The DREAMS of CHANG
AND OTHER STORIES
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Also by IVAN BUNIN
THE VILLAGE
Authorized translation from the Russian
ISABEL K HAPGOOD
NEW YORK: ALFRED ■ A • KNOPF
7%^ DREAMS 0/CHANG
AND OTHER STORIES
Authorized translation from ike Russian of
IVAN BUNIN
by Bernard Guilhert Guemey
NEW YORK
ALFRED • A • KNOPF
1923
COPTEIGHT, 1923, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
Published^ Septemiber, 19iS
Bet upt eleotrotyped, and printed ly the Vail-Saîlou Co., BingTiamton, N. Y,
Paper furnished hy W. F. Etherington & Co., New York.
Bound hy H. Wolff Estate, Neto York.
HANtTFAOTUEED IN THB UNITED STATES OF AMEBIOA
CONTENTS
the dreams of chang 9
a compatriot 34
brethren 46
oa uta mi 86
the son 91
light breathing HO
an evening in spring 119
the sacrifice 137
aglaia 144
the grammar of love 158
a night conversation 173
a goodly life 209
"i say nothing" 248
death 268
the gentleman from san francisco 280
TRANSLATION
Dear Mr. Knopf,
I have much pleasure in hereby confirming the
fact that you are the only publisher authorized
by me to issue in the United States of North
America my two books: the collection of short
stories entitled "The Gentleman from San Fran¬
cisco" and the novel, "The Village."
With assurances of the highest esteem,
I remain,
dear Sir,
yours very truly,
I. Bounine (I. Bunin)
Paris, 21-4-23.
Cf^i.
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THE DREAMS OF CHANG
WHAT does it matter of whom we speak? Any
that have lived and that live upon this earth
deserve to be the subject of our discourse.
Once upon a time Chang had come to know the uni¬
verse and the captain, his master, to whom his earthly
existence had become linked. And six entire years have
run since then,—have run like the sands in a ship's hour¬
glass.
It is again night,—dream or reality? And again comes
morning,—reality or dream? Chang is old, Chang is a
drunkard,—he is always dozing.
Outside, in the city of Odessa, it is winter. The
weather is nasty, sullen,—far worse than that of China was
when Chang and the captain met each other. Fine, sting¬
ing snow whirls through the air; it flies obliquely over
the ice-covered, slippery asphalt of the desolate seaside
boulevard, and painfully lashes the face of every run¬
ning Jew who, with his hands shoved deep into his pockets,
and with his shoulders hunched up, is zigzagging to the
left and right,—awkwardly, Hebraically. Beyond the
harbour, likewise deserted, beyond the bay, hazy from the
snow, the barren shores, low and flat, are faintly visible.
The jetty is hazy all the time with a thick, gray haze:
the sea, in foamy, bellying waves, surges over it from
morn till night. The wind whistles and reverberates
among the telephone wires overhead. . . .
On such days life in the city does not start at an early
[9]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
hour. Nor do Chang and the captain awake early. Six
years,—is it a long time, or short? In six years Chang
and the captain have grown old, although the captain is
not yet forty; and their lot has harshly changed. They
no longer sail the seas,—they live "on shore," as seamen
say; nor are they living in the same place they lived in
at one time, but in a narrow and rather dark street, in a
garret; the house is redolent of anthracite, and is occupied
by Jews,—of the sort that come to their families only
toward evening and who sup with their hats shoved on
the back of their heads. Chang and the captain have
a low ceiling; their room is large and chill. Besides that,
it is always gloomy and dark inside; the two windows
placed in the sloping wall-roof are small and round, re¬
minding one of port-holes. Something in the nature of a
chest of drawers stands between the windows, and against
the wall to the left is an old iron bed,—and there you
have all the furnishings of this bleak dwelling,—unless
the fireplace, out of which a fresh wind is always blow¬
ing, be included.
Chang sleeps in the nook behind the fireplace; the
captain on the bed. What sort of a bed this is, sagging
almost to the floor, and what kind of mattress it has,
any one who has lived in garrets can easily imagine; as
for the dirty pillow, it is so scanty that the captain is
forced to put his jacket under it. However, the cap¬
tain sleeps very peacefully even on this bed; he lies on his
back, his eyes shut and his face ashen, as motionless as
though he were dead. What a splendid bed had formerly
been his! Well built, high, with chests underneath; the
bedding was thick and snug, the sheets fine and smooth,
and the snowy-white pillows were chilling! But even
[10]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
then, even when lulled by the rolling of the waves, he
had not slept as heavily as he sleeps now: now he gets
very tired during the day, and besides that, what has he to
worry about now,—what can he oversleep, and with what
can the new day gladden him? At one time there had
been two truths in this world, that had constantly stood
sentry in turns: the first was, that life is unutterably beau¬
tiful; and the second, that life holds a meaning only for
lunatics. Now the captain affirms that there is, has been,
and will be for all eternity but one truth,—the ultimate
truth, the truth of Job the Hebrew, the truth of Ecclesi-
astes, the sage of an unknown tribe. Often does the cap¬
tain say now, as he sits in some beer shop : "Remember
now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil
days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt
say, 1 have no pleasure in them!" Still the days and
nights go on as before, and now there has again been a
night, and again morning is coming on. And the cap¬
tain and Chang are awaking.
But, having waked, the captain does not change his
position and does not open his eyes. His thoughts at
that moment are not known even to Chang, who is lying
on the floor beside the fireless hearth from which the
freshness of the sea had come all night. Chang is aware
of only one thing,—that the captain will lie thus for not
less than an hour. Chang, after casting a look at the
captain out of the corner of his eye, again closes his lids,
and again dozes off. Chang, too, is a drunkard; in the
morning he, too, is befuddled, weak, and beholds the uni¬
verse with that languid queasiness which is so familiar
to all those travelling on ships and suffering from sea¬
sickness. And because of that, as he dozes off, in this
[11]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
morning hour, Chang sees a dream that is tormenting,
wearisome. . . .
He sees:
An old, rheumy-eyed Chinaman has clambered up onto
a steamer's deck, and has squatted down on his heels;
whiningly, he importunes all those who pass by him to
buy a wicker-basket of spoilt small fish which he has
brought with him. It is a dusty and a chill day on a
broad Chinese river. In the boat with a bamboo sail,
swaying in the muddy water of the river, a puppy is sit¬
ting,—a little rusty dog, having about it something of the
fox and something of the wolf, with thick, coarse fur at
its neck; sternly and intelligently his black eyes look up
and down the high iron side of the steamer, and his ears
are cocked.
"Better sell your dog!" gaily and loudly, as though to
a deaf man, the young captain of the ship, who was
standing idling on his bridge, yelled to the Chinaman.
The Chinaman,—Chang's first master,—cast his eyes
upward; confused, both by the yell and by joy, he
began bowing and lisping: "Ve'y good dog, ve'y
good." * And the puppy was purchased,—for only a
single silver rouble,—was called Chang, and sailed off on
that very day with his new master to Russia; and, in the
beginning, for three whole weeks, he suffered so with sea¬
sickness, and was in such a daze, that he saw nothing:
neither the ocean nor Singapore, nor Colombo. . . .
It had been the beginning of autumn in China; the
weather was bad. And Chang felt qualmish when they
had barely passed into the estuary. They were met by
lashing rain and mist; white-caps glimmered over the
* In English in the original. Trans.
[12]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
plain of waters; the gray-green swell swayed, rushed,
plashed, many-pointed and senseless; meanwhile, the flat
shores were spreading, losing themselves in the fog,—and
there was more and more water all around. Chang, in
his fur coat, silvery from the rain, and the captain, in a
waterproof great-coat with the hood raised, were on the
bridge, whose height could be felt now more than before.
The captain issued commands, while Chang shivered and
tossed his head in the wind. The water was widening,
embracing all the inclement horizon, blending with
the misty sky. The wind tore the spray from the great
noisy swell, swooping down from any and every direc¬
tion; it whistled through the sail-yards and boomingly
slapped the canvas awnings below; the sailors, in the
meanwhile, in iron-shod boots and wet capes, were unty¬
ing, catching and furling them. The wind was seeking
the best spot from which to strike its strongest blow, and
just as soon as the steamer, slowly bowing before it, had
taken a sharper turn to the right, the wind raised it up on
such a huge, boiling roller, that it could not hold back; it
plunged down from the ridge of the roller, burying itself
in the foam,—and in the pilot's round-house a coffee cup,
forgotten upon a little table by the waiter, shattered
against the floor with a ring. . . . And then the fun be¬
gan!
There were all sorts of days after that; now the sun
would blaze down scorchingly out of the radiant azure;
now clouds would pile up in mountains and burst with
peals of terrifying thunder; or raging torrents of rain
descended in floods upon the steamer and the sea; or else
there was rocking,—yes, rocking, even when the ship was
at anchor. Utterly worn out, Chang during all the three
[13]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
weeks did not once forsake his corner in the hot, half-
dark corridor of the second-class cabins on the poop,
where he lay near the high threshold of the door leading
onto the deck. Only once a day was this door opened,
when the captain's orderly brought food to Chang. And
of the entire voyage to the Red Sea Chang's memory has
retained only the creaking of the ship's partitions, his
nausea, and the sinking of his heart, now flying downward
into some abyss together with the quivering stern, now
rising up to heaven with it; also did he remember his
prickly, deathly terror whenever, with the sound of a
cannon firing, a whole mountain of water would splash
against this stern, after it had been raised high and had
again careened to one side, with its propeller roaring in
the air; the water would extinguish the daylight in the
port holes, and then would run down in opaque torrents
over their thick glass. The sick Chang heard the distant
cries of commands, the thundering whistle of the boat¬
swain, the tramp of sailors' feet somewhere overhead; he
heard the plash and the noise of the water; he could dis¬
tinguish through his half-shut eyes the semi-dark corri¬
dor filled with jute bails ,of tea,—and Chang went daft,
became tipsy, from nausea, heat, and the strong odour of
tea. . . .
But here Chang's dream breaks off.
Chang starts and opens his eyes: that was no wave
hitting against the stern with a sound of a cannon firing,
—it was the jarring of a door somewhere below, flung
back with force by somebody or other. And after this
the captain coughingly clears his throat and slowly arises
from his sagging couch. He puts on and laces his
battered shoes, dons his black coat with the brass buttons,
[14]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
taking it out from under the pillow; Chang,.in the mean¬
while, in his rusty, worn fur coat, yawns discontentedly,
with a whine, having risen from the floor. Upon the
chest of drawers is a bottle of vodka, some of which has
already been drunk. The captain drinks straight out of
the bottle, and, slightly out of breath, wiping his
moustache, he goes toward the fireplace and pours out
some vodka into a little bowl standing near Chang for
him as well. Chang starts lapping it greedily. As for
the captain, he begins smoking and lies down again, to
await the hour when it will be full day. The distant
rumble of the tramway can already be heard; already, far
below in the street, flows the ceaseless clamping of horses'
hoofs; but it is still too early to go out. And the captain
lies and smokes. Having done with his lapping, Chang,
too, lies down. He jumps up onto the bed, curls up in a
ball at the feet of the captain, and slowly floats away into
that blissful state which vodka always bestows. His
half-shut eyes grow misty, he looks faintly at his master,
and, feeling a constantly increasing tenderness toward
him, thinks what in human speech may be expressed as
follows: "Oh, you foolish, foolish fellow! There is but
one truth in this world, and if you but knew what a
wonderful truth it is!" And again, in something between
thought and , dream, Chang reverts to that distant
morning, when the steamer, after carrying the captain
and Chang from China over the tormented restless ocean,
had entered the Red Sea. . . ,
He dreams;
As they passed Perim, the steamer swayed less and less,
as though it were lulling him asleep, and Chang fell into
a sweet and sound sleep. And suddenly he started,
[15]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
awake. And, when he had become awake, he was
astonished beyond all measure: it was quiet everywhere;
the stern was rhythmically vibrating, without any down¬
ward plunges; the noise of the water, rushing somewhere
beyond the walls, was even; the warm odour from the
kitchen, creeping out on deck from underneath a door,
was enchanting. . . . Chang got up on his hind legs and
looked into the deserted general cabin,—there, in the
obscurity, was a softly radiant, aureately-lilac some¬
thing; a something barely perceptible to the eye, but
extraordinarily joyous; there the rear port holes were
open to the sunlit blue void, open to the spaciousness,
to the air, while over the low ceiling streamed sinuous
rills of light reflected from mirrors,—they flowed on,
without flowing away. . . . And the same thing happened
to Chang that had also happened more than once in those
days to his master, the captain: he suddenly compre¬
hended that there existed in this universe not one truth,
but two truths: one, that to be living in this world and to
sail the seas was a dreadful thing, and the other. . . . But
Chang did not have time to think of the other,—through
the door, unexpectedly flung open, he saw the .trap-ladder
leading to the spar-deck, the black, glistening mass of the
steamer's funnel, the clear sky of a summer morning, and,
coming rapidly from under the ladder, out of the engine
room, the captain. He had shaved and washed; there
was the fragrance of fresh Eau-de-cologne about him;
his fair moustache turned upward, after the German
fashion; the glance of his light, keen eyes was sparkling,
and everything upon him was tight-fitting and snowy
white. And upon beholding all this Chang darted for¬
ward so joyously that the captain caught him in the air,
[16]
THE DREAMS OF, CHANG
kissed him resoundingly on the head, and, turning him
about, carrying him in his arms, with a hop, skip and a
jump came out on the spar-deck, then the upper deck,
and from there still higher, to that very bridge where it
had been so terrible in the estuary of the great Chinese
river.
On the bridge the captain entered the pilot's round¬
house, while Chang, who had been dropped to the floor,
sat for a space, his fox-like brush unfurled to its full
length over the smooth boards. It was very hot and
radiant behind Chang, from the low-lying sun. It must
also have been hot in Arabia, that was passing by so
near on the right, with its shore of gold, with its black-
brown mountains, its peaks, that resembled the mountains
of some dead planet, also all deeply strewn with gold
dust; Arabia, its entire sandy and mountainous waste
visible with such extraordinary distinctness that it
seemed as if one could jump over there. And above, on
the bridge, the morning could still be felt, there was still
the pull of a light, fresh coolness; the captain's mate,—■
the very same who later on used so often to make Chang
furious by blowing into his nose,—a man in white clothes,
with a white helmet and wearing fearful black spectacles,
was sauntering briskly back and forth over the bridge,
constantly looking up at the sharp tip of the front mast
that reached up to the sky, and over which was curling
the flimsiest wisp of a cloud. . . . Then the captain
called out from the round-house : "Here, Chang! Come
on and have coffee!" and Chang immediately jumped
up, circled the round-house, and deftly dashed over its
brass threshold. And beyond the threshold it proved to
be even better than on the bridge: there was a broad
[17]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
leather divan, fixed to the wall; over it hung certain
things like wall-clocks, their glass and hands glistening;
and on the floor was a slop-bowl with a mixture of sweet
milk and bread. Chang began lapping it greedily, while
the captain busied himself with his work. Upon the
counter, placed under the window opposite the divan, he
unrolled a large maritime chart, and, placing a ruler over
it, firmly drew a long line upon it with scarlet ink.
Chang, having finished his lapping, with milk on his muz¬
zle, jumped up on the counter and sat down near the very
window, out of which he could see the blue turned-over
collar of a sailor in a roomy blouse, who, with his back to
the window, was standing at the many-horned wheel.
And at this point the captain, who, as it turned out after¬
ward, was very fond of having a chat when he was all
alone with Chang, said to him :
"You see, brother, this is the Red Sea itself. You and
1 have to pass through it as cleverly as v</e can,—just see
how gaily coloured it is! I have to land you in Odessa
in good order, because they already know there of your
existence. I have already blabbed about you to a most
capricious little girl; 1 have bragged to her about your
lordship, over a sort of long cable, d'you understand,
that has been laid down by clever people over the bottom
of all the seas and oceans. . . . For after all, Chang, 1 am
an awfully lucky fellow, so lucky that you can't even
imagine it, and for that reason 1 am terribly averse to
getting stuck on one of these reefs, to have no end of
disgrace on my first distant cruise. . . ."
And, saying this, the captain suddenly gave Chang a
stern look and slapped his muzzle:
[18]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
"Paws off!" he cried commandingly. "Don't you dare
climb on government property!"
And Chang, with a toss of his head, growled and
puckered up his face. This was the first slap he had ever
received, and he was offended; it again seemed to him
that to be living in this world and to be sailing the seas
was an atrocious thing. He turned away, his trans-
lucently yellow eyes dimming and contracting, and with
a low growl he bared his wolfish fangs. But the captain
did not consider Chang's offended feelings of any impor¬
tance. He lit a cigarette and returned to the divan;
having taken a gold watch out of a side pocket of his
piqué jacket, he pried back its lids with a strong nail, and
looking upon a glistening, unusually animated, bustling
something which ran and resoundingly whispered within
the watch, again began speaking in a comradely tone.
He again told Chang that he was bringing him to Odessa,
to Elissavetinskaya Street; that in Elissavetinskaya
Street he, the captain, had apartments, first of all;
secondly, a wife who was a beauty; and, thirdly, a won¬
derful little daughter; and that he, the captain, was a
very lucky fellow after all.
"A lucky fellow, after all, Chang!" said the captain,
and then added:
"This daughter of mine, Chang, is a lively little girl,
full of curiosity and persistence,—it is going to be bad
for you at times, especially for your tail! But if you
only knew, Chang, what a beautiful creature she is!
I love her so much, brother, that at times 1 am even
afraid of my love: she is all the world to me,—well,
almost all, let us say; but is that as it should be? And,
[19]
THE DREAMS OE CHANG
in geo'iral, should any one be loved so greatly?" he asked.
"For, were all these Buddhas of yours more foolish than
you and I? And yet, just you listen to what they say
about this love of the universe and all things corporeal,
beginning with sunlight, with a wave, with the air, and
winding up with woman, with an infant, with the scent
of white acacia! Or else,—do you know what sort of z,
thing this Tao is, that has been thought up by nobody
else but you Chinamen? I know it but poorly myself,
brother, but then, everybody knows it poorly; but, as
far as it is possible to understand it, just what is it, after
all? The Abyss, our First Mother; She gives birth to all
things that exist in this universe, and She devours them
as well, and, devouring them, gives birth to them anew;
or, to put it in other words. It is the Path of all that ex¬
ists, which nothing that exists may resist. But we resist
It every minute; every minute we want to turn to our
desire not only the soul of a beloved woman, let us say,
but even the entire universe as well! It is an eerie thing
to be living in this world, Chang," said the captain ; "it's
a most pleasant thing, but still an eerie one, and espe¬
cially for such as I ! For I am too avid of happiness, and
all too often do I lose the way: dark and evil is this
Path,—or is it entirely, entirely otherwise?"
And, after a silence, he added further:
"For after all, what is the main thing? When you
love somebody, there is no power on earth that can make
you believe that the one you love can possibly not love
you. And that is just where the devil comes in, Chang.
But how magnificent life is; my God, how magnificent!"
Made red hot by the now high risen sun, and quivering
slightly as it ran, the steamer was tirelessly cleaving the
[20]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
Red Sea, now stilled in the abyss of the sultry empyrean
spaciousness. The radiant void of the tropical sky was
peeping in through the door of the round-house. Noon¬
day was approaching; the brass threshold simply blazed
in the sun. The glassy swell rolled more and more
slowly over the side, flaring up with a blinding glitter,
and lighting up the round-house. Chang was sitting on
the divan, listening to the captain. The captain, who
had been patting Chang on the head, shoved him to the
floor: "No, it's too hot, brother!" said he; but this time
Chang was not offended,—it was too fine a thing to be
living in this world on this joyous noonday. And
then. . . .
But here again Chang's dream is interrupted.
"Come on, Chang!" says the captain, dropping his
feet down from the bed. And again in astonishment
Chang sees that he is not on a steamer on the Red Sea,
but in a garret in Odessa, and that it really is noonday
outside,—not a joyous noonday, however, but a dark,
dreary, inimical one, and he growls softly at the captain
who has disturbed him. But the captain, paying no
attention to him, puts on his old uniform cap and his
old uniform great coat, and, shoving his hands deep in
his pockets and all hunched up, goes toward the door.
