither vegetable nor fruit, bears and drunkards around her, and she a woman from petersburg, petted and spoiled.... of course, she got sick of it.... yes, and a husband, too, no longer a man, but a convict.... well, after three years, i remember, on assumption eve, i heard shouting from the opposite bank. when i rowed across i saw the lady all wrapped up, and with her a young man, one of the officials. a troika! i rowed them across, they got into the troika and drove off. towards morning, vassili sergeyitch drives up in hot haste. 'did my wife go by,' he asked, 'with a man in spectacles?' 'yes,' i said, 'seek the wind in the field.' he drove after them, and chased them for five days. when i ferried him back, he threw himself into the bottom of the boat, beat his head against the planks, and howled. i laughed and reminded him, 'even in siberia people live!' but that only made him worse. "after this he tried to regain his freedom. his wife had gone back to russia, and he thought only of seeing her, and getting her to return to him. every day he galloped off to one place or another, one day to the post office, the next to town to see the authorities. he sent in petitions asking for pardon and permission to return to russia--on telegrams alone, he used to say, he spent two hundred roubles. he sold his land and mortgaged his house to a jew. he got grey-haired and bent, and his face turned yellow like a consumptive's. he could not speak without tears coming into his eyes. eight years he spent sending in petitions. then he came to life again; he had got a new consolation. the daughter, you see, was growing up. he doted on her. and to tell the truth, she wasn't bad-looking--pretty, black-browed, and high-spirited. every sunday he rode with her to the church at guirino. they would stand side by side in the boat, she laughing, and he never lifting his eyes from her. 'yes,' he said, 'semión, even in siberia people live, and are happy. see what a daughter i've got! you might go a thousand versts and never see another like her.' the daughter, as i said, was really good-looking. 'but wait a little,' i used to say to myself, 'the girl is young, the blood flows in her veins, she wants to live; and what is life here?' anyway, brother, she began to grieve. pined and declined, dwindled away, got ill, and now can't stand on her legs. consumption! there's your siberian happiness! that's the way people live in siberia!... and my vassili sergeyitch spends his time driving about to doctors and bringing them home. once let him hear there's a doctor or a magic curer within two or three hundred versts, and after him he must go.... it's terrible to think of the amount of money he spends, he might as well drink it.... she'll die all the same, nothing'll save her, and then he'll be altogether lost. whether he hangs himself from grief or runs off to russia it's all the same. if he runs away they'll catch him, then we'll have a trial and penal servitude, and the rest of it...." "it was very well for him," said the tartar, shuddering with the cold. "what was well?" "wife and daughter.... whatever he suffers, whatever punishment he'll have, at any rate he saw them.... you say you don't want anything. but to have nothing is bad. his wife lived with him three years, god granted him that. to have nothing is bad, but three years is good. you don't understand." trembling with cold, finding only with painful difficulty the proper russian words, the tartar began to beg that god might save him from dying in a strange land, and being buried in the cold earth. if his wife were to come to him, even for one day, even for one hour, for such happiness he would consent to undergo the most frightful tortures, and thank god for them. better one day's happiness than nothing! and he again told the story of how he had left at home a handsome and clever wife. then, putting both his hands to his head, he began to cry, and to assure semión that he was guilty of nothing, and was suffering unjustly. his two brothers and his uncle had stolen a peasant's horses, and beaten the old man half to death. but society had treated him unfairly, and sent the three brothers to siberia, while the uncle, a rich man, remained at home. "you'll get used to it!" said semión. the tartar said nothing, and only turned his wet eyes on the fire; his face expressed doubt and alarm, as if he did not yet understand why he lay there in darkness and in cold among strangers, and not at simbirsk. wiseacre lay beside the fire, laughed silently at something, and hummed a tune. "what happiness can she have with her father?" he began after a few minutes' silence. "he loves her, and finds her a consolation, that's true but you can't put your finger in his eyes; he's a cross old man, a stern old man. and with young girls you don't want sternness. what they want is caresses, and ha! ha! ha! and ho! ho! ho!--perfume and pomade. yes ... akh, business, business!" he sighed, lifting himself clumsily. "vodka all gone--means it's time to go to bed. well, i'm off, brother." the tartar added some more brushwood to the fire, lay down again, and began to think of his native village and of his wife; if his wife would only come for a week, for a day, let her go back if she liked! better a few days, even a day, than nothing! but if his wife kept her promise and came, what would he feed her with? where would she live? "how can you live without anything to eat?" he asked aloud. for working day and night at an oar they paid him only ten kopecks a day. true, passengers sometimes gave money for tea and vodka, but the others shared this among themselves, gave nothing to the tartar, and only laughed at him. from poverty he was hungry, cold, and frightened. his whole body ached and trembled. if he went into the hut there would be nothing for him to cover himself with. here, too, he had nothing to cover himself with, but he might keep up the fire. in a week the waters would have fallen, and the ferrymen, with the exception of semión, would no longer be wanted. the tartar must begin his tramp from village to village asking for bread and work. his wife was only seventeen years old; she was pretty, modest, and spoiled. how could she tramp with uncovered face through the villages and ask for bread? it was too horrible to think of. when next the tartar looked up it was dawn. the barge, the willows, and the ripples stood out plainly. you might turn round and see the clayey slope, with its brown thatched hut at the bottom, and above it the huts of the village. in the village the cocks already crowed. the clayey slope, the barge, the river, the strange wicked people, hunger, cold, sickness--in reality there was none of this at all. it was only a dream, thought the tartar. he felt that he was sleeping, and heard himself snore. of course, he was at home in simbirsk, he had only to call his wife by name and she would call bock; in the next room lay his old mother.... what terrible things are dreams!... where do they come from?... the tartar smiled and opened his eyes. what river was this? the volga? it began to snow. "ahoy!" came a voice from the other side, "boatman!" the tartar shook himself, and went to awaken his companions. dragging on their sheepskin coats on the way, swearing in voices hoarse from sleep, the ferrymen appeared on the bank. after sleep, the river, with its piercing breeze, evidently seemed to them a nightmare. they tumbled lazily into the boat. the tartar and three ferrymen took up the long, wide-bladed oars which looked in the darkness like the claws of a crab. semión threw himself on his stomach across the helm. on the opposite bank the shouting continued, and twice revolver shots were heal'd. the stranger evidently thought that the ferrymen were asleep or had gone into the village to the kabak. "you'll get across in time," said wiseacre in the tone of a man who is convinced that in this world there is no need for hurry. "it's all the same in the end; you'll gain nothing by making a noise." the heavy, awkward barge parted from the bank, cleaving a path through the willows, and only the slow movement of the willows backward showed that it was moving at all. the ferrymen slowly raised their oars in time. wiseacre lay on his stomach across the helm, and, describing a bow in the air, swung slowly from one side to the other. in the dim light it seemed as if the men were sitting on some long-clawed antediluvian animal, floating with it into the cold desolate land that is sometimes seen in nightmares. the willows soon were passed and the open water reached. on the other bank the creak and measured dipping of the oars were already audible, and cries of "quicker, quicker!" came back across the water. ten minutes more and the barge struck heavily against the landing-stage. "it keeps on falling, it keeps on falling," grumbled semión, rubbing the snow from his face. "where it all comes from god only knows!" on the bank stood a frail old man of low stature in a short foxskin coat and white lambskin cap. he stood immovable at some distance from the horses; his face had a gloomy concentrated expression, as if he were trying to remember something, and were angry with his disobedient memory. when semión approached him, and, smiling, took off his cap, he began: "i am going in great haste to anastasevki. my daughter is worse. in anastasevka, i am told, a new doctor has been appointed." the ferrymen dragged the cart on to the barge, and started back. the man, whom semión called vassili sergeyitch, stood all the time immovable, tightly compressing his thick fingers, and when the driver asked for permission to smoke in his presence, answered nothing, as if he had not heard. semión, lying on his stomach across the helm, looked at him maliciously, and said: "even in siberia people live! even in siberia!" wiseacre's face bore a triumphant expression, as if he had demonstrated something, and rejoiced that things had justified his prediction. the miserable, helpless expression of the man in the foxskin coat evidently only increased his delight. "it's muddy travelling at this time, vassili sergeyitch," he said, as they harnessed the horses on the river bank. "you might have waited another week or two till it got drier. for the matter of that, you might just as well not go at all.... if there was any sense in going it would be another matter, but you yourself know that you might go on for ever and nothing would come of it.... well?" vassili sergeyitch silently handed the men some money, climbed into the cart, and drove off. "after that doctor again," said semión, shuddering from the cold. "yes, look for a real doctor--chase the wind in the field, seize the devil by the tail, damn him. akh, what characters these people are! lord forgive me, a sinner!" the tartar walked up to semión, and looked at him with hatred and repulsion. then, trembling, and mixing tartar words with his broken russian, he said: "he is a good man, a good man, and you are bad. you are bad. he is a good soul, a great one, but you are a beast.... he is living, but you are dead.... god made men that they might have joys and sorrows, but you ask for nothing.... you are a stone,--earth! a stone wants nothing, and you want nothing. ... you are a stone, and god has no love for you. but him he loves!" all laughed; the tartar alone frowned disgustedly, shook his hand, and, pulling his rags more closely round him, walked back to the fire. semión and the ferrymen returned to the hut. "cold!" said one ferryman in a hoarse voice, stretching himself on the straw with which the floor was covered. "yes, it's not warm," said another. "a galley-slave's life!" all lay down. the door opened before the wind, and snowflakes whirled through the hut. but no one rose to shut it, all were too cold and lazy. "i, for one, am all right," said semión. "god grant everyone such a life." "you, it is known, were born a galley-slave--the devil himself wouldn't take you." from the yard came strange sounds like the whining of a dog. "what's that? who's there?" "it's the tartar crying." "well ... what a character!" "he'll get used to it," said semión, and went off to sleep. soon all the others followed his example. but the door remained unshut. rothschild's fiddle he town was small--no better than a village--and it was inhabited almost entirely by old people who died so seldom that it was positively painful. in the hospital, and even in the prison, coffins were required very seldom. in one word, business was bad. if yacob ivanof had been coffin-maker in the government town, he would probably have owned his own house, and called himself yakob matvieitch; but, as it was, he was known only by the name of yakob, with the street nickname given for some obscure reason of "bronza"; and lived as poorly as a simple muzhik in a little, ancient cabin with only one room; and in this room lived he, marfa, the stove, a double bed, the coffins, a joiner's bench, and all the domestic utensils. yet yakob made admirable coffins, durable and good. for muzhiks and petty tradespeople he made them all of one size, taking himself as model; and this method never failed him, for though he was seventy years of age, there was not a taller or stouter man in the town, not even in the prison. for women and for men of good birth he made his coffins to measure, using for this purpose an iron yardwand. orders for children's coffins he accepted very unwillingly, made them without measurement, as if in contempt, and every time when paid for his work exclaimed: "thanks. but i confess i don't care much for wasting time on trifles." in addition to coffin-making yakob drew a small income from his skill with the fiddle. at weddings in the town there usually played a jewish orchestra, the conductor of which was the tinsmith moses hitch shakhkes, who kept more than half the takings for himself. as yakob played very well upon the fiddle, being particularly skilful with russian songs, shakhkes sometimes employed him in the orchestra, paying him fifty kopecks a day, exclusive of gifts from the guests. when bronza sat in the orchestra he perspired and his face grew purple; it was always hot, the smell of garlic was suffocating; the fiddle whined, at his right ear snored the double-bass, at his left wept the flute, played by a lanky, red-haired jew with a whole network of red and blue veins upon his face, who bore the same surname as the famous millionaire rothschild. and even the merriest tunes this accursed jew managed to play sadly. without any tangible cause yakob had become slowly penetrated with hatred and contempt for jews, and especially for rothschild; he began with irritation, then swore at him, and once even was about to hit him; but rothschild flared up, and, looking at him furiously, said: "if it were not that i respect you for your talents, i should send you flying out of the window." then he began to cry. so bronza was employed in the orchestra very seldom, and only in cases of extreme need when one of the jews was absent. yakob had never been in a good humour. he was always overwhelmed by the sense of the losses which he suffered. for instance, on sundays and saints' days it was a sin to work, monday was a tiresome day--and so on; so that in one way or another, there were about two hundred days in the year when he was compelled to sit with his hands idle. that was one loss! if anyone in the town got married without music, or if shakhkes did not employ yakob, that was another loss. the inspector of police was ill for two years, and yakob waited with impatience for his death, yet in the end the inspector transferred himself to the government town for the purpose of treatment, where he got worse and died. there was another loss, a loss at the very least of ten roubles, as the inspector's coffin would have been an expensive one lined with brocade. regrets for his losses generally overtook yakob at night; he lay in bed with the fiddle beside him, and, with his head full of such speculations, would take the bow, the fiddle giving out through the darkness a melancholy sound which made yakob feel better. on the sixth of may last year marfa was suddenly taken ill. she breathed heavily, drank much water and staggered. yet next morning she lighted the stove, and even went for water. towards evening she lay down. all day yakob had played on the fiddle, and when it grew dark he took the book in which every day he inscribed his losses, and from want of something better to do, began to add them up. the total amounted to more than a thousand roubles. the thought of such losses so horrified him that he threw the book on the floor and stamped his feet. then he took up the book, snapped his fingers, and sighed heavily. his face was purple, and wet with perspiration. he reflected that if this thousand roubles had been lodged in the bank the interest per annum would have amounted to at least forty roubles. that meant that the forty roubles were also a loss. in one word, whenever you turn, everywhere you meet with loss, and profits none. "yakob," cried marfa unexpectedly, "i am dying." he glanced at his wife. her face was red from fever and unusually clear and joyful; and bronza, who was accustomed to see her pale, timid, and unhappy-looking, felt confused. it seemed as if she were indeed dying, and were happy in the knowledge that she was leaving for ever the cabin, the coffins, and yakob. and now she looked at the ceiling and twitched her lips, as if she had seen death her deliverer, and were whispering with him. morning came; through the window might be seen the rising of the sun. looking at his old wife, yakob somehow remembered that all his life he had never treated her kindly, never caressed her, never pitied her, never thought of buying her a kerchief for her head, never carried away from the weddings a piece of tasty food, but only roared at her, abused her for his losses, and rushed at her with shut fists. true, he had never beaten her, but he had often frightened her out of her life and left her rooted to the ground with terror. yes, and he had forbidden her to drink tea, as the losses without that were great enough; so she drank always hot water. and now, beginning to understand why she had such a strange, enraptured face, he felt uncomfortable. when the sun had risen high he borrowed a cart from a neighbour, and brought marfa to the hospital. there were not many patients there, and he had to wait only three hours. to his joy he was received not by the doctor but by the feldscher, maxim nikolaitch, an old man of whom it was said that, although he was drunken and quarrelsome, he knew more than the doctor. "may your health be good!" said yakob, leading the old woman into the dispensary. "forgive me, maxim nikolaitch, for troubling you with my empty affairs. but there, you can see for yourself my object is ill. the companion of my life, as they say, excuse the expression...." contracting his grey brows and smoothing his whiskers, the feldscher began to examine the old woman, who sat on the tabouret, bent, skinny, sharp-nosed, and with open mouth so that she resembled a bird that is about to drink. "so ..." said the feldscher slowly, and then sighed. "influenza and may be a bit of a fever. there is typhus now in the town ... what can i do? she is an old woman, glory be to god.... how old?" "sixty-nine years, maxim nikolaitch." "an old woman. it's high time for her." "of course! your remark is very just," said yakob, smiling out of politeness. "and i am sincerely grateful for your kindness; but allow me to make one remark; every insect is fond of life." the feldscher replied in a tone which implied that upon him alone depended her life or death. "i will tell you what you'll do, friend; put on her head a cold compress, and give her these powders twice a day. and good-bye to you." by the expression of the feldscher's face, yacob saw that it was a bad business, and that no powders would make it any better; it was quite plain to him that marfa was beyond repair, and would assuredly die, if not to-day then to-morrow. he touched the feldscher on the arm, blinked his eyes, and said in a whisper: "yes, maxim nikolaitch, but you will let her blood." "i have no time, no time, friend. take your old woman, and god be with you!" "do me this one kindness!" implored yakob. "you yourself know that if she merely had her stomach out of order, or some internal organ wrong, then powders and mixtures would cure; but she has caught cold. in cases of cold the first tiling is to bleed the patient." but the feldscher had already called for the next patient, and into the dispensary came a peasant woman with a little boy. "be off!" he said to yakob, with a frown. "at least try the effect of leeches. i will pray god eternally for you." the feldscher lost his temper, and roared: "not another word." yakob also lost his temper, and grew purple in the face; but he said nothing more and took marfa under his arm and led her out of the room. as soon as he had got her into the cart, he looked angrily and contemptuously at the hospital and said: "what an artist! he will let the blood of a rich man, but for a poor man grudges even a leech. herod!" when they arrived home, and entered the cabin, marfa stood for a moment holding on to the stove. she was afraid that if she were to lie down yakob would begin to complain about his losses, and abuse her for lying in bed and doing no work. and yakob looked at her with tedium in his soul and remembered that to-morrow was john the baptist, and the day after nikolai the miracle-worker, and then came sunday, and after that monday--another idle day. for four days no work could be done, and marfa would be sure to die on one of these days. her coffin must be made to-day. he took the iron yardwand, went up to the old woman and took her measure. after that she lay down, and yakob crossed himself, and began to make a coffin. when the work was finished, bronza put on his spectacles and wrote in his book of losses: "marfa ivanova's coffin-- roubles, kopecks." and he sighed. all the time marfa had lain silently with her eyes closed. towards evening, when it was growing dark, she called her husband: "rememberest, yakob?" she said, looking at him joyfully. "rememberest, fifty years ago god gave us a baby with yellow hair. thou and i then sat every day-by the river ... under the willow ... and sang songs." and laughing bitterly she added: "the child died." "that is all imagination," said yakob. later on came the priest, administered to marfa the sacrament and extreme unction. marfa began to mutter something incomprehensible, and towards morning, died. the old-women neighbours washed her, wrapped her in her winding sheet, and laid her out. to avoid having to pay the deacon's fee, yakob himself read the psalms; and escaped a fee also at the graveyard, as the watchman there was his godfather. four peasants carried the coffin free, out of respect for the deceased. after the coffin walked a procession of old women, beggars, and two cripples. the peasants on the road crossed themselves piously. and yakob was very satisfied that everything passed off in honour, order, and cheapness, without offence to anyone. when saying good-bye for the last time to marfa, he tapped the coffin with his fingers, and thought "an excellent piece of work." but while he was returning from the graveyard he was overcome with extreme weariness. he felt unwell, he breathed feverishly and heavily, he could hardly stand on his feet. his brain was full of unaccustomed thoughts. he remembered again that he had never taken pity on marfa and never caressed her. the fifty-two years during which they had lived in the same cabin stretched back to eternity, yet in the whole of that eternity he had never thought of her, never paid any attention to her, but treated her as if she were a cat or a dog. yet every day she had lighted the stove, boiled and baked, fetched water, chopped wood, slept with him on the same bed; and when he returned drunk from weddings, she had taken his fiddle respectfully, and hung it on the wall, and put him to bed--all this silently with a timid, worried expression on her face. and now he felt that he could take pity on her, and would like to buy her a present, but it was too late.... towards yakob smiling and bowing came rothschild. "i was looking for you, uncle," he said. "moses ilitch sends his compliments, and asks you to come across to him at once." yakob felt inclined to cry. "begone!" he shouted, and continued his path. "you can't mean that," cried rothschild in alarm, running after him. "moses hitch will take offence! he wants you at once." the way in which the jew puffed and blinked, and the multitude of his red freckles awoke in yakob disgust. he felt disgust, too, for his green frock-coat, with its black patches, and his whole fragile, delicate figure. "what do you mean by coming after me, garlic?" he shouted. "keep off!" the jew also grew angry, and cried: "if you don't take care to be a little politer i will send you flying over the fence." "out of my sight!" roared yakob, rushing on him with clenched fists. "out of my sight, abortion, or i will beat the soul out of your cursed body! i have no peace with jews." rothschild was frozen with terror; he squatted down and waved his arms above his head, as if warding off blows, and then jumped up and ran for his life. while running he hopped, and flourished his hands; and the twitching of his long, fleshless spine could plainly be seen. the boys in the street were delighted with the incident, and rushed after him, crying, "jew! jew!" the dogs pursued him with loud barks. someone laughed, then someone whistled, and the dogs barked louder and louder. then, it must have been, a dog bit rothschild, for there rang out a sickly, despairing cry. yakob walked past the common, and then along the outskirts of the town; and the street boys cried, "bronza! bronza!" with a piping note snipe flew around him, and ducks quacked. the sun baked everything, and from the water came scintillations so bright that it was painful to look at. yakob walked along the path by the side of the river, and watched a stout, red-cheeked lady come out of the bathing-place. not far from the bathing-place sat a group of boys catching crabs with meat; and seeing him they cried maliciously, "bronza! bronza!" and at this moment before him rose a thick old willow with an immense hollow in it, and on it a raven's nest.... and suddenly in yakob's mind awoke the memory of the child with the yellow hair of whom marfa had spoken.... yes, it was the same willow, green, silent, sad.... how it had aged, poor thing! he sat underneath it, and began to remember. on the other bank, where was now a flooded meadow, there then stood a great birch forest, and farther away, where the now bare hill glimmered on the horizon, was an old pine wood. up and down the river went barges. but now everything was flat and smooth; on the opposite bank stood only a single birch, young and shapely, like a girl; and on the river were only ducks and geese where once had floated barges. it seemed that since those days even the geese had become smaller. yakob closed his eyes, and in imagination saw flying towards him an immense flock of white geese. he began to wonder how it was that in the last forty or fifty years of his life he had never been near the river, or if he had, had never noticed it. yet it was a respectable river, and by no means contemptible; it would have been possible to fish in it, and the fish might have been sold to tradesmen, officials, and the attendant at the railway station buffet, and the money could have been lodged in the bank; he might have used it for rowing from country-house to country-house and playing on the fiddle, and everyone would have paid him money; he might even have tried to act as bargee--it would have been better than making coffins; he might have kept geese, killed them and sent them to moscow in the winter-time--from the feathers alone he would have made as much as ten roubles a year. but he had yawned away his life, and done nothing. what losses! akh, what losses! and if he hod done all together--caught fish, played on the fiddle, acted as bargee, and kept geese--what a sum he would have amassed! but he had never even dreamed of this; life had passed without profits, without any satisfaction; everything had passed away unnoticed; before him nothing remained. but look backward--nothing but losses, such losses that to think of them it makes the blood run cold. and why cannot a man live without these losses? why had the birch wood and the pine forest both been cut down? why is the common pasture unused? why do people do exactly what they ought not to do? why did he all his life scream, roar, clench his fists, insult his wife? for what imaginable purpose did he frighten and insult the jew? why, indeed, do people prevent one another living in peace? all these are also losses! terrible losses! if it were not for hatred and malice people would draw from one another incalculable profits. evening and night, twinkled in yakob's brain the willow, the fish, the dead geese, marfa with her profile like that of a bird about to drink, the pale, pitiable face of rothschild, and an army of snouts thrusting themselves out of the darkness and muttering about losses. he shifted from side to side, and five times in the night rose from his bed and played on the fiddle. in the morning he rose with an effort and went to the hospital. the same maxim nikolaitch ordered him to bind his head with a cold compress, and gave him powders; and by the expression of his face and by his tone yakob saw that it was a bad business, and that no powders would make it any better. but upon his way home he reflected that from death at least there would be one profit; it would no longer be necessary to eat, to drink, to pay taxes, or to injure others; and as a man lies in his grave not one year, but hundreds and thousands of years, the profit was enormous. the life of man was, in short, a loss, and only his death a profit. yet this consideration, though entirely just, was offensive and bitter; for why in this world is it so ordered that life, which is given to a man only once, passes by without profit? he did not regret dying, but as soon as he arrived home and saw his fiddle, his heart fell, and he felt sorry. the fiddle could not be taken to the grave; it must remain an orphan, and the same thing would happen with it as had happened with the birch wood and the pineforest. everything in this world decayed, and would decay! yakob went to the door of the hut and sat upon the thresholdstone, pressing his fiddle to his shoulder. still thinking of life, full of decay and full of losses, he began to play, and as the tune poured out plaintively and touchingly, the tears flowed down his cheeks. and the harder he thought, the sadder was the song of the fiddle. the latch creaked twice, and in the wicket door appeared rothschild. the first half of the yard he crossed boldly, but seeing yakob, he stopped short, shrivelled up, and apparently from fright began to make signs as if he wished to tell the time with his fingers. "come on, don't be afraid," said yakob kindly, beckoning him. "come!" with a look of distrust and terror rothschild drew near and stopped about two yards away. "don't beat me, yakob, it is not my fault!" he said, with a bow. "moses hitch has sent me again. 'don't be afraid!' he said, 'go to yakob again and tell him that without him we cannot possibly get on.' the wedding is on wednesday. shapovaloff's daughter is marrying a wealthy man.... it will be a first-class wedding," added the jew, blinking one eye. "i cannot go," answered yakob, breathing heavily. "i am ill, brother." and again he took his bow, and the tears burst from his eyes and fell upon the fiddle. rothschild listened attentively, standing by his side with arms folded upon his chest. the distrustful, terrified expression upon his face little by little changed into a look of suffering and grief, he rolled his eyes as if in an ecstacy of torment, and ejaculated "wachchch!" and the tears slowly rolled down his cheeks and made little black patches on his green frock-coat. all day long yakob lay in bed and worried. with evening came the priest, and, confessing him, asked whether he had any particular sin which he would like to confess; and yakob exerted his fading memory, and remembering marfa's unhappy face, and the jew's despairing cry when he was bitten by the dog, said in a hardly audible voice: "give the fiddle to rothschild." and now in the town everyone asks: where did rothschild get such an excellent fiddle? did he buy it or steal it ... or did he get it in pledge? long ago he abandoned his flute, and now plays on the fiddle only. from beneath his bow issue the same mournful sounds as formerly came from the flute; but when he tries to repeat the tune that yakob played when he sat on the threshold stone, the fiddle emits sounds so passionately sad and full of grief that the listeners weep; and he himself rolls his eyes and ejaculates "wachchch!" ... but this new song so pleases everyone in the town that wealthy traders and officials never fail to engage rothschild for their social gatherings, and even force him to play it as many as ten times. a father "i don't deny it; i have had a drop too much. ... forgive me; the fact is i happened to pass by the public, and, all owing to the heat, i drank a couple of bottles. it's hot, brother!" old musátoff took a rag from his pocket, and wiped the sweat from his clean-shaven, dissipated face. "i have come to you, bórenka, angel mine, just for a minute," he continued, looking at his son, "on very important business. forgive me if i am in the way. tell me, my soul ... do you happen to have ten roubles to spare till tuesday? you understand me ... yesterday i ought to have paid for the rooms, but the money question ... you understand. not a kopeck!" young musátoff went out silently, and behind the door began a whispered consultation with his housekeeper and the colleagues in the civil service with whom he shared the villa. in a minute he returned, and silently handed his father a ten-rouble note. the old gentleman took it carelessly, and without looking at it thrust it into his pocket, and said: "_merci!_ and how is the world using you? we haven't met for ages." "yes, it is a long time--since all saints' day." "five times i did my best to get over to you, but never could get time. first one matter, then another ... simply ruination. but, boris, i may confess it, i am not telling the truth.... i lie.... i always lie. don't believe me, bórenka. i promised to let you have the ten roubles back on tuesday; don't believe that either! don't believe a single word i say! i have no business matters at all, simply idleness, drink, and shame to show myself in the street in this get-up. but you, bórenka, will forgive me. three times i sent the girl for money, and wrote you piteous letters. for the money, thanks! but don't believe the letters.... i lied. it hurts me to plunder you in this way, angel mine; i know that you can hardly make both ends meet, and live--so to say--on locusts. but with impudence like mine you can do nothing. a rascal who only shows his face when he wants money!... forgive me, bórenka, i tell you the plain truth, because i cannot look with indifference upon your angel face...." a minute passed in silence. the old man sighed deeply, and began: "let us make the supposition, brother, that you were to treat me to a glass of beer." without a word, boris again went out and whispered outside the door. the beer was brought in. at the sight of the bottle musátoff enlivened, and suddenly changed his tone. "the other day i was at the races," he began, making frightened faces. "there were three of us, and together we put in the totalisator a three-rouble note on shustri.[ ] and good luck to shustri! with the risk of one rouble we each got back thirty-two. it is a noble sport. the old woman always pitches into me about the races, but i go. i love it!" [footnote : rapid.] boris, a young fair-haired man, with a sad, apathetic face, walked from corner to corner, and listened silently. when musátoff interrupted his story in order to cough, he went up to him and said: "the other day, papa, i bought myself a new pair of boots, but they turned out too small. i wish you would take them off my hands. i will let you have them cheap!" "i shall be charmed!" said the old man, with a grimace. "only for the same price--without any reduction." "very well.... we will regard that as a loan also." boris stretched his arm under the bed, and pulled out the new boots. old musátoff removed his own awkward brown shoes--plainly someone else's--and tried the new boots on. "like a shot!" he exclaimed. "your hand on it. ... i'll take them. on tuesday, when i get my pension, i'll send the money.... but i may as well confess, i lie." he resumed his former piteous tone. "about the races i lied, and about the pension i lie. you are deceiving me, bórenka.... i see very well through your magnanimous pretext. i can see through you! the boots are too small for you because your heart is too large! akh, borya, borya, i understand it ... and i feel it!" "you have gone to your new rooms?" asked boris, with the object of changing the subject. "yes, brother, into the new rooms.... every month we shift. with a character like the old woman's we cannot stay anywhere." "i have been at the old rooms. but now i want to ask you to come to the country. in your state of health it will do you good to be in the fresh air." musátoff waved his hand. "the old woman wouldn't let me go, and myself i don't care to. a hundred times you have tried to drag me out of the pit.... i have tried to drag myself ... but the devil an improvement! give it up! in the pit i'll die as i have lived. at this moment i sit in front of you and look at your angel face ... yet i am being dragged down into the pit. it's destiny, brother! you can't get flies from a dunghill to a rose bush. no. ... well, i'm off ... it's getting dark." "if you wait a minute, well go together. i have business in town myself." musátoff and his son put on their coats, and went out. by the time they had found a droschky it was quite dark, and the windows were lighted up. "i know i'm ruining you, bórenka," stammered the father. "my poor, poor children! what an affliction to be cursed with such a father! bórenka, angel mine, i cannot lie when i see your face. forgive me!... to what a pass, my god, has impudence brought me! this very minute i have taken your money, and shamed you with my drunken face; your brothers also i spunge on and put to shame. if you had seen me yesterday! i won't hide anything, bórenka. yesterday our neighbours--all the rascality, in short--came in to see the old woman. i drank with them, and actually abused you behind your back, and complained that you had neglected me. i tried, you understand, to get the drunken old women to pity me, and played the part of an unhappy father. that's my besetting sin; when i want to hide my faults, i heap them on the heads of my innocent children.... but i cannot lie to you, bórenka, or hide things. i came to you in pride, but when i had felt your kindness and all-mercifulness, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, and all my conscience turned upside down." "yes, father, but let us talk about something else." "mother of god, what children i have!" continued the old man, paying no attention to his son, "what a glory the lord has sent me! such children should be sent not to me, a good-for-nothing, but to a real man with a soul and a heart. i am not worthy of it!" musátoff took off his cap and crossed himself piously thrice. "glory be to thee, o god!" he sighed, looking around as if seeking an ikon. "astonishing, priceless children! three sons i have, and all of them the same! sober, serious, diligent--and what intellects! cabman, what intellects! gregory alone has as much brains as ten ordinary men. french ... and german ... he speaks both ... and you never get tired of listening. children, children mine, i cannot believe that you are mine at all! i don't believe it! you, bórenka, are a very martyr! i am ruining you ... before long i shall have mined you. you give me money without end, although you know very well that not a kopeck goes on necessaries. only the other day i sent you a piteous letter about my illness.... but i lied; the money was wanted to buy rum. yet you gave it to me sooner than offend your old father with a refusal. all this i know ... and feel ... grisha also is a martyr. on thursday, angel mine, i went to his office, drunk, dirty, ragged ... smelling of vodka like a cellar. i went straight up to him and began in my usual vulgar slang, although he was with the other clerks, the head of the department--and petitioners all around! disgraced him for his whole life!.. yet he never got the least confused, only a little pale; he smiled, and got up from his desk as if nothing were wrong--even introduced me to his colleagues. and he brought me the whole way home, without a word of reproach! i spunge on him even worse than on you! "then take your brother, sasha! there's another martyr! married to a colonel's daughter, moving in a circle of aristocrats, with a dot ... and everything else.... he, at any rate, you would think would have nothing to do with me. well, brother, what does he do? when he gets married the very first thing after the wedding he comes to me with his young wife, and pays me the first visit ... to my lair, to the lair ... i swear to god!" the old man began to sob, but soon laughed again. "at the very moment, as the fates would have it, when we were eating scraped radishes and kvas, and frying fish, with a stench in the room enough to stink out the devil. i was lying drunk as usual, and the old woman jumps up and greets them with a face the colour of beefsteak ... in one word, a scandal. but sasha bore it all." "yes, our sasha is a good man," said boris. "incomparable! you are all of you gold, both you and grisha, and sasha and sonia. i torture, pester, disgrace, and spunge on you, yet in my whole life i have never heard a word of reproach, or seen a single sidelong look. if you had a decent father it would be different, but ... you have never had anything from me but evil. i am a wicked, dissolute man.... now, thank god, i have quieted down, and have no character left in me, but formerly, when you were little children, i had a character and no mistake. whatever i said or did seemed to me gospel! i remember! i used to come back late from the club, drunk and irritated, and begin to abuse your poor mother about the household expenses. i would keep on at her all night, and imagine that she was in the wrong; in the morning you would get up and go to school, but all the time i would keep on showing her that i had a character. heaven rest her soul, how i tortured the poor martyr! and when you came back from school and found me asleep you weren't allowed your dinner until i got up. and after dinner the same music! primps you remember. may god forbid that anyone else should be cursed with such a father! he sent you to me as a blessing. a blessing! continue in this way, children, to the end. honour thy father that thy days may be long in the land! for your goodness heaven will reward you with long life! cabman, stop!" musátoff alighted and ran into a beerhouse. after a delay of half an hour he returned, grunted tipsily, and took his seat. "and where is sonia now?" he asked. "still at the boarding-school?" "no, she finished last may. she lives now with sasha's aunt." "what?" exclaimed the old man. "left school? and a glorious girl, god bless her--went with her brothers. _akh_, bórenka, no mother, no one to console her! tell me, bórenka, does she know ... does she know that i am alive? eh?" boris did not answer. five minutes passed in deep silence. the old man sobbed, wiped his face with a rag, and said: "i love her, bórenka! she was the only daughter, and in old age there is no consolation like a daughter. if i could only see her for a moment. tell me, bórenka, may i?" "of course, whenever you like." "and she won't object?" "of course not; she herself went to look for you." "i swear to god! there is a nest of angels! cabman, eh? arrange it, bórenka, angel! of course she is a young lady now, _délicatesse ... consommé,_ and all that sort of thing in the noble style. so i can't see her in this get-up. but all this, bórenka, we can arrange. for three days i won't taste a drop--that'll bring my accursed drunken snout into shape. then i will go to your place and put on a suit of your clothes, and get a shave and have my hair cut. then you will drive over and take me with you? is it agreed?" "all right." "cabman, stop!" the old man jumped out of the carriage and ran into another beershop. before they reached his lodgings he visited two more; and every time his son waited silently and patiently. when, having dismissed the cabman, they crossed the broad, muddy yard to the rooms of the "old woman," musátoff looked contused and guilty, grunted timidly, and smacked his lips. "bórenka," he began, in an imploring voice, "if the old woman says anything of that kind to you--you understand--don't pay any attention to her. and be polite to her. she is very ignorant and impertinent, but not a bad sort at bottom. she has a good, warm heart." they crossed the yard and entered a dark hall. the door squeaked, the kitchen smelt, the samovar smoked, and shrill voices were heard.... while they passed through the kitchen boris noticed only the black smoke, a rope with washing spread out, and the chimney of a samovar, through the chinks of which burst golden sparks. "this is my cell," said musátoff, bowing his head, and showing his son into a little, low-ceilinged room, filled with atmosphere unbearable from proximity to the kitchen. at a table sat three women, helping one another to food. seeing the guest, they looked at one another and stopped eating. "well, did you get it?" asked one, apparently "the old woman," roughly. "got it, got it," stammered the old man. "now, boris, do us the honour! sit down! with us, brother--young man--everything is simple.... we live in a simple way." musátoff fussed about without any visible reason. he was ashamed before his son, and at the same time apparently wished to bear himself before the women as a man of importance and a forsaken, unhappy father. "yes, brother mine--young man--we live simply, without show-off," he stammered. "we are plain folk, young man.... we are not like you ... we do, not trouble to throw dust in other people's eyes. no!... a drop of vodka, eh?" one of the women, ashamed of drinking before a stranger, sighed and said: "i must have another glass after these mushrooms. after mushrooms, whether you like it or not, you have to drink.... ivan gerasiuitch, ask him ... perhaps he'll have a drink." "drink, young man!" said musátoff, without looking at his son. "wines and liqueurs we don't keep, brother, we live plainly." "i'm afraid our arrangements don't suit him," sighed the old woman. "leave him alone, leave him alone, he'll drink all right." to avoid giving offence to his father, boris took a glass, and drained it in silence. when the samovar was brought in he, silently and with a melancholy air--again to please his father--drank two cups of atrocious tea. and without a word he listened while the "old woman" lamented the fact that in this world you will sometimes find cruel and godless children who forsake their parents in their old age. "i know what you are thinking," said the drunken old man, falling into his customary state of excitement. "you are thinking that i have fallen in the world, that i have dirtied myself, that i am an object of pity! but in my mind this simple life is far more natural than yours, young man. i do not need for anything ... and i have no intention of humiliating myself ... i can stand a lot ... but tolerance is at an end when a brat of a boy looks at me with pity." when he had drunk his tea, he cleaned a herring, and squeezed onion on it with such vigour that tears of emotion sprang into his eyes. he spoke again of the totalisator, of his winnings, and of a hat of panama straw for which he had paid sixteen roubles the day before. he lied with the same appetite with which he had drunk and devoured the herring. his son sat silently for more than an hour, and then rose to take leave. "i wouldn't think of detaining you," said musátoff stiffly. "i ask your pardon, young man, for not living in the way to which you are accustomed." he bristled up, sniffed with dignity, and winked to the women. "good-bye, young man!" he said, escorting his son into the hall. "_attendez!