Willy-nilly, Chang, too, has to jump down from the bed.
It is a hard thing for the captain to descend the stairs
and he has no heart for it, as though he were doing it
under the compulsion of harsh necessity. Chang rolls
along rather rapidly,—he is still enlivened by that yet
unallayed irritation with which the blissful state induced
by vodka always ends. . . .
Yes,—it is two years now since Chang and the captain
[21]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
have been occupied, day in and day out, in visiting one
restaurant after another. There they drink, have snacks,
contemplate the other drunkards who drink and have
snacks alongside of them, amid the noise, tobacco smoke,
and all sorts of bad odours. Chang lies on the floor, at
the captain's feet. As for the captain, he sits and smokes,
his elbows firmly planted on the table,—a habit he has
acquired at sea; he is awaiting that hour when it will be
necessary, in accordance with some law which he had him¬
self mentally formulated, to migrate to some other restau¬
rant or coffee-house: Chang and the captain breakfast
in one place, drink coffee in another, dine in a third, and
sup in a fourth. Usually the captain is silent. But there
are times when the captain meets some one of his erst¬
while friends, and then he talks all day long without cease
of the insignificance of life, and every minute regales with
wine now himself, now his vis à vis, now Chang,—the
last always has some bit of china on the floor before him.
They would pass the present day also in precisely the
same way: they had agreed to breakfast this day with a
certain old friend of the captain's, an artist in a high silk
hat. And that meant that at first they would sit in a
certain malodorous beer-shop, among red-faced Germans,
—stolid, business-like people, who worked from morn till
night with, of course, the sole aim of drinking, eating,
working all over again, and propagating others of their
kind. Then they would go to a coffee-house filled to
overflowing with Greeks and Jews, whose entire exist¬
ence, likewise senseless but exceedingly perturbed, was
swallowed up in ceaseless expectation of stock-exchange
news ; and from the coffee-house they would set out for a
restaurant whither flocked all sorts of human rag-tag,
[22]
XHE DREAMS OF, CHANG
and there they would sit far into the night. . . .
A winter day is short, but with a bottle of wine, sitting
in conversation with a friend, it is still shorter. And
now Chang, the captain, and the artist had already been
both in the beer-shop and in the coffee-house, and it is
the sixth hour that they have been sitting and drinking
in the restaurant. And again the captain, having put his
elbows on the table, is ardently assuring the artist that
there is but one truth in this world,—a truth evil and
base. "You just look about you," he is saying, "you
just recall all those that you and 1 see every day in the
beer-shop, in the coffee-house, and out on the street! My
friend, 1 have seen the entire earthly globe—life is like
that all over! Everything that these people pretend as
constituting their life is all bosh and a lie; they have
neither God, nor conscience, nor a sensible purpose in
existing, nor love, nor friendship, nor honesty,—there is
even no common pity. Life is a dreary, winter day in a
filthy tavern, no more. . .
And Chang, lying under the table, hears all this in the
fog of a tipsiness, in which there is no longer any
exhilaration. Does he agree with the captain, or does he
not? It is impossible to answer this definitely,—but
since it is impossible, it means tnat things are in a bad
vay. Chang does not know, does not understand, whether
the captain is right; but then, it is only when we ex¬
perience sorrow that we all say: "I do not know, 1 do
not understand,"—whereas when joy is its portion every
living being is convinced that it knows all things, under¬
stands all things. . . . But suddenly a ray of sunlight
seems to cut through this fog of tipsiness: there is a
sudden tapping of a baion against a music stand on the
[23]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
band-stand of the restaurant—and a violin begins to
sing, followed by a second, a third. . . . They sing more
and more passionately, more and more sonorously,—
and a minute later Chang's soul overflows with an
entirely different yearning, with an entirely different
sadness. His soul quivers from an incomprehensible
rapture, from some sweet torment, from a longing for
something indefinite,—and Chang no longer distinguishes
whether he is in a dream or awake. He yields with all his
being to the music, submissively follows it into some
other world—and once more he sees himself on the
threshold of that beautiful world; silly, with a faith in
the universe, a puppy on board a steamer in the Red
Sea. . . .
"Yes, but how was it?" he half-thinks, half-dreams.
'Yes, I remember: it was a good thing to be alive on that
hot noonday on the Red Sea!" Chang and the captain
were sitting in the round-house; later on they stood on
the ship's bridge. . . . Oh, how much light there was;
what a deep blue the sea was, and how azure the sky!
How amazingly vivid against the background of the sky
were all these white, red, and yellow sailors' blouses hung
cut to dry at the prow! Then, afterwards, Chang and
the captain and the other men of the ship (whose faces
were brick-red, with oily eyes, whereas their foreheads
were white and perspiring), breakfasted in the hot
general cabin of first-class, under an electric ventilator
3uzzing and blowing out of a corner. After breakfast
Chang took a little nap; after tea he had dinner, and
after dinner he was again sitting aloft, before the pilot's
round-house, where a steward had placed a canvas chair
for the captain, and gazing far out at the sea; at the
[24]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
sunset, tenderly green among the many-coloured and
many-formed little clouds; at the sun, wine-red and shorn
of its beams, that, as soon as it had touched the turbid
horizon, lengthened out and took on the semblance of a
dark-flamed mitre. . . . Rapidly did the steamer run in
pursuit of it; over the side the smooth, watery humps
simply flashed by, giving off a sheen of blueish-lilac
shagreen. But the sun hastened on and on,—the sea
seemed to be absorbing it,—and kept on decreasing and
decreasing, and became an elongated, glowing ember. It
began to quiver and went out; and, as soon as it had gone
out, the shadow of some sadness immediately fell upon
all the world, and the wind, constantly blowing harder
as the night came on, became still more turbulent. The
captain, gazing at the dark flame of the sunset, was
sitting with his head bared, his hair a-flutter in the wind,
and his face was pensive, proud, and sad. And one
felt that he was happy none the less, and that not
only this entire steamer, running on at his will, but all the
universe as well was in his power; because at that moment
all the universe was in his soul,—and also because even
then there was the odour of wine on his breath. . . .
And when the night fell, it was awesome and mag¬
nificent. It was black, disquieting, with an unruly wind,
and with such a vivid glow from the waves swirling up
around the steamer that Chang, who was trotting behind
the captain as the latter rapidly and ceaselessly paced the
deck, would jump away with a yelp from the side of the
ship. And the captain again picked Chang up in his
arms, and putting his cheek against Chang's beating
heart,^—for it beat in precisely the same way as the cap¬
tain's—walked with him to the very end of the deck on
[25]
THE DREAMS OI- CHANG
to the poop, and stood there for a long time in the dark¬
ness, bewitching Chang with a wondrous and horrible spec¬
tacle: from under the towering, enormous stern, from
under the dully raging propeller, myriads of white-flamed
needles were pouring forth with a crisp swishing; they ex¬
tricated themselves and were instantly whirled away into
the snowy, sparkling path that the steamer was laying
down. Now, again, there would be enormous blue stars:
now some sort of tightly-coiled blue globes that would ex¬
plode vividly, and, fading out, smoulder mysteriously with
pale-green phosphorescence within the boiling watery
hummocks. The win'd, coming from all directions, beat
strongly and softly upon Chang's muzzle, ruffling and
chilling the thick fur upon his chest; and, nestling closely
to the captain, as though they were both of the same kin,
Chang scented an odour that seemed to be that of cold
sulphur, breathed in the air coming from the furrowed
inmost depths of the sea. And the stern kept on quiver¬
ing; it was lowered and lifted by some great and un¬
utterably free force, and Chang swayed and swayed,
excitedly contemplating this blind and dark, yet an
hundredfold living, dully turbulent Bottomless Gulf.
And at times some especially mischievous and ponderous
wave, noisily flying past the stern, would illumine the
hands and the silvery clothes of the captain with an
eldritch glow. . . .
On this night the captain for the first time brought
Chang into his large and cozy cabin, softly illuminated
by a lamp under a red silk shade. Upon the writing
table, that was squeezed in tightly near the captain's bed,
in the light and shade thrown by the lamp, stood two
parrow frames, holding two photographic portraits: one of
[26]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
a pretty little petulant girl in curly locks, seated at her
capricious ease in a deep arm-chair; and the other that of
a young woman, taken almost at full length, with a white
lace parasol over her shoulder, in a large lace hat, and
wearing a smart spring dress,—she was stately, slender,
beautiful and pensive, like some Georgian tsarevna. And
the captain said, as he undressed to the noise of the black
waves beyond the open window:
"This woman won't like you and me, Chang! There
are some feminine souls, brother, which languish eternally
in a certain pensive yearning for love, and who just for
that very same reason never love anybody. There are
such,—and how shall they be judged for all their heart-
lessness, falsehood, their dreams of going on the stage, of
owning an automobile, of yachting picnics, of some
sportsman or other, who pretends to be an Englishman,
and tortures his hair, all greasy with pomatum, into a
straight parting? Who shall divine them? Everyone
according to his or her lights, Chang; and are they not
fulfilling the innermost secret behests of Tao Itself, even as
they are being fulfilled by some sea-creature that is now
freely going upon its way in these black, fiery-armoured
waves?"
"Oo-oo!" said the captain, sitting down on a chair and
unlacing his white shoe. "What didn't 1 go through,
Chang, when 1 felt for the first time that she was not
entirely mine,—on that night when for the first time
she had gone alone to the Yacht Club ball and had
returned toward morning, like a wilted rose, pale
from fatigue and her still unabated excitement, with her
eyes all dark, widened, and distant from me! If you
only knew how inimitably she wanted to hoodwink me,
[27]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
with what artless wonder she asked: 'But aren't you
asleep yet, poor dear?' Right then I could not have
uttered even a word, and she understood me at once and
became silent; she merely threw a quick glance at me,—
and began undressing in silence. I wanted to kill her,
but she dryly and calmly said: 'Help me unfasten my
dress at the back,'—and I submissively approached her
and began with trembling hands to unfasten all these
hooks and snaps,—^and just as soon as I saw her body
through the open dress, saw her back between the
shoulder blades, and her chemise, dropping off the
shoulders and tucked into the corset; just as soon as I
felt the scent of her black hair and caught a glimpse of
her breasts, raised up by the corset, reflected in the bright
pier glass. . .
And, without finishing, the captain waved his hand in a
hopeless gesture.
He undressed, lay down, and extinguished the light,
and Chang, turning and settling in the morocco chair
near the writing table, saw how the black cerement of the
sea was furrowed by rows of white flame, flaring up and
fading out; saw how some lights flashed up ominously
upon the black horizon; saw how an awesome living
wave would run up from thence and with a menacing
noise would grow higher than the side of the ship, and
look into the cabin,—like some serpent of fairy tale
shining through and through with eyes of the natural
colours of precious stones, shining through and through
with translucent emeralds and sapphires. And he saw
how the steamer thrust it aside and evenly kept on in its
course, amid the ponderous and vacillant masses of this
[28]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
primordial element, now foreign and inimical to us, that
is called Ocean. . . .
In the night the captain emitted some sudden cry; and,
frightened himself by this cry, which rang with some
basely-plaintive passion, he instantly awoke. Having
lain for a minute in silence, he sighed and said mock¬
ingly:
"Yes, there's a story for you! 'As a jewel of gold in a
swine's snout, so is a fair woman! . . .' Thrice right
art thou, Solomon, Sage of Sages!"
He found in the darkness his cigarette case and lit a
cigarette, but, having taken two deep puffs at it, he let his
hand drop,—and fell asleep so, with the little red glow of
the cigarette in his hand. And again it grew quiet—
only the waves glittered, swayed, and noisily rushed
past the ship's side. The Southern Cross from behind
the black clouds. . . .
But here Chang is deafened by an unexpected thunder
peal. He jumps up in terror. What has happened?
Has the steamer again struck against underwater rocks
through the fault of the intoxicated captain, as was the
case three years ago? Has the captain again fired a
pistol at his beautiful and pensive wife? No; this is not
night all about them now; neither are they at sea, nor in
Elissavetinskaya Street on a wintry noonday,—but in a
brightly-lit restaurant, filled with noise and smoke. It
is the intoxicated captain, who had struck his fist against
the table, and is now shouting to the artist;
"Bosh, bosh ! As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout,—
that's what your Woman is! 'I have decked my bed with
coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen
[29]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
of Egypt. . . . Come, let us take our fill of love ... for
the goodman is not at home. . . Bah! Woman!
'For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto
the dead. . . .' But that is enough, that is enough, my
friend. It is time to go,—they are closing up this place;
come on!"
And a minute later the captain, Chang, and the artist
are already in the street, where the wind and the snow
make the street-lamps flicker. The captain embraces and
kisses the artist, and they go in different directions.
Chang, sullen and half asleep, is running sidewise over
the sidewalk after the captain, who walks rapidly and un¬
steadily. . . . Again a day has passed,—dream or real¬
ity?—and again darkness, cold, and fatigue reign over
the universe. . . . No, the captain is right, most assur¬
edly right: life is simply poisonous and malodorous al¬
cohol, nothing more. . . .
Thus, monotonously, do the days and nights of Chang
pass. But suddenly one morning the universe, like a
steamer, runs at full speed against an underwater reef,
hidden from heedless eyes. Awaking on a certain wintry
morning, Chang is struck by the great silence reigning in
the room. He quickly jumps up from his place, rushes
toward the captain's bed,—and sees that the captain is
lying with his head convulsively thrown back, with his
face grown pallid and chill, with his eyelashes half-open
and unmoving. And, upon seeing these eyelashes, Chang
emits a howl as despairing as if he had been thrown off
his feet and cut in two by a speeding automobile. . . .
Then, when the door of the room has been taken off its
hinges, when people enter, depart, and arrive again, speak¬
ing loudly,—the most diversified people: porters, police-
[30]
THE DREAMS OF, CHANG
men, the artist in the high silk hat, and all sorts of other
gentlemen who used to sit in restaurants with the
captain,—then Chang seems to turn to stone. . . . Oh,
how fearfully the captain had said at one time: "On
that day the keepers of the house shall tremble . . . and
those that look out of the windows be darkened . . . also
they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall
be in the way . . . because man goeth to his long home,
and the mourners go about the streets. . . . For the
pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken
at the cistern. . . ." But Chang does not feel even ter¬
ror now. He lies on the floor, his muzzle toward the
corner; he has shut his eyes tight that he might not be¬
hold the universe, might forget it. And the universe
murmurs over him dully and distantly, like the sea over
one who descends deeper and deeper into its abyss.
But when he does come to himself again, it is near the
doors of a chapel, in the porch. He sits near them with
drooping head; dull, half-dead,—only he is all shaking in
a chill. And suddenly the chapel door is flung open,—
and a wondrous scene, all mellifluously chanting, strikes
the eyes and the heart of Chang. Before Chang is a
semi-dark Gothic chamber, with the red stars of flames, a
whole forest of tropical plants, a coffin of oak raised high
upon a black scaffolding. There is a black throng of
people; there are two women wondrous in their marble¬
like beauty and their deep mourning, who seem just like
two sisters of different ages; and, over all this, reverbera¬
tions, thunder peals, a choir,—of men sonorously clam¬
orous of some sorrowful joy of the angels. Solemnity,
confusion, pomp,—and chantings not of this earth, drown¬
ing all else in their strains. And Chang's every hair
[31]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
stands up on end from anguish and rapture before this
sonorous vision. And the artist, who, with reddened
eyes, stepped out of the chapel at that moment, stops
in amazement;
"Chang!" he says in alarm, stooping down to him,
"Chang, what is the matter with you?"
And, laying a hand that has begun to tremble upon
Chang's head, he stoops still lower,—and their eyes, filled
with tears, meet with such love for each other, that
Chang's entire being cries out inaudibly to all the uni¬
verse: "Ah, no, no,—there is upon earth some third
truth, that has not been made known to me!"
That day, having returned from the cemetery, Chang
moves into the house of his third master,—again up
aloft, to a garret; but a garret warm, redolent of cigars,
with rugs upon the floor, with antique furniture placed
about it, and hung with brocaded stuffs. ... It is grow¬
ing dark; the fireplace is filled with glowing, sombrely-
scarlet lumps of heat; Chang's new master is seated in a
chair. He had not even taken off his overcoat and his
high silk hat upon returning home; he had sat down with
his cigar in a deep chair, and is now smoking and gazing
into the dusk of his atelier. As for the fatigued, tortured-
out Chang,—he is lying on a rug near the fireplace, his
eyes shut, his muzzle resting on his front paws. And he
dreams, he sees as in a vision;
Some One is lying there, beyond the darkening city,
beyond the enclosure of the cemetery, in that which is
called a crypt, a grave. But this Some One is not the
captain,—no. If Chang loves and feels the captain, if
he sees him with the vision of memory,—that divine
thing within him which he does not understand himself,—
[32]
THE DREAMS OF CHANG
it means that the captain is still with him; in that uni¬
verse, without beginning and without end, which is in¬
accessible to Death. In this universe there must be but
one truth,—the third; but what that truth is, is known
only to that last Master to whom Chang must now soon
return.
1916.
[33]
A COMPATRIOT
This moujik of Briansk had been brought from the
village to Moscow when he was a little boy; he
had run errands at a merchant's warehouse in
lliyinka; he used to fly like an arrow to taverns to get hot
water for tea: seizing the tea kettle, he would dash
through the galleries of the Stariya Riyady—the Old
Shops—drawing, with a dark jet of water, the figure eight
upon the gray floor. ... On a brisk winter day, perhaps
with a light snow falling, the lliyinka thoroughfare would
be black with people; the horses of the cabbies would be
shufflingly trotting along,—but he, in just his shirt and
without a cap (his head resembling a rusty hedgehog),
would jump out of the house, dart off the sidewalk, and
start sliding on his soles upon the ice in the gutter. . . .
Imagine, then, how strange it is to see this moujik in
the tropics, at the equator! He is sitting in his office in
an old-fashioned house of Dutch architecture. Beyond
the window lies the white city in the blaze of the sun;
there are naked black rickshaw-men, shops of Australian
wares and of precious stones, hotels filled with tourists
from all the ends of the world; in the warm green water
of the harbour float American and Japanese steamers;
beyond the harbour, along the lowlands of the shores,
grow cocoanut groves. . . . Clad all in white, tall, knotty,
with flaming red hair, with a blueish freckled skin, pale,
energetically exhilarated (or, to put it more simply, just
[34]
A COMPATRIOT
daft) from the heat, from nervousnéss, from constant
tipsiness and from business activity,—he is, to look at
him, either a Swede or an Englishman. His desk is all
cluttered with papers, with bills. The air is filled with
the crisp rattling of typewriters. An old Hindu, bare¬
footed, in robe and turban, noiselessly and rapidly
changes with his dark, exquisite, silver-ringed hands
little bottles of cold soda water, and every minute, with a
mysterious expression on his face, announces the visitors,
adding "Sir" at every word. But the "Sir" is completely
absorbed in conversation with his friend from Russia,
before whom he is playing the rôle of the affable lord of
this tropical island. Upon the table are several open
boxes of the most expensive cigars; of Turkish, Egyptian,
English and Havana cigarettes. He is a connoisseur of
tobaccos,—as well as of everything else, by the way.
He regales his guest now with this brand, now with the
other, saying, as though in passing: "This, 1 think isn't
at all bad. . . ." Throwing a casual glance at some
paper submitted to him, he, in the midst of the conversa¬
tion, firmly and abruptly dashes off his signature upon it.
Upon seeing a visitor enter, he changes the expression on
his face, disposes of the matter in hand in two or three
phrases, and again renews the interrupted conversation.
When receiving some dispatch, his manner of opening it
is especially negligent; for a moment, as he runs through
it, he frowns: "What idiots!" he will say vehemently, in
vexation; and throwing the dispatch to one side, im¬
mediately forgets about it,—or pretends that he does
so. . . . All are idiots to him. He has already succeeded
in astonishing his guest with his self-assurance, his deci¬
sive and sceptical mind, his enormous worldly expe-
[35]
A COMPATRIOT
ríence and his wide acquaintance with people of the most
diverse classes and stations. No matter who among the
celebrities of Moscow is named,—merchants, administra¬
tors, physicians, journalists,—he knows them all, and
knows well, besides, the price of each and all. And what
information does he not possess concerning back-stage
mysteries, exceptional careers, and shady histories!
His guest had heard a great deal about him while still at
Port Said from a certain friend of this man; which friend
had said, with a cynical gaiety, that Zotov had gone
through fire, water, and brazen pipes. "Ye-es," this
friend had said, shaking his head with a derisive and
enigmatic smile, "he's a fine lad!" On the spot the guest
came to know still more, and chiefly through the frag¬
mentary phrases of Zotov himself. Strangely and un¬
expectedly do talents manifest themselves in Russia, and
they work miracles when lucky lots fall to their share!
For he had drawn an unusually lucky lot when he had
come as an urchin to Moscow. He had an uncle there;
a well-fed, clever moujik, who had already attained to a
competence and a consciousness of his own worth; who
knew how, adroitly, without lowering himself, to do a
good turn for any decent gentleman. This uncle worked
in the Sandunovskiya baths, and many of those whom
he enveloped in clouds of hot and fragrant soapy foam
called him by name and liked to chat with him. And
one of these was Nechaev, a liberal, educated Crœsus, a
large-built, stout merchant in gold spectacles. Was it a
hard thing, having thrown a fine, slippery sheet over
the pink, steamed body, to put in a word about his
urchin nephew? And this urchin did not get to twisting
waxen thread, nor to blowing up the fire under sad-
[36]
A COMPATRIOT
irons, but got into a sombre, clean and quiet warehouse on
the Iliyinka. All the rest was a matter of his personal
liveliness and aptitude. Everyone knows how these
lucky fellows and born geniuses begin : during the day the
urchin runs errands; of evenings, by his own volition,
without any guidance, he pours by the dim light of a
candle-end, learning to read and write; in the morning,
before the clerks get in, he, without understanding, but
stubbornly, overcomes the newspaper, and, let the clerks
but open their mouths, he is right there on the spot, all
alert and obedient, catching every word, every
glance. . . . When he was about twelve this urchin, who
had aroused his employer's special interest, was taken into
the latter's home; while in his eighteenth year he was al¬
ready in Germany, studying the paper industry, working
as hard as any German,—the foreigners, it would seem,
did not want to believe that he was a Russian. "They
often don't believe it even now, the blockheads!" said
Zotov, roughly and abruptly, as is his wont, throwing
away one cigarette and immediately lighting another. . . .
"But, after all, does he resemble a European so very
greatly?" the guest wonders as he looks at his host.
He is thirty-seven years of age, but seems older. Yes,
—in appearance he is altogether an Englishman; even his
hands are English, the red hair upon them so thick that
they seem to be covered with tow. "But then," the guest
reflects, "would an Englishman talk so amazingly much
and so animatedly?" Hands really English would not
be trembling at his age, and, moreover, if possessing such
strength as Zotov's, an Englishman's face would not be
so pale, so uneasy without any visible cause. Zotov is
wearing black spectacles for the second day now, be-
[37]
A COMPATRIOT
cause one of his eye-brows is injured,—he slipped, so he
says, on a banana peel in a bar; which means that he
was rather far gone! And yet here, on this island, he is
a personage because of his position. His hold on his
guest's curiosity and attention does not flag for a min¬
ute. This man, audacious to the verge of insolence, in¬
fects one with his audacity, his energy,—at times even
enraptures. But, listening to him, wondering at him,
one looks upon him and thinks: "But he is drunk,—
he is drunk!" He is always tipsy,—from nervousness,
from the heat, from whiskey; Englishmen drink a great
deal, but, of course, not a single one of them in all this
white city drinks as much as Zotov, nor swallows iced soda
water as avidly, nor smokes such a quantity of cigars
and cigarettes, nor speaks so much and so confusedly. . . .
After his training abroad he worked at home and en¬
joyed the unbounded trust of the man who had brought
him up. But he no longer wanted to know any mean in
his independence, as well as in his expenditures. Sent
into Central Asia, he suddenly, on some trifling pretext,
quarrelled with Nechaev, severing all connections with
him,—and, from a man steadily and surely climbing up¬
ward, was transformed into something very like an ad¬
venturer. He had traversed all of Siberia; had been in
Amur, in China, consumed with impatience to found some
enterprise all his own,—let it be something new, let it
be something he was not familiar with, let it even be of
a predatory nature,—but an enterprise such as would
quickly lead to riches. Having returned to Russia he
had insinuated himself into a great tea firm, besides hav¬
ing arranged two other posts for himself,—and it is
now the sixth year that he has been living here in the
[38]
A COM PATRIOT
tropics, clad in no mean powers. ... It is a rare Euro¬
pean who would have so easily cancelled his fate, amaz¬
ing in its successfulness,—or even his specialty, which had
taken so many years of toil to acquire! No European
would have yielded himself to the whims of chance, or
have shouldered not only a governmental post, but also
a steamship agency and a tea business; or have started,
along with all these, certain aifairs with pearl-bearing
shells; or would have maintained a black mistress all his
own,—a rare beauty, according to rumour,—to the wonder
of the whole city. ... He keeps his counsel very much
to himself, but at times he is very tactless; reveals, with
equal force, now great firmness of character, now un¬
restraint; now secretiveness, now loquacity. He flaunts
his common origin and at the same time boasts of his
acquaintance with people of rank; swears, for all he is
worth, at the Russian Government,—and with evident
pride keeps on his desk a photographic portrait of a Rus¬
sian Grand Duke, handsome and rather young, who had
personally bestowed this portrait upon him, with a short
signature in autograph. When he is narrating something
that, in his opinion, is humorous, he frequently does not
comprehend that the point of this amusing matter may
be interpreted not at all to his advantage,—for example,
it was from no other source than his own stories that the
guest found out that Zotov had appeared as far too om¬
niscient, almost as a passer-by, to those men of affairs in
Siberia and Manchuria with whom he so rapidly attained
to terms of intimacy, whom he so quickly charmed at
first with his obligingness and sociability, his mannerisms
of a man used to living on a grand scale, a man con¬
versant with what is what, in absolutely all things, be-
[39]
A COMPATRIOT
ginning with cigars, wine, women, and culminating with
some excavations on the Philippine Islands, rather lethal,
it would seem, on account of an earthly microbe. . . .
In the evening the guest rides with him beyond the city.
Beyond the city, on the shore of the ocean, stands a
small but a very fashionable restaurant, where the tour¬
ists and the residents rest from the sultriness of the city,
drinking tea, brandy, and champagne, and admiring the
sunset from the front piazza of the restaurant. They
come there in tiny rickshaws, following one another, over
an endless road amid age-old vegetation, past bungalows
and past the huts of the savages. And for a whole hour
the guest from Russia sees before him only the naked
body of a brown man, carrying him at a run farther and
farther under the green vault of the branches of spread¬
ing trees; and beyond him, beyond this body and black-
haired head, the big white figure of Zotov, sitting high and
erect in his little carriage. Halfway to their destination
he suddenly turns around and, raising his stick, calls out to
his guest:
"Would you care to drive in?"
For answer the guest assents,—Zotov had pointed out a
small Buddhistic monastery,—and the savages, breathing
heavily, bathed in perspiration, roll up along the passage
way, lying between the cabins, that stand underneath the
palms and all other species of trees.
"Well, isn't this like a bit of our own; isn't this Rus¬
sian?" Zotov is saying, stepping out of his carriage.
"Only in our country is there so unconscionably much
of this verdure, of this forest, so many of these hovels,
so many dirty urchins like these! Just look!" he is say¬
ing, pointing with his stick at the trees, at the huts
[40]
A COM PATRIOT
and their roofs of leaves and of rushes, at the naked
children, and at the natives, young and old, who have
surrounded the little carriages in their curiosity. "And
the evening, too, is like one of our own,—oppressive, and
so wearisome, so wearisome!" he is saying in irritation,
going in the direction of the old idol temple standing on
a knoll underneath slender cocoanut palms, where a
priest is already waiting, clad in a yellow mantle, with
his right shoulder bared,—his shaven head is small and
pressed in at the temples, and his eyes are black, almost
insane, and have an intense gaze.
Having entered the dark little sanctuary, the compa¬
triots take off their helmets, wet with perspiration and
cool on the inner side. The priest points a finger at
their heads and shakes his head: as much as to say that
this is not required.
"A lot you know, you fool," says Zotov in Russian;
and for a long while, with a certain strange gravity, gazes
at the fourteen-foot wooden statue, gilded and painted in
red and yellow, lying on its side beyond a sacrificial altar
of black stone, upon which are heaped small coins and
nickel rings, and with the slenderest of brown joss-sticks
sending forth thin jets of aromatic smoke standing upon
it.
"And how he is painted and lacquered all over,
though!" says Zotov jerkily. "Every bit just like the
wooden bowls and cups sold at our fairs!"
And he carelessly tosses a heavy gold coin upon the
silver plate extended by the priest. . . .
When they arrive at the restaurant, his face is almost
chalky, and it is a frightful thing to see the black spec¬
tacles upon it. "For two whole hours 1 have not been
[41]
A COMPATRIOT
poisoning myself with anything, have drunk nothing, nor
have I smoked; and because of all that 1 have become
dead tired," he is saying. And just as soon as he is seated
at a small table on the little terrace before the restaurant,
over the steep shore, cumbered below with blue bowlders
that eternally bathe in the warm water of the ocean, he
immediately orders champagne.
The wine is very chill, and they both drink it avidly,
rapidly growing tipsy, and contemplate the darkening
lilac ocean, the infinitely distant sunset, turbidly and ten¬
derly roseate. A faint, warm breeze is stirring; the
cicadas are drowsily strumming in the brushwood. . . .
And suddenly Zotov flings his cigarette far from him,
quickly lights another, and again, with the pertinacity of a
maniac, begins talking of the similarity of this island and
Russia.
The guest smiles. Zotov, hurriedly and not at all
clearly, argues with him. The matter does not lie, he
urges, merely in an outward resemblance. . . . And it was
not even the resemblance that he had in view, but rather
his reactions. . . . Perhaps these reactions are not firm,
are unwholesome,—but then, that is another matter. . . .
The devil himself would go out of his mind in a climate
like this,—it is not a climate to be trifled with. . . . But
now, in a discussion of all the various dangers of the Far
East, people somehow forget entirely about that fact;
messieurs the Aryans, and especially we Russians, ought to
carry out our conquering expeditions into the tropics with
extreme cautiousness, recalling with a greater frequence
our forefathers and their conquest of Hindustan, so signifi¬
cantly terminating in Buddhism,—when all is said and
done, it is we, the Aryans, after Thibet intruding our-
[42]
A COMPATRIOt
selves into the tropics, who have given birth to this teach¬
ing, with its appallingly inapplicable wisdom! And then
he warmly begins to asseverate that "all the force of the
thing" lies in that he had already seen, had already felt
the tropics even before his arrival here, at some time
very remote, perhaps a thousand years ago,—^with the
eyes and the soul of his most distant ancestor. . . .
He tells,—with a subtlety, passionateness and an elo¬
quence never to be expected from him,-—that he had ex¬
perienced extraordinary sensations on the way over here,
on those sultry, starry nights when he had first beheld the
Southern Cross, Canopus, and those first-created starry
mists that are called the Clouds of Magellan; when he
had beheld the Coal Sacks, those funereal fissures into the
infinitude of universal voids; and the awesome magnifi¬
cence of the Alpha of the Centaur, glimmering upon the
utterly empty horizon, where some immeasurable Noth¬
ingness, unattainable to our reasor, seemed to be in
its inception. "Yes, yes!" exclaims he insistently, fixing
the guest with his spectacles: "The horizon was utterly
empty about the Alpha! A spectacle of a new world, of
new heavens, was opened before me, but it seemed to
me,—and this sensation was vivid to the verge of terror
within me, 1 assure you !—it seemed to me that 1 had seen
them before, once upon a time. All the days and all
the nights a smooth, dead swell rocked us wide on the
ocean. We were sailing toward an Eastern monsoon; it
blew sharp and strong, and its ceaseless current of
air made the sailyards hum and blurred the vision, and
made our speed seem rapid. . . . Awaking at night in the
hot darkness of my cabin, 1, in order to rest after the ex¬
hausting sleep, would go on the upper decks, out into the
[43]
A COMPATRIOT
wind, under the stars,—altogether different from those 1
had seen all my life, from my very birth, and with which
I had already grown intimate; stars that were altogether,
altogether different,—yet at the same not altogether new,
seemingly, but as though they were dimly recalled.
Under their dim light hovered the ceaseless noise of the
sea, the steamer rolled slowly from one side to the other,
and, like strangled suicides in gray shrouds, with arms
outspread, the long canvas ventilators swayed and
quivered near the funnel, avidly catching with their
orifices the freshness of the monsoon, upon which was al¬
ready borne toward us the hot breath of the dread Land
of our First Parents. And at such times 1 would be
seized by such melancholy,—a melancholy of some in¬
finitely remote recollection,—that one can not express
in human speech even a hundredth part of it!"
A faint, delightful breeze is stirring; there is a drowsy
strumming in the brushwood. The twilight begins to
swell as with sap with that faery orange-aureate colour
which always arises in the tropics when some time had
elapsed after the sunset. The surf boils up in orange-
aureate foam; the faces and the white costumes are
bathed in an orange-aureate light. . . .
"How connect that with which he amazed me to-day
with what he is amazing me now?" the guest from Russia
is reflecting, almost in fear, about his astonishing com¬
patriot. But the latter, is looking at him through his
black spectacles and is stubbornly reiterating:
"Yes, yes,—1 have already been here. . . . And, in
general, I am a doomed man. ... If you but knew how
dreadfully muddled my affairs are! Even more, it would
seem, than my soul and my thoughts. . . . Oh, well, there
[44]
A COM PATRIOT
is a way out of everything! Just jerk back the trigger of
your revolver, having thrust its muzzle as far as possible
into your mouth,—and all these affairs, thoughts, and
emotions will fly into pieces to the devil and his dam!"
1916.
[45]
BRETHREN
Behold brethren, slaying one another!
I would discourse of grief.
SUTHA NIPPATHA.
The road out of Colombo, lying along the ocean,
runs through dense cocoanut groves. To the right,
within their sun-dappled shady depths, under the
high canopy of feathery broom-like tree-tops, are scat¬
tered the -Seflêgalese cabins, half-hidden^by the pale green
laminae of bananas, resembling gigantic ears of corn, so
small and low are they in comparison with the tropical
forest surrounding them. To the left, through the dark-
ringed trunks, tall and slender, fantastically bent in all
directions, one sees stretches of deep, silky sands, a gleam
of a golden, blazing mirror of smooth water, and, anchored
upon it, as though blending with the tree trunks, are the
coarse sails of primitive pirogues,—frail, cigar-shaped
hollowed-out small oaks. Upon the sand, in paradisaical
nudity, are sprawling the coffee-coloured bodies of black-
haired striplings. Many such bodies are also plashing,
with laughter and yells, in the warm transparent water
of the stony coast. ... Of what need, one thinks, to these
people of the forests, these direct heirs of the Land of our
First Parents, as Ceylon is styled even now,—of what
need to them are cities, cents, rupees? Do not the forest,
ocean, sun give them everything? And yet, upon attain-
[46]
BRETHREN
ing the years of maturity, some of them take to trading,
others labour upon the rice and tea plantations, a third
lot—in the north of the island—dive for pearls together
with negroes, going down to the bottom of the ocean and
arising thence with bloodshot eyes; a fourth group re¬
place horses,—they carry Europeans over the towns
and their environs, over dark red footpaths, shaded by
enormous vaults of forest verdure over that very kabouk
out of which Adam was created. Horses bear but illy the
sultriness of Ceylon,—even Australian horses; every
wealthy resident who keeps a horse sends it away for the
summer to the mountains, into Candy, into Nurillia.
Upon the rickshaw-man's left arm, between his
shoulder and elbow, the Englishmen, the present lords of
the island, put a badge with a number. There are ordi¬
nary numbers, and there are special ones. To one old
Senegalese rickshaw-man, living in a forest hut near
Colombo, had fallen a special number,—seven. "Where¬
fore," the Exalted One might have said,—"wherefore,
monks, did this old man desire to multiply his earthly
sorrows?" "Because," the monks might have answered,
"because, oh Exalted One, he was moved by earthly love,
by that which, from the start of time, summons all crea¬
tures into being,—therefore did this old man desire to in¬
crease his earthly sorrows." He had a wife, a son, and
many little children, dreading not that "he who hath
them, hath also the care of them." He was black, very
thin and unsightly, resembling both a stripling and a
woman; his long hair, gathered in a knot at the nape of
his neck and anointed with cocoanut oil, had grown gray;
the skin over all his body—or, to put it better, over his
bones—had wrinkled; as he ran, sweat streamed down
[47]
BRETHREN
from his nose, chin, and the rag tied about his scanty
pelvis; his narrow chest drew breath with whistling and
gasping. But strengthening himself with the headiness
of the betel, working up and expectorating a bloody froth
that soiled his moustache and lips, he sped quickly; and
the white men rolling in his black lacquered cart through
the sun-scorched city, over the dark-red pavements, soft
from the sun and smelling of naphtha and the humus of
flowers, were satisfied.
Moved by love, not for himself, but for his family, for
his son, did he desire happiness, that which was not des¬
tined to be his, that which was not given to him. He
knew English but poorly; he could not make out at once
the names of the places where he was to run to—and
frequently ran at a venture. The rickshaw-man's car¬
riage is very small ; it has a top that can be thrown back,
its wheels are narrow and high, each shaft is no thicker
than an average cane. And lo! A big man, his eyes al¬
most all whites, all in white, with a white sun helmet, in
rough but expensive footgear, clambers into it, seats him¬
self snugly therein, crosses one leg over the other, and,
restrainedly commanding, deep in his throat, hoarsely
croaks his destination. Seizing his shafts, the old man
bends down to the ground and flies forward like an arrow,
scarce touching the ground with his light feet. The man
in the helmet, holding a stick in his hands covered with
tow-like hair, has gone into deep thought over his affairs,
staring vacantly,—when suddenly he rolls his eyes in
wrath: why, the fellow's rushing in an altogether wrong
direction! To put it shortly, not a few sticks had fallen
upon his back, upon his black shoulder blades, always
hunched up in presentiment of a blow. But also not a
[48]
BRETHREN
few extra cents had he snatched from Englishmen,—
checking himself at full speed at the entrance of some
hotel or office and dropping the shafts, he would so
wrinkle his face, so hurriedly throw out his thin arms,
his moist, monkey-like palms cupped, that it was im¬
possible not to give him something additional.