_" but in the hall, where it was quite dark, he suddenly pressed his face to his son's arm, and sobbed. "if i could only see sóniushka!" he whispered. "arrange it, bórenka, angel mine! i will have a shave, and put on one of your suits ... and make a severe face. i won't open my mouth while she's present i won't say a word. i swear to god!" he glanced timidly at the door, from behind which came the shrill voices of the women, smothered his sobs, and said in a loud voice: "well, good-bye, young man! _attendez!_" two tragedies at ten o'clock on a dark september evening six-year-old andrei, the only son of dr. kiríloff, a zemstvo physician, died from diphtheria. the doctor's wife had just thrown herself upon her knees at the bedside of her dead child, and was giving way to the first ecstacy of despair, when the hall-door bell rang loudly. owing to the danger of infection all the servants had been sent out of the house that morning; and kiríloff, in his shirtsleeves, with unbuttoned waistcoat, with sweating face, and hands burned with carbolic acid, opened the door himself. the hall was dark, and the stranger who entered it was hardly visible. all that kiríloff could distinguish was that he was of middle height, that he wore a white muffler, and had a big, extraordinarily pale face--a face so pale that at first it seemed to illumine the darkness of the hall. "is the doctor at home?" he asked quickly. "i am the doctor," answered kiríloff, "what do you want?" "ah, it is you. i am glad!" said the stranger. he stretched out through the darkness for the doctor's hand, found it, and pressed it tightly. "i am very ... very glad. we are acquaintances. my name is abógin.... i had the pleasure of meeting you last summer at gnutcheffs. i am very glad that you are in.... for the love of christ do not refuse to come with me at once.... my wife is dangerously ill.... i have brought a trap." from abógin's voice and movements it was plain that he was greatly agitated. like a man frightened by a fire or by a mad dog, he could not contain his breath. he spoke rapidly in a trembling voice, and something inexpressibly sincere and childishly imploring sounded in his speech. but, like all men frightened and thunderstruck, he spoke in short abrupt phrases, and used many superfluous and inconsequential words. "i was afraid i should not find you at home," he continued. "while i was driving here i was in a state of torture.... dress and come at once, for the love of god ... it happened thus. paptchinski--alexander semionevitch--whom you know, had driven over.... we talked for awhile ... then we had tea; suddenly my wife screamed, laid her hand upon her heart, and fell against the back of the chair. we put her on the bed.... i bathed her forehead with ammonia, and sprinkled her with water ... she lies like a corpse.... it is aneurism.... come.... her father died from aneurism...." kiríloff listened and said nothing. it seemed he had forgotten his own language. but when abógin repeated what he had said about paptchinski and about his wife's father, the doctor shook his head, and said apathetically, drawling every word: "excuse me, i cannot go.... five minutes ago ... my child died." "is it possible?" cried abógin, taking a step hack. "good god, at what an unlucky time i have come! an amazingly unhappy day ... amazing! what a coincidence ... as if on purpose." abógin put his hand upon the door-handle, and inclined his head as if in doubt. he was plainly undecided as to what to do; whether to go, or again to ask the doctor to come. "listen to me," he said passionately, seizing kiríloff by the arm; "i thoroughly understand your position. god is my witness that i feel shame in trying to distract your attention at such a moment, but ... what can i do? judge yourself--whom can i apply to? except you, there is no doctor in the neighbourhood. come! for the love of god! it is not for myself i ask.... it is not i who am ill." a silence followed. kiríloff turned his back to abógin, for a moment stood still, and went slowly from the anteroom into the hall. judging by his uncertain, mechanical gait, by the care with which he straightened the shade upon the unlit lamp, and looked into a thick book which lay upon the table--in this moment he had no intentions, no wishes, thought of nothing; and probably had even forgotten that in the anteroom a stranger was waiting. the twilight and silence of the hall apparently intensified his stupor. walking from the hall into his study, he raised his right leg high, and sought with his hands the doorpost. all his figure showed a strange uncertainty, as if he were in another's house, or for the first time in life were intoxicated, and were surrendering himself questioningly to the new sensation. along the wall of the study and across the bookshelves ran a long zone of light. together with a heavy, close smell of carbolic and ether, this light came from a slightly opened door which led from the study into the bedroom. the doctor threw himself into an armchair before the table. a minute he looked drowsily at the illumined books, and then rose, and went into the bedroom. in the bedroom reigned the silence of the grave. all, to the smallest trifle, spoke eloquently of a struggle just lived through, of exhaustion, and of final rest. a candle standing on the stool among phials, boxes, and jars, and a large lamp upon the dressing-table lighted the room. on the bed beside the window lay a boy with open eyes and an expression of surprise upon his face. he did not move, but his eyes, it seemed, every second grew darker and darker, and vanished into his skull. with her hands upon his body, and her face hidden in the folds of the bedclothes, knelt the mother. like the child, she made no movement; life showed itself alone in the bend of her back and in the position of her hands. she pressed against the bed with all her being, with force and eagerness, us if she feared to destroy the tranquil and convenient pose which she had found for her weary body. counterpane, dressings, jars, pools on the floor, brashes and spoons scattered here and there, the white bottle of lime-water, the very air, heavy and stifling--all were dead and seemed immersed in rest. the doctor stopped near his wife, thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, and turning his head, bent his gaze upon his son. his face expressed indifference; only by the drops upon his beard could it be seen that he had just been crying. the repellent terror which we conceive when we speak of death was absent from the room. the general stupefaction, the mother's pose, the father's indifferent face, exhaled something attractive and touching; exhaled that subtle, intangible beauty of human sorrow which cannot be analysed or described, and which music alone can express. beauty breathed even in the grim tranquillity of the mourners. kiríloff and his wife were silent; they did not weep, as if in addition to the weight of their sorrow they were conscious also of the poetry of their position. it seemed that they were thinking how in its time their youth had passed, how now with this child had passed even their right to have children at all. the doctor was forty-four years old, already grey, with the face of an old man; his faded and sickly wife, thirty-five. andreï was not only their only son, but also their last. in contrast with his wife, kiríloff belonged to those natures which in time of spiritual pain feel a need for movement. after standing five minutes beside his wife, he, again lifting high his right leg, went from the bedroom into a little room half taken up by a long, broad sofa, and thence into the kitchen. after wandering about the stove and the cook's bed he bowed his head and went through a little door back to the anteroom. here again he saw the white muffler and the pale face. "at last!" sighed abógin, taking hold of the door-handle. "come, please!" the doctor shuddered, looked at him, and remembered. "listen to me; have i not already told you i cannot come?" he said, waking up. "how extraordinary!" "doctor, i am not made of stone.... i thoroughly understand your position.... i sympathise with you!" said abógin, with an imploring voice, laying one hand upon his muffler. "but i am not asking this for myself.... my wife is dying! if you had heard her cry, if you had seen her face, then you would understand my persistence! my god! and i thought that you had gone to get ready! dr. kiríloff, time is precious. come, i implore you!" "i cannot go," said kiríloff with a pause between each word. then he returned to the hall. abógin went after him, and seized him by the arm. "you are overcome by your sorrow--that i understand. but remember ... i am not asking you to come and cure a toothache ... not as an adviser ... but to save a human life," he continued, in the voice of a beggar. "a human life should be supreme over every personal sorrow.... i beg of you manliness, an exploit!... in the name of humanity!" "humanity is a stick with two ends," said kiríloff with irritation. "in the name of the same humanity i beg of you not to drag me away. how strange this seems! here i am hardly standing on my legs, yet you worry me with your humanity! at the present moment i am good for nothing.... i will not go on any consideration! and for whom should i leave my wife? no.... no." kiríloff waved his hands and staggered back. "do not ... do not ask me," he continued in a frightened voice. "excuse me.... by the thirteenth volume of the code i am bound to go, and you have the right to drag me by the arm.... if you will have it, drag me ... but i am useless.... even for conversation i am not in a fit state.... excuse me." "it is useless, doctor, for you to speak to me in that tone," said abógin, again taking kiríloff's arm. "the devil take your thirteenth volume!... to do violence to your will i have no right. if you will, come; if you don't, then god be with you; but it is not to your will that i appeal, but to your heart!... a young woman is at the point of death! this moment your own son has died, and who if not you should understand my terror?" abógin's voice trembled with agitation; in tremble and in tone was something more persuasive than in the words. he was certainly sincere; but it was remarkable that no matter how well chosen his phrases, they seemed to come from him stilted, soulless, inappropriately ornate, to such an extent that they seemed an insult to the atmosphere of the doctor's house and to his own dying wife. he felt this himself, and therefore, fearing to be misunderstood, he tried with all his force to make his voice sound soft and tender, so as to win if not with words at least by sincerity of tone. in general, phrases, however beautiful and profound, act only on those who are indifferent, and seldom satisfy the happy or unhappy; it is for this reason that the most touching expression of joy or sorrow is always silence; sweethearts understand one another best when they are silent; and a burning passionate eulogy spoken above a grave touches only the strangers present, and seems to widow and child inexpressive and cold. kiríloff stood still and said nothing. when abógin used some more phrases about the high vocation of a physician, self-sacrifice, and so on, the doctor asked gloomily: "is it far?" "something between thirteen and fourteen versts. i have excellent horses. i give you my word of honour to bring you there and back in an hour. in a single hour!" the last words aided on the doctor more powerfully than the references to humanity and the vocation of a doctor. he thought for a moment and said, with a sigh: "all right.... i will go." with a rapid, steady gait he went into his study, and after a moment's delay returned with a long overcoat. moving nervously beside him, shuffling his feet, and overjoyed, abógin helped him into his coat. together they left the house. it was dark outside, but not so dark as in the anteroom. in the darkness was clearly defined the outline of the tall, stooping doctor, with his long, narrow beard and eagle nose. as for abógin, in addition to his pale face the doctor could now distinguish a big head, and a little student's cap barely covering the crown. the white muffler gleamed only in front; behind, it was hidden under long hair. "believe me, i appreciate your generosity," he muttered, seating the doctor in the calêche. "we will get there in no time. listen, luka, old man, drive as hard as you can! quick!" the coachman drove rapidly. first they flew past a row of ugly buildings, with a great open yard; everywhere around it was dark, but from a window a bright light glimmered through the palisade, and three windows in the upper story of the great block seemed paler than the air. after that they drove through intense darkness. there was a smell of mushroom dampness, and a lisping of trees; ravens awakened by the noise of the calêche stirred in the foliage, and raised a frightened, complaining cry, as if they knew that kiríloff's son was dead, and that abógin's wife was dying. they flashed past single trees, past a coppice; a pond, crossed with great black shadows, scintillated--and the calêche rolled across a level plain. the cry of the ravens was heard indistinctly far behind, and then ceased entirely. for nearly the whole way abógin and kiríloff were silent. only once, abógin sighed and exclaimed: "a frightful business! a man never so loves those who are near to him as when he is in danger of losing them." and when the calêche slowly crossed the river, kiríloff started suddenly as if he were frightened by the plash of the water, and moved. "listen! let me go for a moment," he said wearily. "i will come again. i must send a feldscher to my wife. she is alone!" abógin did not answer. the calêche, swaying and banging over the stones, crossed a sandy bank, and rolled onward. kiríloff, wrapped in weariness, looked around him. behind, in the scanty starlight, gleamed the road; and the willows by the river bank vanished in the darkness. to the right stretched a plain, flat and interminable as heaven; and far in the distance, no doubt on some sodden marsh, gleamed will-of-the-wisps. on the left, running parallel to the road, stretched a hillock, shaggy with a small shrubbery, and over the hill hung immovably a great half-moon, rosy, half muffled in the mist and fringed with light clouds, which, it seemed, watched it on every side, that it might not escape. on all sides nature exhaled something hopeless and sickly; the earth, like a fallen woman sitting in her dark chamber and trying to forget the past, seemed tormented with remembrances of spring and summer, and waited in apathy the inevitable winter. everywhere the world seemed a dark, unfathomable deep, an icy pit from which there was no escape either for kiríloff or for abógin or for the red half-moon.... the nearer to its goal whirled the calêche, the more impatient seemed abógin. he shifted, jumped up, and looked over the coachman's shoulder. and when at last the carriage stopped before steps handsomely covered with striped drugget, he looked up at the lighted windows of the second story, and panted audibly. "if anything happens ... i will never survive it," he said, entering the hall with kiríloff, and rubbing his hands in agitation. but after listening a moment, he added, "there is no confusion ... things must be going well." in the hall were neither voices nor footsteps, and the whole house, notwithstanding its brilliant lights, seemed asleep. only now, for the first time, the doctor and abógin, after their sojourn in darkness, could see one another plainly. kiríloff was tall, round-shouldered, and ugly, and was carelessly dressed. his thick, almost negro, lips, his eagle nose, and his withered, indifferent glance, expressed something cutting, unkindly, and rude. his uncombed hair, his sunken temples, the premature grey in the long, narrow beard, through which appeared his chin, the pale grey of his skin, and his careless, angular manners, all reflected a career of need endured, of misfortune, of weariness with life and with men. judging by his dry figure, no one would ever believe that this man had a wife, and that he had wept over his child. abógin was a contrast. he was a thick-set, solid blond, with a big head, with heavy but soft features; and he was dressed elegantly and fashionably. from his carriage, from his closely-buttoned frock-coat, from his mane of hair, and from his face, flowed something noble and leonine; he walked with his head erect and his chest expanded, he spoke in an agreeable baritone, and the way in which he took off his muffler and smoothed his hair breathed a delicate, feminine elegance. even his pallor, and the childish terror with which, while taking off his coat, he looked up the staircase, did not detract from his dignity, or diminish the satiety, health, and aplomb which his whole figure breathed. "there is no one about ... i can hear nothing," he said, going upstairs. "there is no confusion.... god is merciful!" he led the doctor through the hall into a great drawing-room, with a black piano, and lustres in white covers. from this they went into a small, cosy, and well-furnished dining-room, full of a pleasant, rosy twilight. "wait a moment," said abógin, "i shall be back immediately. i will look around and tell them you are here...." kiríloff remained alone. the luxury of the room, the pleasant twilight, and even his presence in the unknown house of a stranger, which had the character of an adventure, apparently did not affect him. he lay back in the armchair and examined his hands, burnt with carbolic acid. only faintly could he see the bright red lamp shade and a violoncello case. but looking at the other side of the room, where ticked a clock, he noticed a stuffed wolf, as solid and sated as abógin himself. not a sound.... then in a distant room someone loudly ejaculated "ah!"; a glass door, probably the door of a wardrobe, closed ... and again all was silent. after waiting a moment kiríloff ceased to examine his hands, and raised his eyes upon the door through which abógin had gone. on the threshold stood abógin. but it was not the abógin who had left the room. the expression of satiety, the delicate elegance had vanished; his face, his figure, his pose were contorted by a repulsive expression not quite of terror, not quite of physical pain. his nose, his lips, his moustaches, all his features twitched; it seemed they wished to tear themselves off his face; and his eyes were transfigured as if from torture. abógin walked heavily into the middle of the room, bent himself in two, groaned, and shook his fists. "deceived!" he shouted, with a strong hissing accentuation of the second syllable. "cheated! gone! got ill, and sent for a doctor, only to fly with that buffoon paptchinski! my god!" abógin walked heavily up to the doctor, stretched up to his face his white, soft fists, and, shaking them, continued in a howl: "gone! deceived! but why this extra lie? my god! my god! but why this filthy swindler's trick, this devilish reptile play? what have i ever done? gone!" the tears burst from his eyes. he turned on one foot and walked up and down the room. and now in his short coat, in the narrow, fashionable trousers, which made his legs seem too thin for his body, with his great head and mane, he still more closely resembled a lion. on the doctor's indifferent face appeared curiosity. he rose and looked at abógin. "be so good as to tell me ... where is the patient?" "patient! patient!" cried abógin, with a laugh, a sob, and a shaking of his fists. "this is no sick woman, but a woman accursed! meanness, baseness, lower than satan himself could have conceived! sent for a doctor, to fly with him--to fly with that buffoon, that clown, that alphonse. oh, god, better a thousand times that she had died! i cannot bear it.... i cannot bear it!" the doctor drew himself up. his eyes blinked and filled with team, his narrow beard moved to the right and to the left in accord with the movement of his jaws. "be so good as to inform me what is the meaning of this?" he asked, looking around him in curiosity. "my child lies dead, my wife in despair is left alone in a great house. i myself can hardly stand on my feet, for three nights i have not slept, and what is this? am brought here to play in some trivial comedy, to take the part of a property-man.... i don't understand it!" abógin opened one of his fists, flung upon the floor a crumpled paper, and trod on it as upon an insect which he wished to crush. "and i never saw it! i never understood!" he said through his clenched teeth, shaking one of his fists beside his face, with an expression as if someone had trod upon a corn. "i never noticed that he rode here every day, never noticed that to-day he came in a carriage! why in a carriage? and i never noticed! fool!" "i don't understand ... i really don't understand," stammered kiríloff. "what is the meaning of this? this is practical joking at the expense of another ... it is mocking at human suffering. it is impossible. ... i have never heard of such a thing!" with the dull astonishment depicted on his face of a man who is only beginning to understand that he has been badly insulted, the doctor shrugged his shoulders, and not knowing what to say, threw himself in exhaustion into the chair. "got tired of me, loved another! well, god be with them! but why this deception, why this base, this traitorous trick?" cried abógin in a whining voice. "why? for what? what have i done to her? listen, doctor," he said passionately, coming nearer to kiríloff. "you are the involuntary witness of my misfortune, and i will not conceal from you the truth. i swear to you that i loved that woman, that i loved her to adoration, that i was her slave. for her i gave up everything; i quarrelled with my parents, i threw up my career and my music, i forgave her what i could not have forgiven in my own mother or sister.... i have never said an unkind word to her.... i gave her no cause! but why this lie? i do not ask for love, but why this shameless deception p if a woman doesn't love, then let her say so openly, honestly, all the more since she knew my views on that subject...." with tears in his eyes, and with his body trembling all over, abógin sincerely poured forth to the doctor his whole soul. he spoke passionately, with both hands pressed to his heart, he revealed family secrets without a moment's hesitation; and, it seemed, was even relieved when these secrets escaped him. had he spoken thus for an hour, for two hours, and poured out his soul, he would certainly have felt better. who knows whether the doctor might not have listened to him, sympathised with him as a friend, and, even without protest, become reconciled to his own unhappiness.... but it happened otherwise. while abógin spoke, the insulted doctor changed. the indifference and surprise on his face gave way little by little to an expression of bitter offence, indignation, and wrath. his features became sharper, harder, and more disagreeable. and finally when abógin held before his eyes the photograph of a young woman with a face handsome but dry and inexpressive as a nun's, and asked him could he, looking at this photograph, imagine that she was capable of telling a lie, the doctor suddenly leaped up, averted his eyes, and said, rudely ringing out every word: "what do you mean by talking to me like this? i don't want to hear you! i will not listen!" he shouted and banged his fist upon the table. "what have i to do with your stupid secrets, devil take them! you dare to communicate to me these base trifles! do you not see that i have already been insulted enough? am i a lackey who will bear insults without retaliation?" abógin staggered backwards, and looked at kiríloff in amazement. "why did you bring me here?" continued the doctor, shaking his beard.... "if you marry filth, then storm with your filth, and play your melodramas; but what affair is that of mine? what have i to do with your romances? leave me alone! display your well-born meanness, show off your humane ideas, (the doctor pointed to the violoncello case) play on your double basses and trombones, get as fat as a capon, but do not dare to mock the personality of another! if you cannot respect it, then rid it of your detestable attention!" abógin reddened. "what does all this mean?" he asked. "it means this: that it is base and infamous to play practical jokes on other men. i am a doctor; you regard doctors and all other working men who do not smell of scent and prostitution as your lackeys and your servants. but reflect, reflect--no one has i given you the right to make a property man of a suffering human being!" "you dare to speak this to me?" said abógin; and his face again twitched, this time plainly from anger. "yes ... and you, knowing of the misery in my home, have dared to drag me here to witness this insanity," cried the doctor, again banging his fist upon the table. "who gave you the right to mock at human misfortune?" "you are out of your mind," said abógin. "you are not generous. i also am deeply unhappy, and...." "unhappy!" cried kiríloff, with a contemptuous laugh. "do not touch that word; it ill becomes you. oafs who have no money to meet their bills also call themselves unfortunate. geese that are stuffed with too much fat are also unhappy. insignificant curs!" "you forget yourself, you forget yourself!" screamed abógin. "for words like those ... people are horsewhipped. do you hear me?" he suddenly thrust his hand into his side pocket, took out a pocket-book, and taking two bank-notes, flung them on the table. "there you have the money for your visit!" he said, dilating his nostrils. "you are paid!" "do not dare to offer money to me," cried kiríloff, sweeping the notes on to the floor. "for insults money is not the payment." the two men stood face to face, and in their anger flung insults at one another. it is certain that never in their lives had they uttered so many unjust, inhuman, and ridiculous words. in each was fully expressed the egoism of the unfortunate. and men who are unfortunate, egoistical, angry, unjust, and heartless are even less than stupid men capable of understanding one another. for misfortune does not unite, but severs; and those who should be bound by community of sorrow are much more unjust and heartless than the happy and contented. "be so good as to send me home!" cried the doctor at last. abógin rang sharply. receiving no answer he rang again, and angrily flung the bell upon the floor; it fell heavily on the carpet and emitted a plaintive and ominous sound.... a footman appeared. "where have you been hiding yourself? may satan take you!" roared abógin, rushing at him with clenched fists. "where have you been? go, tell them at once to give this gentleman the calêche, and get the carriage ready for me!... stop!" he cried, when the servant turned to go. "to-morrow let none of you traitors remain in this house! the whole pack of you! i will get others! curs!" awaiting their carriages, abógin and kiríloff were silent. the first had already regained his expression of satiety and his delicate elegance. he walked up and down the room, shook his head gracefully, and apparently thought something out. his anger had not yet evaporated, but he tried to look as if he did not notice his enemy.... the doctor stood, with one hand on the edge of the table, and looked at abógin with deep, somewhat cynical and ugly contempt--with the eyes of sorrow and misfortune when they see before them satiety and elegance. when, after a short delay, the doctor took his seat in the calêche, his eyes retained their contemptuous look. it was dark, much darker than an hour before. the red half-moon had fallen below the hill, and the clouds that had guarded it lay in black spots among the stars. a carriage with red lamps rattled along the road, and overtook kiríloff. it was abógin, driving away to protest ... and make a fool of himself.... and all the way home kiríloff thought, not of his wife or of dead andreï, but of abógin and of the people who lived in the house which he had just left. his thoughts were unjust, heartless, inhuman. he condemned abógin and his wife, and paptchinski, and all that class of persons who live in a rosy twilight and smell of perfumes; all the way he hated and despised them to the point of torture; and his mind was full of unshakeable convictions as to the worthlessness of such people. time will pass; the sorrow of kiríloff will pass away also, but this conviction--unjust, unworthy of a human heart--will never pass away, and will remain with the doctor to the day of his death. sleepyhead night. nursemaid varka, aged thirteen, rocks the cradle where baby lies, and murmurs almost inaudibly: "bayú, bayúshki, bayú! nurse will sing a song to you!..." in front of the ikon burns a green lamp; across the room from wall to wall stretches a cord on which hang baby-clothes and a great pair of black trousers. on the ceiling above the lamp shines a great green spot, and the baby-clothes and trousers cast long shadows on the stove, on the cradle, on varka.... when the lamp flickers, the spot and shadows move as if from a draught. it is stifling. there is a smell of soup and boots. the child cries. it has long been hoarse and weak from crying, but still it cries, and who can say when it will be comforted p and varka wants to sleep. her eyelids droop, her head hangs, her neck pains her.... she can hardly move her eyelids or her lips, and it seems to her that her face is sapless and petrified, and that her head has shrivelled up to the size of a pinhead. "_bayú, bayúshki, bayú!_" she murmurs, "nurse is making pap for you...." in the stove chirrups a cricket. in the next room behind that door snore varka's master and the journeyman athanasius. the cradle creaks plaintively, varka murmurs--and the two sounds mingle soothingly in a lullaby sweet to the ears of those who lie in bed. but now the music is only irritating and oppressive, for it inclines to sleep, and sleep is impossible. if varka, which god forbid, were to go to sleep, her master and mistress would beat her. the lamp flickers. the green spot and the shadows move about, they pass into the half-open, motionless eyes of varka, and in her half-awakened brain blend in misty images. she sees dark clouds chasing one another across the sky and crying like the child. and then a wind blows; the clouds vanish; and varka sees a wide road covered with liquid mud; along the road stretch waggons, men with satchels on their backs crawl along, and shadows move backwards and forwards; on either side through the chilly, thick mist are visible hills. and suddenly the men with the satchels, and the shadows collapse in the liquid mud. "why is this?" asks varka. "to sleep, to sleep!" comes the answer. and they sleep soundly, sleep sweetly; and on the telegraph wires perch crows, and cry like the child, and try to awaken them. "_bayú, bayúshki, bayú._ nurse will sing a song to you," murmurs varka; and now she sees herself in a dark and stifling cabin. on the floor lies her dead father, yéfim stépanoff. she cannot see him, but she hears him rolling from side to side, and groaning. in his own words he "has had a rupture." the pain is so intense that he cannot utter a single word, and only inhales air and emits through his lips a drumming sound. "bu, bu, bu, bu, bu...." mother pelageya has run to the manor-house to tell the squire that yéfim is dying. she has been gone a long time ... will she ever return? varka lies on the stove, and listens to her father's "bu, bu, bu, bu.'" and then someone drives up to the cabin door. it is the doctor, sent from the manor-house where he is staying as a guest. the doctor comes into the hut; in the darkness he is invisible, but varka can hear him coughing and hear the creaking of the door. "bring a light!" he says. "bu, bu, bu," answers yéfim. pelageya runs to the stove and searches for a jar of matches. a minute passes in silence. the doctor dives into his pockets and lights a match himself. "immediately, batiushka, immediately!" cries pelageya, running out of the cabin. in a minute she returns with a candle end. yéfim's cheeks are flushed, his eyes sparkle, and his look is piercing, as if he could see through the doctor and the cabin wall. "well, what's the matter with you?" asks the doctor, bending over him. "ah! you have been like this long?" "what's the matter? the time has come, your honour, to die.... i shall not live any longer...." "nonsense.... we'll soon cure you!" "as you will, your honour. thank you humbly ... only we understand.... if we must die, we must die...." half an hour the doctor spends with yéfim; then he rises and says: "i can do nothing.... you must go to the hospital; there they will operate on you. you must go at once ... without fail! it is late, and they will all be asleep at the hospital ... but never mind, i will give you a note.... do you hear?" "_batiushka_, how can he go to the hospital?" asks pelageya. "we have no horse." "never mind, i will speak to the squire, he will lend you one." the doctor leaves, the light goes out, and again varka hears: "bu, bu, bu." in half an hour someone drives up to the cabin.... this is the cart for yéfim to go to hospital in.... yéfim gets ready and goes.... and now comes a clear and fine morning. pelageya is not at home; she has gone to the hospital to find out how yéfim is.... there is a child crying, and varka hears someone singing with her own voice: "_bayú, bayúshki, bayú_, nurse will sing a song to you...." pelageya returns, she crosses herself and whispers: "last night he was better, towards morning he gave his soul to god.... heavenly kingdom, eternal rest! ... they say we brought him too late.... we should have done it sooner...." varka goes into the wood, and cries, and suddenly someone slaps her on the nape of the neck with such force that her forehead bangs against a birch tree. she lifts her head, and sees before her her master, the shoemaker. "what are you doing, scabby?" he asks. "the child is crying and you are asleep." he gives her a slap on the ear; and she shakes her head, rocks the cradle, and murmurs her lullaby. the green spot, the shadows from the trousers and the baby-clothes, tremble, wink at her, and soon again possess her brain. again she sees a road covered with liquid mud. men with satchels on their backs, and shadows lie down and sleep soundly. when she looks at them varka passionately desires to sleep; she would lie down with joy; but mother pelageya comes along and hurries her. they are going into town to seek situations. "give me a kopeck for the love of christ," says her mother to everyone she meets. "show the pity of god, merciful gentleman!" "give me here the child," cries a well-known voice. "give me the child," repeats the same voice, but this time angrily and sharply. "you are asleep, beast!" varka jumps up, and looking around her remembers where she is; there is neither road, nor pelageya, nor people, but only, standing in the middle of the room, her mistress who has come to feed the child. while the stout, broad-shouldered woman feeds and soothes the baby, varka stands still, looks at her, and waits till she has finished. and outside the window the air grows blue, the shadows fade and the green spot on the ceiling pales. it will soon be morning. "take it," says her mistress buttoning her nightdress. "it is crying. the evil eye is upon it!" varka takes the child, lays it in the cradle, and again begins rocking. the shadows and the green spot fade away, and there is nothing now to set her brain going. but, as before, she wants to sleep, wants passionately to sleep. varka lays her head on the edge of the cradle and rocks it with her whole body so as to drive away sleep; but her eyelids droop again, and her head is heavy. "varka, light the stove!" rings the voice of her master from behind the door. that is to say: it is at last time to get up and begin the day's work. varka leaves the cradle, and runs to the shed for wood. she is delighted. when she runs or walks she does not feel the want of sleep as badly as when she is sitting down. she brings in wood, lights the stove, and feels how her petrified face is waking up, and how her thoughts are clearing. "varka, get ready the samovar!" cries her mistress. varka cuts splinters of wood, and has hardly lighted them and laid them in the samovar when another order conies: "varka, clean your master's goloshes!" varka sits on the floor, cleans the goloshes, and thinks how delightful it would be to thrust her head into the big, deep golosh, and slumber in it awhile. ... and suddenly the golosh grows, swells, and fills the whole room. varka drops the brush, but immediately shakes her head, distends her eyes, and tries to look at things as if they had not grown and did not move in her eyes. "varka, wash the steps outside ... the customers will be scandalised!" varka cleans the steps, tidies the room, and then lights another stove and runs into the shop. there is much work to be done, and not a moment free. but nothing is so tiresome as to stand at the kitchen-table and peel potatoes. varka's head falls on the table, the potatoes glimmer in her eyes, the knife drops from her hand, and around her bustles her stout, angry mistress with sleeves tucked up, and talks so loudly that her voice rings in varka's ears. it is torture, too, to wait at table, to wash up, and to sew. there are moments when she wishes, notwithstanding everything around her, to throw herself on the floor and sleep. the day passes. and watching how the windows darken, varka presses her petrified temples, and smiles, herself not knowing why. the darkness caresses her drooping eyelids, and promises a sound sleep soon. but towards evening the bootmaker's rooms are full of visitors. "varka, prepare the samovar!" cries her mistress. it is a small samovar, and before the guests are tired of drinking tea, it has to be filled and heated five times. after tea varka stands a whole hour on one spot, looks at the guests, and waits for orders. "varka, run and buy three bottles of beer!" varka jumps from her place, and tries to run as quickly as possible so as to drive away sleep. "varka, go for vodka! varka, where is the corkscrew? varka, clean the herrings!" at last the guests are gone; the fires are extinguished; master and mistress go to bed. "varka, rock the cradle!" echoes the last order. in the stove chirrups a cricket; the green spot on the ceiling, and the shadows from the trousers and baby-clothes again twinkle before varka's half-opened eyes, they wink at her, and obscure her brain. "_bayú, bayúshki, bayú_," she murmurs, "nurse will sing a song to you...." but the child cries and wearies itself with crying. varka sees again the muddy road, the men with satchels, pelageya, and father yéfim. she remembers, she recognises them all, but in her semi-slumber she cannot understand the force which binds her, hand and foot, and crushes her, and ruins her life. she looks around her, and seeks that force that she may rid herself of it. but she cannot find it. and at last, tortured, she strains all her strength and sight; she looks upward at the winking green spot, and as she hears the cry of the baby, she finds the enemy who is crushing her heart. the enemy is the child. varka laughs. she is astonished. how was it that never before could she understand such a simple thing? the green spot, the shadows, and the cricket, it seems, all smile and are surprised at it. an idea takes possession of varka. she rises from the stool, and, smiling broadly with unwinking eyes, walks up and down the room. she is delighted and touched by the thought that she will soon be delivered from the child who has bound her, hand and foot. to kill the child, and then to sleep, sleep, sleep.... and smiling and blinking and threatening the green spot with her fingers, varka steals to the cradle and bends over the child.... and having smothered the child she drops on the floor, and, laughing with joy at the thought that she can sleep, in a moment sleeps as soundly as the dead child. at the manor pavel ilitch rashevitch marched up and down the room, stepping softly on the little russian parquet, and casting a long shadow on the walls and ceiling; and his visitor, monsieur meyer, examining magistrate, sat on a turkish divan, with one leg bent under him, smoked, and listened. it was eleven o'clock, and from the next room came the sound of preparations for supper. "i don't dispute it for a moment!" said rashevitch. "from the point of view of fraternity, equality, and all that sort of thing the swineherd mitka is as good a man as goethe or frederick the great. but look at it from the point of view of science; have the courage to look actuality straight in the face, and you cannot possibly deny that the white bone[ ] is not a prejudice, not a silly woman's invention. the white bone, my friend, has a natural-historical justification, and to deny it, in my mind, is as absurd as to deny the antlers of a stag. look at it as a question of fact! you are a jurist, and never studied anything except the humanities, so you may well deceive yourself with illusions as to equality, fraternity, and that sort of thing. but, on my side, i am an incorrigible darwinian, and for me such words as race, aristocracy, noble blood are no empty sounds." rashevitch was aroused, and spoke with feeling. his eyes glittered, his pince-nez jumped off his nose, he twitched his shoulders nervously, and at the word "darwinian" glanced defiantly at the mirror, and with his two hands divided his grey beard. he wore a short, well-worn jacket, and narrow trousers; but the rapidity of his movements and the smartness of the short jacket did not suit him at all, and his big, longhaired, handsome head, which reminded one of a bishop or a venerable poet, seemed to be set on the body of a tall, thin, and affected youth. when he opened his legs widely, his long shadow resembled a pair of scissors. as a rule he loved the sound of his own voice; and it always seemed to him that he was saying something new and original. in the presence of meyer he felt an unusual elevation of spirits and flow of thought. he liked the magistrate, who enlivened him by his youthful ways, his health, his fine manners, his solidity, and, even more, by the kindly relations which he had established with the family. speaking generally, rashevitch was not a favourite with his acquaintances. they avoided him, and he knew it. they declared that he had driven his wife into the grave with his perpetual talk, and called him, almost to his face, a beast and a toad. meyer alone, being an unprejudiced new-corner, visited him often and willingly, and had even been heard to say that rashevitch and his daughters were the only persons in the district with whom he felt at home. and rashevitch reciprocated his esteem--all the more sincerely because meyer was a young man, and an excellent match for his elder daughter, zhenya. and now, enjoying his thoughts and the sound of his own voice, and looking with satisfaction at the stout, well-groomed, respectable figure of his visitor, rashevitch reflected how he would settle zhenya for life as the wife of a good man, and, in addition, transfer all the work of managing the estate to his son-in-law's shoulders. it was not particularly agreeable work. the interest had not been paid into the bank for more than two terms, and the various arrears and penalties amounted to over twenty thousand roubles. "there can hardly be a shadow of doubt," continued rashevitch, becoming more and more possessed by his subject, "that if some richard the lion-hearted or frederick barbarossa, for instance, a man courageous and magnanimous, has a son, his good qualities will be inherited by the son, together with his bumps; and if this courage and magnanimity are fostered in the son by education and exercise, and he marries a princess also courageous and magnanimous, then these qualities will be transmitted to the grandson, and so on, until they become peculiarities of the species, and descend organically, so to speak, in flesh and blood. thanks to severe sexual selection, thanks to the fact that noble families instinctively preserve themselves from base alliances, and that young people of position do not marry the devil knows whom, their high spiritual qualities have reproduced themselves from generation to generation, they have been perpetuated, and in the course of ages have become even more perfect and loftier. for all that is good in humanity we are indebted to nature, to the regular, natural-historical, expedient course of things, strenuously in the course of centuries separating the white bone from the black. yes, my friend! it is not the potboy's child, the cookmaid's brat who has given us literature, science, art, justice, the ideas of honour and of duty.... for all these, humanity is indebted exclusively to the white bone; and in this sense, from the point of view of natural history, worthless sobakevitch,[ ] merely because he is a white bone, is a million times higher and more useful than the best tradesman, let him endow fifty museums! you may say what you like, but if i refuse to give my hand to the potboy's or the cookmaid's son, by that refusal i preserve from stain the best that is on the earth, and subserve one of the highest destinies of mother nature, leading us to perfection...." rashevitch stood still, and smoothed down his beard with both hands. his scissors-like shadow stood still also. "take our dear mother russia!" he continued, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and balancing himself alternately on toes and heels. "who are our best people? take our first-class artists, authors, composers.... who are they? all these, my dear sir, are representatives of the white bone. pushkin, gogol, lermontoff, turgenieff, tolstoy.... were these cook-maids' children?" "gontcharoff was a tradesman," said meyer. "what does that prove? the exception, my friend, proves the rule. and as to the genius of gontcharoff there can be two opinions. but let us leave names and return to facts. tell me how you can reply, sir, to the eloquent fact that when the potboy climbs to a higher place than he was born in--when he reaches eminence in literature, in science, in local government, in law--what have you to say to the fact that nature herself intervenes on behalf of the most sacred human rights, and declares war against him? as a matter of fact, hardly has the potboy succeeded in stepping into other people's shoes when he begins to languish, wither, go out of his mind, and degenerate; and nowhere will you meet so many dwarfs, psychical cripples, consumptives, and starvelings as among these gentry. they die away like flies in autumn. and it is a good thing. if it were not for this salutary degeneration, not one stone of our civilisation would remain upon another--the potboy would destroy it all.... be so good as to tell me, please, what this invasion has given us up to the present time? what has the potboy brought with him?" rashevitch made a mysterious, frightened face, and continued: "never before did our science and literature find themselves at such a low ebb as now. the present generation, sir, has neither ideas nor ideals, and all its activity is restricted to an attempt to tear the last shirt off someone else's back. all your present-day men who give themselves out as progressive and incorruptible may be bought for a silver rouble; and modern intelligent society is distinguished by only one thing, that is, that if you mix in it you must keep your hand on your pocket, else it will steal your purse." rashevitch blinked and smiled. "steal your purse!" he repeated, with a happy laugh. "and morals? what morals have we?" rashevitch glanced at the door. "you can no longer be surprised if your wife robs you and abandons you--that is a mere trifle. at the present day, my friend, every twelve-year-old girl looks out for a lover; and all these amateur theatricals and literary evenings are invented only for the purpose of catching rich parvenus as sweethearts. mothers sell their daughters, husbands are asked openly at what price they will sell their wives, and you may even trade, my friend,..." up to this meyer had said nothing, and sat motionless. now he rose from the sofa, and looked at the clock. "excuse me, pavel ilitch," he said, "but it's time for me to go." but rashevitch, who had not finished, took him by the arm, set him down forcibly upon the sofa, and swore he should not leave the house without supper. meyer again sat motionless and listened; but soon began to look at rashevitch with an expression of doubt and alarm, as if he were only just beginning to understand his character. when at last the maid entered, saying that the young ladies had sent her to say that supper was ready, he sighed faintly, and went out of the study first. in the dining-room, already at table, sat rashevitch's daughters, zhenya and iraida, respectively aged twenty-four and twenty-two. they were of equal stature, and both black-eyed and very pale. zhenya had her hair down, but iraida's was twisted into a high top-knot. before eating anything each drank a glass of spirits, with an expression meant to imply that they were drinking accidentally, and for the first time in their lives. after this they looked confused, and tittered. "don't be silly, girls!" said rashevitch. zhenya and iraida spoke french to one another and russian to their father and the visitor.... interrupting one another, and mixing french and russian, they began to remark that just at this time of the year, that is in august, they used to leave home for the institute. how jolly that was! but now there was no place to go to for a change, and they lived at the manor-house winter and summer. how tiresome! "don't be silly, girls!" repeated rashevitch. "in short, that is exactly how things stand," he said, looking affectionately at the magistrate. "we, in the goodness and simplicity of our hearts, and from fear of being suspected of retrograde tendencies, fraternise--excuse the expression--with all kinds of human trash, and preach equality and fraternity with upstarts and _nouveaux riches_! yet if we paused to reflect for a single minute we should see how criminal is our kindness. for all that our ancestors attained to in the course of centuries will be derided and destroyed in a single day by these modern huns." after supper all went into the drawing-room. zhenya and iraida lighted the piano candles and got ready their music.... but their parent continued to hold forth, and there was no knowing when he would end. bored and irritated, they looked at their egoist father, for whom, they concluded, the satisfaction of chattering and showing off his brains, was dearer than the future happiness of his daughters. here was meyer, the only young man who frequented the house--for the sake, they knew, of tender feminine society--yet the unwearying old man kept possession of him, and never let him escape for a moment. "just as western chivalry repelled the onslaught of the mongols, so must we, before it is too late, combine and strike together at the enemy." rashevitch spoke apostolically, and lifted his right hand on high. "let me appear before the potboy no longer as plain pavel ilitch, but as a strong and menacing richard the lion-heart! fling your scruples behind you--enough! let us swear a sacred compact that when the potboy approaches we will fling him words of contempt straight in the face! hands off! back to your pots! straight in the face!" in ecstacy, rashevitch thrust out a bent forefinger, and repeated: "straight in the face! in the face! in the face!" meyer averted his eyes. "i cannot tolerate this any longer!" he said. "and may i ask why?" asked rashevitch, scenting the beginnings of a prolonged and interesting argument. "because i myself am the son of an artisan." and having so spoken, meyer reddened, his neck seemed to swell, and tears sparkled in his eyes.. "my father was a plain working man," he said in an abrupt, broken voice. "but i can see nothing bad in that." rashevitch was thunderstruck. in his confusion he looked as if he had been detected in a serious crime; he looked at meyer with a dumfounded face, and said not a word. zhenya and iraida blushed, and bent over their music. they were thoroughly ashamed of their tactless father. a minute passed in silence, and the situation was becoming unbearable when suddenly a sickly, strained voice--it seemed utterly mal à propos--stammered forth the words: "yes, i am a tradesman's son, and i am proud of it." and meyer, awkwardly stumbling over the furniture, said good-bye, and walked quickly into the hall, although the trap had not been ordered. "you will have a dark drive," stammered rashevitch, going after him. "the moon rises late to-night." they stood on the steps in the darkness and waited for the horses. it was cold. "did you see the falling star?" asked meyer, buttoning his overcoat. "in august falling stars are very plentiful." when at last the trap drove round to the door, rashevitch looked attentively at the heavens, and said, with a sigh: "a phenomenon worthy of the pen of flammarion...." having parted from his guest, he walked up and down the garden, and tried to persuade himself that such a stupid misunderstanding had not really taken place. he was angry, and ashamed of himself. in the first place, he knew that it was extremely tactless and incautious to raise this accursed conversation about the white bone without knowing anything of the origin of his guest. he told himself, with perfect justice, that for him there was no excuse, for he had had a lesson before, having once in a railway carriage set about abusing germans to fellow-passengers who, it turned out, were themselves germans.... and in the second place he was convinced that meyer would come no more. these intellectuels who have sprung from the people are sensitive, vain, obstinate, and revengeful. "it is a bad business ... bad ... bad!" he muttered, spitting; he felt awkward and disgusted, as if he had just eaten soap. "it is a bad business!" through the open window he could see into the drawing-room where zhenya with her hair down, pale and frightened, spoke excitedly to her sister.... iraida walked from corner to corner, apparently lost in thought; and then began to speak, also excitedly and with an indignant face. then both spoke together. rashevitch could not distinguish a word, but he knew too well the subject of their conversation. zhenya was grumbling that her father with his eternal chattering drove every decent man from the house, and had to-day robbed them of their last acquaintance, it might have been husband; and now the poor young man could not find a place in the whole district wherein to rest his soul. and iraida, if judged correctly from the despairing way in which she raised her arms, lamented bitterly their wearisome life at home and their ruined youth. going up to his bedroom, rashevitch sat on the bed and undressed himself slowly. he felt that he was a persecuted man, and was tormented by the same feeling as though he had eaten soap. he was thoroughly ashamed of himself. when he had undressed he gazed sadly at his long, veined, old-man's legs, and remembered that in the country round he was nicknamed "the toad," and that never a conversation passed without making him ashamed of himself. by some extraordinary fatality every discussion ended badly. he began softly, kindly, with good intentions, and called himself genially an "old student," an "idealist," a "don quixote." but gradually, and unnoticed by himself, he passed on to abuse and calumny, and, what is more surprising, delivered himself of sincere criticisms of science, art, and morals, although it was twenty years since he had read a book, been farther than the government town, or had any channel for learning what was going on in the world around him. even when he sat down to write a congratulatory letter he invariably ended by abusing something or somebody. and as he reflected upon this, it seemed all the more strange, since he knew himself in reality to be a sensitive, lachrymose old man. it seemed almost as if he were possessed by an unclean spirit which filled him against his will with hatred and grumbling. "a bad business!" he sighed, getting into bed. "a bad business!" his daughters also could not sleep. laughter and lamentation resounded through the house. zhenya was in hysterics. shortly afterwards iraida also began to cry. more than once the barefooted housemaid ran up and down the corridor. "what a scandal!" muttered rashevitch, sighing, and turning uneasily from side to side. "a bad business!" he slept, but nightmare gave him no peace. he thought that he was standing in the middle of the room, naked, and tall as a giraffe, thrusting out his forefinger, and saying: "in the face! in the face! in the face!" he awoke in terror, and the first thing he remembered was, that last evening a serious misunderstanding had occurred, and that meyer would never visit him again. he remembered then that the interest had to be lodged in the bonk, that he must find husbands for his daughters, and that he must eat and drink. he remembered sickness, old age, and unpleasantness; that winter would soon be upon him, and that there was no wood.... at nine o'clock he dressed slowly, then drank some tea and ate two large slices of bread and butter.... his daughters did not come down to breakfast, they did not wish to see his face; and this offended him. for a time he lay upon the study sofa, and then sat at his writing-table and began to write a letter to his daughters. his hand trembled and his eyes itched. he wrote that he was now old, that nobody wanted him, and that nobody loved him; so he begged his children to forget him, and when he died, to bury him in a plain, deal coffin, without ceremony, or to send his body to kharkoff for dissection in the anatomical theatre. he felt that every line breathed malice and affectation ... but he could not stop himself, and wrote on and on and on.... "the toad!" rang a voice from the next room; it was the voice of his elder daughter, an indignant, hissing voice. "the toad!" "the toad!" repeated the younger in echo. "the toad!" [footnote : blue blood.] [footnote : sobakevitch, a stupid, coarse country gentleman, is one of the heroes of gogol's celebrated novel _dead souls_.] an event morning. through the frosty lacework which covered the window-panes a host of bright sun-rays burst into the nursery. vanya, a boy of six, with a nose like a button, and his sister nina, aged four, curly-headed, chubby, and small for her age, awoke, and glared angrily at one another through the bars of their cots. "fie!" cried nurse. "for shame, children! all the good people have finished breakfast, and you can't keep your eyes open...." the sun-rays played merrily on the carpet, on the walls, on nurse's skirt, and begged the children to play with them. but the children took no notice. they had awakened on the wrong side of their beds. nina pouted, made a wry face, and drawled: "te-ea! nurse, te-ea!" vanya frowned, and looked about for an opportunity to pick a quarrel and roar. he had just blinked his eyes and opened his mouth, when out of the diningroom rang mother's voice: "don't forget to give the cat milk; she has got kittens." vanya and nina lengthened their faces and looked questioningly at one another. then both screamed, jumped out of bed, and, making the air ring with deafening yells, ran barefooted in their nightdresses into the kitchen. "the cat's got kittens! the cat's got kittens!" they screamed. in the kitchen under a bench stood a small box, a box which stepan used for coke when he lighted the stove. out of this box gazed the cat. her grey face expressed extreme exhaustion, her green eyes with their little black pupils looked languishing and sentimental. ... from her face it was plain that to complete her happiness only one thing was lacking, and that was the presence of the father of her children, to whom she had given herself heart and soul. she attempted to mew, and opened her mouth wide, but only succeeded in making a hissing sound.... the kittens squealed. the children squatted on the ground in front of the box, and, without moving, but holding their breath, looked at the cat.... they were astonished and thunderstruck, and did not hear the grumbling of the pursuing nurse. in the eyes of both shone sincere felicity. in the up-bringing of children, domestic animals play an unnoticed but unquestionably beneficent part. which of us cannot remember strong but magnanimous dogs, lazy lapdogs, birds who died in captivity, dull-witted but haughty turkey-cocks, kindly old-lady-cats who forgave us when we stood on their tails for a joke and caused them intense pain? it might even be argued that the patience, faithfulness, all-forgivingness and sincerity of our domestic animals act on the childish brain much more powerfully than the long lectures of dry and pale earl earlovitch, or the obscure explanations of the governess who tries to prove to children that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. "what duckies!" cried nina, overflowing with gay laughter. "they're exactly like mice!" "one, two, three!" counted vanya. "three kittens. that is one for me, one for you, and one for somebody else." "murrrrm ... murrrrm," purred the mother, flattered by so much attention. "murrrrm!" when they had looked for a while at the kittens, the children took them from under the cat and began to smooth them down, and afterwards, not satisfied with this, laid them in the skirts of their nightdresses and ran from one room to another. "mamma, the cat's got kittens!" they cried. mother sat in the dining-room, talking to a stranger. when she saw her children unwashed, undressed, with their nightdresses on high, she got red, and looked at them severely. "drop your nightdresses, shameless!" she said. "run away at once, or you'll be punished." but the children paid no attention either to their mother's threats or to the presence of the stranger. they put the kittens down on the carpet and raised a deafening howl. beside them walked the old cat, and mewed imploringly. when in a few minutes the children were dragged off to the nursery to dress, say their prayers, and have their breakfast, they were full of a passionate wish to escape from these prosaic duties and return to the kitchen. ordinary occupations and games were quite forgotten. from the moment of their appearance in the world the kittens obscured everything, and took their place as the living novelty and heart-swelling of the day. if you had offered vanya or nina a bushel of sweets for each kitten, or a thousand threepenny-bits, they would have rejected the offer without a moment's hesitation. till dinner-time, in spite of the warm protests of nurse and the cook, they sat in the kitchen and played with the kittens. their faces were serious, concentrated, and expressive of anxiety. they had to provide not only for the present condition, but also for the future of the kittens. so they decided that one kitten would remain at home with the old cat, so as to console its mother, that the other would be sent to the country-house, and that the third would live in the cellar and eat the rats. "but why can't they see?" asked nina. "they have blind eyes, like beggars." the question troubled vanya. he did his best to open one of the kitten's eyes, for a long time puffed and snuffled, but the operation was fruitless. and another circumstance worried the children extremely--the kittens obstinately refused the proffered meat and milk. everything that was laid before their little snouts was eaten up by their grey mother. "let's build houses for the kittens," proposed vanya. "we will make them live in different houses, and the cat will pay them visits...." in three cornel's of the kitchen they set up old hat-boxes. but the separation of the family seemed premature; the old cat, preserving on her face her former plaintive and sentimental expression, paid visits to all the boxes and took her children home again. "the cat is their mother," said vanya, "but who is their father?" "yes, who is their father?" repeated nina. "they can't live without a father." for a long time vanya and nina discussed the problem, who should be father of the kittens. in the end their choice fell on a big dark-red horse whose tail had been tom off. he had been cast away in the store-room under the staircase, together with the remnants of other toys that had outlived their generation. they took the horse from the store-room and stood it beside the box. "look out!" they warned him. "stand there and see that they behave themselves." all this was said and done in a serious manner, and with an expression of solicitude. outside the box and the kittens, vanya and nina would recognise no other world. their happiness had no bounds. but they were destined to endure moments of unutterable torture. just before dinner vanya sat in his father's study, and looked thoughtfully at the table. near the lamp, across a packet of stamped paper, crawled a kitten. vanya watched its movements attentively, and occasionally poked it in the snout with a pencil.... suddenly, as if springing out of the floor, appeared his father. "what is this?" cried an angry voice. "it is ... it is a kitten, papa." "i'll teach you to bring your kittens here, wretched child! look what you've done! ruined a whole package of paper!" to vanya's astonishment, his father did not share his sympathy with kittens, and, instead of going into raptures and rejoicing, pulled vanya's ear, and cried: "stepan, take away this abomination!" at dinner the scandal was repeated.... during the second course the diners suddenly heard a faint squeal. they began to search for the cause, and found a kitten under nina's pinafore. "ninka! go out of the room!" said her father angrily. "the kittens must be thrown into the sink this minute! i won't tolerate these abominations in the house!" vanya and nina were terror-stricken. death in the sink, apart from its cruelty, threatened to deprive the cat and the wooden horse of their children, to desolate the box, to destroy all their plans for the future--that beautiful future when one kitten would console its old mother, the second live in the country, and the third catch rats in the cellar.... they began to cry, and implored mercy for the kittens. their father consented to spare them, but only on the condition that the children should not dare to go into the kitchen or touch the kittens again. after dinner, vanya and nina wandered from one room to another and languished. the prohibition on going to the kitchen drove them to despair. they refused sweets; and were naughty, and rude to their mother. in the evening when uncle petrusha came they took him aside and complained of their father for threatening to throw the kittens into the sink. "uncle petrusha," they implored, "tell mamma to put the kittens in the nursery.... do!" "well ... all right!" said their uncle, tearing himself away. "agreed!" uncle petrusha seldom came alone. along with him came nero, a big black dog, of danish origin, with hanging ears and a tail as hard as a stick. nero was silent, morose, and altogether taken up with his own dignity. to the children he paid not the slightest attention; and, when he marched past them, knocked his tail against them as if they were chairs. vanya and nina detested him from the bottom of their hearts. but on this occasion practical considerations gained the upper hand over mere sentiment. "do you know what, nina?" said vanya, opening wide his eyes. "let us make nero the father instead of the horse! the horse is dead, but nero's alive." the whole evening they waited impatiently for their father to sit down to his game of _vint_, when they might take nero to the kitchen without being observed.... at last father sat down to his cards, mother bustled around the samovar, and did not see the children.... the happy moment had come! "come!" whispered vanya to his sister. but at that very moment stepan came into the room, and said with a grin: "i beg your pardon, ma'am. nero has eaten the kittens." nina and vanya turned pale, and looked with horror at stepan. "yes, ma'am ..." grinned the servant. "he went straight to the box and gobbled them up." the children expected everyone in the house to rise in alarm and fly at the guilty nero. but their parents sat calmly in their chairs, and only expressed surprise at the appetite of the big dog. father and mother laughed.... nero marched up to the table, flourished his tail, and licked himself complacently. ... only the cat seemed disturbed; she stretched out her tail, and walked about the room looking suspiciously at everyone and mewing plaintively. "now, children, time for bed! ten o'clock!" cried mother. and vanya and nina were put to bed, where they wept over the injured cat, whose life had been desolated by cruel, nasty, unpunished nero. ward no. at the side of the hospital yard stands a large wing, nearly surrounded by a forest of burdocks, nettles, and wild hemp. the roof is red, the chimney is on the point of tumbling, the steps are rotten and overgrown with grass, and of the plaster only traces remain. the front gazes at the hospital, the back looks into the fields, from which it is separated only by a grey, spiked fence. the spikes with their sharp points sticking upwards, the fence, the wing itself, have that melancholy, god-forsaken air which is seen only in hospitals and prisons. if you are not afraid of being stung by nettles, come along the narrow path, and see what is going on inside. open the hall-door and enter the hall. here, against the walls and around the stove, are heaped whole mountains of rubbish. mattresses, old tattered dressing-gowns, trousers, blue-striped shills, worn-out footgear, all good-for-nothing, lie in tangled and crushed heaps, rot, and exhale a suffocating smell. on the top of this rubbish heap, pipe eternally in mouth, lies the watchman nikita, an old soldier. his face is coarse and drink-sodden, his hanging eye-brows give him the appearance of a sheep-dog, he is small and sinewy, but his carriage is impressive and his fists are strong. he belongs to that class of simple, expeditious, positive, and dull persons, who above all things in the world worship order, and find in this a justification of their existence. he beats his charges in the face, in the chest, in the back, in short, wherever his fists chance to strike; and he is convinced that without this beating there would be no order in the universe. after you pass through nikita's hall, you enter the large, roomy dormitory which takes up the rest of the wing. in this room the walls are painted a dirty blue, the ceiling is black with soot like the ceiling of a chimneyless hut; it is plain that in winter the stove smokes, and the air is suffocating. the windows are disfigured with iron bars, the floor is damp and splintered, there is a smell of sour cabbage, a smell of unsnuffed wicks, a smell of bugs and ammonia. and at the moment of entry all these smells produce upon you the impression that you have entered a cage of wild beasts. around the room stand beds, screwed to the floor. sitting or lying on them, dressed in blue dressing-gowns, and wearing nightcaps after the manner of our forefathers, are men. it is the lunatic asylum, and these arc the lunatics. there are only five patients. one is of noble birth, the others arc men of lower origin. the nearest to the door, a tall, thin man of the petty trading class, looks fixedly at one point. he has a red moustache and tear-stained eyes, and supports his head on one hand. in the books of the asylum his complaint is described as hypochondria; in reality, he is suffering from progressive paralysis. day and night he mourns, shakes his head, sighs, and smiles bitterly. in conversation he seldom joins, and usually refuses to answer questions. he eats and drinks mechanically. judged by his emaciation, his flushed cheeks, and his painful, hacking cough, he is wasting away from consumption. beside him is a little, active old man with a pointed beard, and the black, fuzzy hair of a negro. he spends all day in walking from window to window, or sitting on his bed, with legs doubled underneath him as if he were a turk. he is as tireless as a bullfinch, and all day chirrups, titters, and sings in a low voice his childish gaiety and lively character are shown also at night, when he rises to "pray to god," that is, to beat his breast with his clenched fists, and pick at the doors. this is moséika, a jew and an idiot. he went out of his mind twenty years ago when his cap factory was destroyed by fire. of all the captives in word no. , he alone has permission to leave the asylum, and he is even allowed to wander about the yard and the streets. this privilege, which he has enjoyed for many years, was probably accorded to him as the oldest inmate of the asylum, and as a quiet, harmless fool, the jester of the town, who may be seen in the streets surrounded by dogs and little boys. wrapped in his old dressing-gown, with a ridiculous nightcap and slippers, sometimes barefooted, and generally without his trousers, he walks the streets, stopping at doorways and entering small shops to beg for kopecks. sometimes he is given _kvas_, sometimes bread, sometimes a kopeck, so that he returns to the ward wealthy and sated. but all that he brings home is taken by nikita for his own particular benefit. the old soldier does this roughly and angrily, turning out the jew's pockets, calling god to witness that he will never allow him outside the asylum again, and swearing that to him disorder is the most detestable thing in the world. moséika loves to make himself useful to others. he fetches water for his companions, tucks them in when they go to bed, promises to bring each a kopeck when he next returns from the town, and to make them new caps. he feeds with a spoon his paralytic neighbour on the left; and all this he does, not out of sympathy for others or for considerations of humanity, but from a love of imitation, and in a sort of involuntary subjection to his neighbour on the right, iván gromof. ivan dmítritch gromof is a man of thirty-three years of age. he is a noble by birth, and has been an usher in the law courts, and a government secretary; but now he suffers from the mania of persecution. he lies upon his bed twisted into a lump resembling a roll of bread, or marches from corner to corner for the sake of motion. he is always in a state of excitement and agitation; and seems strained by some dull, indefinable expectation. it needs but the slightest rustle in the hall, the slightest noise in the yard, to make him raise his head and listen intently. is it for him they arc coming? are they searching for him? and his face immediately takes on an expression of restlessness and repulsion. there is something attractive about his broad, high cheek-boned face, which reflects, as a mirror, the tortured wrestlings and eternal terror of his mind. his grimaces arc strange and sickly; but the delicate lines engraven on his face by sincere suffering express reason and intelligence, and his eyes bum with a healthy and passionate glow. there is something attractive also in his character, in his politeness, his attentiveness, and in the singular delicacy of his bearing towards everyone except nikita. if his neighbour drops a spoon or a button he jumps immediately out of bed and picks it up. when he wakes he invariably says, "good morning!" to his companions; and every evening on going to bed wishes them "good night!" but madness shows itself in other things besides his grimaces and continual mental tension. in the evening he wraps himself in his dressing-gown, and, trembling all over, and chattering his teeth, he walks from corner to corner, and in between the beds. he seems to be in a state of fever. from his sudden stoppages and strange looks at his fellow-prisoners it is plain that he has something very serious to say; but, no doubt, remembering that they will neither listen nor understand, he says nothing, shakes his head impatiently, and continues his walk. but at last the desire to speak conquers all other considerations, and he gives way, and speaks passionately. his words are incoherent, gusty, and delirious; he cannot always be understood; but the sound of his voice expresses some exceptional goodness. in every word you hear the madman and the man. he speaks of human baseness, of violence trampling over truth, of the beautiful life on earth that is to come, and of the barred windows which remind him every moment of the folly and cruelty of the strong. and he hums medleys of old but for gotten songs. ii fifteen years before, in his own house, in the best street in the town, lived an official named gromof--a solid and prosperous man. gromof had two sons, sergéi and iván. sergéi, when a student in the fourth class, was seized with consumption and died; and his death was the first of a screes of misfortunes which overtook the gromofs. a week after sergéi's death his old father was tried for forgery and misappropriation of public moneys, and soon afterwards died of typhus in the prison infirmary. his house and all his belongings were sold by auction, and iván dmítritch and his mother remained without a penny. when his father was alive, iván dmítritch studied at st. petersburg university, received an allowance of sixty or seventy roubles a month, and had no idea of the meaning of poverty. now he had to change his whole life. from early morning till late at night he gave cheap lessons to students and copied documents, yet starved, for all his earnings went to support his mother. the life was impossible, and iván dmítritch ruined his health and spirits, threw up his university studies, and returned home. through interest he obtained an appointment as usher in the district school; but he was disliked by his colleagues, failed to get on with the pupils, and gave up the post. his mother died. for six months he lived without resources, eating black bread and drinking water, until at last he obtained an appointment as usher of the court. this duty he fulfilled until he was discharged owing to illness. never, even in his student days, had he had the appearance of a strong man. he was pale, thin, and sensitive to cold; he ate little and slept foully. a single glass of wine made him giddy and sent him into hysterics. his disposition impelled him to seek companionship, but thanks to his irritable and suspicious character he never became intimate with anyone, and had no friends. of his fellow-citizens he always spoke with contempt, condemning as disgusting and repulsive their gross ignorance and torpid, animal life. he spoke in a tenor voice, loudly and passionately, and always seemed to be in a sincere state of indignation, excitement, or rapture. however he began a conversation, it ended always in one way--in a lament that the town was stifling and tiresome, that its people