One day he ran home at an altogether unaccustomed
hour in the very heat of noonday, when those lemon-
coloured birds which are called sun-birds flutter through
the forest like golden arrows; when so gaily and shrilly
scream the parrots, darting from the trees and flashing
like rainbows through the dappled boskage of the forests,
through their shade and gleaming light; when, within
the enclosures of ancient Buddhistic sanctuaries, roofed
with terra-cotta tiles, the plum-coloured blossoms of the
leafless Tree of Sacrifice, that resemble little tuberoses,
yield such a sweet and heavy odour; when thick-throated
chameleons play with such vivid primary colours as they
flash over smooth-trunked trees, as well as over trees
that are as ringed as an elephant's trunk; when so many
huge, gorgeous butterflies soar and float without motion
in the sun; and when the hot, fawn-coloured ant-hills
swarm and spout, as though with agate grain. All
things in the forests chanted and praised Maru, the God
of Life and Death, the God of the "Thirst of Being"; all
creatures were pursuing one another, rejoicing with a
brief joy even as they destroyed one another; but the
old rickshaw-man, no longer athirst for anything but a
cessation of his sufferings, lay down in the stuffy murk
of his mud-hut, under its parched-up roof of leaves
arustle with little red snakes, and toward evening was
dead—from icy cramps and watery dysentery. His life
[49]
BRETHREN
was extinguished together with the sun, that went down
beyond the lilac smoothness of great watery expanses,
retreating toward the west, into the purple, ashes, and
gold of the most magnificent clouds in the universe. And
night came,—a night on which, in the forests near
Colombo, all that was left of the rickshaw-man was only
a little contorted corpse, that had lost its number, its
name, even as the river Kellani loses its appellation when
it reaches the ocean. The sun, upon sinking, changes
to a wind; but into what does he that has died
change? . . . Night was rapidly extinguishing the roseate
and green colours of the fleeting twilight,—colours as
tender as those of some fairy tale; the flying foxes darted
noiselessly underneath the branches, seeking shelter for
the night; and the forests were filling up with a black,
warm darkness, were bursting into flame with myriads
of fire-flies, and were mysteriously, languishingly mur¬
murous with cicadas and with the flowers of which the
tiny tree frogs make their home. In the distant forest
idol-temple, before a little sacred lamp barely glimmering
upon a black altar for offerings that was drenched with
cocoanut oil and strewn with rice and withered flower
petals, upon his right side, with one hand laid meekly
under his cheek, reposed the Exalted One,-—a giant of
sandal-wood, with a broad gilded face and elongated
slanting eyes of sapphires, with a smile of peaceful sad¬
ness upon his thin lips. In the dark cabin, upon his
back, was lying the rickshaw-man, and the suffering of
death distorted his pitiful features,—for that the voice
of the Exalted One had not reached him when it had
summoned him to forsake earthly love; for that beyond
the grave a new life of sorrow awaited him, as a con-
[50]
BRETHREN
sequence of his previous unrighteous one. The buck-
toothed old woman, sitting at the threshold of the cabin,
at the fire under a cauldron, wept on this night, nourish¬
ing her grief with the self-same unreasoning love and
pity. The Exalted One would have likened her emo¬
tions to the copper ear-ring, resembling a little barrel,
which hung in her right ear,—the ear-ring was big and
heavy; it had so pulled down the slit in the lobe of her
ear that a considerable hole had formed. Her short
blouse of cotton stuff, put on right over the bare coffee-
coloured body, stood out sharply white in the darkness.
Near by, naked, imp-like children were playing, squealing,
pursuing one another. As for the son, a light-footed
youth,—he was standing in the semi-darkness beyond the
fire. He had that evening seen his bride,—a round-faced,
thirteen-year-old girl from a neighbouring settlement.
He was frightened and dumbfounded upon hearing of his
father's death,—he had not thought that this would come
so soon. But, probably, he was too much aroused by an¬
other love, which is stronger than the love men bear for
their fathers. "Forget not," saith the Exalted One,
"forget not, 0 Youth, longing to enkindle life with life,
even as fire is enkindled with fire, that all the torments
of this universe, where everyone is either slayer or slain,
that all its sorrows and plaints, come from love." But
love had already crept into the youth in its entirety,
even as a scorpion creeps into its lair. He stood and
gazed into the fire. As with all savages, his legs were
disproportionately long. But even Siva would have
envied the beauty of his torso, that was of the colour of
dark cinnamon. The fire made his blue-black hair
glisten,—it was as thick as horse hair, and stretched taut
[51]
BRETHREN
and gathered a-t the top of his head; made his eyes glow
from under their long lashes,—and their glow was like
the glow of coke near the mouth of a forge.
On the next day the neighbours carried off the dead
little old man into the depths of the forest; laid him in
a pit, with his head to the west, toward the ocean; hur¬
riedly, but trying not to make noise, cast earth and leaves
over him; and hurried away to perform their cleansing
ablutions. The little old man was done with his running;
the brass badge was taken off the thin arm that had grown
gray and wrinkled,—and, admiring it, distending his
thin nostrils, the youth put it upon his own, that was
rounded and warm. At first he only followed the ex¬
perienced rickshaw-men, trying to catch the destinations
of their passengers, memorizing English words and the
names of the streets; then he began carrying passengers
independently, began earning money himself ; he was pre¬
paring for a family, for a love of his own,—the desire
for which is a desire for sons, just as the desire for sons
is a desire for property, and desire for property—a desire
for well-being. But one day, having come home, he came
upon other horrible tidings: his bride had vanished,—
she had gone to Slave Island, to purchase something, and
had not returned. The bride's father, who knew Colombo
well, having frequently gone there, searched for her for
three days, and he must have found out something, be¬
cause he returned reassured. He sighed and cast down his
eyes, expressing his submission to fate; but he was a
great hypocrite, a sly old man, like all those who have
property, who trade in the city. He was corpulent, with
breasts like a woman's; he had hoary hair, carefully
combed, and ornamented with an expensive comb of tor-
[52]
BRETHREN
toise shell; he walked about bare-footed, but under a
sun-shade; he girt his hips with a piece of gaudy material,
of good quality; his blouse was of piqué. It was im¬
possible to get the truth out of him; furthermore, all
women, all maidens, are frail, even as all rivers are full
of turnings and windings; and the young rickshaw-man
understood this. After sitting at home for two days in
a daze, without touching food, only chewing betel, he
finally came to himself and again ran off into Colombo.
He seemed to have forgotten entirely about his bride.
He ran with the rickshaw, he covetously hoarded money,
—and it was impossible to understand which he was more
in love with : his running, or those circles of silver which
he gathered for it. One Russian seaman had had a
photograph taken of himself and the rickshaw-man, and
had presented him with one of these pictures. For a
long time after that the young rickshaw-man joyously
marvelled at his image: he was standing between his
shafts, his face turned toward the imaginary spectators,
and everyone could recognize him immediately,—even the
badge on his arm had come out. With all good fortune,
apparently even with happiness, he had laboured thus for
about half a year.
And one morning he was sitting with other rickshaw-
men underneath a many-trunked banyan tree that stood
upon that lengthy street which extends from Slave Is¬
land to Victoria Park. The hot sun had just appeared
from behind the trees, from the direction of Maradana.
But the banyan tree had grown high, and there was no
longer any shade about its roots, strewn over with parched
leaves. The little carriages grew hot from the heat,
their thin shafts lay upon the dark-red, heated earth,
[53]
ÈRÊtHRÉIÎ
that smelt both of naphtha and of freshly-ground coffee.
With this odour were blended the pungent sweet odours
of the surrounding, ever-blossoming gardens, the odours
of camphor, of musk, and of that which the rickshaw
men were eating,—and they were eating bananas,—small,
warm, tenderly roseate, in aureate skins; they were eat¬
ing those orange fruits, with a tang of turpentine, the
meat of which has the appearance of the flesh of children.
They were chattering as they sat on the ground, their
knees raised in sharp angles up to their chins, with their
arms on top of the knees, and with their feminine heads
on top of their arms. Suddenly, in the distance, near
the white enclosing walls of a bungalow, dappled by the
light and shade, appeared a man clad in white. He was
walking in the middle of the street with that determined
and firm step with which only Europeans walk. And,
jumping up as quick as lightning from the ground, the
entire flock of these naked, long-legged men dashed to¬
ward him, racing to get ahead of one another. They
darted upon him from all sides, and he yelled threaten¬
ingly, swinging out with his cane. Timid and sensitive,
they checked themselves at full speed, gathering around
him. He glanced at them,—and number seven, with his
pitch-black, horse-like hair, appeared to him stronger
than the others. And so his choice fell upon number
seven.
He was short and strong, in gold spectacles, with black
eyebrows grown together over the bridge of his nose, with
a short black moustache, with an olive complexion; the
sun of the tropics and liver trouble had already left their
sallow trace upon his face. His helmet was gray; his
eyes, in some strange way, as though they beheld noth-
[54]
BRETHREN
ing, looked out of the coal-black darkness of his eye¬
brows and lashes, from behind the shining lenses. He
sat down like one accustomed to rickshaws,—-immediately
finding in the little carriage that spot which makes it the
easiest for the rickshaw-men to run, and glancing at
the little watch in a leathern socket strapped around
his wrist,—it was tattooed, and the hand was powerful
and stubby,—called out "York Street!" His expression¬
less voice was firm and calm, but his eyes had a strange
look. And the rickshaw-man snatched up the shafts and
flew off at a considerably greater speed than was called
for, every moment clicking the bell that was fastened at
the end of the shaft, and shuffling in and out among
pedestrians, tilted arba carts, and other rickshaws that
were running back and forth.
It was the end of March,—the most sultry period.
Not even three hours had passed since the rising of the
sun,—yet it already seemed as if noon were near, so
hot and bright was it everywhere, and so thronged in the
neighbourhood of the stores at the farther end of the
street. The earth, the gardens, all that tall, spreading
vegetation which was growing green and blossoming over
the bungalows, over their chalky roofs, and over the old
black stores,—all these had cloyed the air with warmth
and fragrance, whereas the rain-trees had curled up
tightly their little cup-like leaves. The rows of shops,
—or, rather, of sheds,—roofed with black tiles, their walls
hung about with enormous bunches of bananas, with
dried fish, with sun-cured shark-meat, were filled with
buyers and sellers,—both alike resembling dark-skinned
bath-attendants. The rickshaw-man, bending forward,
his long legs twinkling, was running rapidly, and as yet
[55]
BRETHREN
there was not a single drop of sweat upon his back,
glistening with cocoanut oil, nor upon his rounded
shoulders, between which the slender trunk of his girlish
neck gracefully supported his pitch-black head, upon
which the blazing sun beat down. At the very end of the
street, he came to a sudden stop. Turning his head just
the least trifle, he rapidly said something in his own
tongue. The Englishman, his passenger, caught sight of
the tips of his curved eyelashes, caught the word "betel,"
and raised his eyebrows. How? Such a young, strong
fellow was already wanting betel, after having run only
some two hundred steps? Without answering, he struck
the rickshaw-man over his shoulder blades with his cane.
But the latter, timorous like all Senegalese but at times
also insistent, only shrugged his shoulders and flew like an
arrow diagonally across the street, toward the shops.
"Betel," repeated he, turning wrathful eyes upon the
Englishman, and baring his teeth in a dog-like snarl.
But the Englishman had already forgotten about him.
And a minute later the rickshaw-man jumped out of a
shop, holding upon his narrow palm a leaf of the pepper
tree, smearing it over with lime and wrapping within it
a bit of the areca fruit, resembling a bit of flint. Kill
not, steal not, commit no fornication, lie not, nor become
intoxicated with aught, the Exalted One hath commanded.
Yes,—but what did the rickshaw-man know of Him?
Vaguely echoed within him that which had been vaguely
accepted by the countless hearts of his forefathers. In
the rainy season of the year he had gone with his father
to the sacred tabernacles; and there, among the women
and the beggars, he had listened to the priests reading
in an ancient tongue forgotten of all, and understanding
[56]
BRETHREN
nothing, only chiming in in the common joyous ac¬
clamation whenever the name of the Exalted One was
uttered. More than once it had happened that his father
had prayed in his presence upon the threshold of the
idol temple; he would bow down before the recumbent
statue of wood, muttering its commandments, lifting his
joined palms to his forehead, and then would lay upon
the altar for olferings the smallest and most worn of
his hard-earned coins. But he muttered his prayers with
indifference,—for he was merely afraid of the pictures
upon the walls of the idol-temple, the depictions of the
torment of sinners; he bowed down before other gods as
well,—before horrible Hindu statues; in them, too, did
he believe, just as he believed in the power of demons,
serpents, stars, darkness. . . .
Having thrust the betel into his mouth, the rickshaw-
man, fitfully volatile in his emotions, turned amiably
smiling eyes upon the Englishman, seized the shafts, and,
starting off with a thrust of his left foot, began running
again. The sun was blinding; it gleamed on the gold
and the lenses of the spectacles whenever the English¬
man raised his head. The sun was scorching his hands
and knees; the earth was breathing heavily,—one could
even see that the air was aquiver above it, as above a
brazier,—but he sat immovably, without touching the
hood of the little carriage. Two roads led into the
city,—or, as the residents called it, into the Fort: one,
on the right, passed by the Malay pagoda, over the dam
between the lagoons; the other, to the left, led toward the
ocean. The Englishman wanted to go by the latter.
But the rickshaw-man turned around as he ran, showing
his bloodied lips, and pretended that he did not under-
[57]
BRETHREN
Stand what was wanted from him. And the Englishman
again yielded,—he was absent-mindedly looking about
him. The green lagoon, sparkling, warm, filled with
turtles and rotting vegetation, bordered in the distance
by a cocoanut grove, lay on the right. Upon the dam
people were walking, riding, running to the clanging of
bells. Rickshaw-men in fezes, white jackets, and short
white pantaloons were now occasionally met with. The
Europeans sitting in the little carriages were pale after the
exhausting night; they held their white shoes high, put¬
ting one knee over the other. A two-wheeled cart, with a
gray humped bullock harnessed to it, rolled by. . . .
Beneath its top, in the light, warm shadow, was sitting a
Farsee,—a yellow-faced old man who looked like an
eunuch, in a gown and a conical velvet skull cap, the lat¬
ter worked with gold. A giant Afghan, in wide trowsers
to his knees, in soft boots with upturned toes, in a white
casaque and an enormous pink turban, was immovably
standing, bent over the lagoon, gazing at the turtles, at
the warm water. Long covered arha carts stretched on
endlessly, dragged along by oxen. Under their narrow
arched tops of straw were piled up bales of goods, and,
at times, there would be a whole cluster of the brown
bodies of young labourers. Shrivelled old men, parched
by the heat, their feet reddened from the red dust, look¬
ing like the mummies of old women, paced beside the
wheels. There were stone-cutters pacing along, and stal¬
wart black Tomilas. . . . "The Pagoda," said the
Englishman, referring to a certain tea-house, when they
had come beneath those patriarchal trees that grow at the
entrance into the Fort, beneath the unencompassable
[58]
brëthrêh
Canopies of their verdure, shot with the sun that pene¬
trated through it.
They stopped near the entrance of an old Dutch
building, with arcades on its ground floor. The English¬
man glanced at his watch and went off to drink tea and
to smoke a cigar. As for the rickshaw-man, he made
half a turn about the broad, shady street, over the red-
dishly-lilac pavement, strewn over with the yellow and
scarlet blossom of the ketmias, and dropping the shafts
at the roots of a tree, without checking his impetus,
sank down. He raised up his knees and put his elbows
upon them, avidly breathing in the steaming, sweetly
odorous warmth of noonday, and aimlessly letting his
eyes follow the Senegalese and Europeans passing by.
Taking a rag from some recess of his apron, he wiped
with it his lips, made bloody by the betel, wiped his face,
the convexities on his thin chest, and, folding it into a
bandage, tied it around his head,—this did not at all look
well, giving him the appearance of a sick man; but then,
many rickshaw-men do it. He sat, and, perhaps, he may
have been pondering. . . . "Our bodies, O Master, are
different,—but then, we all have but one heart," Ananda
had said to the Exalted One, and, therefore, one can
imagine what must be the thoughts or emotions of a
youth who had grown up in the paradisaical forests near
Colombo and who had already tasted the most potent
of poisons,—love for woman; who had already plunged
into life,—-life, fleetly flying after joys or fleeing from
sorrows. Mara had already wounded him,—but then,
Mara also healeth wounds. Mara snatches out of the
hands of man that which man had seized upon,—-but
[59]
BRETHREN
then, Mara also inflames a man to seize anew that which
had been taken away, or to seize something else that
is like that which had been taken away. . . .
Having had his tea, the Englishman wandered through
the street, entering shops, gazing at the show-cases dis¬
playing precious stones, elephants and Buddhas made
of ebony wood, all sorts of bright coloured stuffs, the
golden skins of panthers, spotted with black,—while the
rickshaw-man, meditating of something, or, perhaps,
merely sentient, was exchanging bright glances with the
other rickshaw-men and followed the Englishman, drag¬
ging his little carriage after him. Exactly at noon the
Englishman gave him a rupee to buy himself some food,
while he himself went into the office of a big European
steamship line. The rickshaw-man bought some cigar¬
ettes, started smoking, inhaling deeply, watching his
cigarette, as women do,—and smoked five of them, one
after the other. In a delectable daze he sat in the fretted
shade, opposite the three-story building where the office
was, and suddenly, having raised his eyes, saw that his
passenger, and also five other Europeans, had appeared on
the balcony under the white awning. They were all
looking through binoculars at the harbour,—and now,
beyond the roofs of the wharf, appeared two tall, slender
masts, slightly inclined backward. The people on the
balcony started waving their handkerchiefs, while from
beyond the roofs, morosely, mightily and majestically,
a whistle began to roar, echoed all over the roadstead
and in the city,—the steamer from far-away Europe
that the passenger of rickshaw number seven had been
awaiting had arrived. With English punctuality did it
enter after twenty days' sail to Colombo,—and that
[60]
BRETHREN
which the rickshaw-man, still filled with hopes and de¬
sires, did not at all expect—that dinner, so fatal for him,
to be held in the house near the lagoon, at the steam¬
ship agent's home,—was decided upon.
But until dinner, until evening, there still remained
much time. And again this man in spectacles who saw
nothing came out into the street. He said good-bye to
the two men who had come out with him and who had
gone in the direction of the white statue of Victoria, to¬
ward the covered wharf; and again the rickshaw-man
started ambling through the street,—this time toward
the hotel, where at this time many tourists and rich resi¬
dents were eating and drinking in a semi-dark hall, whose
sultry stuffiness was stirred and mixed with the odours
of the food by blades turning near the ceiling. And
again, like a dog, the rickshaw-man squatted down
upon the pavement, upon the petals of the ketmias. The
fretted shade of trees whose light-green tips were inter¬
laced spread over the street, and in this shade went past
him the womanish Senegalese, thrusting upon the Euro¬
peans coloured postal cards, tortoise-shell combs, pre¬
cious stones,—one native was even dragging after him
by a cord a little beast in a coat of long quills, trying
to sell it,—and these half-savages, these rickshaw-men,
kept up their ceaseless racing through this rich European
thoroughfare. ... In the distance, in the centre of an
open square, a woman of heroic size, in marble,—^proud,
double-chinned, in crown and royal mantle, seated on her
throne upon a high pedestal of marble,—was blazing in
her whiteness. And those who had just arrived from
Europe were trooping from that direction. Black and
dove-coloured servants jumped out upon tne entrance to
[61]
BRETHREN
the hotel; bowing, they snatched the canes and small bag¬
gage from the hands of the arrivals, who were also met
by the bows, restrained and graceful, of a man resplen¬
dent with the parting of his pomatumed hair, with his
eyes, his teeth, his cuffs, his starched linen, his piqué
dinner jacket, his piqué trousers, and his white footgear.
"Men are forever going to feasts, to excursions, to diver¬
sions," saith the Exalted One, Who had at one time
visited this paradisaical corner of the first men who had
come to know desire. "The sight, sounds, taste, and
odours of things intoxicate them," He had said; "desire
entwines them, even as a creeping plant, green, beautiful,
and death-bearing, entwines the tree Shala." Traces of
fatigue, of exhaustion from heat, from the rocking of the
boat at sea and from maladies, were upon the ashen faces
of those going to the hotel. They all had the appearance
of being half-dead, they spoke without moving their lips;
but they all walked on, looking about them, and one
after the other disappeared within the darkness of the
vestibule, in order to go to their rooms, to wash up and
refresh themselves. And then, having intoxicated them¬
selves with food, drink, cigars and coffee, until their
faces flushed crimson, they would roll away in rickshaws
to the shore of the ocean, into the Cinnamon Gardens, to
the Hindu temples and the Buddhistic sanctuaries.