had no high interests, but led a dull, unmeaning life, varied only by violence, coarse debauchery and hypocrisy; that scoundrels were fed and clothed while honest men ate crusts; that the town was crying out for schools, honest newspapers, a theatre, public lectures, an union of intellectual forces; and that the time had come for the townspeople to awaken to, and be shocked at, the state of affairs. in his judgments of men he laid on his colours thickly, using only white and black, and recognising no gradations; for him humanity was divided into two sections, honest men and rogues--there was nothing between. of woman and woman's love he spoke passionately and with rapture. but he had never been in love. in the town, notwithstanding his nervous character and censorious temper, he was loved, and called caressingly "vanya." his innate delicacy, his attentiveness, his neatness, his moral purity, his worn coat, his sickly appearance, the misfortunes of his family, inspired in all feelings of warmth and compassion. besides, he was educated and well-read; in the opinion of the townsmen he knew everything; and occupied among them the place of a walking reference-book. he read much. he would sit for hours at the club, pluck nervously at his beard, and turn over the pages of books and magazines--by his face it might be seen that he was not reading but devouring. yet reading was apparently merely one of his nervous habits, for with equal avidity he read everything that fell into his hands, even old newspapers and calendars. at home he always read, lying down. iii one autumn morning, iván dmítritch, with the collar of his coat turned up, trudged through the mud to the house of a certain tradesman to receive money due on a writ of execution. as always in the morning, he was in a gloomy mood. passing through a lane, he met two convicts in chains and with them four warders armed with rifles. iván dmítritch had often met convicts before, and they had awakened in him a feeling of sympathy and confusion. but this meeting produced upon him an unusual impression. it suddenly occurred to him that he too might be shackled and driven through the mud to prison. having finished his work, he was returning home when he met a police-inspector, an acquaintance, who greeted him and walked with him a few yards down the street. this seemed to him for some reason suspicions. at home visions of convicts and of soldiers armed with rifles haunted him all day, and an inexplicable spiritual dread prevented him from reading or concentrating his mind. in the evening he sat without a fire, and lay awake all night thinking how he also might be arrested, manacled, and flung into prison. he knew that he had committed no crime, and was quite confident that he would never commit murder, arson, or robbery; but then, he remembered, how easy it was to commit a crime by accident or involuntarily, and how common were convictions on false evidence and owing to judicial errors! and in the present state of human affairs how probable, how little to be wondered at, were judicial errors! men who witness the sufferings of others only from a professional standpoint; for instance, judges, policemen, doctors, became hardened to such a degree that even if they wished otherwise they could not resist the habit of treating accused persons formally; they got to resemble those peasants who kill sheep and calves in their back-yards without even noticing the blood. in view of the soulless relationship to human personality which everywhere obtains, all that a judge thinks of is the observance of certain formalities, and then all is over, and an innocent man perhaps deprived of his civil rights or sent to the galleys. who indeed would expect justice or intercession in this dirty, sleepy little town, two hundred versts from the nearest rail-way? and indeed was it not ridiculous to expect, justice when society regards every form of violence as rational, expedient, and necessary; and when an act of common mercy such as the acquittal of an accused man calls forth an explosion of unsatisfied vindictiveness! next morning iván dmítritch awoke in terror with drops of cold sweat on his forehead. he felt convinced that he might be arrested at any moment. that the evening's gloomy thoughts had haunted him so persistently, he concluded, must mean that there was some ground for his apprehensions. could such thoughts come into his head without cause? a policeman walked slowly past the window; that must mean something. two men in plain clothes stopped outside the gate, and stood without saying a word. why were they silent? for a time, iván dmítritch spent his days and nights in torture. every man who passed the window or entered the yard was a spy or detective. every day at twelve o'clock the chief constable drove through the street on his way from his suburban house to the department of police, and every day it seemed to iván dmítritch that the constable was driving with unaccustomed haste, and that there was a peculiar expression on his face; he was going, in short, to announce that a great criminal had appeared in the town. iván dmítritch shuddered at every sound, trembled at every knock at the yard-gate, and was in torment when any strange man visited his landlady. when he met a gendarme in the street, he smiled, whistled, and tried to assume an indifferent air. for whole nights, expecting arrest, he never closed his eyes, but snored carefully so that his landlady might think he was asleep; for if a man did not sleep at night it meant that he was tormented by the gnawings of conscience, and that might be taken as a clue. reality and healthy reasoning convinced him that his fears were absurd and psychopathic, and that, regarded from a broad standpoint, there was nothing very terrible in arrest and imprisonment for a man whose conscience was clean. but the more consistently and logically he reasoned the stronger grew his spiritual torture; his efforts reminded him of the efforts of a pioneer to hack a path through virgin forest, the harder he worked with the hatchet the thicker and stronger became the undergrowth. so in the end, seeing that his efforts were useless, he ceased to struggle, and gave himself up to terror and despair. he avoided others and became more and more solitary in his habits. his duties had always been detestable, now they became intolerable. he imagined that someone would hide money in his pockets and then denounce him for taking bribes, that he would make mistakes in official documents which were equivalent to forgery, or that he would lose the money entrusted to him. never was his mind so supple and ingenious as when he was engaged in inventing various reasons for fearing for his freedom and honour. on the other hand, his interest in the outside world decreased correspondingly, he lost his passion for books, and his memory daily betrayed him. next spring when the snow had melted, the semi-decomposed corpses of an old woman and a boy, marked with indications of violence, were found in a ravine beside the graveyard. the townspeople talked of nothing but the discovery and the problem: who were the unknown murderers? in order to avert suspicion, iván dmítritch walked about the streets and smiled; and when he met his acquaintances, first grew pale and then blushed, and declared vehemently that there was no more detestable crime than the killing of the weak and defenceless. but this pretence soon exhausted him, and after consideration he decided that the best thing he could do was to hide in his landlady's cellar. in the cellar therefore, chilled to the bone, he remained all day, all next night, and yet another day, after which, waiting until it was dark, he crept secretly back to his room. till daylight he stood motionless in the middle of the room, and listened. at sunrise a number of artisans rang at the gate. iván dmítritch knew very well that they had come to put up a new stove in the kitchen; but his terror suggested that they were constables in disguise. he crept quietly out of his room, and overcome by panic, without cap or coat, fled down the street. behind him ran barking dogs, a woman called after him, in his ears the wind whistled, and it seemed to him that the scattered violences of the whole world had united and were chasing him through the town. he was captured and brought home. his landlady sent for a doctor. doctor andréi yéfimitch rágin, of whom we shall hear again, prescribed cold compresses for his head, ordered him to take drops of bay rum, and went away saying that he would come no more, as it was not right to prevent people going out of their minds. so, as there were no means of treating him at home, iván dmítritch was sent to hospital, and put into the ward for sick men. he did not sleep at night, was unruly, and disturbed his neighbours, so that soon, by arrangement with doctor andréi yéfimitch, he was transferred to ward no. . before a year had passed, the townspeople had quite forgotten iván dmítritch; and his books, piled up in a sledge by his landlady and covered with a curtain, were torn to pieces by children. iv iván dmítritch's neighbour on the left, i have already said, was the jew moséika; his neighbour on the right was a fat, almost globular muzhik with a dull, meaningless face. this torpid, gluttonous, and uncleanly animal had long lost all capacity for thought and feeling. he exhaled a sharp, suffocating smell. when nikita was obliged to attend on him he used to beat him terribly, beat him with all his strength and without regard for his own fists; and it was not this violence which was so frightful--the terror of that was mitigated by custom--but the fact that the stupefied animal made no answer to the blows either by sound or movement or even by expression in his eyes, but merely rocked from side to side like a heavy cask. the fifth and last occupant of ward no. was a townsman who had served once as a sorter in the post office. he was a little, thin, fair-headed man, with a kindly, but somewhat cunning face. judged by his clever, tranquil eyes, which looked out on the world frankly and merrily, he was the possessor of some valuable and pleasant secret. under his pillow and mattress he had something hidden which he refused to show to anyone, not out of fear of losing it, but out of shame. occasionally he walked to the window, and turning his back upon his fellow-prisoners, held something to his breast, and looked earnestly at it; but if anyone approached he became confused and hid it away. but it was not hard to guess his secret. "congratulate me!" he used to say to iván dmítritch. "i have been decorated with the stanislas of the second degree with a star. as a rule the second degree with a star is given only to foreigners, but for some reason they have made an exception in my case." and then, shrugging his shoulders as if in doubt, he would add: "that is something you never expected, you must admit." "i understand nothing about it," answered iván dmítritch, gloomily. "do you know what i shall get sooner or later?" continued the ex-sorter, winking slyly. "i shall certainly receive the swedish pole star. an order of that kind is worth trying for. a white cross and a black ribbon. it is very handsome." in no other place in the world, probably, is life so monotonous as in the wing. in the morning the patients, with the exception of the paralytic and the fat muzhik, wash themselves in a great bucket which is placed in the hall, and dry themselves in the skirts of their dressing-gowns. after this they drink tea out of tin mugs brought by nikita from the hospital. at midday they dine on _shtchi_ made with sour cabbage, and porridge, and in the evening they sup on the porridge left over from dinner. between meals they lie down, sleep, look out of the windows, and walk from corner to corner. and so on every day. even the ex-sorter talks always of the same decorations. fresh faces are seldom seen in ward no. . years ago the doctor gave orders that no fresh patients should be admitted, and in this world people rarely visit lunatic asylums for pleasure. but once every two months comes semión lazaritch the barber. with nikita's assistance, he cuts the patients hair; and on the consternation of the victims every time they see his drunken, grinning face, there is no need to dwell. with this exception no one ever enters the ward. from day to day the patients are condemned to see only nikita. but at last a strange rumour obtained circulation in the hospital. it was rumoured the doctor had begun to pay visits to ward no. . v it was indeed a strange rumour! doctor andréi yéfimitch rágin was a remarkable man in his way. in early youth, so they said, he was very pious, and intended to make a career in the church. but when in the year he finished his studies in the gymnasium and prepared to enter the ecclesiastical academy, his father, a surgeon and a doctor of medicine, poured ridicule on these intentions, and declared categorically that if andréi became a priest he would disown him for ever. whether this story is true or not it is impossible to say, but it is certain that andréi yéfimitch more than once admitted that he had never felt any vocation for medicine or, indeed, for specialised sciences at all. certain it is, also, that he never became a priest, but completed a course of study in the medical faculty of his university. he showed no particular trace of godliness, and at the beginning of his medical career was as little like a priest as at the end. in appearance he was as heavy and rudely built as a peasant. his bearded face, his straight hair, and his strong, awkward build recalled some innkeeper on a main road--incontinent and stubborn. he was tall and broad-shouldered, and had enormous feet, and hands with which, it seemed, he could easily crush the life out of a man's body. yet his walk was noiseless, cautious, and insinuating; and when he met anyone in a narrow passage he was always the first to step aside, and to say--not as might be expected in a bass voice--in a soft, piping tenor: "excuse me!" on his neck andréi yéfimitch had a small tumour which forbade his wearing starched collars; he always wore a soft linen or print shirt. indeed, in no respect did he dress like a doctor; he wore the same suit for ten years, and when he did buy new clothing--at a jew's store--it always looked as worn and crumpled as his old clothes. in one and the same frock-coat he received his patients, dined, and attended entertainments; and this not from penuriousness but from a genuine contempt for appearances. when andréi yéfimitch first came to the town to take up his duties as physician to the hospital, that "charitable institution" was in a state of inconceivable disorder. in the wards, in the corridors, and even in the open air of the yard it was impossible to breathe owing to the stench. the male attendants, the nurses and their children, slept in the dormitories together with the patients. it was complained that the hospital was becoming uninhabitable owing to the invasion of beetles, bugs, and mice. in the surgical department there were only two scalpels, nowhere was there a thermometer, and the baths were used for storing potatoes in. the superintendent, the housekeeper, and the feldscher robbed the sick, and of the former doctor, andréi yéfimitch's predecessor, it was said that he sold the hospital spirits secretly, and kept up a whole harem recruited from among the nurses and female patients. in the town these scandals were well-known and even exaggerated; but the townspeople were indifferent, and even excused the abuses on the ground that the patients were all either petty tradespeople or peasants who lived at home among conditions so much worse that they had no right to complain; such gentry, they added, must not expect to be fed on grouse! others argued that as no small town had sufficient resources to support a good hospital without subsidies from the zemstvo, they might thank god they had a bad one; and the zemstvo refused to open a hospital in the town on the ground that there was already one. when he inspected the hospital for the first time andréi yéfimitch saw at once that the whole institution was hopelessly bad, and in the highest degree dangerous to the health of the inmates. he concluded that the best thing to do was to discharge the patients and to close the hospital. but he knew that to effect this his wish alone was not enough; and he reasoned that if the physical and moral uncleanliness were driven from one place it would merely be transplanted to another; it was necessary, in fact, to wait until it cleaned itself out. to these considerations he added that if people opened a hospital and tolerated its abuses they must have need of it; and, no doubt, such abominations were necessary, and in the course of time would evolve something useful, as good soil results from manuring. and, indeed, on this earth there is nothing good that has not had evil germs in its beginnings. having taken up his duties, therefore, andréi yéfimitch looked upon the abuses with apparent indifference. he merely asked the servants and nurses not to sleep in the wards, and bought two cases of instruments; but he allowed the superintendent, the housekeeper, and the feldscher to remain in their positions. andréi yéfimitch was passionately enamoured of intellect and honesty, but he had neither the character nor the confidence in his own powers necessary to establish around himself an intelligent and honest life. to command, to prohibit, to insist, he had never learned; it seemed almost that he had sworn an oath never to raise his voice or to use the imperative mood. ... even to use the words "give" or "bring" was difficult for him. when he felt hungry, he coughed irresolutely and said to his cook, "suppose i were to have a cup of tea," or "i was thinking about dining." to tell the superintendent that he must cease his robberies, to dismiss him, or to abolish altogether his parasitical office he had not the strength. "when he was deceived or flattered, or handed accounts for signature which he knew to have been falsified, he would redden all over and feel guilty, yet sign the accounts; and when the patients complained that they were hungry or had been ill-treated by the nurses, he merely got confused, and stammered guiltily: "very well, very well, i will investigate the matter. ... no doubt there is some misunderstanding...." at first andréi yéfimitch worked very zealously. he attended to patients from morning until dinner-time, performed operations, and even occupied himself with obstetrics. he gained a reputation for exceptional skill in the treatment of women and children. but he soon began visibly to weary of the monotony and uselessness of his work. one day he would receive thirty patients, the next day the number had grown to thirty-five, the next day to forty, and so on from day to day, from year to year. yet the death-rate in the town did not decrease, and the number of patients never grew less. to give any real assistance to forty patients in the few hours between morning and dinner-time was physically impossible; in other words, he became an involuntary deceiver. the twelve thousand persons received every year, he reasoned, were therefore twelve thousand dupes. to place the serious cases in the wards and treat them according to the rules of medical science was impossible, because there were no rules and no science; whereas if he left philosophy and followed the regulations pedantically as other doctors did, he would still be in difficulty, for in the first place were needed cleanliness and fresh air, and not filth; wholesome food, and not _shtchi_ made of stinking sour cabbage; and honest assistants, not thieves. and, indeed, why hinder people dying, if death is the normal and lawful end of us all? what does it matter whether some tradesman or petty official lives, or does not live, an extra five years? we pretend to see the object of medical science in its mitigation of suffering, but we cannot but ask ourselves the question: why should suffering be mitigated? in the first place, we are told that suffering leads men to perfection; and in the second, it is plain that if men were really able to alleviate their sufferings with pills and potions, they would abandon that religion and philosophy in which until now they had found not only consolation, but even happiness. pushkin suffered agonising torment before his death; heine lay for years in a state of paralysis. why, then, interfere with the sufferings of some mere andréi yéfimitch or matrena savishin, whose lives are meaningless, and would be as vacuous as the life of the amoeba if it were not for suffering? defeated by such arguments, andréi yéfimitch dropped his hands upon his knees, and ceased his daily attendances at the hospital. vi his life passed thus. at eight in the morning he rose and took his breakfast. after that he either sat in his study and read, or visited the hospital. in the hospital in a narrow, dark corridor waited the out-patients. with heavy boots clattering on the brick floor, servants and nurses ran past them; emaciated patients in dressing-gowns staggered by; and vessels of filth, and corpses were carried out. and among them children cried and draughts blew. andréi yéfimitch knew well that to the fevered, the consumptive, and the impressionable such surroundings were torment; but what could he do? in the reception-room he was met by the feldscher, sergéi sergéyitch, a little fat man, with a beardless, well-washed, puffy face, and easy manners. sergéi sergéyitch always wore clothes which resembled a senator's more than a surgeon's; in the town he had a large practice, and believed that he knew more than the doctor, who had no practice at all. in the corner of the room hung a case of ikons with a heavy lamp in front; on the walls were portraits of bishops, a view of sviatogorsk monastery, and garlands of withered corn-flowers. sergéi sergéyitch was religious, and the images had been placed in the room at his expense; every sunday by his command one of the patients read the acathistus, and when the reading was concluded, sergéi sergéyitch went around the wards with a censer and sprinkled them piously. there were many patients and little time. the examination was therefore limited to a few short questions, and to the distribution of such simple remedies as castor-oil and ointments. andréi yéfimitch sat with his head resting on his hands, lost in thought, and asked questions mechanically; and sérgei sergéyitch sat beside him, and sometimes interjected a word. "we become ill and suffer deprivation," he would sometimes say, "only because we pray too little to god." in these hours andréi yéfimitch performed no operations; he had got out of practice, and the sight of blood affected him unpleasantly. when he had to open a child's mouth, to examine its throat for instance, if the child cried and defended itself with its hands, the doctor's head went round and tears came into his eyes. he made haste to prescribe a remedy, and motioned to the mother to take it away as quickly as possible. he quickly wearied of the timidity of the patients, of their shiftless ways, of the proximity of the pompous sérgei sergéyitch, of the portraits on the walls, and of his own questions--questions which he had asked without change for more than twenty years. and he would sometimes leave the hospital after having examined five or six patients, the remainder in his absence being treated by the feldscher. with the pleasant reflection that thank god he had no private practice and no one to interfere with him, andréi yéfimitch on returning home would sit at his study-table and begin to read. he read much, and always with pleasure. half his salary went on the purchase of books, and of the six rooms in his flat three were crowded with books and old newspapers. above all things he loved history and philosophy; but of medical publications he subscribed only to the doctor, which he always began to read at the end. every day he read uninterruptedly for several hours, and it never wearied him. he read, not quickly and eagerly as iván dmítritch had read, but slowly, often stopping at passages which pleased him or which he did not understand. beside his books stood a decanter of vodka, and a salted cucumber or soaked apple; and every half-hour he poured himself out a glass of vodka, and drank it without lifting his eyes from his book, and then--again without lifting his eyes--took the cucumber and bit a piece off. at three o'clock he would walk cautiously to the kitchen door, cough, and say: "dáryushka, i was thinking of dining...." after a bad and ill-served dinner, andréi yéfimitch walked about his rooms, with his arms crossed on his chest, and thought. sometimes the kitchen door creaked, and the red, sleepy face of dáryushka appeared. "andréi yéfimitch, is it time for your beer?" she would ask solicitously. "no, not yet," he would answer. "i'll wait a little longer...." in the evening came the postmaster, mikhail averyanitch, the only man in the town whose society did not weary andréi yéfimitch. mikhail averyanitch had once been a rich country gentleman and had served in a cavalry regiment, but having ruined himself he took a position in the post office to save himself from beggary in his old age. he hod a brisk, wholesome appearance, magnificent grey whiskers, well-bred manners, and a loud but pleasant voice. when visitors at the post office protested, refused to agree with him, or began to argue, mikhail averyanitch became purple, shook all over, and roared at the top of his voice: "silence!" so that the post office had the reputation of a place of terror. mikhail averyanitch was fond of andréi yéfimitch and respected his attainments and the nobility of his heart. but the other townspeople he treated haughtily as inferiors. "well, here i am!" he would begin. "how are you, my dear?... but perhaps i bore you? eh?" "on the contrary. i am delighted," answered the doctor. "i am always glad to see you." the friends would sit on the study sofa and smoke for a time silently. "dáryushka, suppose i were to have a little beer...." said andréi yéfimitch. the first bottle was drunk in silence. the doctor was lost in thought, while mikhail averyanitch had the gay and active expression of a man who has something very interesting to relate. the conversation was always begun by the doctor. "what a pity!" he would say, slowly and quietly, looking away from his friend--he never looked anyone in the face. "what a pity, my dear mikhail averyanitch, what a pity it is that there is not a soul in this town who cares to engage in an intellectual or interesting conversation! it is a great deprivation for us. even the so-called intelligent classes never rise above commonplaces; the level of their development, i assure you, is no higher than that of the lower order." "entirely true. i agree with you." "as you yourself know very well," continued the doctor, pausing intermittently, "as you know, everything in this world is insignificant and uninteresting except the higher phenomena of the human intellect. intellect creates a sharp distinction between the animal and the man, it reminds the latter of his divinity, and to a certain extent compensates him for the immortality which he has not. as the result of this, intellect serves as the only fountain of enjoyment. when we say we see and hear around us no evidence of intellect, we mean thereby that we are deprived of true happiness. true, we have our books, but that is a very different thing from living converse and communication. if i may use a not very apt simile, books are the accompaniment, but conversation is the singing.'" "that is entirely true." a silence followed. from the kitchen came dáryushka, and, with her head resting on her hands and an expression of stupid vexation on her face, stood at the door and listened. "akh!" sighed mikhail averyanitch, "why seek intellect among the men of the present day?" and he began to relate how in the old days life was wholesome, gay, and interesting, how the intellect of russia was really enlightened, and how high a place was given to the ideas of honour and friendship. money was lent without i. o. u.'s, and it was regarded as shameful not to stretch out the hand of aid to a needy friend. what marches there were, what adventures, what fights, what companions-in-arms, what women! the caucasus, what a marvellous country! and the wife of the commander of his battalion--what a strange woman!--who put on an officer's uniform and drove into the mountains at night without an escort. they said she had a romance with a prince in one of the villages. "heavenly mother! lord preserve us!" sighed dáryushka. "and how we drank! how we used to eat! what desperate liberals we were!" andréi yéfimitch listened, but heard nothing; he was thinking of something else and drinking his beer. "i often dream of clever people and have imaginary conversations with them," he said, suddenly, interrupting mikhail averyanitch. "my father gave me a splendid education, but, under the influence of the ideas current in the sixties, forced me to become a doctor. it seems to me that if i had disobeyed him i might now be living in the very centre of the intellectual movement--probably a member of some faculty. of course intellect itself is not eternal but transitory--but you already know why i worship it so. life is a vexatious snare. when a reflecting man attains manhood and ripe consciousness, he cannot but feel himself in a trap from which there is no escape.... by an accident, without consulting his own will, he is called from non-existence into life.... why? he wishes to know the aim and significance of his existence; he is answered with silence or absurdities; he knocks but it is not opened to him; and death itself comes against his will. and so, as prisoners united by common misfortune are relieved when they meet, men inclined to analysis and generalisation do not notice the snare in which they live when they spend their days in the exchange of free ideas. in this sense intellect is an irreplaceable enjoyment." "entirely true!" and still with his face averted from his companion, andréi yéfimitch, in a soft voice, with constant pauses, continues to speak of clever men and of the joy of communion with them, and mikhail averyanitch listens attentively and says: "it is entirely true." "then you do not believe in the immortality of the soul?" asks the postmaster. "no, my dear mikhail averyanitch. i do not believe, and i have no reason for believing." "i admit that i also doubt it. still i have a feeling that i can never die. 'come,' i say to myself, 'come, old man, it's time for you to die.' but in my heart a voice answers: 'don't believe it, you will never die.'" at nine o'clock mikhail averyanitch takes leave. as he puts on his overcoat in the hall, he says with a sigh: "yes, what a desert fate has planted us in! and what is worst of all, we shall have to die here. _akh!_" vii when he has parted from his friend, andréi yéfimitch sits at his table and again begins to read. the stillness of evening, the stillness of night is unbroken by a single sound; time, it seems, stands still and perishes, and the doctor perishes also, till it seems that nothing exists but a book and a green lamp-shade. then the rude, peasant face of the doctor, as he thinks of the achievements of the human intellect, becomes gradually illumined by a smile of emotion and rapture. oh, why is man not immortal? he asks. for what end exist brain-centres and convolutions, to what end vision, speech, consciousness, genius, if all are condemned to pass into the earth, to grow cold with it, and for countless millions of years, without aim or object, to be borne with it around the sun? in order that the human frame may decay and be whirled around the sun, is it necessary to drag man with his high, his divine mind, out of non-existence, as if in mockery, and to turn him again into earth? immortality of matter! what cowardice to console ourselves with this fictitious immortality! unconscious processes working themselves out in nature--processes lower even than folly, for in folly there is at least consciousness and volition, while in these processes there is neither! yet they say to men, "be at rest, thy substance, rotting in the earth, will give life to other organisms "--in other words, thou wilt be more foolish than folly! only the coward, who has more fear of death than sense of dignity, can console himself with the knowledge that his body in the course of time will live again in grass, in stones, in the toad. to seek immortality in the indestructibility of matter is, indeed, as strange as to prophesy a brilliant future for the case when the costly violin is broken and worthless. when the clock strikes, andréi yéfimitch leans back in his chair, shuts his eyes, and thinks. under the influence of the lofty thoughts which he has just been reading, he throws a glance over the present and the past. the past is repellent, better not think of it! and the present is but as the past. he knows that in this very moment, while his thoughts are sweeping round the sun with the cooling earth, in the hospital building in a line with his lodgings, lie men tortured by pain and tormented by uncleanliness; one cannot sleep owing to the insects, and howls in his pain; another is catching erysipelas, and groaning at the tightness of his bandages; others are playing cards with the nurses, and drinking vodka. in this very year no less than twelve thousand persons were duped; the whole work of the hospital, as twenty years before, is based on robbery, scandal, intrigue, nepotism, and gross charlatanry; altogether, the hospital is an immoral institution, and a source of danger to the health of its inmates. and andréi yéfimitch knows that inside the iron bars of ward no. , nikita beats the patients with his fists, and that, outside, moséika wanders about the streets begging for kopecks. yet he knows very well that in the last twenty-five years a fabulous revolution has taken place in the doctor's art. when he studied at the university it had seemed to him that medicine would soon be overtaken by the lot of alchemy and metaphysics, but now the records of its feats which he reads at night touch him, astonish him, and even send him into raptures. what a revolution! what unexpected brilliance! thanks to antiseptics, operations are every day performed which the great pigorof regarded as impossible. ordinary zemstvo doctors perform such operations as the resection of the knee articulations, of a hundred operations on the stomach only one results in death, and the stone is now such a trifle that it has ceased to be written about. complaints which were once only alleviated are now entirely cured. and hypnotism, the theory of heredity, the discoveries of pasteur and koch, statistics of hygiene, even russian zemstvo medicine! psychiatry, with its classification of diseases, its methods of diagnosis, its method of cure--what a transformation of the methods of the past! no longer arc lunatics drenched with cold water and confined in strait waistcoats; they are treated as human beings, and even--as andréi yéfimitch read in the newspapers--have their own special dramatic entertainments and dances. andréi yéfimitch is well aware that in the modern world such an abomination as ward no. is possible only in a town situated two hundred versts from a railway, where the mayor and councillors are half-educated tradesmen, who regard a doctor as a priest to whom everything must be entrusted without criticism, even though he were to dose his patients with molten tin. in any other town the public and the press would long ago have tom this little bastille to pieces. "but in the end?" asks andréi yéfimitch, opening his eyes. "what is the difference? in spite of antiseptics and koch and pasteur, the essence of the matter has no way changed. disease and death still exist. lunatics are amused with dances and theatricals, but they are still kept prisoners.... in other words, all these tilings are vanity and folly, and between the best hospital in vienna and the hospital here there is in reality no difference at all." but vexation and a feeling akin to envy forbid indifference. it all arises out of weariness. andréi yéfimitch's head falls upon his book, he rests his head comfortably on his hands and thinks: "i am engaged in a bad work, and i receive a salary from the men whom i deceive. i am not an honest man.... but then by myself i am nothing; i am only part of a necessary social evil; all the officials in the district are bod, and draw their salaries without doing their work.... in other words, it is not i who am guilty of dishonesty, but time.... if i were born two hundred years hence i should be a different man." when the clock strikes three, he puts out his lamp and goes up to his bedroom. but he has no wish to sleep. viii two years ago, in a fit of liberality, the zemstvo determined to appropriate three hundred roubles a year to the increase of the personnel of the hospital, until such time as they should open one of their own. they sent, therefore, as assistant to andréi yéfimitch, the district physician yevgéniï feódoritch khobótoff. khobótoff was a very young man, under thirty, bill and dark, with small eyes and high cheek-bones; evidently of asiatic origin. he arrived in the town without a kopeck, with a small portmanteau as his only luggage, and was accompanied by a young, unattractive woman, whom he called his cook. this woman's child completed the party. khobótoff wore a peaked cap and high boots, and--in winter--a short fur coat. he was soon on intimate terms with the feldscher, sergéi sergéyitch, and with the bursar, but the rest of the officials he avoided and denounced as aristocrats. he possessed only one book, "prescriptions of the vienna hospital in ," and when he visited the hospital he always brought it with him. he did not care for cards, and in the evenings spent his time playing billiards at the club. khobótoff visited the hospital twice a week, inspected the wards, and received out-patients. the strange absence of antiseptics, cupping-glasses, and other necessaries seemed to trouble him, but he made no attempt to introduce a new order, fearing to offend andréi yéfimitch, whom he regarded as all old rogue, suspected of having large means, and secretly envied. he would willingly have occupied his position. ix one spring evening towards the end of march, when the snow had disappeared and starlings sang in the hospital garden, the doctor was standing at his gate saying good-bye to his friend the postmaster. at that moment the jew moséika, returning with his booty, entered the yard. he was capless, wore a pair of goloshes on his stockingless feet, and held in his hand a small bag of coins. "give me a kopeck?" he said to the doctor, shuddering from the cold and grinning. andréi yéfimitch, who could refuse no one, gave him a ten-kopeck piece. "how wrong this is!" he thought, as he looked at the jew's bare legs and thin ankles. "wet, i suppose?" and impelled by a feeling of pity and squeamishness he entered the wing after moséika, looking all the time now at the jew's bald head, now at his ankles. when the doctor entered, nikita jumped off his rubbish-heap and stretched himself. "good evening, nikita!" said the doctor softly. "suppose you give this man a pair of boots ... that is ... he might catch cold." "yes, your honour. i will ask the superintendent." "please. ask him in my name. say that i spoke about it." the door of the ward was open. iván dmítritch, who was lying on his bed, and listening with alarm to the unknown voice, suddenly recognised the doctor. he shook with anger, jumped oft his bed, and with a flushed, malicious face, and staring eyeballs, ran into the middle of the room. "it is the doctor!" he cried, with a loud laugh. "at last! lord, i congratulate you, the doctor honours us with a visit! accursed monster!" he squealed, and in an ecstacy of rage never before seen in the hospital, stamped his feet. "kill this monster! no, killing is not enough for him! drown him in the closet!" andréi yéfimitch heard him. he looked into the ward and asked mildly: "for what?" "for what!" screamed iván dmítritch, approaching with a threatening face, and convulsively clutching his dressing-gown. "for what! thief!" he spoke in a tone of disgust, and twisted his lips as if about to spit. "charlatan! hangman!" "be quiet!" said andréi yéfimitch, smiling guiltily. "i assure you i have never stolen anything.... i see that you are angry with me. be calm, i implore you, if you can, and tell me why you want to kill me." "for keeping me here." "i do that because you are ill." "yes! ill! but surely tens, hundreds, thousands of madmen live unmolested merely because you in your ignorance cannot distinguish them from the sane. you, the feldscher, the superintendent, all the rascals employed in the hospital are immeasurably lower in morals than the worst of us; why, then, are we here instead of you? where is the logic?" "it is not a question of morality or logic. it depends on circumstances. the man who is put here, here he stays, and the man who is not here lives in freedom, that is all for the fact that i am a doctor and you a lunatic neither morals nor logic is responsible, but only empty circumstance." "this nonsense i do not understand!" answered iván dmitri tch, sitting down on his bed. moséika, whom nikita was afraid to search in the doctor's presence, spread out on his bed his booty--pieces of bread, papers, and bones; and trembling with the cold, talked yiddish in a sing-song voice. apparently he imagined that he was opening a shop. "release me!" said iván dmítritch. his voice trembled. "i cannot." "why not?" "because it is not in my power. judge for yourself! what good would it do you if i released you? suppose i do! the townspeople or the police will capture you and send you back." "yes, that is true, it is true ..." said iván dmítritch, rubbing his forehead. "it is terrible! but what can i do? what?" his voice, his intelligent, youthful face pleased andréi yéfimitch. he wished to caress him and quiet him. he sat beside him on the bed, thought for a moment, and said: "you ask what is to be done. the best thing in your position would be to run away. but unfortunately that is useless. you would be captured. when society resolves to protect itself from criminals, lunatics, and inconvenient people, it is irresistible. one thing alone remains to you, to console yourself with the thought that your stay here is necessary." "it is necessary to no one." "once prisons and asylums exist, someone must inhabit them. if it is not you it will be i, if not i then someone else. but wait! in the far future there will be neither prisons nor madhouses, nor barred windows, nor dressing-gowns.... such a time will come sooner or later." iván dmítritch smiled contemptuously. "you are laughing at me," he said, winking. "such gentry as you and your assistant nikita have no business with the future. but you may be assured, sir, that better times are in store for us. what if i do express myself vulgarly--laugh at me!