Everyone of them—everyone!—had within his soul that
which compels a man to live and to desire the sweet
deception of life! And was not this deception doubly
sweet to the rickshaw-man, born in the land of the first
people? Ladies and gentlemen walked to and fro be¬
fore him,—elderly, ugly, just as buck-toothed as his
black mother, sitting in the distant forest hut; but at
[62]
BRETHREN
times young women also went past him,—pleasant to look
upon, in white raiment, in small helmets wound with light
veils, and, arousing desire within him, they looked intently
upon his splendid, upraised eyelashes, upon the rag
around his pitch-black head, and upon his blood stained
mouth. But then, was she who had disappeared in the
city inferior to thçm? The warmth of the tropical sun
had made her grow. She seemed darker on account of
her short blouse, white, with little blue flowers, and her
skirt, just as short and of the same material, both put
directly upon her naked body,—just a trifle full, but
strong and small. She had a little rounded head, a con¬
vex little forehead, round shining eyes in which childish
timidity was already being commingled with a joyous
curiosity about life, with a hidden muliebrity, both tender
and passionate; there was a coral necklace upon her
rounded neck; her little hands and feet were braceletted
with silver. . . . Jumping up from his place, the rick¬
shaw-man ran into one of the nearest by-streets, where,
in an old, one-storied house under brick tiles, with thick
wooden pillars, there was a bar for the lower classes.
There he put twenty-five cents on the bar, and for that
price gulped down a whole glass of whiskey. Having
mixed this fire with the betel, he had assured himself
of a beatific exaltation almost until the very evening, un¬
til the time when the forests near Colombo, filling with
black, sultry darkness, would begin to resound myste¬
riously with murmurings and moanings of countless
cicadas and tree toads, and the thickets of bamboo would
be aquiver with myriads of fiery sparks.
The Englishman, too, was intoxicated, as he walked
out of the hotel with a cigar,—his eyes were drowsy, his
[63]
BRETHREN
face, heightened in colour, seemed to have become fuller.
Glancing at his watch from time to time and thinking of
something, apparently not knowing how to kill time,
he stood a while near the hotel in indecision. Then he
ordered himself carried first to the post office, where he
dropped three postal cards into the box, and from the
post office to Gordon's Garden, which he did not even en¬
ter,—he simply glanced in at the gates at the monument
and the pathways; and from the garden he went at ran¬
dom: to Black Town, to the market place in Black Town,
to the Kellani River. . . . And then he was whirled on
and on, hither and thither, by the intoxicated rickshaw-
man, who was bathed in sweat from head to foot, aroused
both by whiskey and by betel, and by the hope of receiv¬
ing a whole heap of pennies, and by certain other dreams
that stir the body and soul and that never forsake a man.
At the most oppressive hour of the afternoon heat and
glare, when, after having sat on a bench under a tree
for two minutes one leaves upon it a dark ring of per¬
spiration, he, to please the Englishman, who did not
know what to do until dinner, ran all over Black Town,—
ancient, populous, redolent of spicy odours; and many
naked coloured bodies and many bright stuffs girt about
hips did the sleepy Englishman see; many Farsees, Hin¬
dus, yellow faced Malayans; malodorous Chinese shops,
brick-tiled and bamboo-covered roofs, temples, minarets
and idol-temples; sailors from Europe on shore leave, as
well as Buddhistic monks,—shaven, thin, with insane eyes,
clad in canary-coloured toga-like garments, with the right
shoulder bared, and carrying fans made out of the foli¬
age of the sacred palm. Rapidly, rapidly, did the rick-
shaw-man and his passenger dash through this teeming
[64]
BRETHREN
density and dirt of the ancient East, as though they
were escaping from some one. Up to the very river Kel-
lani did they run,—the narrow, turbid, and deep Kellani,
made too warm by the sun, half-covered with impene¬
trable green overgrowths that bent low from its banks;
the river beloved of crocodiles, who retreat farther and
farther into the depths of the virgin forests before the
barges with straw-thatched arched covers; barges laden
with bales of tea, with rice, cinnamon, precious stones
still in the rough,—barges floating with especial delibera¬
tion in the golden deep glitter of the sun before eve¬
ning. . . . Then the Englishman gave orders to return to
the Fort, by now deserted, with all its offices, agencies
and banks closed; he was shaved in a barber shop and
grew unpleasantly younger; he bought cigars, dropped
into an apothecary's. . . . The rickshaw-man, grown
thinner, all bathed in sweat, was by now gazing upon him
inimically, with the eyes of a dog that feels attacks
of madness coming on. . . . At six o'clock, having run
past the lighthouse at the end of Queen's Street, having
run through the quiet and clean military streets, he ran
out upon the shore of the ocean, that struck his eyes with
its freedom, with its glaucously aureate sheen from the
low-lying sun, and started running over Gull Face Place
toward Slave Island.
"From longing is born the desire for joy," the Exalted
One hath said, "from happiness is born sorrow; out of
joy and sorrow doth fear arise." And now within the
eyes of the rickshaw-man had already appeared sorrow,
and fear, and malice. He had grown daft from running,
had more than once, with sad weariness, turned around
toward his tormentor; he breathed heavily, putting be-
[65]
BRETHREN
hind him with his long legs the broad, well-laid road of
the Place. At the setting of the sun this Place is vast,
empty and melancholy. Having done with business, the
Englishmen stroll here before dinner, are driven in costly
horse equipages, or drive their wives, mistresses, and chil¬
dren; play tennis and football; and admire the ocean and
the magnificent beauty of the tropical sunset,—a sunset
not like that of their own land. The rickshaw-man ran
on, looking wildly upon these sinewy, red-haired men in
short white trunks and gay sweaters, who careered,over the
Place of their own free will, racing after one another with
all their might, jumping up after the soaring balls and
kicking them resoundingly with the rough tips of their
heavy shoes. The sun was sinking; the sky above the
setting sun was growing green; a light, downy cloud, that
had been lurking in the skyey depths, became entirely
roseate. . . . "Carlton Hotel!" in a lifeless voice said the
Englishman, who had all the time been sadly and drowsily
gazing toward the west, upon the ocean, upon its softly
murmurous surge, scattering into heliotrope foam upon
the bowlders on shore. . . . The rickshaw-man, as he
ran, would bare his teeth; by now he wanted to gnaw
this man who had driven him so hard,—but it was im¬
possible not to run: the Englishman, without changing
the expression of his drowsily sad face, more and more
often prodded the rickshaw-man with the tip of his cane.
And besides, the rickshaw's beatific exaltation had al¬
ready passed into something else,—into a tense submis-
siveness, into a coma of ceaseless running. All the hotels
in the Fort were filled up, and the Englishman lived in a
common one beyond Slave Island,—and now the rickshaw-
man once more ran past the banyan tree, under which
[66]
BRETHREN
he had sat down this very morning in his greed of earn¬
ing money from these merciless and enigmatic white men,
in his obstinate hope of happiness. Once more the
familiar gardens, one after another; the stone enclosures;
the Dutch-tile roofs of bungalows,—low, squat, by com¬
parison with the trees spreading over them. . . . Having
run into the yard of one such bungalow, the rickshaw-man
rested for half an hour near the terrace, while the English¬
man was changing his clothes for dinner. His heart was
pounding like a poisoned man's, his lips had blanched,
the features of his dark brown face had grown sharper,
his splendid eyes had grown still blacker and wider, the
rag upon his head had become so saturated that he
snatched it off and flung it far from him. The odour of
his heated body had become unpleasant,—it was now the
odour of warm tea mixed with cocoanut oil, and some
other, spirituous, ingredient, such as would be produced
by taking and rubbing a cluster of ants in one's hands.
Meanwhile the sun had set. An elderly maiden was
half-lying under the awning of the terrace in a rocker,
reading a prayer-book by the remaining daylight. Hav¬
ing caught sight of her from the street, there noiselessly
entered the yard a mute Hindu of Madura,—a tall, dark
old man, as thin as a skeleton, with gray hair curling
upon his chest and abdomen, in a beggar's turban, in a
long apron of stuff that had at one time been red and
crossed with yellow stripes. Upon his arm the old man
carried a closed basket of palm-wattle. Walking up to
the terrace, he salaamed subserviently, putting his hand
to his forehead, and sat down upon the ground, lifting up
the cover of the basket. Without looking at him, the
woman reclining in the rocker waved him away with her
[67]
BRETHREN
hand. But he was already taking a bamboo flute out
of his belt. And at this point the rickshaw-man jumped
to his feet, and in an inexplicable fury yelled loudly at
him. The old man, too, jumped up, slammed shut the
basket, and, turning about, ran toward the gates. But,
for a long while, the eyes of the rickshaw-man were
round,—altogether as with that fearful creature whom he
pictured to himself,—slowly, like a tightly wound cord,
crawling out of the basket and hissingly puffing out its
throat, that glimmered with a blue sheen.
The darkness was falling rapidly,--it was already dark
when the Englishman, freshly laved, came out upon the
terrace in his white dinner jacket, and the rickshaw-man
submissively darted toward the shafts. The Englishman
called out briskly the name of the place he was to run to,
—and who knows if his order found no eerie echo in the
heart of the rickshaw-man? It was already night, and an
exceptionally hot one,—as always before the oncoming of
the rainy season; a night still more fragrant than the day.
Still denser had grown the warm and cloying aroma of
musk, blended with the odour of the warm earth, pinguid
with the humus of flowers. It was so dark in the gardens
through which the rickshaw-man was running that only
by his heavy breathing and by the scanty light of the
little lantern upon the shaft, could one gather that he
was bearing down upon one. Then, beneath the black
canopies of the trees, came the faint glimmering of the
rotting lagoon; and next,—red lights lengthily reflected
in it. The big two-storied house in which the agent lived
shone through and through in this tropical blackness
with the openings of its windows. It was dark in the
compound. A large number of rickshaw-men, their
m
BRETHREN
bodies blending into the darkness and their loin cloths
showing dimly white, had come into this compound with
those who had been invited. And the large balcony, open
toward the lagoon, was aglow with candles in glass
chimneys, clustered about with countless thrips; it was
dazzling with the cover of the long table, set with china,
bottles, and pails of ice, and was white with the dinner
jackets of the people sitting at it, who ate, drank, and
without a moment's silence, even though restrainedly,
spoke deep down in their throats, as bare-footed corpu¬
lent servants, that looked like wet-nurses, waited upon
them, their bare soles rustling. And an enormous punkah
of Chinese matting, attached by one edge to the ceiling,
swayed and swayed over their heads, brought into mo¬
tion by Malayans sitting behind a partition that did not
reach to the ceiling, and kept pouring a constant current
of air upon the diners, upon their cold and clammy fore¬
heads. Rickshaw-man number seven dashed up to the
balcony. Those seated at the table greeted the newly ar¬
rived guest with glad murmuring. The guest jumped out
of the little carriage and ran up into the balcony. As
for the rickshaw-man, he started off at a gallop to go
round the house, in order to get again to the gates, into
the compound, to the other rickshaws. And, as he was
turning the corner of the house, he suddenly recoiled,
as though he had been struck with a stick : standing near
an open and illuminated window on the second story,—
in a small Japanese kimona of red silk, in a triple neck¬
lace of rubies, in broad bracelets of gold upon her round
arms,—looking upon him with round shining eyes was
his bride: that very girl-woman with whom he had
agreed, already a half-year back, to exchange balls of
[69]
BRETHREN
rice! She could not see him below, in the darkness.
But he had recognized her instantly,—and, having stag¬
gered back, stood stock still on the spot.
He did not fall down, his heart did not burst asunder,—■
it was too young and strong. Having stood for a minute
or so, he sat down on the ground, under an age-old fig-
tree, whose entire top, like a tree of paradise, burned and
flickered with the dust of fiery-green sparks. For a long
time did he gaze upon the dark round little head, upon
the red silk that loosely embraced the little body, and
upon the arms, raised as she patted her hairdress, of her
who stood framed in the window. He squatted on his
heels until she had turned about and had gone into the
recesses of the room. And when she had disappeared he
instantly jumped to his feet, caught the shafts that had
been lying on the ground, and flew like a bird through
the yard and out of the gates; again did he start running,
on and on,—this time knowing unerringly whither he was
running, and wherefore, and now himself directing his
suddenly liberated will.
"Awake, awake!" clamoured within him the thousands
of soundless voices of his mournful ancestors, mouldered
for hundreds of generations in this paradisaical earth.
"Shake off thee the seductions of Mara, the dream of
this brief life! Is sleep for thee,—thou who hast been
empoisoned with venom, pierced through with an arrow!
An hundredfold doth he suffer who hath that which is
an hundredfold dear; all sorrows, all complaints, come
from love, from the attachments of the heart,—therefore,
slay thou them! Not for long shalt thou be in
the tranquillity of rest; anew and anew, in a thousand
incarnations, shalt thou be put forth by this thy land of
[70]
BRETHREN
Eden, the shelter of the first men who had come to know
desire. But still this brief rest shall come to thee, thou
that hast too early run forth upon the path of life,
passionately setting out after happiness, and that hast
been wounded by the sharpest of all arrows,—by the
yearning for love and for new inceptions in this ancient
universe, where from time out of mind the conqueror
stands with a heavy sole upon the throat of the con¬
quered!"
The lights of the open air stalls of Slave Island ap¬
peared under the canopies of the trees whose tops were
interlaced. The rickshaw-man hungrily ate in one of
these stalls a small bowl of rice over-spiced with pepper,
and then darted on. He knew where the old man from
Madura lived, who had an hour ago entered the yard
of the hotel : he dwelt with his nephew, at his large
fruit store, in a low house with wooden columns. The
nephew, in a dirty European suit of duck, with an enor¬
mous mane of black twining wool upon his head, was
dragging in the baskets of fruits into the interior of the
store, his eyes puckering from the smoke of a cigarette
that had stuck to his lower lip. He paid no attention to
the insane appearance of the perspiring, heated rickshaw-
man. And the rickshaw-man silently hopped up under
the shelter of the awning, among the pillars, went to the
left, and with his foot pushed a small door behind which
he hoped to find the old mute. In his perspiring hand he
was clutching a treasured gold-piece, which, while he was
still running, he had taken out of a leather pouch that
hung at his belt, beneath his apron. And the gold-piece
speedily did its work. When the rickshaw-man jumped
out again, he bore a large cigar box, tied with a cord.
[71]
BRETHREN
He had paid a great price for it, but then, it was not
empty: that which it contained was struggling, writhing,
knocking against the lid with its tensed coils, swishingly-
Why did he take the little carriage along with him?
For take it along he did,—and at an even, powerful pace
flew for the shore of the ocean, toward Gull Face Place.
The place was empty; darkly did it extend into the dis¬
tance under the light of the stars. Beyond it were
scattered the small and infrequent lights of the Fort,
and against the sky was slowly turning the watch-tower
of the lighthouse, with its reflectors, throwing fumid
stripes of white light in the direction of the road¬
stead only. The rickshaw-man felt a faint cool breeze
blowing from the ocean, whose drowsy murmur was
barely audible. Having reached at a run the shore, the
middle of the road, the rickshaw-man for the last time
threw down the slender shafts, into which at such an
early age, but not for long, life had harnessed him, and
sat down,—this time not upon the ground, but on a
bench; sat down without fear, as though he were a white
resident.
In giving a whole pound to the Hindu, he had de¬
manded the smallest and the strongest, the most death-
bearing one. And it was,—besides having a faery beauty,
being all in black rings, with green edgings, with a dark
blue rounded head, with an emerald stripe back of its
head, and with a funereal tail,—it was, despite its small
size, unusually powerful and malignant; but now, after it
had been coiled up in a smelly wooden box, it was
especially so. It coiled convulsively, like a steel spring;
it writhed, rustled, and knocked against the lid of the
box. And he rapidly untied, unwound the cord. . . .
[72]
BRETHREN
However, who knows just how he did it? Were his hands
steady, or did they tremble? Was he rapid, resolute, or
no? And did he waver long after untying the cord?
Did he gaze for long at the murmurous dark ocean, upon
the faint starlight, upon the Southern Cross, the Crow,
upon Canopus? Did he bare his teeth in a canine snarl
in the direction of the residential quarter, in the direction
of the rich hotel with its entrance shining in the distance?
Most probably, he had at once unhesitatingly opened the
box, and had laid his left hand firmly upon those
springy coils, icy as a dead body, that were writhing in
the box ; he was bitten right in the palm.
And that bite is intolerably searing,—it is like the shock
of an electric current, and transpierces a man's entire
body with untold pain, with such torture that after feel¬
ing it even monkeys cry out piteously and burst into
sobs,—childish, passionate, despairingly-imploring. The
rickshaw-man, most probably, did neither cry out nor
burst into sobs; full well did he know what he had set
out to do. But there is no doubt that, having felt this
fiery shock, he turned a pin-wheel on the bench, and that
the box flew aside. And then, instantly, a bottomless
darkness spread out beneath him, and all things darted off
somewhere upward, obliquely: the ocean, and the stars,
and the lights of the hotel. The surging of the ocean
went to his head,—and ceased abruptly: a dead faint
always occurs after such a shock. But after such a faint
a man always comes quickly to himself,—seemingly only
to be nauseated, until blood comes, and to be again
plunged into non-being. There are several of these
death-swoons, and each one of them, breaking a man,
making him gasp, tears away human life, in parts:
[73]
BRETHREN
thought, memory, vision, hearing, pain, grief, joy, hatred,
—and that ultimate, all-embracing thing which is called
love, the yearning to encompass within one's heart all the
universe, seen and unseen, and to bestow it anew upon
some other.
Some ten days later, on a dark, sultry dusk before a
thunder-storm, rwo pair of oarsmen were racing in a
small boat through the harbour of Colombo, toward a
great Russian steamship that was about to sail for Suez.
The passenger whom rickshaw-man number seven had
once carried was half-reclining in the boat. The steamer
was already booming with the rattling of the rising
anchor chain, when, getting near the enormous iron wall
of the ship's side, he ran up the long trap-ladder to the
deck. The captain at first flatly refused to take him on
board: the steamer carried freight only, he declared; the
agent had already gone away,—the thing was impossible.
"But 1 beg you,—very, very much!" retorted the English¬
man. The captain looked at him with wonder; he was
apparently strong, energetic, but there was the tint of an
unwholesome tan upon his face, while the eyes behind the
glistening spectacles were unmoving, seeming to see
nothing, and perturbed. "Wait until the day after to¬
morrow," said the captain; "there will be a German
mail-packet then." "Yes, but to spend two more
nights at Colombo would be very hard for me," an¬
swered the Englishman. "This climate exhausts me,—
my nerves trouble me. Besides that, the German packet,
as is always the case, will be packed to overflowing,
whereas 1 desire to be alone. 1 am done up by these
[74]
brethren
Ceylon nights, by insomnia, and by all that which a
nervous man experiences before thunder-storms at dusk.
But just glance at this darkness, at these clouds that have
obscured the horizon everywhere: the night will again be
a horrible one, the rain season has, properly speaking,
already set in. . . ." And, with a shrug of his shoulders,
upon reflection, the captain gave in. And a minute later
the Senegalese, thin as eels, were already dragging up the
trap-ladder a trunk covered with shining black leather,
all gay with vari-coloured labels and marked with red
initials.
The surgeon's vacant cabin, which was put at the dis¬
posal of the Englishman, was very small and stuffy;
but the Englishman found it splendid. Having hurriedly
disposed his things about it, he passed through the dining
cabin up to the deck. Everything was rapidly sinking
in the darkness. The ship had already weighed anchor
and was heading for the open sea. To the right, other
ships, with lights on their masts, seemed to be sailing
toward them,—these were the lights of the Fort. To the
left, under the high taffrail, the shifting level expanse of
the dark water rushed toward the low shore, toward the
mounds of coal, and the dark density of the groves of
slender trunked palms that were beyond the coal
mounds. The water still bounded the darkness and the
mournfulness of the clouds, and its shifting rapidity made
one's head reel. Constantly veering, constantly increas¬
ing, a humid, nauseatingly-fragrant wind was blowing
from somewhere. The taciturn clouds suddenly burst
into such an abysmal pale-blue light, that, lit up by it, in
the very depth of the forest, the trunks of the palms and
bananas, and the Senegalese huts underneath them,
[75]
BRETHREN
flashed upon the vision. The Englishman blinked in af¬
fright; he looked over his shoulder upon the pallid jetty
with the little red light at the end of it, by now seemingly
sailing upon his left; he looked at the leaden-hued ocean
in the distance, beyond the jetty,—and quickly started
back for his cabin.
The old steward, a man irritated with fatigue, need¬
lessly suspicious and observant, peeped in several times
behind the curtain of the Englishman's cabin before din¬
ner. The Englishman was sitting on a folding canvas
chair, holding a thick leather-bound note-book on his
knees. He was writing in it with a gold-tipped pen, and
his expression, whenever he raised his face, his spectacles
flashing, was dull, and, at the same time, wondering.
Then, having put his pen away, he went off into a brown
study, as though he were listening to the surging and
swishing of the waves, ponderously rushing by on the
other side of the cabin wall. The steward passed by,
swinging a clamorous little bell. The Englishman got up
and stripped himself naked. Having sponged himself off
with water and eau-de-cologne from head to foot, he
shaved, clipped evenly his short, bushy moustache,
painstakingly smoothed down with military brushes his
straight black hair, parting it at a slant, put on fresh linen
and his dinner jacket, and went to dinner with his ha¬
bitual firm, soldierly bearing.
The ship's personnel, who had long since been seated at
table and had been swearing at him for his lateness, met
him with exaggerated politeness, showing off before one
another with their knowledge of English. He responded
with a restrained, but not a lesser, politeness, and has¬
tened to add that he liked the Russian cuisine very much,
[76]
BRETHREN
that he had been in Russia, in Siberia. . . . That, in gen¬
eral, he had travelled a great deal, and had always borne
up splendidly on his travels, which, however, could not
be said of his last stay in India, in Java and Ceylon;
here his liver was affected, his nerves were upset,—he had
even come to eccentricities: such, for example, as that
which he had shown an hour ago when he had so sud¬
denly appeared on the steamer. ... At coffee he regaled
the ship's men with cognac and liqueurs; he fetched a box
of thick Egyptian cigarettes and put it on the table, open,
for common use. The captain, a man still young, with
clever and steady eyes, who endeavoured to be a European
in all things, began a conversation about the colonial
problems of Europe, about the Japanese, about the future
of the Far East. Listening attentively, the Englishman
objected or agreed. He spoke well, and not at all with
simplicity, but as though he were reading aloud from a
well-written article. And at times he would suddenly
grow quiet, still more attentively trying to catch the swish
of the waves beyond the open door. The thunderstorm
had been left behind. Long since the chain of Colombo's
lights, that for a long while had been playing like dia¬
monds, had sunk into black velvet. Now the steamer
was in infinite darkness, in the void of ocean and of night.
The dining cabin was situated on deck, under the cap¬
tain's bridge, and the darkness was etched in an intense
black within the open doors and windows: it seemed to
be standing and gazing in into the brightly lit dining
room. A humid breeze blew out of this darkness,—the
humid, free breath of a something free since the start of
time,—and its freshness, reaching those seated at table,
made them feel the odour of the tobacco siiioke, of the
[77]
BRETHREN
hot coffee, and of the liqueurs. But at times the elec¬
tric light would suddenly fail,—the doors and the
windows then became gleaming pale blue quadrangles;
the blue abyss of abysses, noiseless and unutterably
expansive, spread out around the steamer; the running
swell of the watery spaces gleamed; the horizons were
flooded with a blackness as of coal,—and thence, like the
grievous murmur of the Creator Himself, still plunged
in primordial chaos, came to their ears the roll of thunder,
—muffled, sombre and triumphant, shaking all things to
their foundation. And at such times the Englishman
seemed to be frozen on the spot for a moment.
"This is really frightful!" said he in his lifeless but
steady voice after a flash especially blinding. And,
getting up from his place, he walked up to the door that
gaped into the darkness. "Very frightful," said he, as
though he were talking to himself. "And the most
frightful thing of all is that we do not think, do not feel,
and cannot, have forgotten how to feel the full frightful-
ness of this."
"What, precisely?" asked the captain.
"Why, just this for example," answered the English¬
man, "that under us and around us is that bottomless
depth, that shifting trough of the sea of which the Bible
speaks with such awesomeness. . . . Oh," said he sternly,
looking intently into the darkness, "both far and near,
everywhere, the furrows of foam flare up, flaming with
green, and the darkness surrounding this foam is lilac-
black, the colour of a raven's wing. ... Is it a very
eerie thing to be a captain?" he asked gravely.
"Why no, not at all," answered the captain with as¬
sumed nonchalance. "It's a tiresome business, and K-
[78]
BRETHREN
sponsible, but, in reality not very complicated. ... It is
all a matter of habit. . , ."
"Better say,—of our callousness," said the English¬
man. "To be standing there, up on your bridge, at
whose sides these two great eyes,—the green and the red,
—look out, blurred, through their thick glass, and to be
sailing somewhere into the darkness of night and water,
extending for thousands of miles around,—it is madness !
But, however, it is no better," he added, again glancing
out of the door, "it is no better, on the other hand, to be
lying below in a cabin, beyond whose exceedingly thin
wall, near your very head, beats and rolls this bottomless
deep. , . . Yes, yes,—our reason is just as feeble as the
reason of a mole; or, rather, still more feeble, for in the
case of a mole, of an animal, of a savage, instinct, at
least, has been preserved; whereas with us, with Euro¬
peans, it has degenerated, is degenerating!"
"However, moles do not navigate over the entire terres¬
trial globe," answered the captain smiling. "Moles do
not enjoy the benefits of steam, of electricity, of wireless
telegraphy. Do you wish to hear me speak with Aden
right now? And yet it is a ten days' sail from here."
"And that, too, is frightful," said the Englishman, and
cast a stern glance through his spectacles at one of the
engineers who had started laughing. "Yes, that too is
very frightful. For we, in reality, do not fear anything.
We do not fear even death properly: neither life, nor
sacred mysteries, nor the depths that surround us, nor
death,—neither our death nor that of others! 1 am a
colonel of the British Army, a participant of the Boer
War; I, commanding cannons to be fired, used to kill
men in hundreds; and here I am, not only neither suffer-
[79]
BRETHREN
ing nor going out of my mind because I am a murderer,
but never even thinking of these hundreds."
"What about the beasts, and the savages,—do they
think of such things?" asked the captain.
"The savages believe that things have to be so, whereas
we don't," said the Englishman, and became silent; he
started pacing the dining room, trying to step as firmly
as he could in his dancing shoes.
The flashes of the distant thunder storm, gleaming
roseately over the stars, were by now decreasing. The
wind blowing through the windows and doors was
stronger and cooler, the impenetrable darkness beyond the
door surged more loudly. A large sea-shell that served as
an ash-tray was sliding upon the table. Under one's feet,
growing unpleasantly weaker, one felt something gather¬
ing force below, lifting one up, then falling over on one
side, spreading out,—and the floor fell deeper and deeper
from under one's feet. The ship's men, having finished
their coffee and smoked their fill, sat in silence for several
minutes more, casting glances at their queer passenger;
then, wishing him good-night, they began picking up
their caps. The captain alone stayed on,—he was smok¬
ing and following the Englishman with his eyes. The
Englishman, with a cigar, was walking, swayingly, from
door to door; his dark complexion, his spectacles, and
his seriousness combined with absent-mindedness, irri¬
tated the old steward, who was clearing the table.
"Yes, yes," said the Englishman, "there is only one
thing frightful to us,—that we have forgotten how to
feel fear! There is no God, no religion in Europe, long
since; we, with all our business activity and greed, are as
cold as ice both toward life and toward death. Even if
[80]
BRETHREN
we do fear death, it is with our reason or only with the
remnants of an animal instinct. At times we even try to
inspire ourself with that dread, to exaggerate it,—and
still we do not respond, do not feel in due measure those
incomprehensible and horrible things of which the life
of man is full. . . . Just as 1, even 1, do not now feel that
which 1 myself have called fearful," said he, pointing
toward the open door, beyond which the impenetrable
darkness murmured, by now raising high the prow, and
tumbling the ship, all of whose partitions were creaking,
from one side to the other.
"It is Ceylon that has affected you so," said the cap¬
tain mechanically.
"Oh, beyond a doubt, beyond a doubt!" agreed the
Englishman. "We all,—commercial men, mechanical
engineers, military men, politicians, colonizers,—we all,
fleeing from our own dullness and vanity, wander all the
world over; for you will agree that the number of travel¬
ling Europeans is increasing with a magic rapidity; that
the entire terrestrial globe is plastered over with motley
placards and time-tables. And we try with all our might
to be enraptured, now with the mountains and lakes of
Switzerland, now with the pauperism of Italy,—her
pictures and the broken-up fragments of her statues and
columns. Or we wander over the slippery stones which
have survived from some amphitheatres in Sicily, or
we gaze with simulated delight upon the yellow heaps of
rubble at the Acropolis in Greece; or attend, as though it
were some show-booth spectacle at a fair, the distribution
of the sacred fire in Jerusalem. We pay sums unheard
of in order to undergo tortures from guides and fleas in
the tombs and clay idol-temples of Egypt. We sail to
[81]
BRETHREN
India, to China, to Japan,—and it is only here, upon the
soil of the most ancient of mankind, in this Eden which
we have forfeited, which we style our colonies and which
we covetously despoil, in the midst of squalor, bubonic
plague, cholera, fevers, and coloured races whom we have
turned into cattle,—only here do we feel, in some slight
measure, life, death, godhood. Here, after having re¬
mained indifferent toward all these Osirises, Zeuses, Ap¬
pelons, toward Christ, toward Mahomet, have 1 more
than once felt that 1 might perhaps have bowed only be¬
fore them,—these fearful Gods of this cradle of man¬
kind: before the hundred-armed Brahma; before Siva;
before the Devil; before Buddha, whose word verily rang
forth like the utterance of Methuselah himself, driving
nails into the coffin-lid of the universe. ... Yes, thanks
only to the East, and to the diseases contracted in the
East; thanks to the fact that in Africa 1 slaughtered men
by the hundreds; that in India, which is being despoiled
by England, and, therefore, in part by me, 1 have seen
thousands dying from hunger; that 1 had bought little
girls in Japan to be my wives for a month; that in China
1 had beaten defenseless, simian old men over their heads
with a stick; that in Java and Ceylon 1 had driven
rickshaw-men until 1 heard the death rattle in their
throats; that 1 had, in my time, contracted a most cruel
fever in Anaradhapore, and liver trouble on the shore of
Malabar,—only thanks to all this do 1 still feel
"and think, after a fashion. Those lands, those countless
peoples, which still either live a life of infantile immedi¬
acy, sentient with all their beings of existence, and death,
and the divine majesty of the universe; or those lands and
peoples which have already traversed a long and arduous
[82]
BRETHREN
path (historical, religious and philosophical), and who
have grown wearied on this path,—such lands and peoples
we, the men of the new age of iron, aspire to enslave, to
divide amongst us, and this we style our colonial prob¬
lems. And when this division shall come to an end,
then on this world will again be enthroned the might of
some new Tyre or Sidon, a new Rome, English or Ger¬
man. There will be repeated, inevitably repeated, also
that which had been prophesied by Judsean prophets to
Sidon, that, according to the word of the Bible, had
grown to deem itself God; that which had been prophe¬
sied to Rome by the Apocalypse; and to India, to the
Aryan tribes that had enslaved it, by Buddha, who has
said, '0 ye princes, ye men in power, rich in treasures,
who have arrayed your covetousness against one another,
insatiably pandering to your lusts! . . .' Buddha under¬
stood the significance of the life of Individuality in this
'world of having been,' in this universe, whose meaning
we cannot attain to, and he was horrified with a sacred
horror. Whereas we exalt our Individuality above the
heavens; we want to centre all the world within it, no
matter what may be said of the coming universal brother¬
hood and equality. And so it is only on the ocean, under
stars new and foreign to us, in the midst of the majesty
of tropical thunder storms; or in India, in Ceylon, where
history is so immeasurable, where at times one glimpses
life veritably primitive, and where on dark, sultry nights,
in the fevered gloom, one feels man melting, dissolving
in this blackness, in these sounds, scents, in this fearful
All-Oneness,—only there do we in a slight measure grasp
the meaning of this our pitiful Individuality. . . . Do
you know," said he, halting again, and flashing his
[83]
BRETHREN
spectacles at the captain, "a certain Buddhistic legend?"
"Which one?" asked the captain, who had already
yawned surreptitiously and had glanced at his watch.
"Why, this; A raven darted after an elephant who
was running down a wooded mountain toward the sea;
wrecking all things in his path, breaking down the over¬
growths, the elephant plunged into the waves,—and the
raven, tortured by 'desire,' fell after him, and, having
waited until the elephant had swallowed enough water
to kill himself and had floated up on the waves, de¬
scended on the carcass with its great ears; the carcass
floated on, putrefying, while the raven greedily pecked
away at it; but when he came to his senses, he saw that
he had been borne far, far from land,—to a distance from
which there is no return even upon the wings of a gull,
—and he began cawing in a piteous voice, that voice for
which Death waits so warily. ... It is a terrible
legend!"
"Yes, it is very significant," said the captain, indif¬
ferently.
The Englishman lapsed into silence and again began
pacing from door to door. From the surging darkness
faintly floated in the sounds of the second bell, abrupt
and, as is always the case on the ocean, plaintive. The
captain, after having sat for five minutes more out of
politeness, got up, shook the Englishman's hand, and
went off to his big, restful cabin. The Englishman, re¬
flecting upon something, continued pacing. The steward,
having endured for half an hour more in the pantry,
entered and with an angry face began switching off the
electricity, leaving only one bulb lit. The Englishman,
when the steward had disappeared, walked up to the wall
[84]
BRETHREN
and turned off this bulb as well. Darkness descended
at once, the surging of the waves at once appeared
louder, and the starry sky, the masts, the sail-yards at
once appeared in the open windows. The steamer
creaked and clambered from one watery mountain to
another. It swung wider and wider, rising and falling,
—and in its rigging Canopus, the Crow, the Southern
Cross swayed widely to and fro, now flying toward the
abyss above, now toward the abyss below, and roseate
auroras were still flashing above them.
1914.
[85]
G A U T A M I
This is a tale thrice beautiful in its brevity and un-
pretentiousness, its meaning and the manner of its
telling; a tale of the love of Gautami, the saintly
and the beatified, who, without knowing it herself, did
come under the sheltering shadow of the Blessed One.
Thus have we heard it told:
In a populous hamlet, in a felicitous region, at the
foot of the great Himalayas, in a family poor but worthy,
was Gautami born.
She was tall of stature and rather lean at first sight;
swarthy and pleasant of face was she, and simple and
unpretentious of soul,—therefore did the neighbours be¬
stow an unkind by-name upon her. "Gautami the Lean"
did they nickname her, but she took no offense thereat.
And every order did she obey, and to every order she
made such answer as:
" Tis well, dear master; I shall do so. 'Tis well, dear
mistress, 1 shall do so."
For may plain speech be forgiven us,—not of the wisest
among men and women was Gautami. But neither did
she utter anything foolish,—perhaps because she did not
say much, and laboured at something from morning till
night. And the raiment upon her was always poor, and
always, always the same, but always neat. And so one
day a youth, truly rich and handsome, the son of the great
king of that region, did behold her upon a river bank,
[86]
GA U TA M I
when she was washing the linen of her sisters and
brothers, and he comprehended that she was sensible and
submissive, and that there was none to take her part,
—^not even her parents.
Thus did he think:
"There is no help for it,' her parents will say; 'Gau-
tami is not of the wisest, Gautami is not pretty to look
upon; she does not resemble a daughter of ours, but
rather a servant,—who shall take her to wife? Sooner or
later, she shall submit to some man who may desire her,—•
for Gautami is incapable of refusing. Ah, if only this
man prove not without pity, and will give away, to be
rightly brought up, the child that will be born of herl' "
Thus did the king's son think.
As for Gautami, having washed and rinsed the linen,
she squatted down upon her heels over the water glisten¬
ing in the sub; having taken off all her raiment, she did
swathe all her body from the arm-pits to the knees in
an old piece of cloth, and, having spread her long black
hair, began to clean her white teeth with a wetted,
splintered little stick, began to wash her swarthy limbs,
not knowing that the king's son was watching her from
behind the clumps of bamboo. And thereupon he did
call out to her, and, walking up to her, told her with a
smile, yet not unkindly:
"Thou art endearing, Gautami, and not at all as lean
as they say you are,—a maid clad in simple raiment, and
of tall stature, is often misjudged. I have heard, Gau¬
tami, that thou art submissve. Do not resist me, there¬
fore; none shall see our caresses at this sultry hour,
near the deserted river."
And Gautami was abashed before him, before his as-
[87]
GA U TA M I
surances that his wishes were righteous, and she did
whisper in answer:
" 'Tis well, dear master; let it be as thou dost will."
And the king's son, having had his joyance of her, saw
that she was better than she had seemed, and that her
dark eyes, although they were not expressive of thought,
and somehow seemed always the same, were never the
less full of enchantment. And after that their meetings
upon the bank of the river, within the grove of bamboos,
became frequent, and so it was that, whenever the king's
son would order Gautami to come to him, she always
would come, never disobeying: nor did her submissive-
ness and charm change with the intimacy of their bodies;
nor her agreeable manner when their conversation was
brief. And when the ordained time had run, she felt
herself heavy with child.
Thereupon did the king's son take her as one of his
concubines, transferring her with her poor little kit,
wherein she kept her modest belongings, the sorry sav¬
ings of a mafden who works, into his opulent palace, and
she lived in the palace until her time was come.
And when her day had approached, one of the king's
stewardesses did say to her :
"Gautami! A wife who is about to become a mother
goeth to the house of her father to give birth, in fulfill¬
ment of the custom. But thou art no wife, but a con¬
cubine. Go not therefore to the house of thy parents;
but also do not thou transgress against that which is
seemly."
And Gautami, having salaamed before her, got up,
and went out of the gate of the clay walls that enclosed
the palace.
[88]
GA U TA M I
And, having passed over the wooden bridge that
spanned a muddy canal, which was near by, she saw one
who sat under a tree, with a bowl in his hand,—a blind
and an ancient beggar, girt only about his middle with
a dirty rag, whereas his arms, his legs, his bosom and his
withered, glistening back he had exposed to the blazing
sun and the flies.
And the beggar raised his sightless face, hearkening
to her steps, and he smiled with the tender and poignant
smile of the wisdom of old men.
"Gautami!" spake he to her. "I see thee not but I
feel thy approach. Gautami, may thy path be blessed!"
And she kissed the knee of the beggar and went on
upon her way; and upon her way, in the hot, sun-filled
groves, among the satin trees, she did give birth to her
child before its time.
And blissfully, having rested with tears of happiness
after her sore travail, she returned with the child in her
arms into the palace of the prince and gave full rein to
her ceaseless ecstasy and tender delight, to an emotion
of bodily love for the new-born, to the delectable dis¬
quiet of seeing, scenting, touching, and pressing to her
bosom this growing being, that with every day became
more and more awake to thought and consciousness.
"My soul hath recalled thee!"—these words had not
been uttered by the prince to Gautami when he had be¬
come as one with her, even though she had been dear
to him, even though they had borne her to the palace of
the king with music, upon bullocks adorned with rib¬
bands and flowers, having arrayed her as for a bridal,
dressing her black hair smoothly, putting rouge on her
cheeks, and blackening her eye-lashes with kohl,
[89]
GA U TA M I
And Gautami, having given birth to the child, received
submissively the youth's having grown cold toward her,
and removed herself from his sight, that he might not feel
troubled and guilty upon meeting her by chance.
And, remaining within the enclosure of the palace, she
settled in a simple hut on the banks of the ponds, taking
upon herself the duty of feeding the swans that swam in
those ponds among the grasses and flowers.
And for a time she'was happy, preparing, without her¬
self knowing it, for those great sorrows which were des¬
tined to come in ordained replacement of this happiness,
and to put her upon the sole true path, into the society
of the religious brotherhood of those that go clad in
yellow.
Blessed are the meek at heart, who have riven their
chain.
In an abode of the highest joy do we dwell, who love
nothing in this universe, and like to a bird are we, that
beareth nothing with it but its wings.
1919.