--but the dawn of a new life will shine, and truth will triumph ... and it will be on our side the holiday will be. i shall not see it, but our posterity shall.... i congratulate them with my whole soul, and rejoice--rejoice for them! forward! god help you, friends!" iván dmítritch's eyes glittered; he rose, stretched out his eyes to the window, and said in an agitated voice: "for these barred windows i bless you. hail to the truth! i rejoice!" "i see no cause for rejoicing," said andréi yéfimitch, whom iván dmítritch's movements, though they seemed theatrical, pleased. "prisons and asylums will no longer be, and justice, as you put it, will triumph. but the essence of things will never change, the laws of nature will remain the same. men will be diseased, grow old, and die, just as now. however glorious the dawn which enlightens your life, in the end of ends you will be nailed down in a coffin and flung into a pit." "but immortality?" "nonsense!" "you do not believe, but i believe. dostoyeffsky or voltaire or someone said that if there were no god men would have invented one. and i am deeply convinced that if there were no immortality it would sooner or later have been invented by the great human intellect." "you speak well," said andréi yéfimitch, smiling with pleasure. "it is well that you believe. with such faith as yours you would live happily though entombed in a wall. may i asked where you were educated?" "i was at college, but never graduated." "you are a thoughtful and penetrating man. you would find tranquillity in any environment. the free and profound thought which aspires to the comprehension of life; and high contempt for the vanity of the world--these are two blessings higher than which no man can know. and these you will enjoy though you live behind a dozen barred windows. diogenes lived in a tub, yet he was happier than all the kings of the earth." "your diogenes was a blockhead!" cried iván dmítritch gloomily. "what do you tell me about diogenes and the understanding of life?" he spoke angrily, and sprang up. "i love life, love it passionately. i have the mania of persecution, a ceaseless, tormenting terror, but there are moments when i am seized by the thirst of life, and in those moments i fear to go out of my mind. i long to live ... terribly!" he walked up and down the ward in agitation, and continued in a lower voice: "when i meditate i am visited by visions. men come to me, i hear voices and music, and it seems to me that i am walking through woods, on the shores of the sea; and i long passionately for the vanities and worries of life.... tell me! what is the news?" "you ask about the town, or generally?" "first tell me about the town, and then generally?" "what is there? the town is tiresome to the point of torment. there is no one to talk to, no one to listen to. there are no new people. but lately we got a new doctor, khobótoff, a young man." "he has been here. a fool?" "yes, an uneducated man. it is strange, do you know. if you judge by metropolitan life there is no intellectual stagnation in russia, but genuine activity; in other words, there are real men. but for some reason or other they always send such fellows here. it is an unfortunate town.'" "an unfortunate town," sighed iván dmítritch. "and what news is there generally? what have you in the newspapers and reviews?" in the ward it was already dark. the doctor rose, and told his patient what was being written in russia and abroad, and what were the current tendencies of the world. iván dmítritch listened attentively, and asked questions. but suddenly, as if he had just remembered something terrible, he seized his head and threw himself on the bed, with his back turned to the doctor. "what is the matter?" asked andréi yéfimitch. "you will not hear another word from me," said iván dmítritch rudely. "go away!" "why?" "i tell you, go away! go to the devil!" andréi yéfimitch shrugged his shoulders, sighed, and left the ward. as he passed through the hall, he said: "suppose you were to clear some of this away; nikita.... the smell is frightful." "yes, your honour!" "what a delightful young man!" thought andréi yéfimitch, as he walked home. "he is the first man worth talking to whom i have met all the time i have lived in this town. he can reason and interests himself only with what is essential." as he read in his study, as he went to bed, all the time, he thought of iván dmítritch. when he awoke next morning, he remembered that he had made the acquaintance of a clever and interesting man. and he decided to pay him another visit at the first opportunity. x iván dmítritch lay in the same position as on the day before, holding his head in his hands, his legs being doubled up underneath him. "good morning, my friend," said andréi yéfimitch. "you are not asleep?" "in the first place i am not your friend," said iván dmítritch, keeping his face turned towards the pillow, "and in the second, you are troubling yourself in vain; you will not get from me a single word." "that is strange," said andréi yéfimitch. "yesterday we were speaking as friends, but suddenly you took offence and stopped short.... perhaps i spoke awkwardly, or expressed opinions differing widely from your own." "you won't catch me!" said iván dmítritch, rising from the bed and looking at the doctor ironically and suspiciously. "you may go and spy and cross-examine somewhere else; here there is nothing for you to do. i know very well why you came yesterday. "that is a strange idea," laughed the doctor. "but why do you assume that i am spying?" "i assume it.... whether spy or doctor it is all the same." "yes, but ... excuse me...." the doctor sat on a stool beside the bed, and shook his head reproachfully. "even suppose you are right, suppose i am following your words only in order to betray you to the police, what would happen? they would arrest you and try you. but then, in the dock or in prison would you be worse off than here? in exile or penal servitude you would not suffer any more than now.... what, then, do you fear?" apparently these words affected iván dmítritch. he sat down quietly. it was five o'clock, the hour when andréi yéfimitch usually walked up and down his room and dáryushka asked him whether it was time for his beer. the weather was calm and clear. "after dinner i went out for a walk, and you see where i've come," said the doctor. "it is almost spring." "what month is it?" asked iván dmítritch. "march?" "yes, we are at the end of march." "is it very muddy?" "not very. the paths in the garden are clear." "how glorious it would be to drive somewhere outside the town!" said iván dmítritch, rubbing his red eyes as if he were sleepy, "and then to return to a warm comfortable study ... and to be cured of headache by a decent doctor.... for years past i have not lived like a human being.... things are abominable here,--intolerable, disgusting!" after last evening's excitement he was tired and weak, and he spoke unwillingly. his fingers twitched, and from his face it was plain that his head ached badly. "between a warm, comfortable study and this ward there is no difference," said andréi yéfimitch. "the rest and tranquillity of a man are not outside but within him." "what do you mean by that?" "ordinary men find good and evil outside, that is, in their carriages and comfortable rooms; but the thinking man finds them within himself." "go and preach that philosophy in greece, where it is warm and smells of oranges--it doesn't suit this climate. with whom was it i spoke of diogenes? with you?" "yes, yesterday with me." "diogenes had no need of a study and a warm house, he was comfortable without them.... lie in a tub and eat oranges and olives! set him down in russia--not in december, but even in may. he would freeze even in may with the cold." "no. cold, like every other feeling, may be disregarded. as marcus aurelius said, pain is the living conception of pain; make an effort of the will to change this conception, cease to complain, and the pain disappears. the wise man, the man of thought and penetration, is distinguished by his contempt for suffering; he is always content and he is surprised by nothing." "that means that i am an idiot because i suffer, because i am discontented, and marvel at the baseness of men." "your discontent is in vain. think more, and you will realise how trifling are all the things which now excite you.... try to understand life--in this is true beatitude." "understand!" frowned iván dmítritch. "external, internal.... excuse me, but i cannot understand you. i know only one thing," he continued, rising and looking angrily at the doctor. "i know only that god created me of warm blood and nerves; yes! and organic tissue, if it be capable of life, must respond to irritation. and i respond to it! pain i answer with tears and cries, baseness with indignation, meanness with repulsion. in my mind, that is right, and it is that which is called life. the lower the organism the less susceptible is it, and the more feebly it responds to irritation; the higher it is the more sensitively it responds. how is it you do not know that? a doctor--yet you do not know such truisms! if you would despise suffering, be always contented, and marvel at nothing, you must lower yourself to the condition of that...." iván dmítritch pointed to the fat, greasy muzhik, "or inure yourself to suffering until you lose all susceptibility--in other words, cease to live. excuse me, but i am not a wise man and not a philosopher," continued iván dmítritch irritably, "and i do not understand these things. i am not in a condition to reason." "but you reason admirably." "the stoics whom you travesty were remarkable men, but their teaching died two thousand years ago, and since then it has not advanced, nor will it advance, an inch, for it is not a practical or a living creed. it was successful only with a minority who spent their lives in study and trifled with gospels of all sorts; the majority never understood it.... a creed which teaches indifference to wealth, indifference to the conveniences of life, and contempt for suffering, is quite incomprehensible to the great majority who never knew either wealth or the conveniences of life, and to whom contempt for suffering would mean contempt for their own lives, which are made up of feelings of hunger, cold, loss, insult, and a hamlet-like terror of death. all life lies in these feelings, and life may be hated or wearied of, but never despised. yes, i repeat it, the teaching of the stoics can never have a future; from the beginning of time, life has consisted in sensibility to pain and response to irritation.[ ] iván dmítritch suddenly lost the thread of his thoughts, ceased speaking, and nibbed his forehead irritably. "i had something important to say, but have gone off the track," he continued. "what was i saying? yes, this is it. one of these stoics sold himself into slavery to redeem a friend. now what does that mean but that even a stoic responded to irritation, for to perform such a magnanimous deed as the min of one's self for the sake of a friend demands a disturbed and sympathetic heart i have forgotten here in prison all that i learnt, otherwise i should have oilier illustrations. but think of christ! christ rebelled against actuality by weeping, by smiling, by grieving, by anger, even by weariness. not with a smile did he go forth to meet suffering, nor did he despise death, but prayed in the garden of gethsemane that this cup might pass from him."[ ] iván dmítritch laughed and sat down. "suppose that contentment and tranquillity are not outside but within a man," he continued. "suppose that we must despise suffering and marvel at nothing. but you do not say on what foundation you base this theory. you are a wise man? a philosopher?" "i am not a philosopher, but everyone must preach this because it is rational." "but i wish to know why in this matter of understanding life, despising suffering, and the rest of it, you consider yourself competent to judge? have you ever suffered? what is your idea of suffering? were you ever flogged when you were a child?" "no, my parents were averse to corporal punishment." "but my father flogged me cruelly. he was a stern hemorrhoidal official with a long nose and a yellow neck. but what of you? in your whole life no one has ever laid a finger on you, and you are as healthy as a bull. you grew up under your father's wing, studied at his expense, and then dropped at once into a fat sinecure. more than twenty years you have lived in free lodgings, with free fire and free lights, with servants, with the right to work how, and as much as, you like, or to do nothing. by character you were an idle and a feeble man, and you strove to build up your life so as to avoid trouble. you left your work to feldschers and other scoundrels, and sat at home in warmth and quiet, heaped up money, read books, and enjoyed your own reflections about all kinds of exalted nonsense, and"--iván dmítritch looked at the doctor's nose--"drank beer. in one word, you have not seen life, you know nothing about it, and of realities you have only a theoretical knowledge. yes, you despise suffering and marvel at nothing for very good reasons; because your theory of the vanity of things, external and internal happiness, contempt for life, for suffering and for death, and so on--this is the philosophy best suited to a russian lie-abed. you see, for instance, a muzhik beating his wife. why interfere? let him beat her! it is all the same, both will be dead sooner, or later, and then, does not the wife-beater injure himself and not his victim? to get drunk is stupid and wrong, but the man who drinks dies, and the woman who drinks dies also! a woman comes to you with a toothache. well, what of that? pain is the conception of pain, without sickness you cannot live, all must die, and therefore take yourself off, my good woman, and don't interfere with my thoughts and my vodka! a young man comes to you for advice: what should he do, how ought he to live? before answering, most men would think, but your answer is always ready: aspire to understand life and to real goodness! and what is this fantastic real goodness? no answer! we are imprisoned behind iron bars, we rot and we are tortured, but this, in reality, is reasonable and beautiful because between this ward and a comfortable warm study there is no real difference! a convenient philosophy; your conscience is clean, and you feel yourself to be a wise man. no, sir, this is not philosophy, not breadth of view, but idleness, charlatanism, somnolent folly.... yes," repeated iván dmítritch angrily. "you despise suffering, but squeeze your finger in the door and you will howl for your life!" "but suppose i do not howl," said andréi yéfimitch, smiling indulgently. "what! well, if you had a stroke of paralysis, or if some impudent fellow, taking advantage of his position in the world, insulted you' publicly, and you had no redress--then you would know what it meant to tell others to understand life and aspire to real good." "this is original," said andréi yéfimitch, beaming with satisfaction and rubbing his hands. "i am delighted with your love of generalisation; and the character which you have just drawn is simply brilliant. i confess that conversation with you gives me great pleasure. rut now, as i have heard you out, will you listen to me...." xi this conversation, which lasted for an hour longer, apparently made a great impression on andréi yéfimitch. he took to visiting the ward every day. he went there in the morning, and again after dinner, and often darkness found him in conversation with iván dmítritch. at first iván dmítritch was shy with him, suspected him of some evil intention, and openly expressed his suspicions. but at last he got used to him; and his rude bearing softened into indulgent irony. a report soon spread through the hospital that doctor andréi yéfimitch paid daily visits to ward no. . neither the feldscher, nor nikita, nor the nurses could understand his object; why he spent whole hours in the ward, what he was talking about, or why he did not write prescriptions. his conduct appeared strange to everyone. mikhail averyanitch sometimes failed to find him at home, and dáryushka was very alarmed, for the doctor no longer drank his beer at the usual hour, and sometimes even came home late for dinner. one day--it was at the end of june--doctor khobótoff went to andréi yéfimitch's house to sec him on a business matter. not finding him at home, he looked for him in the yard, where he was told that the old doctor was in the asylum. khobótoff entered the hall of the ward, and standing there listened to the following conversation: "we will never agree, and you will never succeed in converting me to your faith," said iván dmítritch irritably. "you are altogether ignorant of realities, you have never suffered, but only, like a leech, fed on the sufferings of others. but i have suffered without cease from the day of my birth until now. therefore i tell you frankly i consider myself much higher than you, and more competent in all respects. it is not for you to teach me." "i certainly have no wish to convert you to my faith," said andréi yéfimitch softly, and evidently with regret that he was misunderstood. "that is not the question, my friend. suffering and joy are transitory--leave them, god be with them! the essence of the matter is that you and i recognise in one another men of thought, and this makes us solid however different our views. if you knew, my friend, how i am weary of the general idiocy around me, the lack of talent, the dullness--if you knew the joy with which i speak to you! you are a clever man, and it is a pleasure to be with you." khobótoff opened the door and looked into the room. iván dmítritch with a nightcap on his head and doctor andréi yéfimitch sat side by side on the bed. the lunatic shuddered, made strange faces, and convulsively clutched his dressing-gown; and the doctor sat motionless, inclining his head, and his face was red and helpless and sad. khobótoff shrugged his shoulders, laughed, and looked at nikita. nikita also shrugged his shoulders. next day khobótoff again came to the wing, this time together with the feldscher. they stood in the hall and listened: "our grandfather, it seems, is quite gone," said khobótoff going out of the wing. "lord, have mercy upon us--sinners!" sighed the pompous sergéi sergéyitch, going round the pools in order to keep his shiny boots clear of the mud. "i confess, my dear yevgéniï feódoritch, i have long expected this." xii after this incident, andréi yéfimitch began to notice that he was surrounded by a strange atmosphere of mystery.... the servants, the nurses, and the patients whom he met looked questioningly at one another, and whispered among themselves. when he met little masha, the superintendent's daughter, in the hospital garden, and smilingly went over to her, as usual, to stroke her hair, for some inexplicable reason she ran away. when the postmaster, mikhail averyanitch, sat listening to him he no longer said: "entirely true!" but got red in the face and stammered, "yes, yes ... yes ..." and sometimes, looking at his friend thoughtfully and sorrowfully, advised him to give up vodka and beer. but when doing this, as became a man of delicacy, he did not speak openly, but dropped gentle hints, telling stories, now of a certain battalion commander, an excellent man, now of the regimental chaplain, a first-rate little fellow, who drank a good deal and was taken ill, yet having given up drink got quite well. twice or thrice andréi yéfimitch was visited by his colleague khobótoff, who also asked him to give up spirits, and, without giving him any reason, advised him to try bromide of potassium. in august andréi yéfimitch received a letter from the mayor asking him to come and see him on very important business. on arriving at the town hall at the appointed time he found awaiting him the head of the recruiting department, the superintendent of the district school, a member of the town council, khobótoff, and a stout, fair-haired man, who was introduced as a doctor. this doctor, who bore an unpronounceable polish name, lived on a stud-farm some thirty versts away, and was passing through the town on his way home. "here is a communication about your department," said the town councillor, turning to andréi yéfimitch. "you see, yevgéniï feódoritch says that there is no room for the dispensing room in the main building, and that it must be transferred to one of the wings. that, of course, is easy, it can be transferred any day, but the chief thing is that the wing is in want of repair." "yes, we can hardly get on without that," answered andréi yéfimitch after a moment's thought. "but if the corner wing is to be fitted up as a dispensary you will have to spend at least five hundred roubles on it. it is unproductive expenditure." for a few minutes all were silent. "i had the honour to announce to you, ten years ago," continued andréi yéfimitch in a soft voice, "that this hospital, under present conditions, is a luxury altogether beyond the means of the town. it was built in the forties, when the means for its support: were greater. the town wastes too much money on unnecessary buildings and sinecure offices. i think that with the money we spend we could keep up two model hospitals; that is, of course, with a different order of things." "well, then, let us reform the present order," said the town councillor. "i have already had the honour to advise you to transfer the medical department to the zemstvo." "yes, and hand over to the zemstvo funds which it will pocket," laughed the fair-haired doctor. "that is just what happens," said the town councillor, laughing also. andréi yéfimitch looked feebly at the fair-haired doctor, and said: "we must be just in our judgments." again all were silent. tea was brought in. the chief of the recruiting department, apparently in a state of confusion, touched andréi yéfimitch's hand across the table, and said: "you have quite forgotten us, doctor. but then you were always a monk; you don't play cards, and you don't care for women. we bore you, i'm afraid." and all agreed that it was tiresome for any decent man to live in such a town. neither theatres, nor concerts, and at the last dub-dance about twenty women present and only two men. young men no longer danced, but crowded round the supper-table or played cards together. and andréi yéfimitch, in a slow and soft voice, without looking at those around him, began to lament that the citizens wasted their vital energy, their intellects, and their feelings over cards and scandal, and neither cared nor knew how to pass the time in interesting conversation, in reading, or in taking advantage of the pleasures which intellect alone yields. intellect is the only interesting and distinguished thing in the world; all the rest is petty and base. khobótoff listened attentively to his colleague, and suddenly asked: "andréi yéfimitch, what is the day of the month?" having received an answer, he and the fair-haired doctor, both in the tone of examiners convinced of their own incapacity, asked andréi yéfimitch a number of other questions: what was the day of the week, how many days were there in the year, and was it true that in ward no. there was a remarkable prophet? in answer to this last question andréi yéfimitch got red in the face, and said: "yes, he is insane.... but he is a most interesting young man." no other questions were asked. as andréi yéfimitch put on his coat, the chief of the recruiting department put his hand on his shoulder and said, with a sigh: "for us--old men--it is time to take a rest." as he left the town hall, andréi yéfimitch understood that he had been before a commission appointed to test his mental sanity. he remembered the questions put to him, reddened, and for the first time in his life felt pity for the medical art. "my god!" he thought. "these men have only just been studying psychiatry and passing examinations! where does their monstrous ignorance come from? they have no ideas about psychiatry." for the first time in his life he felt insulted and angry. towards evening mikhail averyanitch came to see him. without a word of greeting, the postmaster went up to him, took him by both hands, and said in an agitated voice: "my dear friend, my dear friend, let me see that you believe in my sincere affection for you. regard me as your friend!" and preventing andréi yéfimitch saying a word, he continued in extreme agitation: "you know that i love you for the culture and nobility of your mind. listen to me, like a good man! the rules of their profession compel the doctors to hide the truth from you, but i, in soldier style, will tell it to you flatly. you are unwell! excuse me, old friend, but that is the plain truth, and it has been noticed by everyone around you. only this moment doctor yevgéniï feódoritch said that for the benefit of your health you needed rest and recreation. it is entirely true! and things fit in admirably. in a few days i will take my leave, and go oft for change of air. trove to me that you are my friend, and come with me. come!" "i feel very well," said andréi yéfimitch, after a moment's thought; "and i cannot go. allow me to prove my friendship in some other way." to go away without any good reason, without his books, without dáryushka, without beer--suddenly to destroy the order of life observed for twenty years--when he first thought of it, the project seemed wild and fantastic. but he remembered the talk in the town hall, and the torments which he had suffered on the w ay home; and the idea of leaving for a short time a town where stupid men considered him mad, delighted him. "but where do you intend to go?" he asked. "to moscow, to petersburg, to warsaw.... in warsaw i spent some of the happiest days of my life. an astonishing city! come!" xiii a week after this conversation, andréi yéfimitch received a formal proposal to take a rest, that is, to retire from his post, and he received the proposal with indifference. still a week later, he and mikhail averyanitch were sitting in the post tarantass and driving to the railway station. the weather was cool and clear, the sky blue and transparent. the two hundred versts were traversed in two days and two nights. when they stopped at the post-houses and were given dirty glasses for tea, or were delayed over the horses, mikhail averyanitch grew purple, shook all over, and roared "silence! don't argue!"... and as they sat in the tarantass he talked incessantly of his travels in the caucasus and in poland. what adventures he had, what meetings! he spoke in a loud voice, and all the time made such astonished eyes that it might have been thought he was lying. as he told his stories he breathed in the doctor's face and laughed in his ear. all this incommoded the doctor and hindered his thinking and concentrating his mind. for reasons of economy they travelled third-class, in a non-smoking carriage. half of the passengers were clean. mikhail averyanitch struck up acquaintance with all, and as he shifted from seat to seat, announced in a loud voice that it was a mistake to travel on these tormenting railways. nothing but rascals around! what a different thing to ride on horseback; in a single day you cover a hundred versts, and at the end feel wholesome and fresh. yes, and we had been cursed with famines as the result of the draining of the pinsky marshes! everywhere nothing but disorder! mikhail averyanitch lost his temper, spoke loudly, and allowed no one else to say a word. his incessant chatter, broken only by loud laughter and expressive gesticulations, bored andréi yéfimitch. "which of us is the more mad?" he asked himself. "i who do my best not to disturb my fellow-travellers, or this egoist who thinks he is cleverer and more interesting than anyone else, and gives no one a moment's rest?" in moscow, mikhail averyanitch donned his military tunic without shoulder-straps, and trousers with red piping. out of doors he wore an army forage-cap and cloak, and was saluted by the soldiers. to andréi yéfimitch he began to seem a man who had lost all the good points of the upper classes and retained only the bad. he loved people to dance attendance on him even when it was quite unnecessary. matches lay before him on the table and he saw them, yet he roared to the waiter to hand them to him; he marched about in his underclothing before the chambermaid; he addressed the waitresses--even the elderly ones--indiscriminately as "thou," and when he was irritated called them blockheads and fools. this, thought andréi yéfimitch, is no doubt gentlemanly, but it is detestable. first of all, mikhail averyanitch brought his friend to the iverskaya.[ ] he prayed piously, bowed to the ground, shed teal's, and when he had finished, sighed deeply and said: "even an unbeliever feels himself at peace after he has prayed. kiss the image, dear!" andréi yéfimitch got red in the face and kissed the image; and mikhail averyanitch puffed out his lips, shook his head, prayed in a whisper; and again into his eyes came tears. after this they visited the kremlin and inspected the tsar-cannon and the tsar-bell, touched them with their fingers, admired the view across the moscow river, and spent some time in the temple of the saviour and afterwards in the rumiantseff museum. they dined at testoffs.[ ] mikhail averyanitch stroked his whiskers, gazed long at the menu, and said to the waiter in the tone of a gourmet who feels at home in restaurants: "well see what you'll feed us with to-day, angel!" [footnote : a celebrated ikon kept in a small chapel near the moscow town hall. it is supposed to possess miraculous healing virtues.] [footnote : a moscow restaurant noted for genuine russian cookery.] xiv the doctor walked and drank and ate and inspected, but his feelings remained unchanged; he was vexed with mikhail averyanitch. he longed to get a rest from his companion, to escape from him, but the postmaster considered it his duty not to let him out of his sight, and to see that he tasted every possible form of recreation. for two days andréi yéfimitch endured it, but on the third declared that he was unwell, and would remain all day at home. mikhail averyanitch said that in that case he also would remain at home. and indeed, he added, a rest was necessary, otherwise they would have no strength left. andréi yéfimitch lay on the sofa with his face to the wall, and with clenched teeth listened to his friend, who assured him that france would sooner or later inevitably destroy germany, that in moscow there are a great many swindlers, and that you cannot judge of the merits of a horse by its appearance. the doctor's heart throbbed, his ears hummed, but from motives of delicacy he could not ask his friend to leave him alone or be silent. but happily mikhail averyanitch grew tired of sitting in the room, and after dinner went for a walk. left alone, andréi yéfimitch surrendered himself to the feeling of rest. how delightful it was to lie motionless on the sofa and know that he was alone in the room! without solitude true happiness was impossible. the fallen angel was faithless to god probably only because he longed for solitude, which angels knew not. andréi yéfimitch wished to reflect upon what he had seen and heard in the last few days. but he could not drive mikhail averyanitch out of his mind. "but then he obtained leave and came with me purely out of friendship and generosity," he thought with vexation. "yet there is nothing more detestable than his maternal care. he is good and generous and a gay companion--but tiresome! intolerably tiresome! he is one of those men who say only clever things, yet you cannot help feeling that they are stupid at bottom." next day andréi yéfimitch said he was still ill, and remained in his loom. he lay with his face to the back of the sofa, was bored when he was listening to conversation, and happy only when he was left alone. he was angry with himself for leaving home, he was angry with mikhail averyanitch, who every day became more garrulous and free-making; to concentrate his thoughts on a serious, elevated plane he failed utterly. "i am now being tested by the realities of which iván dmítritch spoke," he thought, angered at his own pettiness. "but this is nothing.... i will go home, and things will be as before." in st. petersburg the incidents of moscow were repeated; whole days he never left his room, but lay on the sofa, and rose only when he wanted to drink beer. all the time, mikhail averyanitch was in a great hurry to get to warsaw. "my dear friend, why must i go there?" asked andréi yéfimitch imploringly. "go yourself, and let me go home. i beg you!" "not for a million!" protested mikhail averyanitch. "it is an astonishing city! in warsaw i spent the happiest days of my life." andréi yéfimitch had not the character to persist, and with a twinge of pain accompanied his friend to warsaw. when he got there he stayed all day in the hotel, lay on the sofa, and was angry with himself, and with the waiters who stubbornly refused to understand russian. mikhail averyanitch, healthy, gay, and active as ever, drove from morning to night about the city and sought out his old acquaintances. several nights he stayed out altogether. after one of these nights, spent it is uncertain where, he returned early in the morning, dishevelled and excited. for a long time he walked up and down the room, and at last stopped and exclaimed: "honour before everything!" again he walked up and down the room, seized his head in his hands, and declaimed tragically: "yes! honour before everything! cursed be the hour when it entered my head to come near this babylon!... my dear friend," he turned to andréi yéfimitch, "i have lost heavily at cards. lend me five hundred roubles!" andréi yéfimitch counted the money, and gave it silently to his friend. mikhail averyanitch, purple from shame and indignation, cursed incoherently and needlessly, put on his cap, and went out. after two hours' absence he returned, threw himself into an armchair, sighed loudly, and said: "honour is saved! let us go away, my friend! not another minute will i rest in this accursed city! they are all scoundrels!... austrian spies!" when the travellers returned it was the beginning of november, and the streets were covered with snow. doctor khobótoff occupied andréi yéfimitch's position at the hospital, but lived at his own rooms, waiting until andréi yéfimitch returned and gave up the official quarters. the ugly woman whom he called his cook already lived in one of the wings. fresh scandals in connection with the hospital were being circulated in the town. it was said that the ugly woman had quarrelled with the superintendent, who had gone down before her on his knees and begged forgiveness. on the day of his return andréi yéfimitch had to look for new lodgings. "my friend," began the postmaster timidly, "forgive the indelicate question, what money have you got?" andréi yéfimitch silently counted his money, and said: "eighty-six roubles." "you don't understand me," said mikhail averyanitch in confusion. "i ask what means have you--generally?" "i have told you already--eighty-six roubles.... beyond that i have nothing." mikhail averyanitch was well aware that the doctor was an honest and straightforward man. but he believed that he had at least twenty thousand roubles in capital. now learning that his friend was a beggar and had nothing to live on, he began to cry, and embraced him. xv andréi yéfimitch migrated to the three-windowed house of madame byelof, a woman belonging to the petty trading class. in this house were only three rooms and a kitchen. of these rooms two, with windows opening on the street, were occupied by the doctor, while in the third and in the kitchen lived dáryushka, the landlady, and three children. occasionally the number was added to by a drunken workman, madame byeloff's lover, who made scenes at night and terrified dáryushka and the children. when he came, sat in the kitchen, and demanded vodka, the others were crowded out, and the doctor in compassion took the crying children to his own room, and put them to sleep on the floor. this always gave him great satisfaction. as before, he rose at eight o'clock, took his breakfast, and sat down and read his old books and reviews. for new books he had no money. but whether it was because the books were old or because the surroundings were changed, reading no longer interested him, and even tired him. so to pass the time he compiled a detailed catalogue of his books, and pasted labels on the backs; and this mechanical work seemed to him much more interesting than reading. the more monotonous and trifling the occupation the more it calmed his mind, he thought of nothing, and time passed quickly. even to sit in the kitchen and peel potatoes with dáryushka or to pick the dirt out of buckwheat meal interested him. on saturdays and sundays he went to church. standing at the wall, he blinked his eyes, listened to the singing, and thought of his father, his mother, the university, religion; he felt calm and melancholy, and when leaving the church, regretted that the service had not lasted longer. twice he visited the hospital for the purpose of seeing iván dmítritch. but on both occasions gromof was unusually angry and excited; he asked to be left in peace, declared that he had long ago wearied of empty chatter, and that he would regard solitary confinement as a deliverance from these accursed, base people. was it possible they would refuse him that? when andréi yéfimitch took leave of him and wished him good night, he snapped and said: "take yourself to the devil!" and andréi yéfimitch felt undecided as to whether he should go a third time or not. but he wished to go. in the old times andréi yéfimitch had been in the habit of spending the time after dinner in walking about his rooms and thinking. but now from dinner to tea-time he lay on the sofa with his face to the wall and surrendered himself to trivial thoughts, which he found himself unable to conquer. he considered himself injured by the fact that after twenty years' service he had been given neither a pension nor a grant. true he had not done his duties honestly, but then were not pensions given to all old servants indiscriminately, without regard to their honesty or otherwise? modern ideas did not regard rank, orders, and pensions as the reward of moral perfection or capacity, and why must he alone be the exception? he was absolutely penniless. he was ashamed to pass the shop where he dealt or to meet the proprietor. for beer alone he was in debt thirty-two roubles. he was in debt also to his landlady. dáryushka secretly sold old clothing and books, and lied to the landlady, declaring that her master was about to come in to a lot of money. andréi yéfimitch was angry with himself for having wasted on his journey the thousand roubles which he had saved. what could he not do with a thousand roubles now? he was annoyed, also, because others would not leave him alone. khobótoff considered it his duty to pay periodical visits to his sick colleague; and everything about him was repulsive to andréi yéfimitch--his sated face, his condescending bad manners, the word "colleague," and the high boots. but the greatest annoyance of all was that he considered it his duty to cure andréi yéfimitch, and even imagined he was curing him. on every occasion he brought a phial of bromide of potassium and a rhubarb pill. mikhail averyanitch also considered it his duty to visit his sick friend and amuse him. he entered the room with affected freeness, laughed unnaturally, and assured andréi yéfimitch that to-day he looked splendid, and that, glory be to god! he was getting all right. from this alone it might be concluded that he regarded the case as hopeless. he had not yet paid off the warsaw debt, and being ashamed of himself and constrained, he laughed all the louder, and told ridiculous anecdotes. his stories now seemed endless, and were a source of torment both to andréi yéfimitch and to himself. when the postmaster was present, andréi yéfimitch usually lay on the sofa, his face turned to the wall, with clenched teeth, listening. it seemed to him that a crust was forming about his heart, and after; every visit he felt the crust becoming thicker, and; threatening to extend to his throat. to exorcise these trivial afflictions he reflected that he, and khobótoff, and mikhail averyanitch would, sooner or later, perish, leaving behind themselves not a trace. when a million years had passed by, a spirit flying through space would see only a frozen globe and naked stones. all--culture and morals--everything would pass away; even the burdock would not grow. why, then, should he trouble himself with feelings of shame on account of a shopkeeper, of insignificant khobótoff, of the terrible friendship of mikhail averyanitch. it was all folly and vanity. but such reasoning did not console him. he had hardly succeeded in painting a vivid picture of the frozen globe after a million yearn of decay, when from behind a naked rock appeared khobótoff in his top boots, and beside him stood mikhail averyanitch, with an affected laugh, and a shamefaced whisper on his lips: "and the warsaw debt, old man, i will repay in a few days ... without fail!" xvi mikhail averyanitch arrived after dinner one evening when andréi yéfimitch was lying on the sofa. at the same time came khobótoff with his bromide of potassium. andréi yéfimitch rose slowly, sat down again, and supported himself by resting his hands upon the sofa edge. "to-day, my dear," began mikhail averyanitch, "to-day your complexion is much healthier than yesterday. you are a hero! i swear to god, a hero!" "it's time, indeed it's time for you to recover, colleague," said khobótoff, yawning. "you must be tired of the delay yourself." "never mind, we'll soon be all right," said mikhail averyanitch gaily. "why, we'll live for another hundred years! eh?" "perhaps not a hundred, but a safe twenty," said khobótoff consolingly. "don't worry, colleague, don't worry!" "we'll let them see!" laughed mikhail averyanitch, slapping his friend on the knee. "we'll show how the trick is done! next summer, with god's will, we'll fly away to the caucasus, and gallop all over the country--trot, trot, trot! and when we come back from the caucasus we'll dance at your wedding!" mikhail averyanitch winked slyly. "we'll marry you, my friend, we'll find the bride!" andréi yéfimitch felt that the crust had risen to his throat. his heart beat painfully. "this is absurd," he said, rising suddenly and going over to the window. "is it possible you don't understand that you are talking nonsense?" he wished to speak to his visitors softly and politely, but could not restrain himself, and, against his own will, clenched his fists, and raised them threateningly above his head. "leave me!" he cried, in a voice which was not his own. his face was purple and he trembled all over. "begone! both of you! go!" mikhail averyanitch and khobótoff rose, and looked at him, at first in astonishment, then in tenor. "begone both of you!" continued andréi yéfimitch. "stupid idiots! fools! i want neither your friendship nor your medicines, idiots! this is base, it is abominable!" khobótoff and the postmaster exchanged confused glances, staggered to the door, and went into the hall. andréi yéfimitch seized the phial of bromide of potassium, and flung it after them, breaking it upon the threshold. "take yourselves to the devil!" he cried, running after them into the hall. "to the devil!" after his visitors had gone he lay on the sofa, trembling as if in fever, and repeated-- "stupid idiots! dull fools!" when he calmed down, the first thought that entered his head was that poor mikhail averyanitch must now be terribly ashamed and wretched, and that the scene that had passed was something very terrible. nothing of the kind had ever happened before. what had become of his intellect and tact? where were now his understanding of the world and his philosophical indifference? all night the doctor was kept awake by feelings of shame and vexation. at nine o'clock next morning, he went to the post office and apologised to the postmaster. "do not refer to what happened!" said the postmaster, with a sigh. touched by andréi yéfimitch's conduct, he pressed his hands warmly. "no man should trouble over such trifles.... lubiakin!" he roared so loudly that the clerks and visitors trembled. "bring a chair!... and you just wait!" he cried to a peasant woman, who held a registered letter through the grating. "don't you see that i am engaged? ... we will forget all that," he continued tenderly, turning to andréi yéfimitch. "sit down, my old friend!" he stroked his eyebrows silently for a minute, and continued: "it never entered my head to take offence. illness is a very strange thing, i understand that. yesterday your fit frightened both the doctor and myself, and we talked of you for a long time. my dear friend, why will you not pay more attention to your complaint? do you think you can go on living in this way? forgive the plain speaking of a friend." he dropped his voice to a whisper. "but you live among hopeless surroundings--closeness, uncleanliness, no one to look after you, nothing to take for your ailment.... my dear friend, both i and the doctor implore you with all our hearts--listen to our advice--go into the hospital. there you will get wholesome food, care and treatment. yevgéniï feódoritch--although, between ourselves, de mauvais ton--is a capable man, and you can fully rely upon him. he gave me his word that he would take care of you." andréi yéfimitch was touched by the sincere concern of his friend, and the tears that trickled down the postmaster's cheeks. "my dear friend, don't believe them!" he whispered, laying his hand upon his heart. "it is all a delusion. my complaint lies merely in this, that in twenty years i found in this town only one intelligent man, and he was a lunatic. i suffer from no disease whatever; my misfortune is that i have fallen into a magic circle from which there is no escape. it is all the same to me--i am ready for anything." "then you will go into the hospital?" "it is all the same--even into the pit." "give me your word, friend, that you will obey yevgéniï feódoritch in everything." "i give you my word. but i repeat that i have fallen into a magic circle. everything now, even the sincere concern of my friends, tends only to the same thing--to my destruction. i am perishing, and i have the courage to acknowledge it." "nonsense, you will get all right!" "what is the use of talking like that?" said andréi yéfimitch irritably. "there are very few men who at the close of their lives do not experience what i am experiencing now. when people tell you that you have disease of the kidneys or a dilated heart, and set about to cure you; when they tell you that you are a madman or a criminal--in one word, when they begin to turn their attention on to you--you may recognise that you are in a magic circle from which there is no escape. you may try to escape, but that makes things worse. give in, for no human efforts will save you. so it seems to me." all this time, people were gathering at the grating. andréi yéfimitch disliked interrupting the postmaster's work, and took his leave. mikhail averyanitch once more made him give his word of honour, and escorted him to the door. the same day towards evening khobótoff, in his short fur coat and high boots, arrived unexpectedly, and, as if nothing had happened the day before, said: "i have come to you on a matter of business, colleague, i want you to come with me to a consultation. eh?" thinking that khobótoff wanted to amuse him with a walk, or give him some opportunity of earning money, andréi yéfimitch dressed, and went with him into the street. he was glad of the chance to redeem his rudeness of the day before, thankful for the apparent reconciliation, and grateful to khobótoff for not hinting at the incident. from this uncultured man who would have expected such delicacy? "and where is your patient?" asked andréi yéfimitch. "at the hospital. for a long time past i have wanted you to see him.... a most interesting case." they entered the hospital yard, and passing through the main building, went to the wing where the lunatics were confined. when they entered the hall, nikita as usual jumped up and stretched himself. "one of them has such strange complications in the lungs," whispered khobótoff as he entered the ward with andréi yéfimitch. "but wait here. i shall be back immediately. i must get my stethoscope." and he left the room. xvii it was already twilight. iván dmítritch lay on his bed with his face buried in the pillow; the paralytic sat motionless, and wept softly and twitched his lips; the fat muzhik and the ex-sorter slept. it was very quiet. andréi yéfimitch sat on iván dmítritch's bed and listened. half an hour passed by, but khobótoff did not come. instead of khobótoff came nikita carrying in his arm a dressing-gown, some linen, and a pair of slippers. "please to put on these, your honour," he said calmly. "there is your bed, this way, please," he added, pointing at a vacant bed, evidently only just set up. "and don't take on; with god's will you will soon be well!" andréi yéfimitch understood. without a word he walked over to the bed indicated by nikita and sat upon it. then, seeing that nikita was waiting, he stripped himself and felt ashamed. he put on the hospital clothing; the flannels were too small, the shirt was too long, and the dressing-gown smelt of smoked fish. "you will soon be all right, god grant it!" repeated nikita. he took up andréi yéfimitch's clothes, went out, and locked the door. "it is all the same," thought andréi yéfimitch, shamefacedly gathering the dressing-gown around him, and feeling like a convict in his new garments. "it is all the same. in dress clothes, in uniform ... or in this dressing-gown." but his watch? and the memorandum book in his side pocket? and the cigarettes? where had nikita taken his clothes? to the day of his death he would never again wear trousers, a waistcoat, or boots. it was strange and incredible at first. andréi yéfimitch was firmly convinced that there was no difference whatever between madame byelof's house and ward no. , and that all in this world is folly and vanity; but he could not prevent his hands trembling, and his feet were cold. he was hurt, too, by the thought that iván dmítritch would rise and see him in the dressing-gown. he rose, walked up and down the room, and again sat down. he remained sitting for half an hour, weary to the point of grief. would it be possible to live here a day, a week, even years, as these others had done? he must sit down, and walk about and again sit down; and then he might look out of the window, and again walk from end to end of the room. and afterwards? just to sit all day still as an idol, and think! no, it was impossible. andréi yéfimitch lay down on his bed, but almost immediately rose, rubbed with his cuff the cold sweat from his forehead, and felt that his whole face smelt of dried fish. he walked up and down the ward. "this is some misunderstanding...." he said, opening his arms. "it only needs an explanation, it is a misunderstanding...." at this moment iván dmítritch awoke. he sat up in bed, rested his head on his hands, and spat. then he looked idly at the doctor, apparently at first understanding nothing. but soon his sleepy face grew contemptuous and malicious. "so they have brought you here, my friend," he began in a voice hoarse from sleep. he blinked one eye. "i am very glad! you drank other men's blood, and now they will drink yours! admirable!" "it is some misunderstanding ..." began andréi yéfimitch, frightened by the lunatic's words. he shrugged his shoulders and repeated. "it is a misunderstanding of some kind." iván dmítritch again spat, and lay down on his bed. "accursed life!" he growled. "but what is most bitter, most abominable of all, is that this life ends not with rewards for suffering, not with apotheoses as in operas, but in death; men come and drag the corpse by its arms and legs into the cellar. brrrrrr!... well, never mind!... for all that we have suffered in this, in the other world we will be repaid with a holiday! from the other world i shall return hither as a shadow, and terrify these monsters!... i will turn their heads grey!" moséika entered the ward, and seeing the doctor, stretched out his hand, and said: "give me a kopeck!" xviii andréi yéfimitch went across to the window, and looked out into the fields. it was getting dark, and on the horizon rose a cold, livid moon. near the hospital railings, a hundred fathoms away, not more, rose a lofty, white building, surrounded by a stone wall. it was the prison. "that is actuality," thought andréi yéfimitch, and he felt terrified. everything was terrible: the moon, the prison, the spikes in the fence, and the blaze in the distant bone-mill. andréi yéfimitch turned away from the window, and saw before him a man with glittering stars and orders upon his breast. the man smiled and winked cunningly. and this, too, seemed terrible. he tried to assure himself that in the moon and in the prison there was nothing peculiar at all, that even sane men wear orders, and that the best of things in their turn rot and turn into dust. but despair suddenly seized him, he took hold of the grating with both hands, and jerked it with all his strength. but the bars stood firm. that it might be less terrible, he went to iván dmítritch's bed, and sat upon it. "i have lost my spirits, friend," he said, stammering, trembling, and rubbing the cold sweat from his face. "my spirits have fallen." "but why don't you philosophise?" asked iván dmítritch ironically. "my god, my god!... yes, yes!... once you said that in russia there is no philosophy; but all philosophise, even triflers. but the philosophising of triflers does no harm to anyone," said andréi yéfimitch as if he wanted to cry. "by why, my dear friend, why this malicious laughter? why should not triflers philosophise if they are not satisfied? for a clever, cultivated, proud, freedom-loving man, built in the image of god, there is no course left but to come as doctor to a dirty, stupid town, and lead a life of jars, leeches, and gallipots. charlatanry, narrowness, baseness! oh, my god!" "you chatter nonsense! if you didn't want to be a doctor, why weren't you a minister of state?" "i could not. we are weak, my friend. i was indifferent to things, i reasoned actively and wholesomely, but it needed but the first touch of actuality to make me lose heart, and surrender.... we are weak; we are worthless!... and you also, my friend. you are able, you are noble, with your mother's milk you drank in draughts of happiness, yet hardly had you entered upon life when you wearied of it.... we are weak, weak!" in addition to terror and the feeling of insult, andréi yéfimitch had been tortured by sonic importunate craving ever since the approach of evening. finally he came to the conclusion that he wanted to smoke and drink beer. "i am going out, my friend," he said. "i will tell them to bring lights.... i cannot in this way.... i am not in a state...." he went to the door and opened it, but immediately nikita jumped up and barred the way. "where are you going to? you can't, you can't!" he cried. "it's time for bed!" "but only for a minute.... i want to go into the yard.... i want to have a walk in the yard," said andréi yéfimitch. "you can't. i have orders against it.... you know yourself." nikita banged the door and set his back against it. "but if i go out what harm will it do?" asked andréi yéfimitch. "i don't understand! nikita, i must go out!" he cried in a trembling voice. "i must go!" "don't create disorder; it is not right!" said nikita in an edifying tone. "the devil knows what is the meaning of this!" suddenly screamed iván dmítritch, jumping from his bed. "what right has he to refuse to let us go? how dare they keep us here? the law allows no man to be deprived of freedom without a trial! this is violence ... tyranny!" "of course it is tyranny," said andréi yéfimitch, encouraging gromof. "i must go! i have to go out! he has no right! let me out, i tell you!" "do you hear, stupid dog!" screamed ivrin dmítritch, thumping the door with his fists. "open, or i will smash the door! blood-sucker!" "open!" cried andréi yéfimitch, trembling all over: "i demand it!" "talk away!" answered nikita through the door. "talk away!" "go, then, for yevgéniï feódoritch! say that i ask him to come ... for a minute!" "to-morrow he will come all right." "they will never let us go!" cried iván dmítritch. "we will all die here! oh, god, is it possible that in the other world there is no hell, that these villains will be forgiven? where is there justice? open, scoundrel, i am choking!" gromof cried out in a hoarse voice, and flung himself against the door. "i will dash my brains out! assassins!" nikita flung open the door, and with both hands and his knees roughly pushed andréi yéfimitch back into the room, and struck him with his clenched fist full in the face. it seemed to andréi yéfimitch that a great salt wave had suddenly dashed upon his head and flung him upon his bed; in his mouth was a taste of salt, and the blood seemed to burst from his gums. as if trying to swim away from the wave, he flourished his arms and seized the bedstead. but at this moment nikita struck him again and again in the back. iván dmítritch screamed loudly. he also had evidently been beaten. then all was quiet liquid moonlight poured through between the iron bars, and on the floor lay a network shadow. all were terrified. andréi yéfimitch lay on the bed and held his breath in terror, awaiting another blow. it seemed as if someone had taken a sickle, thrust it into his chest and turned it around. in his agony he bit his pillow and ground his teeth, and suddenly into his head amid the chaos flashed the intolerable thought that such misery had been borne year after year by these helpless men who now lay in the moonlight like black shadows about him. in twenty years he had never known of it, and never wanted to know. he did not know, he had no idea of their wretchedness, therefore he was not guilty; but conscience, as rude and unaccommodating as nikita's fists, sent an icy thrill through him from head to foot. he jumped from his bed and tried to scream with all his might, to fly from the ward and kill nikita, and khobótoff, and the superintendent, and the feldscher, and himself. but not a sound came from his throat, his feet rebelled against him, he panted, he tore his gown and shirt, and fell insensible on the bed. xix next morning his head ached, his cars hummed, and he was weak. the memory of his weakness of the day before made him feel ashamed. yesterday he had shown a petty spirit, he had feared even the moon, and honestly expressed feelings and thoughts which he had never suspected could exist in himself. for instance, the thought about the discontent of philosophic triflers. but now he was quite indifferent. he neither ate nor drank, but lay motionless and silent. "it is all the same to me," he thought when he was questioned. "i shall not answer.... it is all the same...." after dinner mikhail averyanitch brought him a quarter of a pound of tea and a pound of marmalade. dáryushka also came, and for a whole hour stood beside the bed with a dull expression of uncomprehending affliction. doctor khobótoff also paid him a visit. he brought a phial of bromide of potassium, and ordered nikita to fumigate the ward. towards evening andréi yéfimitch died from an apoplectic stroke. at first he felt chill, and sickness; something loathsome like rotting sour cabbage or bad eggs seemed to permeate his whole body even to his fingers, to extend from his stomach to his head, and to flow in his eyes and ears. a green film appeared before his eyes. andréi yéfimitch realised that his hour had come; and remembered that iván dmítritch, mikhail averyanitch, and millions of others believed in immortality. but immortality he did not desire, and thought of it only for a moment. a herd of antelopes, extraordinarily beautiful and graceful, of which he had been reading the day before, rushed past him; then a woman stretched out to him a hand holding a registered letter.... mikhail averyanitch said something. then all vanished and andréi yéfimitch died. the servants came in, took him by the shoulders and legs, and carried him to the chapel. there he lay on a table with open eyes, and at night the moon shone down upon him. in the morning came sergéi sergéyitch, piously prayed before a crucifix, and closed the eyes of his former chief. next day andréi yéfim itch was buried. only mikhail averyanitch and dáryushka were present at the funeral. [ transcriber's notes: every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation. some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. they are listed at the end of the text. italic text has been marked with _underscores_. ] reminiscences of anton chekhov by maxim gorky, alexander kuprin and i. a. bunin translated by s. s. koteliansky and leonard woolf new york b. w. huebsch, inc. mcmxxi copyright, , by b. w. huebsch, inc. printed in the united states of america contents fragments of recollections by maxim gorky, to chekhov's memory by alexander kuprin, a. p. chekhov by i. a. bunin, anton chekhov fragments of recollections by maxim gorky once he invited me to the village koutchouk-koy where he had a tiny strip of land and a white, two-storied house. there, while showing me his "estate," he began to speak with animation: "if i had plenty of money, i should build a sanatorium here for invalid village teachers. you know, i would put up a large, bright building--very bright, with large windows and lofty rooms. i would have a fine library, different musical instruments, bees, a vegetable garden, an orchard.... there would be lectures on agriculture, mythology.... teachers ought to know everything, everything, my dear fellow." he was suddenly silent, coughed, looked at me out of the corners of his eyes, and smiled that tender, charming smile of his which attracted one so irresistibly to him and made one listen so attentively to his words. "does it bore you to listen to my fantasies? i do love to talk of it.... if you knew how badly the russian village needs a nice, sensible, educated teacher! we ought in russia to give the teacher particularly good conditions, and it ought to be done as quickly as possible. we ought to realize that without a wide education of the people, russia will collapse, like a house built of badly baked bricks. a teacher must be an artist, in love with his calling; but with us he is a journeyman, ill educated, who goes to the village to teach children as though he were going into exile. he is starved, crushed, terrorized by the fear of losing his daily bread. but he ought to be the first man in the village; the peasants ought to recognize him as a power, worthy of attention and respect; no one should dare to shout at him or humiliate him personally, as with us every one does--the village constable, the rich shop-keeper, the priest, the rural police commissioner, the school guardian, the councilor, and that official who has the title of school-inspector, but who cares nothing for the improvement of education and only sees that the circulars of his chiefs are carried out.... it is ridiculous to pay in farthings the man who has to educate the people. it is intolerable that he should walk in rags, shiver with cold in damp and draughty schools, catch cold, and about the age of thirty get laryngitis, rheumatism, or tuberculosis. we ought to be ashamed of it. our teacher, for eight or nine months in the year, lives like a hermit: he has no one to speak a word to; without company, books, or amusements, he is growing stupid, and, if he invites his colleagues to visit him, then he becomes politically suspect--a stupid word with which crafty men frighten fools. all this is disgusting; it is the mockery of a man who is doing a great and tremendously important work.... do you know, whenever i see a teacher, i feel ashamed for him, for his timidity, and because he is badly dressed ... it seems to me that for the teacher's wretchedness i am myself to blame--i mean it." he was silent, thinking; and then, waving his hand, he said gently: "this russia of ours is such an absurd, clumsy country." a shadow of sadness crossed his beautiful eyes; little rays of wrinkles surrounded them and made them look still more meditative. then, looking round, he said jestingly: "you see, i have fired off at you a complete leading article from a radical paper. come, i'll give you tea to reward your patience." that was characteristic of him, to speak so earnestly, with such warmth and sincerity, and then suddenly to laugh at himself and his speech. in that sad and gentle smile one felt the subtle skepticism of the man who knows the value of words and dreams; and there also flashed in the smile a lovable modesty and delicate sensitiveness.... we walked back slowly in silence to the house. it was a clear, hot day; the waves sparkled under the bright rays of the sun; down below one heard a dog barking joyfully. chekhov took my arm, coughed, and said slowly: "it is shameful and sad, but true: there are many men who envy the dogs." and he added immediately with a laugh: "to-day i can only make feeble speeches ... it means that i'm getting old." i often heard him say: "you know, a teacher has just come here--he's ill, married ... couldn't you do something for him? i have made arrangements for him for the time being." or again: "listen, gorky, there is a teacher here who would like to meet you. he can't go out, he's ill. won't you come and see him? do." or: "look here, the women teachers want books to be sent to them." sometimes i would find that "teacher" at his house; usually he would be sitting on the edge of his chair, blushing at the consciousness of his own awkwardness, in the sweat of his brow picking and choosing his words, trying to speak smoothly and "educatedly"; or, with the ease of manner of a person who is morbidly shy, he would concentrate himself upon the effort not to appear stupid in the eyes of an author, and he would simply belabor anton chekhov with a hail of questions which had never entered his head until that moment. anton chekhov would listen attentively to the dreary, incoherent speech; now and again a smile came into his sad eyes, a little wrinkle appeared on his forehead, and then, in his soft, lusterless voice, he began to speak simple, clear, homely words, words which somehow or other immediately made his questioner simple: the teacher stopped trying to be clever, and therefore immediately became more clever and interesting.... i remember one teacher, a tall, thin man with a yellow, hungry face and a long, hooked nose which drooped gloomily towards his chin. he sat opposite anton chekhov and, looking fixedly into chekhov's face with his black eyes, said in a melancholy bass voice: "from such impressions of existence within the space of the tutorial session there comes a psychical conglomeration which crushes every possibility of an objective attitude towards the surrounding universe. of course, the universe is nothing but our presentation of it...." and he rushed headlong into philosophy, and he moved over its surface like a drunkard skating on ice. "tell me," chekhov put in quietly and kindly, "who is that teacher in your district who beats the children?" the teacher sprang from his chair and waved his arms indignantly: "whom do you mean? me? never! beating?" he snorted with indignation. "don't get excited," anton chekhov went on, smiling reassuringly; "i'm not speaking of you. but i remember--i read it in the newspapers--there is some one in your district who beats the children." the teacher sat down, wiped his perspiring face, and, with a sigh of relief, said in his deep bass:-- "it's true ... there was such a case ... it was makarov. you know, it's not surprising. it's cruel, but explicable. he's married ... has four children ... his wife is ill ... himself consumptive ... his salary is roubles, the school like a cellar, and the teacher has but a single room--under such circumstances you will give a thrashing to an angel of god for no fault ... and the children--they're far from angels, believe me." and the man, who had just been mercilessly belaboring chekhov with his store of clever words, suddenly, ominously wagging his hooked nose, began to speak simple, weighty, clear-cut words, which illuminated, like a fire, the terrible, accursed truth about the life of the russian village. when he said good-bye to his host, the teacher took chekhov's small, dry hand with its thin fingers in both his own, and, shaking it, said:-- "i came to you as though i were going to the authorities, in fear and trembling ... i puffed myself out like a turkey-cock ... i wanted to show you that i was no ordinary mortal.... and now i'm leaving you as a nice, close friend who understands everything.... it's a great thing--to understand everything! thank you! i'm taking away with me a pleasant thought: big men are simpler and more understandable ... and nearer in soul to us fellow men than all those wretches among whom we live.... good-bye; i will never forget you." his nose quivered, his lips twisted into a good-natured smile, and he added suddenly: "to tell the truth, scoundrels too are unhappy--the devil take them." when he went out, chekhov followed him with a glance, smiled, and said: "he's a nice fellow.... he won't be a teacher long." "why?" "they will run him down--whip him off." he thought for a bit, and added quietly: "in russia an honest man is rather like the chimney-sweep with whom nurses frighten children." * * * * * i think that in anton chekhov's presence every one involuntarily felt in himself a desire to be simpler, more truthful, more one's self; i often saw how people cast off the motley finery of bookish phrases, smart words, and all the other cheap tricks with which a russian, wishing to figure as a european, adorns himself, like a savage with shells and fish's teeth. anton chekhov disliked fish's teeth and cock's feathers; anything "brilliant" or foreign, assumed by a man to make himself look bigger, disturbed him; i noticed that, whenever he saw any one dressed up in this way, he had a desire to free him from all that oppressive, useless tinsel and to find underneath the genuine face and living soul of the person. all his life chekhov lived on his own soul; he was always himself, inwardly free, and he never troubled about what some people expected and others--coarser people--demanded of anton chekhov. he did not like conversations about deep questions, conversations with which our dear russians so assiduously comfort themselves, forgetting that it is ridiculous, and not at all amusing, to argue about velvet costumes in the future when in the present one has not even a decent pair of trousers. beautifully simple himself, he loved everything simple, genuine, sincere, and he had a peculiar way of making other people simple. once, i remember, three luxuriously dressed ladies came to see him; they filled his room with the rustle of silk skirts and the smell of strong scent; they sat down politely opposite their host, pretended that they were interested in politics, and began "putting questions":-- "anton pavlovitch, what do you think? how will the war end?" anton pavlovitch coughed, thought for a while, and then gently, in a serious and kindly voice, replied: "probably in peace." "well, yes ... certainly. but who will win? the greeks or the turks?" "it seems to me that those will win who are the stronger." "and who, do you think, are the stronger?" all the ladies asked together. "those who are the better fed and the better educated." "ah, how clever," one of them exclaimed. "and whom do you like best?" another asked. anton pavlovitch looked at her kindly, and answered with a meek smile: "i love candied fruits ... don't you?" "very much," the lady exclaimed gayly. "especially abrikossov's," the second agreed solidly. and the third, half closing her eyes, added with relish: "it smells so good." and all three began to talk with vivacity, revealing, on the subject of candied fruit, great erudition and subtle knowledge. it was obvious that they were happy at not having to strain their minds and pretend to be seriously interested in turks and greeks, to whom up to that moment they had not given a thought. when they left, they merrily promised anton pavlovitch: "we will send you some candied fruit." "you managed that nicely," i observed when they had gone. anton pavlovitch laughed quietly and said: "every one should speak his own language." on another occasion i found at his house a young and prettyish crown prosecutor. he was standing in front of chekhov, shaking his curly head, and speaking briskly: "in your story, 'the conspirator,' you, anton pavlovitch, put before me a very complex case. if i admit in denis grigoriev a criminal and conscious intention, then i must, without any reservation, bundle him into prison, in the interests of the community. but he is a savage; he did not realize the criminality of his act.... i feel pity for him. but suppose i regard him as a man who acted without understanding, and suppose i yield to my feeling of pity, how can i guarantee the community that denis will not again unscrew the nut in the sleepers and wreck a train? that's the question. what's to be done?" he stopped, threw himself back, and fixed an inquiring look on anton pavlovitch's face. his uniform was quite new, and the buttons shone as self-confidently and dully on his chest as did the little eyes in the pretty, clean, little face of the youthful enthusiast for justice. "if i were judge," said anton pavlovitch gravely, "i would acquit denis." "on what grounds?" "i would say to him: you, denis, have not yet ripened into the type of the deliberate criminal; go--and ripen." the lawyer began to laugh, but instantly again became pompously serious and said: "no, sir, the question put by you must be answered only in the interests of the community whose life and property i am called upon to protect. denis is a savage, but he is also a criminal--that is the truth." "do you like gramophones?" suddenly asked anton pavlovitch in his soft voice. "o yes, very much. an amazing invention!" the youth answered gayly. "and i can't stand gramophones," anton pavlovitch confessed sadly. "why?" "they speak and sing without feeling. everything seems like a caricature ... dead. do you like photography?" it appeared that the lawyer was a passionate lover of photography; he began at once to speak of it with enthusiasm, completely uninterested, as chekhov had subtly and truly noticed, in the gramophone, despite his admiration for that "amazing invention." and again i observed how there looked out of that uniform a living and rather amusing little man, whose feelings towards life were still those of a puppy hunting. when anton pavlovitch had seen him out, he said sternly: "they are like pimples on the seat of justice--disposing of the fate of people." and after a short silence: "crown prosecutors must be very fond of fishing ... especially for little fish." * * * * * he had the art of revealing everywhere and driving away banality, an art which is only possible to a man who demands much from life and which comes from a keen desire to see men simple, beautiful, harmonious. banality always found in him a discerning and merciless judge. some one told in his presence how the editor of a popular magazine, who was always talking of the necessity of love and pity, had, for no reason at all, insulted a railway guard, and how he usually acted with extreme rudeness towards his inferiors. "well," said anton pavlovitch with a gloomy smile, "but isn't he an aristocrat, an educated gentleman? he studied at the seminary. his father wore bast shoes, and he wears patent-leather boots." and in his tone there was something which at once made the "aristocrat" trivial and ridiculous. "he's a very gifted man," he said of a certain journalist. "he always writes so nobly, humanely, ... lemonadely. calls his wife a fool in public ... the servants' rooms are damp and the maids constantly get rheumatics." "don't you like n. n., anton pavlovitch?" "yes, i do--very much. he's a pleasant fellow," anton pavlovitch agrees, coughing. "he knows everything ... reads a lot ... he hasn't returned three of my books ... he's absent-minded. to-day he will tell you that you're a wonderful fellow, and to-morrow he will tell somebody else that you cheat your servants, and that you have stolen from your mistress's husband his silk socks ... the black ones with the blue stripes." some one in his presence complained of the heaviness and tediousness of the "serious" sections in thick monthly magazines. "but you mustn't read those articles," said anton pavlovitch. "they are friends' literature--written for friends. they are written by messrs. red, black, and white. one writes an article; the other replies to it; and the third reconciles the contradictions of the other two. it is like playing whist with a dummy. yet none of them asks himself what good it is to the reader." once a plump, healthy, handsome, well-dressed lady came to him and began to speak _à la chekhov_:-- "life is so boring, anton pavlovitch. everything is so gray: people, the sea, even the flowers seem to me gray.... and i have no desires ... my soul is in pain ... it is like a disease." "it is a disease," said anton pavlovitch with conviction, "it is a disease; in latin it is called _morbus imitatis_." fortunately the lady did not seem to know latin, or, perhaps, she pretended not to know it. "critics are like horse-flies which prevent the horse from plowing," he said, smiling his wise smile. "the horse works, all its muscles drawn tight like the strings on a doublebass, and a fly settles on his flanks and tickles and buzzes ... he has to twitch his skin and swish his tail. and what does the fly buzz about? it scarcely knows itself; simply because it is restless and wants to proclaim: 'look, i too am living on the earth. see, i can buzz, too, buzz about anything.' for twenty-five years i have read criticisms of my stories, and i don't remember a single remark of any value or one word of valuable advice. only once skabitchevsky wrote something which made an impression on me ... he said i would die in a ditch, drunk." nearly always there was an ironical smile in his gray eyes, but at times they became cold, sharp, hard; at such times a harder tone sounded in his soft, sincere voice, and then it appeared that this modest, gentle man, when he found it necessary, could rouse himself vigorously against a hostile force and would not yield. but sometimes, i thought, there was in his attitude towards people a feeling of hopelessness, almost of cold, resigned despair. "a russian is a strange creature," he said once. "he is like a sieve; nothing remains in him. in his youth he fills himself greedily with anything which he comes across, and after thirty years nothing remains but a kind of gray rubbish.... in order to live well and humanly one must work--work with love and with faith. but we, we can't do it. an architect, having built a couple of decent buildings, sits down to play cards, plays all his life, or else is to be found somewhere behind the scenes of some theatre. a doctor, if he has a practice, ceases to be interested in science, and reads nothing but _the medical journal_, and at forty seriously believes that all diseases have their origin in catarrh. i have never met a single civil servant who had any idea of the meaning of his work: usually he sits in the metropolis or the chief town of the province, and writes papers and sends them off to zmiev or smorgon for attention. but that those papers will deprive some one in zmiev or smorgon of freedom of movement--of that the civil servant thinks as little as an atheist of the tortures of hell. a lawyer who has made a name by a successful defense ceases to care about justice, and defends only the rights of property, gambles on the turf, eats oysters, figures as a connoisseur of all the arts. an actor, having taken two or three parts tolerably, no longer troubles to learn his parts, puts on a silk hat, and thinks himself a genius. russia is a land of insatiable and lazy people: they eat enormously of nice things, drink, like to sleep in the day-time, and snore in their sleep. they marry in order to get their house looked after and keep mistresses in order to be thought well of in society. their psychology is that of a dog: when they are beaten, they whine shrilly and run into their kennels; when petted, they lie on their backs with their paws in the air and wag their tails." pain and cold contempt sounded in these words. but, though contemptuous, he felt pity, and, if in his presence you abused any one, anton pavlovitch would immediately defend him. "why do you say that? he is an old man ... he's seventy." or: "but he's still so young ... it's only stupidity." and, when he spoke like that, i never saw a sign of aversion in his face. * * * * * when a man is young, banality seems only amusing and unimportant, but little by little it possesses a man; it permeates his brain and blood like poison or asphyxiating fumes; he becomes like an old, rusty sign-board: something is painted on it, but what?