[90]
THE SON
Mme. MAROT had been born and had grown up
in Lausanne, in a strict, honest, and industrious
family. She did not marry early, but when
she did, hers was a love match. In the March of 1876,
among the passengers of the old French steamer
Auvergne, sailing from Marseilles to Italy, was a newly
married couple. The days were calm, cool; the sea, all
silvery mirrors, lost itself in the misty spring distances;
the newly-married couple scarcely ever left the deck.
And all admired them, all beheld their happiness with
amiable smiles; he showed his happiness in an alert,
keen glance, in the necessity for motion, in an animated
amiability to all those around him; she, by that joyous
interest, with which she assimilated every trifle. . . .
This newly married pair was the Marots.
He was some ten years her senior; he was short in
height, swarthy of face, with curly hair; his hand was thin,
and his voice sonorous. But in her one sensed an ad¬
mixture of some blood other than that of the Latins.
She seemed just the least trifle too tall, although her waist
was splendid; though her hair was dark, her eyes were
a grayish blue. They travelled through Naples, Palermo
and Tunis to the Algerian town of Constantino, where
Monsieur Marot had obtained a rather prominent ap¬
pointment. And life in Constantino those fourteen years
which had passed since that happy spring, had given
[91]
THE SON
them everything with which people are usually content:
a competance, domestic harmony, healthy and handsome
children.
During these fourteen years the Marots had change'd
very much in appearance: his face had become as black
as an Arab's, he had grown gray and dried up from
work, from travelling, from tobacco, and from the sun,
—many took him for a native of Algeria; nor would any
one have recognized her as the woman who had been a
passenger upon the steamer Auvergne: then, even in the
shoes she put outside the door at night, there had been
the enchantment of youth; now she too had glints of
silver in her hair, her skin had grown finer and more
aureate, her hands had become thinner, and in her care
of them, in the dressing of her hair, in her linen, in
her apparel, she already betrayed a certain superfluous
nicety. Their relations had changed as well, of course,
although none would have said that it was for the worse.
And each one led an individual existence; his time was
taken up with work,—he still remained as passionate,
and, at the same time, as sober a man as he had been
before; she had to take care of him, of the children—
two very pretty girls, of whom the elder was by now al¬
most a young lady,—and everybody unanimously de¬
clared that there was not in all Constantino a better
housekeeper, a better mother, or a more charming person
to chat with in a drawing room, than Mme. Marot.
Their house stood on a quiet and clean street. From
the second story, out of the front rooms, always in semi-
darkness on account of the closed Venetian blinds, could
be seen Constantine, famed all over the world for its
picturesqueness; this ancient Arabian stronghold, which
[92]
THE SON
had become a French city, lies upon sloping crags. The
windows of the living rooms, shady and cool, looked out
upon the garden,—there, in a perpetual blaze and glare,
dozed age-old eucalypti, sycamores, palms, behind their
enclosures of high walls. The master of the house fre¬
quently absented himself on matters connected with his
work. As for the mistress, she led that confined exis¬
tence to which, in the colonies, the wives of all Europeans
are condemned. On Sundays she invariably attended
church. On week days she rarely went out and re¬
stricted herself to a small, choice circle. She read,
busied herself with embroidery, chatted with the chil¬
dren or took part in their lessons; sometimes, putting the
dark-eyed Marie, her younger daughter, on her knees,
and playing on the pianoforte with one hand, she would
sing old-fashioned French songs, to make the long Afri¬
can day seem shorter, while the hot wind entered in a
flood from the garden through the wide-open win¬
dows. . . . Constantine, under the pitiless blaze of the
sun and with all its shutters closed, seemed at these hours
a dead city: only the roller-birds called out behind the
walls of the gardens, and plaintively, with the nostalgia
of colonial lands, sounded the trumpets of the buglers
on the knolls beyond the city, where at times the cannons
made the earth shake with a dull rumble, and one saw
the white helmets of the soldiers twinkling.
The days in Constantine passed monotonously, but no
one ever remarked that Mme. Marot was oppressed by
this. In her character, exquisite and chaste, never ap¬
peared any heightened sensitiveness, nor any surplus
nervousness. Her health could not be called robust, but
it never caused any alarm to Monsieur Marot. Only
[93]
THE SON
one incident had struck him: once, in Tunis, an Arab
magician had put her so rapidly into a profound sleep,
that she had great difficulty in coming back to herself.
But this had been still at the time of their journey from
France; since that time she had not experienced any such
sharp declines of will power, any such unwholesome sus¬
ceptibility. And Monsieur Marot was happy, tranquil,
and convinced that her soul was undisturbed and like an
open book to him. And so it really was, even during
the last—the fourteenth—year of his domestic life. . . .
But now there appeared in Constantine a certain Emile
du Buys.
Emile du Buys, son of Mme. Bonnet, an old and close
friend of the Marots, was only nineteen years of age.
Mme. Bonnet, the widow of an engineer, had also a
daughter, Eliza, besides Emile, who was born of the first
marriage. He had grown up in Paris and was already
reading law; but, above all, he was taken up with the
composition of verses which were comprehensible to him
alone, and had attached himself to a non-existent school
of poetry, "The Seekers." In the May of 1889 Eliza
was preparing for the altar, but took sick and died a
few days after. Emile, who had never up to now been in
Constantine, had come for the funeral. It is easy to
understand how touched Mme. Marot was by this death,
—this death of a girl who was already trying on the
bridal veil; everyone also knows how under such circum¬
stances intimacy is established even between people who
have scarce come to know one another. In addition,
Emile was in reality only a boy to Mme. Marot. Shortly
after the funeral, Mme. Bonnet went to France, to her
relatives. Emile remained in Constantine, at the subur-
[94]
THE SON
ban county house of his late stepfather,—at the Villa
Hassim, as it was called in the town,—and began to visit
the Marots almost daily. No matter what sort of a
chap he may have been, or whatever he rftay have pre¬
tended to be, he was, never the less, very young, very
sensitive, and had need of people with whom he might
seek shelter for a time. "And isn't it strange," said some,
"Mme. Marot has become unrecognizable! How ani¬
mated she has become; how she has improved in looks!"
However, these allusions were unfounded. At first
all it amounted to was that her existence became a trifle
gayer, and that her girls became more playful and
coquettish, for Emile, every minute forgetting his grief
and that virus with which, as he thought, the fin de
siècle had envenomed him, fussed for hours at a time
with them, altogether as their equal. Of course he was,
after all, a man, a Parisian, and not altogether of an or¬
dinary nature; he had participated in that life which
Parisian writers lead, so inaccessible to common mortals;
frequently, with a certain somnambulistic expressiveness,
he would read strange but sonorous verses; and, perhaps,
it was precisely thanks to him that the step of Mme.
Marot became lighter and quicker, her house apparel
just the least trifle smarter, and the nuances of her voice
kindlier and more mocking; there may have been, after
all, a drop of purely feminine joy in her soul over the
fact that here was a man whom it was possible to lord
it over somewhat, with whom it was possible to speak
with a half jesting sententiousness, with that freedom
which was so naturally permitted by the difference in
their years. And also over the fact that here was one
who was so devoted to her entire household,—where.
[95]
THE SON
however, the first person for him (this, of course was
revealed very quickly) was still none other than she.
But then, how commonplace all this is! Yet for the
most part he was merely pitiful to her.
He, who sincerely deemed himself a poet born, wanted
to resemble a poet in appearance as well; he wore his
hair long, and tossed back; he dressed with an artistic
sobriety; he had fine brown hair, which went well with
his pale face, just as his black clothes did; but this pallor
was too anaemic, with a yellow tinge; his eyes glittered
constantly, but, because of his enervated face, they
seemed feverish; and his chest was so thin and flat, his
legs were so thin, his hands so bony, that one became
somewhat ill at ease when he would grow immoderately
lively and would run through the street or garden, bend¬
ing somewhat forward, as though he were sliding, in
order to hide his defect,—he had one leg shorter than
the other. In society he was disagreeable, supercilious;
he tried to be enigmatic, negligent; or, at times, ex¬
quisitely impertinent, audacious, at others disdainfully
absent-minded and independent in all things; but only
too frequently he did not sustain his rôles to the end,—
he would forget his part and begin speaking with a cer¬
tain naive candour and impulsiveness. And, of course,
he could not manage to hide his feelings for long, to
dissemble as an unbeliever in love and happiness on this
earth: the entire house soon knew of his being in love.
He had already begun to bore the master of the house
with his visits; he began to bring, every day, bouquets
of the rarest flowers from his villa, to sit at the Marots'
from morn till night, to recite verses more and more in¬
comprehensible,—the children heard him, more than
[96]
THE SON
once, adjuring some one to die with him; while at nights
he took to disappearing in the native quarters, in those
dives where the Arabs, wrapped up in their dirty white
hournouses, avidly watch stomach dances and drink the
most pungent of liquors. ... To put it briefly, not even
a month and a half had gone before his inamoration had
passed into God only knows what.
His nerves ceased entirely to serve him. Once he sat
through almost an entire day in silence; then got up,
took his hat, and went out,—and half an hour later was
brought in from the street in a dreadful condition : he was
writhing in hysterics; he was sobbing so vehemently that
he frightened both the children and the domestics. But
Mme. Marot, it seemed, did not attach any special signif¬
icance even to this transport. She herself was restoring
him back to consciousness, herself hastily untying his cra¬
vat and persuading him to be a man, and she only smiled
when he, without any restraint whatsoever before her
husband, caught at her hands, covering them with kisses
and vowing his disinterested devotion. Still, it was nec¬
essary to put an end to all this. And so when Emile,
whom the children had soon missed, again made his ap¬
pearance several days after the fit, already calmed, even
though he resembled a man who had gone through a
severe illness, Mme. Marot gently told him all that is
usually said in such cases.
"My friend, you are really like a son to me," she had
said to him, uttering for the first time this word, "son,"
and really feeling almost a m.aternal tenderness toward
him. "Do not, then, put me in a ridiculous and painful
position."
"But I swear to you that you are mistaken!" he ex-
[97]
THE SON
claimed, with earnest vehemence. "I am only devoted
to you; I only want to see you, and no more!"
And he suddenly fell down on his knees,—they were
in the garden on a calm, sultry, dusky evening,—impul¬
sively seized her by the hips, on the verge of fainting
from passion. . . . And gazing upon his hair, upon his
white, slender neck, she, with anguish and rapture, re¬
flected :
"Ah,—yes, yes, 1 could have had a son almost the same
as he!"
Still, from that time until his very departure for
France, he committed no more insane actions. Essenti¬
ally this was bad; it may have signified that his passion
had become deeper. But outwardly everything had
changed for the better,—only one other time he could
not restrain himself. After dinner one Sunday, in the
presence of several strangers, he said to her, without at
all reflecting that this might attract attention ;
"1 most earnestly entreat you to grant me one
minute. . . ."
She got up and went with him into the empty, half-
dark parlour. He walked up to the window, through
which the evening light penetrated from outside in nar¬
row longitudinal streaks, and, looking her straight in
the face, said:
"To-day is the anniversary of my father's death. I
love you!"
She turned to go away. Frightened, he hastened to
add as she was going away:
"Forgive me,—this is the first time and the last!"
And truly, she heard no new admissions from him. "I
was enchanted by her confusion," he wrote in his diary
[98]
THE SON
that evening, in his choice and grandiloquent style; "I
vowed to violate her peace no more ; for am I not beatified
even as it is?" He continued going into the town,—
he only slept at the Villa Hassim; and his behaviour
varied, but he always observed a greater or lesser degree
of seemliness. At times he was, as formerly, inappropri¬
ately playful, naïve, romping with the children in the
garden; most frequently of all, however, he sat near her
and "drank in her presence," read newspapers and novels
to her, and "was happy because she listened to him."
"The children did not interfere with us," he wrote of these
days, "their voices, laughter, bustle, their very beings,
seemed to serve as the finest of conductors for our emo¬
tions; thanks to them these emotions were still more en¬
chanting; we held the commonest of every day conver¬
sations, but something else could be heard in them,—
our happiness; yes,—yes; she, too was happy, 1 affirm
this. She liked to hear me declaim; of evenings, from
the balcony, we contemplated Constantine lying at our
feet in the blue radiance of the moon. . . ." Finally, in
August, Mme. Marot insisted upon his going away, re¬
turning to his studies,—and won; and en route he
entered in his diary: "1 am going away! Going away,
empoisoned by the bitter delight of parting! She has be¬
stowed upon me, in parting, a bit of velvet ribbon that
she had worn about her neck as a girl. When the last
minute came, she gave me her blessing, and 1 saw a
humid sparkle in her eyes when she said: 'Farewell,
dear son of mine! . . "
Whether he was right in his conjecture that Mme.
Marot also was happy in August, is not known.
But that his departure proved painful to her is beyond
[99]
THE SON
a doubt. This word "son," which had stirred her even
previously, now took on such a sound for her that she
could not hear it in peace. Even formerly, upon meeting
friends on her way to church, who would jestingly say
to her: "What should you pray about, Mme. Marot;
you are without sin and happy as it is!" she had, more
than once, replied with a sad smile : "I complain to God
because he has deprived me of a son. . . ." Now the
thought of a son, of that happiness which he would have
ceaselessly given her by his mere existence in this world,
never left her. And once, shortly after the departure
of Emile, she had said to her husband;
"Now I have comprehended everything! I now know
surely, that every mother ought to have a son; that every
woman who has no son, if she will but ponder upon her¬
self, will check up her entire life, will see that she is un¬
happy. You are a man, you cannot feel this, but it is
so. . . . Oh, how tenderly and passionately one can love
a son!"
She was very kind to her husband that fall. Occa¬
sionally, when she would be left alone with him, she
would shyly say to him:
"Hector, listen. ... I am ashamed now to ask you
about it,—but still. ... Do you ever recall the March
of 'seventy-six? . . . Ah, if only you and 1 had a son!"
"All this confused me very much," Monsieur Marot
would say subsequently,—"it confused me all the more
because she began to grow very thin. She was growing
weaker, was becoming more and more silent and gentle
in manner. She went less and less often to her friends,
—she avoided going to the city unless it were unavoid¬
able. ... I do not doubt that some dreadful and in-
[100]
THE SON
comprehensible ailment was taking possession of her soul
and body!" While the bonne added that, whenever
Mme. Marot went out of the house that fall, she always
put on a thick white veil,—something she had never done
before; that, returning home, she would immediately
raise her veil in front of a mirror and would intently
scrutinize her tired face. It is superfluous to explain that
which went on in her soul at this time. But did she want
to see Emile, did he write to her, and did she reply to
him? He presented two dispatches at court, purport¬
ing to be addressed to him, in answer to his letters. One
was dated the tenth of November: "You are driving
me mad. Calm yourself. Let me have immediate news
of yourself." The other, the twenty-third of December:
"No, no, do not come, I implore you. Think of me, love
me, as a mother." But the certainty of these dispatches
having been sent by her could not be proven, of course.
One thing only is certain,—that from September until
January Mme. Marot led a distressed, troubled, painful
existence.
The late autumn of that year in Constantine was cold
and rainy. Then, as is always the case in Algeria, a
ravishing spring came on. And an animation,—that
beatific, exquisite headiness which is experienced at the
time of the blossoming of spring by people who have al¬
ready left their youth behind them,—again began to
return to Mme. Marot. She again began to go out; rode
out a great deal with her children, went with them to the
garden of the deserted Villa Hassim; she contemplated
an excursion to Algiers,—to show her children Blidah,
near which, in the mountains, there is a wooded ravine,
a spot beloved of monkeys. . . . And so things went
[101]
THE SON
right up to the seventeenth of January in the year of
1890. On the seventeenth of January, she awoke from
some unusually joyous and tender emotion, which, so it
had seemed to her, had stirred her all night long. In
the large room where she slept alone during the absence
of her husband, who had gone away for a long time on
matters connected with his post, it was almost dark be¬
cause of the Venetian blinds and the window curtains.
Still, by that blueish pallor which penetrated from be¬
hind them, one could gather that it was still early. And,
in confirmation, the little clock on the night-table pointed
to six. With an enjoyable sense of the morning fresh¬
ness entering from the garden, she rolled up in a light
blanket and turned to the wall. . . . "Why do 1 feel so
fine?" she thought, dozing off. And, like dim, beautiful
visions, pictures of Italy, of Sicily, began to appear be¬
fore her, pictures of that distant spring when she was
sailing in a cabin whose windows looked out on deck,
upon the chill silvery shimmer of the sea; a cabin with
portieres of red silk, shrivelled and faded by time, and
with a high threshold glittering with brass that had been
worn down by many years of cleaning. . . . Then she
saw the limitless bays of the sea; lagoons; lowlands; a
great Arabian town, all white, with flat roofs, and with
undulating mistily blue knolls and foot-hills beyond it.
This was Tunis, in which she had been but once, on that
very same spring when she had been in Naples, and in
Palermo. . . . But here a wave of cold seemed to go
through her,—and, with a shiver, she opened her eyes.
It was already going on nine o'clock; one could hear the
voices of the children, the voice of their bonne. She
arose, threw on a peignoir, and, stepping out on the
[102]
THE SON
balcony, descended into the garden and sat down on a
rocker, standing in the sand near a round table under¬
neath a mimosa in blossom, spreading its golden canopy
overhead, its fragrance heavy in the sun. The maid
brought her coffee. She again began to think of Tunis,
and recalled that strange experience she had gone through,
that sweet fear and that beatific abnegation of her will
which was like that of pre-mortal moments,—an expe¬
rience she had undergone in that pale blue city in the
warm, rosy dusk, half-reclining in a rocker on the roof
of a house, vaguely seeing the dark face of the Arab
hypnotist and magician who was squatting on his heels
before her, lulling her to sleep with his barely audible,
monotonous sing-song, and the slow movements of his
thin hands. And suddenly, even as she was thinking
thus and mechanically gazing with eyes wide-open upon
a bright silvery spark with which a teaspoon in a glass
of water was aflame, she suddenly lost conscience. And
when she came to with a start, Emile was standing over
her. All that took place subsequent to this unexpected
meeting is known from the words of Emile himself,—
from his story, from his answers to interrogations. "Yes,
I dropped into Constantine as though from heaven!" he
had said. "1 had come because 1 had comprehended that
the powers of heaven itself could not stop me. On the
morning of the seventeenth of January, straight from the
station, without any word of warning, 1 appeared at the
house of Monsieur Marot and ran into the garden. I
was dumbfounded by that which met my eyes; but I had
scarce made a step when she came to. She, it seemed,
was also amazed, both by the unexpectedness of my ap¬
pearance, and that which she had just been through; but
[103]
THE SON
she did not even emit an exclamation. Having looked
at me, like a person just awakened from a deep sleep,
she got up from her seat, putting her hair in order.
" 'That's the very presentiment 1 had,' she said, some¬
how without any expression. 'You did not obey me!'
"And with an accustomed gesture, having buttoned
the peignoir at her breast, she took my head in both her
hands and kissed me twice on the forehead.
"I lost my head from rapture and passion, but she
gently put me aside and said:
" 'Let us go; I am not dressed,—I shall return at once,
go to the children. . . .'
" 'But, for God's sake, what was the matter with you?'
I asked, ascending after her to the balcony.
" 'Oh, a mere nothing—a slight trance. I had gazed too
long at a glittering tea-spoon,' she was answering, get¬
ting control of herself, and beginning to speak with more
animation. 'But what have you done, what have you
done!'
"I did not find the children anywhere; the house was
empty and quiet; I sat down in the parlour. Suddenly I
heard her begin singing in a distant room in a strong,
sonorous voice, but I did not then comprehend all the
horror of that sound, because I was all atremble with
a nervous ague. I had not slept all night; I had counted
the minutes as the train had sped me toward Constan-
tine; I jumped into the first fiacre I had met upon run¬
ning out of the depot; I did not expect to reach the height
of the city. ... I knew, I, too, had a premonition, that
my arrival would be fatal for us; but still I could not
expect that which I had seen in the garden, this mystical
meeting, and such a sharp change in her attitude toward
[104]
THE SON
me! After ten minutes, she came out with her hair
dressed, in a light-gray dress of an iris tint.