--you can't make out. anton pavlovitch in his early stories was already able to reveal in the dim sea of banality its tragic humor; one has only to read his "humorous" stories with attention to see what a lot of cruel and disgusting things, behind the humorous words and situations, had been observed by the author with sorrow and were concealed by him. he was ingenuously shy; he would not say aloud and openly to people: "now do be more decent"; he hoped in vain that they would themselves see how necessary it was that they should be more decent. he hated everything banal and foul, and he described the abominations of life in the noble language of a poet, with the humorist's gentle smile, and behind the beautiful form of his stories people scarcely noticed the inner meaning, full of bitter reproach. the dear public, when it reads his "daughter of albion," laughs and hardly realizes how abominable is the well-fed squire's mockery of a person who is lonely and strange to every one and everything. in each of his humorous stories i hear the quiet, deep sigh of a pure and human heart, the hopeless sigh of sympathy for men who do not know how to respect human dignity, who submit without any resistance to mere force, live like fish, believe in nothing but the necessity of swallowing every day as much thick soup as possible, and feel nothing but fear that some one, strong and insolent, will give them a hiding. no one understood as clearly and finely as anton chekhov, the tragedy of life's trivialities, no one before him showed men with such merciless truth the terrible and shameful picture of their life in the dim chaos of bourgeois every-day existence. his enemy was banality; he fought it all his life long; he ridiculed it, drawing it with a pointed and unimpassioned pen, finding the mustiness of banality even where at the first glance everything seemed to be arranged very nicely, comfortably, and even brilliantly--and banality revenged itself upon him by a nasty prank, for it saw that his corpse, the corpse of a poet, was put into a railway truck "for the conveyance of oysters." that dirty green railway truck seems to me precisely the great, triumphant laugh of banality over its tired enemy; and all the "recollections" in the gutter press are hypocritical sorrow, behind which i feel the cold and smelly breath of banality, secretly rejoicing over the death of its enemy. * * * * * reading anton chekhov's stories, one feels oneself in a melancholy day of late autumn, when the air is transparent and the outline of naked trees, narrow houses, grayish people, is sharp. everything is strange, lonely, motionless, helpless. the horizon, blue and empty, melts into the pale sky and its breath is terribly cold upon the earth which is covered with frozen mud. the author's mind, like the autumn sun, shows up in hard outline the monotonous roads, the crooked streets, the little squalid houses in which tiny, miserable people are stifled by boredom and laziness and fill the houses with an unintelligible, drowsy bustle. here anxiously, like a gray mouse, scurries "the darling," the dear, meek woman who loves so slavishly and who can love so much. you can slap her cheek and she won't even dare to utter a sigh aloud, the meek slave.... and by her side is olga of "the three sisters": she too loves much, and submits with resignation to the caprices of the dissolute, banal wife of her good-for-nothing brother; the life of her sisters crumbles before her eyes, she weeps and cannot help any one in anything, and she has not within her a single live, strong word of protest against banality. and here is the lachrymose ranevskaya and the other owners of "the cherry orchard," egotistical like children, with the flabbiness of senility. they missed the right moment for dying; they whine, seeing nothing of what is going on around them, understanding nothing, parasites without the power of again taking root in life. the wretched little student, trofimov, speaks eloquently of the necessity of working--and does nothing but amuse himself, out of sheer boredom, with stupid mockery of varya who works ceaselessly for the good of the idlers. vershinin dreams of how pleasant life will be in three hundred years, and lives without perceiving that everything around him is falling into ruin before his eyes; solyony, from boredom and stupidity, is ready to kill the pitiable baron tousenbach. there passes before one a long file of men and women, slaves of their love, of their stupidity and idleness, of their greed for the good things of life; there walk the slaves of the dark fear of life; they straggle anxiously along, filling life with incoherent words about the future, feeling that in the present there is no place for them. at moments out of the gray mass of them one hears the sound of a shot: ivanov or triepliev has guessed what he ought to do, and has died. many of them have nice dreams of how pleasant life will be in two hundred years, but it occurs to none of them to ask themselves who will make life pleasant if we only dream. in front of that dreary, gray crowd of helpless people there passed a great, wise, and observant man; he looked at all these dreary inhabitants of his country, and, with a sad smile, with a tone of gentle but deep reproach, with anguish in his face and in his heart, in a beautiful and sincere voice, he said to them: "you live badly, my friends. it is shameful to live like that." to chekhov's memory by alexander kuprin _he lived among us...._ you remember how, in early childhood, after the long summer holidays, one went back to school. everything was gray; it was like a barrack; it smelt of fresh paint and putty; one's school-fellows rough, the authorities unkind. still one tried somehow to keep up one's courage, though at moments one was seized with home-sickness. one was occupied in greeting friends, struck by changes in faces, deafened by the noise and movement. but when evening comes and the bustle in the half dark dormitory ceases, o what an unbearable sadness, what despair possesses one's soul. one bites one's pillow, suppressing one's sobs, one whispers dear names and cries, cries with tears that burn, and knows that this sorrow is unquenchable. it is then that one realizes for the first time all the shattering horror of two things: the irrevocability of the past and the feeling of loneliness. it seems as if one would gladly give up all the rest of life, gladly suffer any tortures, for a single day of that bright, beautiful life which will never repeat itself. it seems as if one would snatch each kind, caressing word and enclose it forever in one's memory, as if one would drink into one's soul, slowly and greedily, drop by drop, every caress. and one is cruelly tormented by the thought that, through carelessness, in the hurry, and because time seemed inexhaustible, one had not made the most of each hour and moment that flashed by in vain. a child's sorrows are sharp, but will melt in sleep and disappear with the morning sun. we, grown-up people, do not feel them so passionately, but we remember longer and grieve more deeply. after chekhov's funeral, coming back from the service in the cemetery, one great writer spoke words that were simple, but full of meaning: "now we have buried him, the hopeless keenness of the loss is passing away. but do you realize, forever, till the end of our days, there will remain in us a constant, dull, sad, consciousness that chekhov is not there?" and now that he is not here, one feels with peculiar pain how precious was each word of his, each smile, movement, glance, in which shone out his beautiful, elect, aristocratic soul. one is sorry that one was not always attentive to those special details, which sometimes more potently and intimately than great deeds reveal the inner man. one reproaches oneself that in the fluster of life one has not managed to remember--to write down much of what is interesting, characteristic and important. and at the same time one knows that these feelings are shared by all those who were near him, who loved him truly as a man of incomparable spiritual fineness and beauty; and with eternal gratitude they will respect his memory, as the memory of one of the most remarkable of russian writers. to the love, to the tender and subtle sorrow of these men, i dedicate these lines. * * * * * chekhov's cottage in yalta stood nearly outside the town, right on the white and dusty antka road. i do not know who had built it, but it was the most original building in yalta. all bright, pure, light, beautifully-proportioned, built in no definite architectural style whatsoever, with a watch-tower like a castle, with unexpected gables, with a glass verandah on the ground and an open terrace above, with scattered windows--both wide and narrow--the bungalow resembled a building of the modern school, if there were not obvious in its plan the attentive and original thought, the original, peculiar taste of an individual. the bungalow stood in the corner of an orchard, surrounded by a flower-garden. adjoining the garden, on the side opposite the road was an old deserted tartar cemetery, fenced with a low little wall; always green, still and unpeopled, with modest stones on the graves. the flower garden was tiny, not at all luxurious, and the fruit orchard was still very young. there grew in it pears and crab-apples, apricots, peaches, almonds. during the last year the orchard began to bear fruit, which caused anton pavlovitch much worry and a touching and childish pleasure. when the time came to gather almonds, they were also gathered in chekhov's orchard. they usually lay in a little heap in the window-sill of the drawing room, and it seemed as if nobody could be cruel enough to take them, although they were offered. anton pavlovitch did not like it and was even cross when people told him that his bungalow was too little protected from the dust, which came from the antka road, and that the orchard was insufficiently supplied with water. without on the whole liking the crimea, and certainly not yalta, he regarded his orchard with a special, zealous love. people saw him sometimes in the morning, sitting on his heels, carefully coating the stems of his roses with sulphur or pulling weeds from the flower beds. and what rejoicing there would be, when in the summer drought there at last began a rain that filled the spare clay cisterns with water! but his love was not that of a proprietor, it was something else--a mightier and wiser consciousness. he would often say, looking at his orchard with a twinkle in his eye: "look, i have planted each tree here and certainly they are dear to me. but this is of no consequence. before i came here all this was waste land and ravines, all covered with stones and thistles. then i came and turned this wilderness into a cultivated, beautiful place. do you know?"--he would suddenly add with a grave face, in a tone of profound belief--"do you know that in three or four hundred years all the earth will become a flourishing garden. and life will then be exceedingly light and comfortable." the thought of the beauty of the coming life, which is expressed so tenderly, sadly, and charmingly in all his latest works, was in his life also one of his most intimate, most cherished thoughts. how often must he have thought of the future happiness of mankind when, in the mornings, alone, silently, he trimmed his roses, still moist from the dew, or examined carefully a young sapling, wounded by the wind. and how much there was in that thought of meek, wise, and humble self-forgetfulness. no, it was not a thirst for life, a clinging to life coming from the insatiable human heart, neither was it a greedy curiosity as to what will come after one's own life, nor an envious jealousy of remote generations. it was the agony of an exceptionally refined, charming, and sensitive soul, who suffered beyond measure from banality, coarseness, dreariness, nothingness, violence, savagery--the whole horror and darkness of modern everyday existence. and that is why, when towards the end of his life there came to him immense fame and comparative security, together with the devoted love of all that was sensitive, talented and honest in russian society,--that is why he did not lock himself up in the inaccessibility of cold greatness nor become a masterful prophet nor shrink into a venomous and petty hostility against the fame of others. no, the sum of his wide and hard experience of life, of his sorrows, joys, and disappointments was expressed in that beautiful, anxious, self-forgetting dream of the coming happiness of others. --"how beautiful life will be in three or four hundred years." and that is why he looked lovingly after his flower beds, as if he saw in them the symbol of beauty to come, and watched new paths being laid out by human intellect and knowledge. he looked with pleasure at new original buildings and at large, seagoing steamers; he was eagerly interested in every new invention and was not bored by the company of specialists. with firm conviction he said that crimes such as murder, theft, and adultery are decreasing, and have nearly disappeared among the intelligentsia, teachers, doctors, and authors. he believed that in the future true culture would ennoble mankind. telling of chekhov's orchard i forgot to mention that there stood in the middle of it swings and a wooden bench. both these latter remained from "uncle vanya," which play the moscow art theatre acted at yalta, evidently with the sole purpose of showing the performance to anton pavlovitch who was ill then. both objects were specially dear to chekhov and, pointing to them, he would recollect with gratitude the attention paid him so kindly by the art theatre. it is fitting to say here that these fine actors, by their exceptionally subtle response to chekhov's talent and their friendly devotion to himself, much sweetened his last days. ii there lived in the yard a tame crane and two dogs. it must be said that anton chekhov loved all animals very much with the exception of cats, for whom he felt an invincible disgust. he loved dogs specially. his dead "kashtanka," his "bromide," and "quinine," which he had in melikhovo, he remembered and spoke of, as one remembers one's dead friends. "fine race, dogs!"--he would say at times with a good-natured smile. the crane was a pompous, grave bird. he generally mistrusted people, but had a close friendship with arseniy, anton chekhov's pious servant. he would run after arseniy anywhere, in the garden, orchard or yard and would jump amusingly and wave his wide-open wings, performing a characteristic crane dance, which always made anton pavlovitch laugh. one dog was called "tusik," and the other "kashtan," in honor of the famous "kashtanka." "kashtan" was distinguished in nothing but stupidity and idleness. in appearance he was fat, smooth and clumsy, of a bright chocolate color, with senseless yellow eyes. he would bark after "tusik" at strangers, but one had only to call him and he would turn on his back and begin servilely to crawl on the ground. anton pavlovitch would give him a little push with his stick, when he came up fawning, and would say with mock sternness: --"go away, go away, fool.... leave me alone." and would add, turning to his interlocutor, with annoyance, but with laughter in his eyes: --"wouldn't you like me to give you this dog? you can't believe how stupid he is." but it happened once that "kashtan," through his stupidity and clumsiness, got under the wheels of a cab which crushed his leg. the poor dog came home running on three legs, howling terribly. his hind leg was crippled, the flesh cut nearly to the bone, bleeding profusely. anton pavlovitch instantly washed his wound with warm water and sublimate, sprinkled iodoform and put on a bandage. and with what tenderness, how dexterously and warily his big beautiful fingers touched the torn skin of the dog, and with what compassionate reproof he soothed the howling "kashtan": --"ah, you silly, silly.... how did you do it? be quiet ... you'll be better ... little stupid ..." i have to repeat a commonplace, but there is no doubt that animals and children were instinctively drawn to chekhov. sometimes a girl who was ill would come to a. p. and bring with her a little orphan girl of three or four, whom she was bringing up. between the tiny child and the sad invalid man, the famous author, was established a peculiar, serious and trusting friendship. they would sit for a long time on the bench, in the verandah. anton pavlovitch listened with attention and concentration, and she would whisper to him without ceasing her funny words and tangle her little hands in his beard. chekhov was regarded with a great and heart-felt love by all sorts of simple people with whom he came into contact--servants, messengers, porters, beggars, tramps, postmen,--and not only with love, but with subtle sensitiveness, with concern and with understanding. i cannot help telling here one story which was told me by a small official of the russian navigation and trade company, a downright man, reserved and perfectly direct in receiving and telling his impressions. it was autumn. chekhov, returning from moscow, had just arrived by steamer from sebastopol at yalta, and had not yet left the deck. it was that interval of chaos, of shouts and bustle which comes while the gangway is being put in place. at that chaotic moment the porter, a tartar, who always waited on chekhov, saw him from the distance and managed to climb up on the steamer sooner than any one else. he found chekhov's luggage and was already on the point of carrying it down, when suddenly a rough and fierce-looking chief mate rushed on him. the man did not confine himself to obscene language, but in the access of his official anger, he struck the tartar on the face. "and then an unbelievable scene took place," my friend told me--"the tartar threw the luggage on the deck, beat his breast with his fists and, with wild eyes, was ready to fall on the chief mate, while he shouted in a voice which rang all over the port:" --"'what? striking me? d'ye think you struck me? it is him--him, that you struck!'" "and he pointed his finger at chekhov. and chekhov, you know, was pale, his lips trembled. he came up to the mate and said to him quietly and distinctly, but with an unusual expression: 'are not you ashamed!' believe me, by jove, if i were that chief mate, i would rather be spat upon twenty times in the face than hear that 'are not you ashamed.' and although the mate was sufficiently thick-skinned, even he felt it. he bustled about for a moment, murmured something and disappeared instantly. no more of him was seen on deck." iii chekhov's study in his yalta house was not big, about twelve strides long and six wide, modest, but breathing a peculiar charm. just opposite the entrance was a large square window in a frame of yellow colored glass. to the left of the entrance, by the window, stood a writing table, and behind it was a small niche, lighted from the ceiling, by a tiny window. in the niche was a turkish divan. to the right, in the middle of the wall was a brown fireplace of dutch tiles. on the top of the fireplace there is a small hole where a tile is missing, and in this is a carelessly painted but lovely landscape of an evening field with hayricks in the distance; the work of levitan. further, in the corner, there is a door, through which is seen anton pavlovitch's bachelor bedroom, a bright, gay room, shining with a certain virgin cleanliness, whiteness and innocence. the walls of the study are covered with dark and gold papers, and by the writing table hangs a printed placard: "you are requested not to smoke." immediately by the entrance door, to the right, there is a book-case with books. on the mantelpiece there are some bric-a-brac and among them a beautifully made model of a sailing ship. there are many pretty things made of ivory and wood on the writing table; models of elephants being in the majority. on the walls hang portraits of tolstoy, grigorovitch, and turgenev. on a little table with a fan-like stand are a number of photographs of actors and authors. heavy dark curtains fall on both sides of the window. on the floor is a large carpet of oriental design. this softens all the outlines and darkens the study; yet the light from the window falls evenly and pleasantly on the writing table. the room smells of very fine scents of which a. pavlovitch was very fond. from the window is seen an open horseshoe-shaped hollow, running down to the sea, and the sea itself, surrounded by an amphitheatre of houses. on the left, on the right, and behind, rise mountains in a semi-circle. in the evenings, when the lights are lit in the hilly environs of yalta and the lights and the stars over them are so mixed that you cannot distinguish one from the other,--then the place reminds one of certain spots in the caucasus. this is what always happens--you get to know a man; you have studied his appearance, bearing, voice and manners, and still you can always recall his face as it was when you saw it for the first time, completely different from the present. thus, after several years of friendship with anton pavlovitch, there is preserved in my memory the chekhov, whom i saw for the first time in the public room of the hotel "london" in odessa. he seemed to me then tall, lean, but broad in the shoulders, with a somewhat stern look. signs of illness were not then noticeable, unless in his walk--weak, and as if on somewhat bent knees. if i were asked what he was like at first sight, i should say: "a zemstvo doctor or a teacher of a provincial secondary school." but there was also in him something plain and modest, something extraordinarily russian--of the people. in his face, speech and manners there was also a touch of the moscow undergraduate's carelessness. many people saw that in him, and i among them. but a few hours later i saw a completely different chekhov--the chekhov, whose face could never be caught by any photograph, who, unfortunately, was not understood by any painter who drew him. i saw the most beautiful, refined and spiritual face that i have ever come across in my life. many said that chekhov had blue eyes. it is a mistake, but a mistake strangely common to all who knew him. his eyes were dark, almost brown, and the iris of his right eye was considerably brighter, which gave a. p.'s look, at certain moments, an expression of absent-mindedness. his eyelids hung rather heavy upon his eyes, as is so often observed in artists, hunters and sailors, and all those who concentrate their gaze. owing to his pince-nez and his manner of looking through the bottom of his glasses, with his head somewhat tilted upwards, anton pavlovitch's face often seemed stern. but one ought to have seen chekhov at certain moments (rare, alas, during the last years) when gayety possessed him, and when with a quick movement of the hand, he threw off his glasses and swung his chair and burst into gay, sincere and deep laughter. then his eyes became narrow and bright, with good-natured little wrinkles at the corners, and he reminded one then of that youthful portrait in which he is seen as a beardless boy, smiling, short-sighted and naïve, looking rather sideways. and--strange though it is--each time that i look at that photograph, i cannot rid myself of the thought that chekhov's eyes were really blue. looking at chekhov one noticed his forehead, which was wide, white and pure, and beautifully shaped; two thoughtful folds came between the eyebrows, by the bridge of the nose, two vertical melancholy folds. chekhov's ears were large and not shapely, but such sensible, intelligent ears i have seen only in one other man--tolstoy. once in the summer, availing myself of a. p.'s good humor, i took several photographs of him with a little camera. unfortunately the best of them and those most like him turned out very pale, owing to the weak light of the study. of the others, which were more successful, a. p. said as he looked at them: "well, you know, it is not me but some frenchman." i remember now very vividly the grip of his large, dry and hot hand,--a grip, always strong and manly but at the same time reserved, as if it were consciously concealing something. i also visualize now his handwriting: thin, with extremely fine strokes, careless at first sight and inelegant, but, when you look closer, it appears very distinct, tender, fine and characteristic, as everything else about him. iv a. p. used to get up, in the summer at least, very early. none even of his most intimate friends saw him carelessly dressed, nor did he approve of lazy habits, like wearing slippers, dressing gowns or light jackets. at eight or nine he was already pacing his study or at his writing table, invariably impeccably and neatly dressed. evidently, his best time for work was in the morning before lunch, although nobody ever managed to find him writing: in this respect he was extraordinarily reserved and shy. all the same, on nice warm mornings he could be seen sitting on a slope behind the house, in the cosiest part of the place, where oleanders stood in tubs along the walls, and where he had planted a cypress. there he sat sometimes for an hour or longer, alone, without stirring, with his hands on his knees, looking in front of him at the sea. about midday and later visitors began to fill the house. girls stood for hours at the iron railings, separating the bungalow from the road, with open mouths, in white felt hats. the most diverse people came to chekhov: scholars, authors, zemstvo workers, doctors, military, painters, admirers of both sexes, professors, society men and women, senators, priests, actors--and god knows who else. often he was asked to give advice or help and still more often to give his opinion upon manuscripts. casual newspaper reporters and people who were merely inquisitive would appear; also people who came to him with the sole purpose of "directing the big, but erring talent to the proper, ideal side." beggars came--genuine and sham. these never met with a refusal. i do not think it right, myself, to mention private cases, but i know for certain that chekhov's generosity towards students of both sexes, was immeasurably beyond what his modest means would allow. people came to him from all strata of society, of all camps, of all shades. notwithstanding the worry of so continuous a stream of visitors, there was something attractive in it to chekhov. he got first-hand knowledge of everything that was going on at any given moment in russia. how mistaken were those who wrote or supposed that he was a man indifferent to public interests, to the whirling life of the intelligentsia, and to the burning questions of his time! he watched everything carefully, and thoughtfully. he was tormented and distressed by all the things which tormented the minds of the best russians. one had only to see how in those terrible times, when the absurd, dark, evil phenomena of our public life were discussed in his presence, he knitted his thick eyebrows, and how martyred his face looked, and what a deep sorrow shone in his beautiful eyes. it is fitting to mention here one fact which, in my opinion, superbly illustrates chekhov's attitude to the stupidities of russian life. many know that he resigned the rank of an honorary member of the academy; the motives of his resignation are known; but very few have read his letter to the academy,--a splendid letter, written with a simple and noble dignity, and the restrained indignation of a great soul. to the august president of the academy august, yalta. _your imperial highness_, august president! in december of last year i received a notice of the election of a. m. pyeshkov (maxim gorky) as an honorary academician, and i took the first opportunity of seeing a. m. pyeshkov, who was then in crimea. i was the first to bring him news of his election and i was the first to congratulate him. some time later, it was announced in the newspapers that, in view of proceedings according to art. being instituted against pyeshkov for his political views, his election was cancelled. it was expressly stated that this act came from the academy of sciences; and since i am an honorary academician, i also am partly responsible for this act. i have congratulated him heartily on becoming an academician and i consider his election cancelled--such a contradiction does not agree with my conscience, i cannot reconcile my conscience to it. the study of art. has explained nothing to me. and after long deliberation i can only come to one decision, which is extremely painful and regrettable to me, and that is to ask most respectfully to be relieved of the rank of honorary academician. with a feeling of deepest respect i have the honor to remain your most devoted anton chekhov. queer--to what an extent people misunderstood chekhov! he, the "incorrigible pessimist," as he was labelled,--never tired of hoping for a bright future, never ceased to believe in the invisible but persistent and fruitful work of the best forces of our country. which of his friends does not remember the favorite phrase, which he so often, sometimes so incongruously and unexpectedly, uttered in a tone of assurance: --"look here, don't you see? there is sure to be a constitution in russia in ten years time." yes, even in that there sounds the _motif_ of the joyous future which is awaiting mankind; the _motif_ that was audible in all the work of his last years. * * * * * the truth must be told: by no means all visitors spared a. p.'s time and nerves, and some of them were quite merciless. i remember one striking, and almost incredible instance of the banality and indelicacy which could be displayed by a man of the so-called artistic power. it was a pleasant, cool and windless summer morning. a. p. was in an unusually light and cheerful mood. suddenly there appeared as from the blue a stout gentleman (who subsequently turned out to be an architect), who sent his card to chekhov and asked for an interview. a. p. received him. the architect came in, introduced himself, and, without taking any notice of the placard "you are requested not to smoke," without asking any permission, lit a huge stinking riga cigar. then, after paying, as was inevitable, a few stone-heavy compliments to his host, he began on the business which brought him here. the business consisted in the fact that the architect's little son, a school boy of the third form, was running in the streets the other day and from a habit peculiar to boys, whilst running, touched with his hand anything he came across: lamp-posts, or posts or fences. at last he managed to push his hand into a barbed wire fence and thus scratched his palm. "you see now, my worthy a. p.,"--the architect concluded his tale, "i shall very much like you to write a letter about it in the newspapers. it is lucky that kolya (his boy) got off with a scratch, but it's only a chance. he might have cut an artery--what would have happened then?" "yes, it's a nuisance," chekhov answered, "but, unfortunately, i cannot be of any use to you. i do not write, nor have ever written, letters in the newspapers. i only write stories." "so much the better, so much the better! put it in a story"--the architect was delighted. "just put the name of the landlord in full letters. you may even put my own name, i do not object to it.... still ... it would be best if you only put my initials, not the full name.... there are only two genuine authors left in russia, you and mr. p." (and the architect gave the name of a notorious literary tailor). i am not able to repeat even a hundredth part of the boring commonplaces which the injured architect managed to speak, since he made the interview last until he finished the cigar to the end, and the study had to be aired for a long time to get rid of the smell. but when at last he left, a. p. came out into the garden completely upset with red spots on his cheeks. his voice trembled, when he turned reproachfully to his sister marie and to a friend who sat on the bench: "could you not shield me from that man? you should have sent word that i was needed somewhere. he has tortured me!" i also remember,--and this i am sorry to say was partly my fault--how a certain self-assured general came to him to express his appreciation as a reader, and, probably, desiring to give chekhov pleasure, he began, with his legs spread open and the fists of his turned-out hand leaning on them, to vilify a young author, whose great popularity was then only beginning to grow. and chekhov, at once, shrank into himself, and sat all the time with his eyes cast down, coldly, without saying a single word. and only from the quick reproachful look, which he cast at my friend, who had introduced that general, did he show what pain he caused. just as shyly and coldly he regarded praises lavished on him. he would retire into his niche, on the divan, his eyelids trembled, slowly fell and were not again raised, and his face became motionless and gloomy. sometimes, when immoderate raptures came from some one he knew, he would try to turn the conversation into a joke, and give it a different direction. he would suddenly say, without rhyme or reason, with a light little laugh: --"i like reading what the odessa reporters write about me." "what is that?" "it is very funny--all lies. last spring one of them appeared in my hotel. he asked for an interview. and i had no time for it. so i said: 'excuse me but i am busy now. but write whatever you like; it is of no consequence to me.' well, he did write. it drove me into a fever." and once with a most serious face he said: --"you know, in yalta every cabman knows me. they say: 'o, chekhov, that man, the reader? i know him.' for some reason they call me reader. perhaps they think that i read psalm-services for the dead? you, old fellow, ought to ask a cabman what my occupation is...." v at one o'clock chekhov dined downstairs, in a cool bright dining-room, and there was nearly always a guest at dinner. it was difficult not to yield to the fascination of that simple, kind, cordial family. one felt constant solicitude and love, not expressed with a single high-sounding word,--an amazing amount of refinement and attention, which never, as if on purpose, got beyond the limits of ordinary, everyday relations. one always noticed a truly chekhovian fear of everything high-flown, insincere, or showy. in that family one felt very much at one's ease, light and warm, and i perfectly understand a certain author who said that he was in love with all the chekhovs at the same time. anton pavlovitch ate exceedingly little and did not like to sit at table, but usually passed from the window to the door and back. often after dinner, staying behind with some one in the dining-room, yevguenia yakovlevna (a. p.'s mother) said quietly with anxiety in her voice: "again antosha ate nothing at dinner." he was very hospitable and loved it when people stayed to dinner, and he knew how to treat guests in his own peculiar way, simply and heartily. he would say, standing behind one's chair: --"listen, have some vodka. when i was young and healthy i loved it. i would pick mushrooms for a whole morning, get tired out, hardly able to reach home, and before lunch i would have two or three thimblefuls. wonderful!..." after dinner he had tea upstairs, on the open verandah, or in his study, or he would come down into the garden and sit there on the bench, in his overcoat, with a cane, pushing his soft black hat down to his very eyes and looking out under its brim with screwed up eyes. these hours were the most crowded. there were constant rings on the telephone, asking if anton chekhov could be seen; and perpetual visitors. strangers also came, sending in their cards and asking for help, for autographs or books. then queer things happened. one "tambov squire," as chekhov christened him, came to him for medical advice. in vain did anton pavlovitch answer him, that he had given up medical practice long ago and that he was behind the times in medicine. in vain did he recommend a more experienced physician,--the "tambov squire" persisted: no doctor would he trust but chekhov. willy-nilly he had to give a few trifling, perfectly innocent pieces of advice. on taking leave the "tambov squire" put on the table two gold coins and, in spite of all chekhov's persuasion, he would not agree to take them back. anton pavlovitch had to give way. he said that as he neither wished nor considered himself entitled to take money as a fee, he would give it to the yalta charitable society, and at once wrote a receipt. it turned out that it was that the "tambov squire" wanted. with a radiant face, he carefully put the receipt in his pocket-book, and then confessed that the sole purpose of his visit was to obtain chekhov's autograph. chekhov himself told me the story of this original and persistent patient--half-laughing, half-cross. i repeat, many of these visitors plagued him fearfully and even irritated him, but, owing to the amazing delicacy peculiar to him, he was with all patient, attentive and accessible to those who wished to see him. his delicacy at times reached a limit that bordered on weakness. thus, for instance, one nice, well-meaning lady, a great admirer of chekhov, gave him for a birthday present a huge pug-dog in a sitting position, made of colored plaster of paris, over a yard high, i. e., about five times larger than its natural size. that pug-dog was placed downstairs, on the landing near the dining room, and there he sat with an angry face chewing his teeth and frightening those who had forgotten him. --"o, i'm afraid of that stone dog myself," chekhov confessed, "but it is awkward to move him; it might hurt her. let him stay on here." and suddenly, with eyes full of laughter, he added unexpectedly, in his usual manner: "have you noticed in the houses of rich jews, such plaster dogs often sit by the fireplace?" at times, for days on end, he would be annoyed with every sort of admirer and detractor and even adviser. "o, i have such a mass of visitors,"--he complained in a letter,--"that my head swims. i cannot work." but still he did not remain indifferent to a sincere feeling of love and respect and always distinguished it from idle and fulsome tittle-tattle. once he returned in a very gay mood from the quay where he sometimes took a walk, and with great animation told us: --"i just had a wonderful meeting. an artillery officer suddenly came up to me on the quay, quite a young man, a sub-lieutenant.--'are you a. p. chekhov?'--'yes. do you want anything?'--'excuse me please for my importunity, but for so long i have wanted to shake your hand!' and he blushed--he was a wonderful fellow with a fine face. we shook hands and parted." chekhov was at his best towards evening, about seven o'clock, when people gathered in the dining room for tea and a light supper. sometimes--but more and more rarely as the years went on--there revived in him the old chekhov, inexhaustibly gay, witty, with a bubbling, charming, youthful humor. then he improvised stories in which the characters were his friends, and he was particularly fond of arranging imaginary weddings, which sometimes ended with the young husband the following morning, sitting at the table and having his tea, saying as it were by the way in an unconcerned and businesslike tone: --"do you know, my dear, after tea we'll get ready and go to a solicitor's. why should you have unnecessary bother about your money?" he invented wonderful chekhovian names, of which i now--alas!--remember only a certain mythical sailor koshkodovenko-cat-slayer. he also liked as a joke to make young writers appear old. "what are you saying--bunin is my age"--he would assure one with mock seriousness. "so is teleshov: he is an old writer. well, ask him yourself: he will tell you what a spree we had at t. a. bieloussov's wedding. what a long time ago!" to a talented novelist, a serious writer and a man of ideas, he said: "look here, you're twenty years my senior: surely you wrote previously under the nom-de-plume 'nestor kukolnik.'" but his jokes never left any bitterness any more than he consciously ever caused the slightest pain to any living thing. after dinner he would keep some one in his study for half an hour or an hour. on his table candles would be lit. later, when all had gone and he remained alone, a light would still be seen in his large window for a long time. whether he worked at that time, or looked through his note-books, putting down the impressions of the day nobody seems to know. vi it is true, on the whole, that we know nearly nothing, not only of his creative activities, but even of the external methods of his work. in this respect anton pavlovitch was almost eccentric in his reserve and silence. i remember him saying, as if by the way, something very significant: --"for god's sake don't read your work to any one until it is published. don't read it to others in proof even." this was always his own habit, although he sometimes made exceptions for his wife and sister. formerly he is said to have been more communicative in this respect. that was when he wrote a great deal and at great speed. he himself said that he used to write a story a day. e. t. chekhov, his mother, used to say: "when he was still an undergraduate, antosha would sit at the table in the morning, having his tea and suddenly fall to thinking; he would sometimes look straight into one's eyes, but i knew that he saw nothing. then he would get his note-book out of his pocket and write quickly, quickly. and again he would fall to thinking...." but during the last years chekhov began to treat himself with ever increasing strictness and exactitude: he kept his stories for several years, continually correcting and copying them, and nevertheless in spite of such minute work, the final proofs, which came from him, were speckled throughout with signs, corrections, and insertions. in order to finish a work he had to write without tearing himself away. "if i leave a story for a long time,"--he once said--"i cannot make myself finish it afterwards. i have to begin again." where did he draw his images from? where did he find his observations and his similes? where did he forge his superb language, unique in russian literature? he confided in nobody, never revealed his creative methods. many note-books are said to have been left by him; perhaps in them will in time be found the keys to those mysteries. or perhaps they will forever remain unsolved. who knows? at any rate we must limit ourselves to vague hints and guesses. i think that always, from morning to night, and perhaps at night even, in his sleep and sleeplessness, there was going on in him an invisible but persistent--at times even unconscious--activity, the activity of weighing, defining and remembering. he knew how to listen and ask questions, as no one else did; but often, in the middle of a lively conversation, it would be noticed, how his attentive and kindly look became motionless and deep, as if it were withdrawing somewhere inside, contemplating something mysterious and important, which was going on there. at those moments a. p. would put his strange questions, amazing through their unexpectedness, completely out of touch with the conversation, questions which confused many people. the conversation was about neo-marxists, and he would suddenly ask: "have you ever been to a stud-farm? you ought to see one. it is interesting." or he would repeat a question for the second time, which had already been answered. chekhov was not remarkable for a memory of external things. i speak of that power of minute memory, which women so often possess in a very high degree, also peasants, which consists in remembering, how a person was dressed, whether he has a beard and mustaches, what his watch chain was like or his boots, what color his hair was. these details were simply unimportant and uninteresting to him. but, instead, he took the whole person and defined quickly and truly, exactly like an experienced chemist, his specific gravity, his quality and order, and he knew already how to describe his essential qualities in a couple of strokes. once chekhov spoke with slight displeasure of a good friend of his, a famous scholar, who, in spite of a long-standing friendship, somewhat oppressed chekhov with his talkativeness. no sooner would he arrive in yalta, than he at once came to chekhov and sat there with him all the morning till lunch. then he would go to his hotel for half an hour, and come back and sit until late at night, all the time talking, talking, talking.... and so on day after day. suddenly, abruptly breaking off his story, as if carried away by a new interesting thought, anton pavlovitch added with animation: --"and nobody would guess what is most characteristic in that man. i know it. that he is a professor and a savant with a european reputation, is to him a secondary matter. the chief thing is that in his heart he considers himself to be a remarkable actor, and he profoundly believes that it is only by chance that he has not won universal popularity on the stage. at home he always reads ostrovsky aloud." once, smiling at his recollection, he suddenly observed: --"d'you know, moscow is the most peculiar city. in it everything is unexpected. once on a spring morning s., the publicist, and myself came out of the great moscow hotel. it was after a late and merry supper. suddenly s. dragged me to the tversky church, just opposite. he took a handful of coppers and began to share it out to the beggars--there are dozens standing about there. he would give one a penny and whisper: 'pray for the health of michael the slave of god.' it is his christian name michael. and again: 'for the servant of god, michael; for michael, the servant of god.' and he himself does not believe in god.... queer fellow!" ... i now approach a delicate point which may not perhaps please every one. i am convinced that chekhov talked to a scholar and a peddler, a beggar and a litterateur, with a prominent zemstvo worker and a suspicious monk or shop assistant or a small postman, with the same attention and curiosity. is not that the reason why in his stories the professor speaks and thinks just like an old professor, and the tramp just like a veritable tramp? and is it not because of this, that immediately after his death there appeared so many "bosom" friends, for whom, in their words, he would be ready to go through fire and water? i think that he did not open or give his heart completely to any one (there is a legend, though, of an intimate, beloved friend, a taganrog official). but he regarded all kindly, indifferently so far as friendship is concerned--and at the same time with a great, perhaps unconscious, interest. his chekhovian _mots_ and those little _traits_ that astonish us by their neatness and appositeness, he often took direct from life. the expression "it displeasures me" which quickly became, after the "bishop," a bye-word with a wide circulation, he got from a certain gloomy tramp, half-drunkard, half-madman, half-prophet. i also remember talking once with chekhov of a long dead moscow poet, and chekhov glowingly remembered him, and his mistress, and his empty rooms, and his st. bernard, "ami," who suffered from constant indigestion. "certainly, i remember,"--chekhov said laughing gayly--"at five o'clock his mistress would always come in and ask: 'liodor tranitch, i say, liodor tranitch, is it not time you drank your beer?'" and then i imprudently said: "o, that's where it comes from in your 'ward n  '?"--"yes, well, yes"--replied chekhov with displeasure. he had friends also among those merchants' wives, who, in spite of their millions and the most fashionable dresses, and an outward interest in literature, say "ideal" and "in principal." some of them would for hours pour out their souls before chekhov, wishing to convey what extraordinarily refined, neurotic characters they were, and what a remarkable novel could be written by a writer of genius about their lives, if only they could tell everything. and he would sit quietly, in silence, and listen with apparent pleasure--only under his moustache glided an almost imperceptible smile. i do not wish to say that he _looked_ for models, like many other writers. but i think, that everywhere and always he saw material for observation, and this happened involuntarily, often perhaps against his will, through his long-cultivated and ineradicable habit of diving into people, of analyzing and generalizing them. in this hidden process was to him, probably, all the torment and joy of his creative activity. he shared his impressions with no one, just as he never spoke of what and how he was going to write. also very rarely was the artist and novelist shown in his talk. he, partly deliberately, partly instinctively, used in his speech ordinary, average, common expressions, without having recourse either to simile or picturesqueness. he guarded his treasures in his soul, not permitting them to be wasted in wordy foam, and in this there was a huge difference between him and those novelists who tell their stories much better than they write them. this, i think, came from a natural reserve, but also from a peculiar shyness. there are people who constitutionally cannot endure and are morbidly shy of too demonstrative attitudes, gestures and words, and anton pavlovitch possessed this quality in the highest degree. herein, maybe, is hidden the key to his _seeming_ indifference towards question of struggle and protest and his aloofness towards topical events, which did and do agitate the russian intelligentsia. he had a horror of pathos, of vehement emotions and the theatrical effects inseparable from them. i can only compare him in this with a man who loves a woman with all the ardor, tenderness and depth, of which a man of refinement and great intelligence is capable. he will never try to speak of it in pompous, high-flown words, and he cannot even imagine himself falling on his knees and pressing his hand to his heart and speaking in the tremulous voice of a young lover on the stage. and therefore he loves and is silent, and suffers in silence, and will never attempt to utter what the average man will express freely and noisily according to all the rules of rhetoric. vii to young writers, chekhov was always sympathetic and kind. no one left him oppressed by his enormous talent and by one's own insignificance. he never said to any one: "do as i do; see how i behave." if in despair one complained to him: "is it worth going on, if one will forever remain 'our young and promising author'?" he answered quietly and seriously: --"but, my dear fellow, not every one can write like tolstoy." his considerateness was at times pathetic. a certain young writer came to yalta and took a little room in a big and noisy greek family somewhere beyond antka, on the outskirts of the city. he once complained to chekhov that it was difficult to work in such surroundings, and chekhov insisted that the writer should come to him in the mornings and work downstairs in the room adjoining the dining room. "you will write downstairs, and i upstairs"--he said with his charming smile--"and you will have dinner with me. when you finish something, do read it to me, or, if you go away, send me the proofs." he read an amazing amount and always remembered everything, and never confused one writer with another. if writers asked his opinion, he always praised their work, not so as to get rid of them, but because he knew how cruelly a sharp, even if just, criticism cuts the wings of beginners, and what an encouragement and hope a little praise gives sometimes. "i have read your story. it is marvelously well done," he would say on such occasions in a hearty voice. but when a certain confidence was established and they got to know each other, especially if an author insisted, he gave his opinion more definitely, directly, and at greater length. i have two letters of his, written to one and the same novelist, concerning one and the same tale. here is a quotation from the first: "dear n., i received your tale and have read it; many thanks. the tale is good, i have read it at one go, as i did the previous one, and with the same pleasure...." but as the author was not satisfied with praise alone, he soon received a second letter from anton pavlovitch. "you want me to speak of defects only, and thereby you put me in an embarrassing situation. there are no defects in that story, and if one finds fault, it is only with a few of its peculiarities. for instance, your heroes, characters, you treat in the old style, as they have been treated for a hundred years by all who have written about them--nothing new. secondly, in the first chapter you are busy describing people's faces--again that is the old way, it is a description which can be dispensed with. five minutely described faces tire the attention, and in the end lose their value. clean-shaved characters are like each other, like catholic priests, and remain alike, however studiously you describe them. thirdly, you overdo your rough manner in the description of drunken people. that is all i can say in reply to your question about the defects; i can find nothing more that is wrong." to those writers with whom he had any common spiritual bond, he always behaved with great care and attention. he never missed an occasion to tell them any news which he knew would be pleasing or useful. "dear n.," he wrote to a certain friend of mine,--"i hereby inform you that your story was read by l. n. tolstoy and he liked it _very much_. be so good as to send him your book at this address; koreiz, tauric province, and on the title page underline the stories which you consider best, so that he should begin with them. or send the book to me and i will hand it to him." to the writer of these lines he also once showed a delightful kindness, communicating by letter that, "in the 'dictionary of the russian language,' published by the academy of sciences, in the sixth number of the second volume, which number i received to-day, you too appeared at last." all these of course are details, but in them is apparent much sympathy and concern, so that now, when this great artist and remarkable man is no longer among us, his letters acquire the significance of a far-away, irrevocable caress. "write, write as much as possible"--he would say to young novelists. "it does not matter if it does not come off. later on it will come off. the chief thing is, do not waste your youth and elasticity. it's now the time for working. see, you write superbly, but your vocabulary is small. you must acquire words and turns of speech, and for this you must write every day." and he himself worked untiringly on himself, enriching his charming, varied vocabulary from every source: from conversations, dictionaries, catalogues, from learned works, from sacred writings. the store of words which that silent man had was extraordinary. --"listen, travel third class as often as possible"--he advised--"i am sorry that illness prevents me from traveling third. there you will sometimes hear remarkably interesting things." he also wondered at those authors who for years on end see nothing but the next door house from the windows of their petersburg flats. and often he said with a shade of impatience: --"i cannot understand why you--young, healthy, and free--don't go, for instance, to australia (australia for some reason was his favorite part of the world), or to siberia. as soon as i am better, i shall certainly go to siberia. i was there when i went to saghalien. you cannot imagine, my dear fellow, what a wonderful country it is. it is quite different. you know, i am convinced siberia will some day sever herself completely from russia, just as america severed herself from her motherland. you must, must go there without fail...." "why don't you write a play?"--he would sometimes ask. "do write one, really. every writer must write at least four plays." but he would confess now and then, that the dramatic form is losing its interest now. "the drama must either degenerate completely, or take a completely new form"--he said. "we cannot even imagine what the theatre will be like in a hundred years." there were some little inconsistencies in anton pavlovitch which were particularly attractive in him and had at the same time a deep inner significance. this was once the case with regard to note-books. chekhov had just strongly advised us not to have recourse to them for help but to rely wholly on our memory and imagination. "the big things will remain"--he argued--"and the details you can always invent or find." but then, an hour later, one of the company, who had been for a year on the stage, began to talk of his theatrical impressions and incidentally mentioned this case. a rehearsal was taking place in the theatre of a tiny provincial town. the "young lover" paced the stage in a hat and check trousers, with his hands in his pockets, showing off before a casual public which had straggled into the theatre. the "ingenue," his mistress, who was also on the stage, said to him: "sasha, what was it you whistled yesterday from _pagliacci_? do please whistle it again." the "young lover" turned to her, and looking her up and down with a devastating expression said in a fat, actor's voice: "wha-at! whistle on the stage? would you whistle in church? then know that the stage is the same as a church!" at the end of that story anton pavlovitch threw off his pince-nez, flung himself back in his chair, and began to laugh with his clear, ringing laughter. he immediately opened the drawer of his table to get his note-book. "wait, wait, how did you say it? the stage is a temple?" ... and he put down the whole anecdote. there was no essential contradiction in this, and anton pavlovitch explained it himself. "one should not put down similes, characteristic _traits_, details, scenes from nature--this must come of itself when it is needed. but a bare fact, a rare name, a technical term, should be put down in the note-book--otherwise it may be forgotten and lost." chekhov frequently recalled the difficulties put in his way by the editors of serious magazines, until with the helping hand of "sieverny viestnik" he finally overcame them. "for one thing you all ought to be grateful to me,"--he would say to young writers.--"it was i who opened the way for writers of short stories. formerly, when one took a manuscript to an editor, he did not even read it. he just looked scornfully at one. 'what? you call this a work? but this is shorter than a sparrow's nose. no, we do not want such trifles.' but, see, i got round them and paved the way for others. but that is nothing; they treated me much worse than that! they used my name as a synonym for a writer of short stories. they would make merry: 'o, you chekhovs!' it seemed to them amusing." anton pavlovitch had a high opinion of modern writing, i. e., properly speaking, of the technique of modern writing. "all write superbly now; there are no bad writers"--he said in a resolute tone. "and hence it is becoming more and more difficult to win fame. do you know whom that is due to?--maupassant. he, as an artist in language, put the standard before an author so high that it is no longer possible to write as of old. you try to re-read some of our classics, say, pissemsky, grigorovitch, or ostrovsky; try, and you will see what obsolete, commonplace stuff it is. take on the other hand our decadents. they are only pretending to be sick and crazy,--they all are burly peasants. but so far as writing goes,--they are masters." at the same time he asked that writers should choose ordinary, everyday themes, simplicity of treatment, and absence of showy tricks. "why write,"--he wondered--"about a man getting into a submarine and going to the north pole to reconcile himself with the world, while his beloved at that moment throws herself with a hysterical shriek from the belfry? all this is untrue and does not happen in reality. one must write about simple things: how peter semionovitch married marie ivanovna. that is all. and again, why those subtitles: a psychological study, genre, nouvelle? all these are mere pretense. put as plain a title as possible--any that occurs to your mind--and nothing else. also use as few brackets, italics and hyphens as possible. they are mannerisms." he also taught that an author should be indifferent to the joys and sorrows of his characters. "in a good story"--he said--"i have read a description of a restaurant by the sea in a large city. you saw at once that the author was all admiration for the music, the electric light, the flowers in the buttonholes; that he himself delighted in contemplating them. one has to stand outside these things, and, although knowing them in minute detail, one must look at them from top to bottom with contempt. and then it will be true." viii the son of alphonse daudet in his memoirs of his father relates that the gifted french writer half jokingly called himself a "seller of happiness." people of all sorts would constantly apply to him for advice and assistance. they came with their sorrows and worries, and he, already bedridden with a painful and incurable disease, found sufficient courage, patience, and love of mankind in himself to penetrate into other people's grief, to console and encourage them. chekhov, certainly, with his extraordinary modesty and his dislike of phrase-making, would never have said anything like that. but how often he had to listen to people's confessions, to help by word and deed, to hold out a tender and strong hand to the falling.... in his wonderful objectivity, standing above personal sorrows and joys, he knew and saw everything. but personal feeling stood in the way of his understanding. he could be kind and generous without loving; tender and sympathetic without attachment; a benefactor, without counting on gratitude. and these traits which were never understood by those round him, contained the chief key to his personality. availing myself of the permission of a friend of mine, i will quote a short extract from a chekhov letter. the man was greatly alarmed and troubled during the first pregnancy of a much beloved wife, and, to tell the truth, he distressed anton pavlovitch greatly with his own trouble. chekhov once wrote to him: "tell your wife she should not be anxious, everything will be all right. the travail will last twenty hours, and then will ensue a most blissful state, when she will smile, and you will long to cry from love and gratitude. twenty hours is the usual maximum for the first childbirth." what a subtle cure for another's anxiety is heard in these few simple lines! but it is still more characteristic that later, when my friend had become a happy father, and, recollecting that letter, asked chekhov how he understood these feelings so well, anton pavlovitch answered quietly, even indifferently: "when i lived in the country, i always had to attend peasant women. it was just the same--there too is the same joy." if chekhov had not been such a remarkable writer, he would have been a great doctor. physicians who sometimes invited him to a consultation spoke of him as an unusually thoughtful observer and penetrating in diagnosis. it would not be surprising if his diagnosis were more perfect and profound than a diagnosis given by a fashionable celebrity. he saw and heard in man--in his face, voice, and bearing--what was hidden and would escape the notice of an average observer. he himself preferred to recommend, in the rare cases when his advice was sought, medicines that were tried, simple, and mostly domestic. by the way he treated children with great success. he believed in medicine firmly and soundly, and nothing could shake that belief. i remember how cross he was once when some one began to talk slightingly of medicine, basing his remarks on zola's novel "doctor pascal." --"zola understands nothing and invents it all in his study,"--he said in agitation, coughing. "let him come and see how our zemstvo doctors work and what they do for the people." every one knows how often--with what sympathy and love beneath an external hardness, he describes those superb workers, those obscure and inconspicuous heroes who deliberately doomed their names to oblivion. he described them, even without sparing them. ix there is a saying: the death of each man is like him. one recalls it involuntarily when one thinks of the last years of chekhov's life, of the last days, even of the last minutes. even into his funeral fate brought, by some fatal consistency, many purely chekhovian traits. he struggled long, terribly long, with an implacable disease, but bore it with manly simplicity and patience, without irritation, without complaints, almost in silence. only just before his death, he mentions his disease, just by the way, in his letters. "my health is recovered, although i still walk with a compress on." ... "i have just got through a pleurisy, but am better now." ... "my health is not grand.... i write on." he did not like to talk of his disease and was annoyed when questioned about it. only from arseniy (the servant) one would learn. "this morning he was very bad--there was blood," he would say in a whisper, shaking his head. or yevguenia yakovlevna, chekhov's mother, would say secretly with anguish in her voice: "antosha again coughed all night. i hear through the wall." did he know the extent and meaning of his disease? i think he did, but intrepidly, like a doctor and a philosopher, he looked into the eyes of imminent death. there were various, trifling circumstances pointing to the fact that he knew. thus, for instance, to a lady, who complained to him of insomnia and nervous breakdown, he said quietly, with an indefinable sadness: "you see; whilst a man's lungs are right, everything is right." he died simply, pathetically, and fully conscious. they say his last words were: "ich sterbe." and his last days were darkened by a deep sorrow for russia, and by the anxiety of the monstrous japanese war. his funeral comes back to mind like a dream. the cold, grayish petersburg, a mistake about a telegram, a small gathering of people at the railway station, "wagon for oysters," in which his remains were brought from germany, the station authorities who had never heard of chekhov and saw in his body only a railway cargo.... then, as a contrast, moscow, profound sorrow, thousands of bereaved people, tear-stained faces. and at last his grave in the novodevitchy cemetery, filled with flowers, side by side with the humble grave of the "cossack's widow, olga coocaretnikov." i remember the service in the cemetery the day after his funeral. it was a still july evening, and the old lime trees over the graves stood motionless and golden in the sun. with a quiet, tender sadness and sighing sounded the women's voices. and in the souls of many, then, was a deep perplexity. slowly and in silence the people left the cemetery. i went up to chekhov's mother and silently kissed her hand. and she said in a low, tired voice: "our trial is bitter.... antosha is dead." o, the overwhelming depth of these simple, ordinary, very chekhovian words! the enormous abyss of the loss, the irrevocable nature of the great event, opened behind. no! consolations would be useless. can the sorrow of those, whose souls have been so close to the great soul of the dead, ever be assuaged? but let their unquenchable anguish be stayed by the consciousness that their distress is our common distress. let it be softened by the thought of the immortality of his great and pure name. indeed: there will pass years and centuries, and time will efface the very memory of thousands and thousands of those living now. but the posterity, of whose happiness chekhov dreamt with such fascinating sadness, will speak his name with gratitude and silent sorrow for his fate. a. p. chekhov by i. a. bunin i made chekhov's acquaintance in moscow, towards the end of ' . we met then at intervals and i should not think it worth mentioning, if i did not remember some very characteristic phrases. "do you write much?" he asked me once. i answered that i wrote little. "bad," he said, almost sternly, in his low, deep voice. "one must work ... without sparing oneself ... all one's life." and, after a pause, without any visible connection, he added: "when one has written a story i believe that one ought to strike out both the beginning and the end. that is where we novelists are most inclined to lie. and one must write shortly--as shortly as possible." then we spoke of poetry, and he suddenly became excited. "tell me, do you care for alexey tolstoy's poems? to me he is an actor. when he was a boy he put on evening dress and he has never taken it off." after these stray meetings in which we touched upon some of chekhov's favorite topics--as that one must work "without sparing oneself" and must write simply and without the shadow of falsehood--we did not meet till the spring of ' . i came to yalta for a few days, and one evening i met chekhov on the quay. "why don't you come to see me?" were his first words. "be sure to come to-morrow." "at what time?" i asked. "in the morning about eight." and seeing perhaps that i looked surprised he added: "we get up early. don't you?" "yes i do too," i said. "well then, come when you get up. we will give you coffee. you take coffee?" "sometimes." "you ought to always. it's a wonderful drink. when i am working, i drink nothing but coffee and chicken broth until the evening. coffee in the morning and chicken broth at midday. if i don't, my work suffers." i thanked him for asking me, and we crossed the quay in silence and sat down on a bench. "do you love the sea?" i asked. "yes," he replied. "but it is too lonely." "that's what i like about it," i replied. "i wonder," he mused, looking through his spectacles away into the distance and thinking his own thoughts. "it must be nice to be a soldier, or a young undergraduate ... to sit in a crowd and listen to the band...." and then, as was usual with him, after a pause and without apparent connection, he added: "it is very difficult to describe the sea. do you know the description that a school-boy gave in an exercise? 'the sea is vast.' only that. wonderful, i think." some people might think him affected in saying this. but chekhov--affected! "i grant," said one who knew chekhov well, "that i have met men as sincere as chekhov. but any one so simple, and so free from pose and affectation i have never known!" and that is true. he loved all that was sincere, vital, and gay, so long as it was neither coarse nor dull, and could not endure pedants, or book-worms who have got so much into the habit of making phrases that they can talk in no other way. in his writings he scarcely ever spoke of himself or of his views, and this led people to think him a man without principles or sense of duty to his kind. in life, too, he was no egotist, and seldom spoke of his likings and dislikings. but both were very strong and lasting, and simplicity was one of the things he liked best. "the sea is vast." ... to him, with his passion for simplicity and his loathing of the strained and affected, that was "wonderful." his words about the officer and the music showed another characteristic of his: his reserve. the transition from the sea to the officer was no doubt inspired by his secret craving for youth and health. the sea is lonely.... and chekhov loved life and joy. during his last years his desire for happiness, even of the simplest kind, would constantly show itself in his conversation. it would be hinted at, not expressed. in moscow, in the year , i saw a middle-aged man (chekhov was then ) wearing pince-nez, quietly dressed, rather tall, and light and graceful in his movements. he welcomed me, but so quietly that i, then a boy, took his quietness for coldness.... in yalta, in the year , i found him already much changed; he had grown thin; his face was sadder; his distinction was as great as ever but it was the distinction of an elderly man, who has gone through much, and been ennobled by his suffering. his voice was gentler.... in other respects he was much as he had been in moscow; cordial, speaking with animation, but even more simply and shortly, and, while he talked, he went on with his own thoughts. he let me grasp the connections between his thoughts as well as i could, while he looked through his glasses at the sea, his face slightly raised. next morning after meeting him on the quay i went to his house. i well remember the bright sunny morning that i spent with chekhov in his garden. he was very lively, and laughed and read me the only poem, so he said, that he had ever written, "horses, hares and chinamen, a fable for children." (chekhov wrote it for the children of a friend. see letters.) once walked over a bridge fat chinamen, in front of them, with their tails up, hares ran quickly. suddenly the chinamen shouted: "stop! whoa! ho! ho!" the hares raised their tails still higher and hid in the bushes. the moral of this fable is clear: he who wants to eat hares every day getting out of bed must obey his father. after that visit i went to him more and more frequently. chekhov's attitude towards me therefore changed. he became more friendly and cordial.... but he was still reserved, yet, as he was reserved not only with me but with those who were most intimate with him, it rose, i believed, not from coldness, but from something much more important. the charming white stone house, bright in the sun; the little orchard, planted and tended by chekhov himself who loved all flowers, trees, and animals; his study, with its few pictures, and the large window which looked out onto the valley of the river utchan-spo, and the blue triangle of the sea; the hours, days, and even months which i spent there, and my friendship with the man who fascinated me not only by his genius but also by his stern voice and his child-like smile--all this will always remain one of the happiest memories of my life. he was friendly to me and at times almost tender. but the reserve which i have spoken of never disappeared even when we were most intimate. he was reserved about everything. he was very humorous and loved laughter, but he only laughed his charming infectious laugh when somebody else had made a joke: he himself would say the most amusing things without the slightest smile. he delighted in jokes, in absurd nicknames, and in mystifying people.... even towards the end when he felt a little better his humor was irrepressible. and with what subtle humor he would make one laugh! he would drop a couple of words and wink his eye above his glasses.... his letters too, though their form is perfect, are full of delightful humor. but chekhov's reserve was shown in a great many other ways which proved the strength of his character. no one ever heard him complain, though no one had more reason to complain. he was one of a large family, which lived in a state of actual want. he had to work for money under conditions which would have extinguished the most fiery inspiration. he lived in a tiny flat, writing at the edge of a table, in the midst of talk and noise with the whole family and often several visitors sitting round him. for many years he was very poor.... yet he scarcely ever grumbled at his lot. it was not that he asked little of life: on the contrary, he hated what was mean and meager though he was nobly spartan in the way he lived. for fifteen years he suffered from an exhausting illness which finally killed him, but his readers never knew it. the same could not be said of most writers. indeed, the manliness with which he bore his sufferings and met his death was admirable. even at his worst he almost succeeded in hiding his pain. "you are not feeling well, antosha?" his mother or sister would say, seeing him sitting all day with his eyes shut. "i?" he would answer, quietly, opening the eyes which looked so clear and mild without his glasses. "oh, it's nothing. i have a little headache." he loved literature passionately, and to talk of writers and to praise maupassant, flaubert, or tolstoy was a great joy to him. he spoke with particular enthusiasm of those just mentioned and also of lermontov's "taman." "i cannot understand," he would say, "how a mere boy could have written taman! ah, if one had written that and a good comedy--then one would be content to die!" but his talk about literature was very different from the usual shop talked by writers, with its narrowness, and smallness, and petty personal spite. he would only discuss books with people who loved literature above all other arts and were disinterested and pure in their love of it. "you should not read your writing to other people before it is published," he often said. "and it is most important never to take any one's advice. if you have made a mess of it, let the blood be on your own head. maupassant by his greatness has so raised the standard of writing that it is very hard to write; but we have to write, especially we russians, and in writing one must be courageous. there are big dogs and little dogs, but the little dogs should not be disheartened by the existence of the big dogs. all must bark--and bark with the voice god gave them." all that went on in the world of letters interested him keenly, and he was indignant with the stupidity, falsehood, affectation and charlatanry which batten upon literature. but though he was angry he was never irritable and there was nothing personal in his anger. it is usual to say of dead writers that they rejoiced in the success of others, and were not jealous of them. if, therefore, i suspected chekhov of the least jealousy i should be content to say nothing about it. but the fact is that he rejoiced in the existence of talent, spontaneously. the word "talentless" was, i think, the most damaging expression he could use. his own failures and successes he took as he alone knew how to take them. he was writing for twenty-five years and during that time his writing was constantly attacked. being one of the greatest and most subtle of russian writers, he never used his art to preach. that being so, russian critics could neither understand him nor approve of him. did they not insist that levitan should "light up" his landscapes--that is paint in a cow, a goose, or the figure of a woman? such criticism hurt chekhov a good deal, and embittered him even more than he was already embittered by russian life itself. his bitterness would show itself momentarily--only momentarily. "we shall soon be celebrating your jubilee, anton pavlovitch!" "i know your jubilees. for twenty-five years they do nothing but abuse and ridicule a man, and then you give him a pen made of aluminum and slobber over him for a whole day, and cry, and kiss him, and gush!" to talk of his fame and his popularity he would answer in the same way--with two or three words or a jest. "have you read it, anton pavlovitch?" one would ask, having read an article about him. he would look slyly over his spectacles, ludicrously lengthen his face, and say in his deep voice: "oh, a thousand thanks! there is a whole column, and at the bottom of it, 'there is also a writer called chekhov: a discontented man, a grumbler.'" sometimes he would add seriously: "when you find yourself criticized, remember us sinners. the critics boxed our ears for trifles just as if we were school-boys. one of them foretold that i should die in a ditch. he supposed that i had been expelled from school for drunkenness." i never saw chekhov lose his temper. very seldom was he irritated, and if it did happen he controlled himself astonishingly. i remember, for instance, that he was once annoyed by reading in a book that he was "indifferent" to questions of morality and society, and that he was a pessimist. yet his annoyance showed itself only in two words: "utter idiot!" nor did i find him cold. he said that he was cold when he wrote, and that he only wrote when the thoughts and images that he was about to express were perfectly clear to him, and then he wrote on, steadily, without interruptions, until he had brought it to an end. "one ought only to write when one feels completely calm," he said once. but this calm was of a very peculiar nature. no other russian writer had his sensibility and his complexity. indeed, it would take a very versatile mind to throw any light upon this profound and complex spirit--this "incomparable artist" as tolstoy called him. i can only bear witness that he was a man of rare spiritual nobleness, distinguished and cultivated in the best sense, who combined tenderness and delicacy with complete sincerity, kindness and sensitiveness with complete candour. to be truthful and natural and yet retain great charm implies a nature of rare beauty, integrity, and power. i speak so frequently of chekhov's composure because his composure seems to me a proof of the strength of his character. it was always his, i think, even when he was young and in the highest spirits, and it was that, perhaps, that made him so independent, and able to begin his work unpretentiously and courageously, without paltering with his conscience. do you remember the words of the old professor in "the tedious story?" "i won't say that french books are good and gifted and noble; but they are not so dull as russian books, and the chief element of creative power is often to be found in them--the sense of personal freedom." chekhov had in the highest degree that "sense of personal freedom" and he could not bear that others should be without it. he would become bitter and uncompromising if he thought that others were taking liberties with it. that "freedom," it is well known, cost him a great deal; but he was not one of those people who have two different ideals--one for themselves, the other for the public. his success was for a very long time much less than he deserved. but he never during the whole of his life made the least effort to increase his popularity. he was extremely severe upon all the wire-pulling which is now resorted to in order to achieve success. "do you still call them writers? they are cab-men!" he said bitterly. his dislike to being made a show of at times seemed excessive. "the scorpion (a publishing firm) advertise their books badly," he wrote to me after the publication of "northern flowers." "they put my name first, and when i read the advertisement in the daily _russkya vedonosti_ i swore i would never again have any truck with scorpions, crocodiles, or snakes." this was the winter of when chekhov who had become interested in certain features of the new publishing firm "scorpion" gave them at my request one of his youthful stories, "on the sea." they printed it in a volume of collected stories and he many times regretted it. "all this new russian art is nonsense," he would say. "i remember that i once saw a sign-board in taganrog: arfeticial (for 'artificial') mineral waters are sold here! well, this new art is the same as that." his reserve came from the loftiness of his spirit and from his incessant endeavor to express himself exactly. it will eventually happen that people will know that he was not only an "incomparable artist," not only an amazing master of language but an incomparable man into the bargain. but it will take many years for people to grasp in its fullness his subtlety, power, and delicacy. "how are you, dear ivan alexeyevitch?" he wrote to me at nice. "i wish you a happy new year. i received your letter, thank you. in moscow everything is safe, sound, and dull. there is no news (except the new year) nor is any news expected. my play is not yet produced, nor do i know when it will be. it is possible that i may come to nice in february.... greet the lovely hot sun from me, and the quiet sea. enjoy yourself, be happy, don't think about illness, and write often to your friends.... keep well, and cheerful, and don't forget your sallow northern countrymen, who suffer from indigestion and bad temper." ( th january, ). "greet the lovely hot sun and the quiet sea from me" ... i seldom heard him say that. but i often felt that he ought to say it, and then my heart ached sadly. i remember one night in early spring. it was late. suddenly the telephone rang. i heard chekhov's deep voice: "sir, take a cab and come here. let us go for a drive." "a drive? at this time of night?" i answered. "what's the matter, anton pavlovitch?" "i am in love." "that's good. but it is past nine.... you will catch cold." "young man, don't quibble!" ten minutes later i was at antka. the house, where during the winter chekhov lived alone with his mother, was dark and silent, save that a light came through the key-hole of his mother's room, and two little candles burnt in the semi-darkness of his study. my heart shrank as usual at the sight of that quiet study, where chekhov passed so many lonely winter nights, thinking bitterly perhaps on the fate which had given him so much and mocked him so cruelly. "what a night!" he said to me with even more than his usual tenderness and pensive gladness, meeting me in the doorway. "it is so dull here! the only excitement is when the telephone rings and sophie pavlovna asks what i am doing, and i answer: 'i am catching mice.' come, let us drive to orianda. i don't care a hang if i do catch cold!" the night was warm and still, with a bright moon, light clouds, and a few stars in the deep blue sky. the carriage rolled softly along the white road, and, soothed by the stillness of the night, we sat silent looking at the sea glowing a dim gold.... then came the forest cobwebbed over with shadows, but already spring-like and beautiful.... black troops of giant cypresses rose majestically into the sky. we stopped the carriage and walked beneath them, past the ruins of the castle, which were pale blue in the moonlight. chekhov suddenly said to me: "do you know for how many years i shall be read? seven." "why seven?" i asked. "seven and a half, then." "no," i said. "poetry lives long, and the longer it lives the better it becomes--like wine." he said nothing, but when we had sat down on a bench from which we could see the sea shining in the moonlight, he took off his glasses and said, looking at me with his kind, tired eyes: "poets, sir, are those who use such phrases as 'the silvery distance,' 'accord,' or 'onward, onward, to the fight with the powers of darkness'!" "you are sad to-night, anton pavlovitch," i said, looking at his kind and beautiful face, pale in the moonlight. he was thoughtfully digging up little pebbles with the end of his stick, with his eyes on the ground. but when i said that he was sad, he looked across at me, humorously. "it is you who are sad," he answered. "you are sad because you have spent such a lot on the cab." then he added gravely: "yes, i shall only be read for another seven years; and i shall live for less--perhaps for six. but don't go and tell that to the newspaper reporters." he was wrong there: he did not live for six years.... he died peacefully without suffering in the stillness and beauty of a summer's dawn which he had always loved. when he was dead a look of happiness came upon his face, and it looked like the face of a very young man. there came to my mind the words of leconte de lisle: moi, je l'envie, au fond du tombeau calme et noir d'être affranchi de vivre et de ne plus savoir la honte de penser et l'horreur d'être un homme! [ transcriber's note: the following is a list of corrections made to the original. the first line is the original line, the second the corrected one. respect; no one should dare to shout at him or humilate him personally, respect; no one should dare to shout at him or humiliate him personally, began at once to speak of it with enthusiaism, completely uninterested, began at once to speak of it with enthusiasm, completely uninterested, you struck!" you struck!'" pure, and beautifully shaped; two thoughtful folds came beween the pure, and beautifully shaped; two thoughtful folds came between the old. you try to re-read some of our classics, say, pissensky, old. you try to re-read some of our classics, say, pissemsky, moi, je l'envie, au fond du tombeau calm et noir moi, je l'envie, au fond du tombeau calme et noir ]