" 'Ah,' said she, as I was kissing her hand, 'but I had
forgotten that to-day is Sunday, and that the children
are in church; but then, 1 have over-slept. . . . The
children will go to the pine grove after church,—were
you ever there?'
"And, without waiting for my answer, she rang, ordered
some coffee to be served to me, and, sitting down, began
to look at me intently, and, without listening, began to
question me as to how 1 had lived, what 1 had been doing.
She started to speak about herself, of the fact that after
two or three months, which had been very bad for her,
during which she had aged dreadfully,—these words
were uttered with sort of incomprehensible smile,-—she
was feeling well, as young as never before. ... 1 re¬
plied, I listened, but did not understand a great deal;
both of us said anything but that which we wanted to
say; my hands grew chill from the nearness of that other
fearful, inevitable hour. 1 do not deny that I was struck
as if by lightning when she had said 'I have aged. . . .'
I suddenly saw that she was right: in the thinness of
her hands, and of the faded, even though really re¬
juvenated face, in the slenderness of certain outlines of
the body, I caught certain signs of that which compels
our hearts to contract so painfully, and even somehow
awkwardly,—yet all the more passionately,—at the sight
of an aging woman. 'Ah, yes, how rapidly and sharply
she had changed!' I reflected. But she was beautiful,
never the less. 1 was growing intoxicated as I gazed
upon her. 1 had grown accustomed to dreaming of her
without end; 1 had not forgotten that moment, when on
[105]
THE SON
the evening of the eleventh of July, I had first embraced
her knees. Her hands, too, were slightly trembling, when
she was putting her coifíure in order, smiling, and gazing
at me; and suddenly—you will understand all the cata¬
strophic force of this moment!—suddenly, this smile was
distorted, somehow; and, with difficulty, but firmly, she
uttered :
" 'Still, you ought to go home, to rest up from the
journey; your appearance is dreadful; you have such
suffering, fearful eyes and such burning lips, that 1 no
longer have the strength to see them. ... Do you wish
me to?—1 shall go there in your company. . . .'
"And, without letting me answer, she got up and went
away to get her hat and cloak. . . .
"We arrived quickly at the Villa Hassim. 1 lingered
near the entrance, in order to pluck some flowers. She
did not wait for me, opening the door herself. 1 had
no servants; there was only the caretaker,—he did not
see us. When 1 stepped into the ante-room, hot and half
dark because of the closed Venetian blinds, and offered
her the flowers, she kissed them, then embracing me with
one hand, she kissed me. From emotion her lips were
hot, but her voice was clear.
" 'But listen . . . how shall we . . . have you any¬
thing with you?' she asked.
"1 did not at first understand her,—so had this first
kiss, this first familiar 'you' overwhelmed me,—and I
mumbled:
" "What do you want to say?'
"She took a step back.
"'What!' she said in astonishment, almost sternly.
[106]
THÉ SON
'Can you possibly have thought that I . . . that we can
live after this? Have you anything with you that we
may die?'
"I recovered my wits and hastened to show her a
revolver loaded with five bullets, with which 1 never
parted.
"She rapidly went on, from room to room. The semi-
darkness was ever3nvhere. Hearing only the rustle of
her silken skirts, I followed after her, with that confusion
of all the senses with which a naked man goes on a
sultry day into the sea. Finally we arrived at the end
of our journey; she threw off her cloak and began to
untie the ribbons of her hat. Her hands were still
trembling, and once more I remarked through the dusk
something pitiful and tired in her face. . . .
"But she died without wavering. During the last mo¬
ments she became transformed. Kissing me, and leaning
back in order to see my face, she told me, in a whisper,
a few words so tender and touching that I have not the
strength to repeat them.
"1 wanted to go to pluck some more flowers, in order
to strew our funeral couch with them. She did not let
me, she was hurried, she was saying : 'No, no, it is not
necessary . . . there are plenty of flowers . . . here are
your flowers'—and she kept on repeating:
"'And so, I charge you, by all that you hold sacred,
that you kill me!'
" 'Yes, and then myself,' said I, not for a second doubt¬
ing my resolution.
"'Oh, I believe you, I believe you!' she answered, by
now as if in a trance. . . .
[107]
THE SON
"A minute before her death she said, very quietly,
but simply: 'My God, this is a deed without a name!'
"And again:
" 'Where are the flowers you gave me? Kiss me—for
the last time.'
"She herself put the muzzle of the revolver up to her
temple. 1 wanted to shoot, but she stopped me:
"■■'No, that isn't right,—let me show you the right way.
Here, so, my child. . . . And afterward make the sign of
the cross over me, and lay the flowers upon my
breast. . . .'
"When I fired, she moved her lips slightly. I fired
once more. . . .
"She lay there, calm; in her extinguished gaze there
was some bitter beatitude. Her hair was spread out; a
tortoise shell comb was thrown upon the floor. Swaying,
I got up, to put an end to myself. But, despite the Vene¬
tian blinds, it was light in the room; and in this light,
and amid this quiet which had suddenly arisen all about
me, I distinctly saw her face, already grown pallid. . . .
And here a sudden madness possessed me,—I dashed to
the window, throwing apart, flinging open the shutters,
and began to shout, and to shoot into the air. , . . The
rest you know. . .
In the spring, five years ago, travelling over Algeria,
the writer of these lines visited Constantino. He often
recalls now those evenings, rainy and chill, but spring
evenings never the less, which he passed by the fireplace in
the reading room of a certain old and homelike French
hotel. Upon the heavy, elaborate étagères there lay
tattered illustrated journals—in them one could find
[108]
THE SONi
some faded portraits of Mme. Marot, at different ages,—
among them, one taken in Lausanne, when she was a
girl. . . . Her story is told here again, through a strong
desire of telling it in my own way.
1916.
[109]
LIGHT BREATHING
IN the graveyard, over the fresh clayey mound, stands
a new cross of oak,—strong, heavy, smooth,—of the
sort that is pleasant to contemplate.
It is April, but the days are raw; the monuments of
the graveyard—a spacious, truly provincial one,—can be
seen through the bare trees even from afar, and the chill
wind makes the porcelain wreath at the foot of the cross
tinkle again and again.
As for the cross itself,—a rather large bronze me¬
dallion has been set into it; while in the medallion is a
photographic portrait of a well dressed and alluring
high-school girl, with eyes joyous, strikingly alive.
This is Olliya Meshcherskaya.
As a girl she did not in any way stand out among that
noisy crowd of short brown dresses which so disccfrd-
antly and youthfully hums in the corridors and class¬
rooms; what could be said of her save that she was one of
a number of rather pretty, wealthy, and happy girls, that
she was bright, but mischievous and very much uncon¬
cerned about whatever admonitions were made to her by
an instructress? Then she began to blossom out, to de¬
velop, not by the day but by the hour. At fourteen,
while her waist was slender and her little feet graceful,
she already had well-defined breasts and all those con¬
tours, the enchantment of which human speech has never
yet exp-ressed; at fifteen she was famed as a beauty.
[110]
LIGHT BREATHING
How painstakingly did certain of her mates dress their
hair, how meticulous about their persons they were, how
carefully watchful of their restrained motions! But she
feared nothing,—neither ink spots on her fingers, nor a
flushed face, nor disheveled hair, nor a knee bared in a
running fall. Without any cares or eiforts on her part,
and somehow imperceptibly, to her came all that which
distinguished her from all the rest of the high-school
during her last two years there,—elegance, good taste in
dress, cleverness, a radiant, yet an understanding sparkle
in her eyes. No one danced like Olliya Meshcherskaya ;
no one raced on skates as well as she did; no one was
sought after at balls as much as she; and, for some
reason, no one was so liked by the lower grades as she
was. Imperceptibly, she became a young lady, and im¬
perceptibly her fame in school became secure; and there
were already rumours that she was inconstant, that she
could not live without admirers; that Shenshin, a student
in the boys' high-school, was madly in love with her;
that apparently she was also in love with him, but so
changeable in her treatment of him that he had made
attempts at suicide. . . .
During her last winter, Olliya Meshcherskaya lost her
head entirely from her pursuit of pleasure,—so they
said in the high-school. The winter was snowy, sunny,
frosty; the sun sank early behind the tall fir grove of the
snow-covered school garden, but it was invariably serene,
many-rayed, holding forth a promise of both frost and
sunlight for the morrow as well; to say nothing of
strolling through Cathedral Street, of skating at the rink
in the city park on a rose-tinged evening, to music, and
amid this throng gliding in all directions, among which
[111]
LIGHT BREATHING
Olliya Meshcherskaya seemed the best dressed, the freest
from care, the happiest. And then one day, during the
main interval, as she was careering like a whirlwind
through the assembly hall escaping from the little girls of
the first grade who were pursuing her and squealing for
joy, she was unexpectedly summoned to the directress.
She stopped in full career; giving a single deep sigh,
with a rapid and by now accustomed movement she put
her hair in order, hitched up the little corners of her apron
at the shoulders, and, her eyes radiant, ran upstairs.
The directress, a small woman, young looking but gray
haired, was calmly sitting with some knitting in her
hands, at a writing table underneath a portrait of the
Tsar.
"How do you do. Mile. Meshcherskaya," she said in
French, without raising her eyes from the knitting. "It
is to be regretted that this is not the first time I am com¬
pelled to summon you here, in order to speak to you
about your conduct."
"1 am listening, Madame," answered Meshcherskaya,
approaching the table, looking at her radiantly and in
animation, but without any expression on her face, and
she sat down with that lightness and grace of which only
she was mistress.
"You will listen but badly to me,—1 have, it is to be
regretted, become convinced of that," said the directress,
and drawing a thread and making the ball of wool roll
over the polished floor, upon which Meshcherskaya had
cast a glance of curiosity, she raised her eyes: "1 shall
not repeat myself ; 1 shall not speak at length," she said.
Meshcherskaya liked very much this unusually tidy
and large study; on frosty days its atmosphere was so
[112]
LIGHT BREATHING
cozy from the warmth of the glistening Dutch stove, and
the freshness of the lilies-of-the-valley upon the writing
table. She glanced at the young Tsar, drawn at full
length in the midst of some resplendently glittering hall;
at the straight parting of the milky, neatly waved hair
of the directress, and kept an expectant silence.
"You are no longer a little girl," said the directress
with much significance, secretly beginning to grow irri¬
tated.
"Yes, Madame," answered Meshcherskaya simply, al¬
most gaily.
"But not yet a woman," said the directress with still
greater significance, and her dull-coloured face began to
glow slightly. "First of all,—what sort of a coiffure is
that? That is a woman's coiffure!"
"Madame, I am not to blame if I have nice hair,"
answered Meshcherskaya, giving the slightest of pats
with both hands to her attractively dressed head.
"Ah, so that is it,—you are not to blame!" said the
directress. "You are not to blame for your coiffure, nor
to blame for these expensive combs, nor to blame for
ruining your parents with buying little slippers at
twenty roublesBut, I repeat to you, you lose sight of
the fact that as yet you are only a high-school girl. . . ."
And at this point, Meshcherskaya, without losing her
simplicity and calmness, suddenly interrupted her with
politeness :
"Pardon me, Madame, you are making a mistake: I
am a woman. And—do you know who is responsible for
this? Papa's friend and neighbour, and also your
1 A rouble, before the revolution, was equal to about half an
American dollar. Trans.
[113]
LIGHT BREATHING
brother, Alexei Mikhailovich Maliutin. This happened
last summer in the country. . .
And a month after this conversation an officer of the
Cossacks, homely and of plebeian appearance, having
absolutely nothing in common with that circle to which
Meshcherskaya belonged, shot her on the platform of a
railroad station, among a large crowd which had just
arrived with the train. And the incredible confession of
Olliya Meshcherskaya, which had dumbfounded the
directress, was fully confirmed; the officer had declared
to the examining magistrate that Meshcherskaya had
enticed him, had had a liaison with him, had sworn to be
his wife; but at the depot, on the day of the murder,
when she was seeing him off to Novocherkassk, she had
suddenly told him that she had never even as much as
thought of loving him, that their talks about marriage
were all merely a mockery of him, and she let him read
that page in her diary which dealt with Maliutin.
"1 ran over these lines, went out on the platform where
she was promenading, waiting till 1 should finish reading,
and shot her," said the officer. "The diary remained in
the pocket of my uniform coat; just glance at what was
written on it on the tenth of July of last year."
And the examining magistrate read something approxi¬
mately as follows:
"It is now two o'clock at night. I had fallen fast
asleep, but had immediately awakened. . . . This day I
have become a woman! Papa, mamma, and Tolliya
had all gone to the city, and 1 was left alone. 1 cannot
express how happy 1 was over being alone! In the morn¬
ing 1 strolled by myself in the garden, in the fields ; I was
[114]
LIGHT BREATHING
in the forest,—it seemed to me that I was all alone in the
entire universe, and my thoughts were more pleasant than
they have ever before been in my life. I even dined
alone, then 1 played for a whole hour; to the sounds of
the music 1 felt as if 1 would live without end and would
be as happy as never before 1 Then I fell asleep in papa's
study. And at four Katiya woke me up, saying that
Alexei Mikhailovich had arrived. I was very glad he
had come ; it was so pleasant for me to receive and enter¬
tain him. He had driven up on his pair of very hand¬
some horses, of a special small breed, and they stood all
the time near the steps; but he remained, because it had
been raining, and he wanted the ground to be dry
toward evening. He was very sorry that he had not
caught father in, was very animated, and bore himself
like a gallant toward me; he joked a lot about having
been in love with me for a long time. When we were
strolling before tea in the garden, the weather was splen¬
did again, the sun glistened through the entire wet gar¬
den, although it had become really downright chilly, and
he walked about with my arm through his, and said that
he was Faust with Marguerite. He is fifty-six, but he
is still very handsome, and always very well dressed,—
the only thing 1 did not like was that he had come in a
kind of cape; he is all scented with English eau-de-
cologne, and his eyes are altogether young,—and black;
and his beard is attractively divided in two long parts
and is perfectly silvery. At tea we sat in the glass en¬
closed veranda; 1 felt somehow unwell and laid down
upon a low couch, while he smoked; then he changed his
seat to where 1 was, and again began telling me some
nice things; then to examine and kiss my hand. I
[115]
LIGHT BREATHING
covered my face with a siik handkerchief, and he kissed
me several times on the lips through the handker¬
chief. ... I cannot understand how it could have,
happened; 1 lost my mind, 1 never thought that I was
that kind! Now there is only one way out for me. . . .
1 feel such loathing for him, that I cannot live through
this! . . ."
The town during these April days has become clean,
dry, its stones have grown white, and it is easy and
pleasant to walk over them. Every Sunday, after mass,
a little woman in mourning, in black kid gloves, with an
ebony umbrella, starts out walking through Cathedral
Street, which leads to the city gates. She passes by the
engine house, crosses, by means of a paved road, the
dirty square where there are many sooty smithies, and
the air from the fields is blowing fresher; farther on,
between the monastery and the jail, the cloudy horizon
shows white, and the spring fields gray; and then, when
one has treaded his way among the puddles under the
wall of the monastery and turns to the left, one sees some¬
thing like a large, low garden, surrounded by a white
enclosure, above the gates of which enclosure is painted
the Assumption of the Mother of God. The little
woman rapidly makes a sign of the cross several times,
and like one who knows the way walks through the
main path. Having reached the bench opposite the
cross of oak, she sits in the wind and the spring chill-
ness, for an hour, for two hours, until her feet in their
light shoes and her hands in their tight kid gloves grow
entirely benumbed. Listening to the birds of spring,
sweetly singing even in the cold, listening to the tin¬
kling of the wind through the porcelain wreath, she
[116]
LIGHT BRßATHiNG
thinks at times that she would give half her life, if only
that dead wreath might not be before her eyes. The
thought that it was Olliya Meshcherskaya whom they had
buried here, in this very clay, throws her into astonish¬
ment verging on stupefaction : how can one associate that
sixteen year oíd school girl, who only some two or three
months ago was so full of life, enchantment, gaiety, with
this clayey hummock, and this oaken cross? Can it
be possible that underneath it is the same girl whose eyes
shine so deathlessly out of this bronze medallion, and
how reconcile with this pure gaze that dreadful thing
which is connected now with the name of Olliya Mesh¬
cherskaya? But deep in her soul the little woman is
happy, as all people in love, or devoted to some pas¬
sionate idea in general, always are.
This woman is a teacher of Olliya Meshcherskaya, a
girl of over thirty, who has long lived upon some fiction
or other that supplants her actual life. At first her
brother, a poor ensign and in no way remarkable, was
such a fiction,—all her soul was bound up with him,
with his future, which for some reason appeared to her
brilliant, and she lived in a strange expectancy, that
her fate would somehow change magically, thanks to
him. Later, when he was killed at Mukden, she as¬
sured herself, that she, to her great good fortune, it
would seem, was not like others; that the lack of beauty
and femininity were in her case compensated for
by brains and higher interests; that she was a toiler
in the world of ideas. The death of Olliya Meshcher¬
skaya captivated her with a new dream. Now Olliya
Meshcherskaya is an object of her ceaseless thoughts, of
rapture, of joy. She goes to Olliya's grave on every
[117]
LiGîît ËRÈÀtMlî^Û
holiday,—she had formed the habit of going to the
graveyard and of wearing mourning since the death of
her brother. For hours she does not take her eyes off
the oaken cross; she recalls the pale little face of Olliya
Meshcherskaya in her coffin, among the flowers—and also
that which she had once happened to overhear: once,
during the main recess, strolling through the school gar¬
den, Olliya Meshcherskaya was saying, all in one breath,
to her favourite mate,—the stout, tall Subottina:
"In one of papa's books,—he has a lot of old-fashioned
funny books,—I read what sort of beauty a woman
ought to have . . . you understand, there is so much said
there that one can't remember everything : well, of course,
black eyes, like boiling pitch,—honest to God, it is writ¬
ten just sol—like boiling pitch,—eye-lashes as black
as night; a softly mantling blush, a slender waist, a
hand longer than the ordinary,—you understand, longer
than the ordinary!—a little foot, a moderately large
bosom, a regularly rounded calf, a knee the colour of
a sea-shell, sloping—but high—shoulders. ... I learned
most of this by heart, that's how true all this is! But
do you know what the chief thing is?—Light breath¬
ing! .. . But then, I have it,—you just listen how I
sigh,—really, haven't I got it?"
Now this light breathing has been scattered anew
upon the universe, upon this cloud-covered sky, upon
this chill spring wind. . . .
1916.
[118]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
ON St. Thomas' week, on a clear evening barely
tinged with rose, at that enchanting time when
the earth has just been freed from the snow,
when, in the little hollows upon the steppes, underneath
the young bare oaks, some gray, hardened snow still lin¬
gers, an old beggar was going from house to house in a
certain village in the Eletz province,—of course, he had
no hat, and there was a long linen wallet slung over his
shoulder.
This village was a large one, but quiet, lying far out
among the fields. And besides, it happened to be a quiet
evening. There was nobody near the flooded, clayey
pond, that one could not see the limits of; nor upon the
level common where, in the shade of the huts and hay¬
ricks, this old man was walking. His head was bald,
yet still black-haired; he held a long walnut staff in his
hand, and looked like a primitive bishop. The common
was of a clear, vivid green; the air was freshening; the
pond, concavely-full, its tone that of a flashing flesh
colour, was slightly crimson, and there was a certain
beauty about it, despite a bottle-green block of ice,
covered with rusty manure, that still floated about in
it. Somewheres on the other side, warmly and caress¬
ingly lit up against the low-lying sun,—somewhere far-
off, it seemed,—a child, strayed behind some corn-kiln
or storehouse, was crying, and its plaintive, monotonous
wailing was not unpleasant to the ear in the evening
[119]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
glow. . . . But the folk thereabouts were none too gener¬
ous of alms.
There, at the entrance to the village, near an old,
well-to-do farm, where age-old oaks covered with the
nests of rooks stood beyond the three-roomed i:[ba of
dark-red brick, a young gray-eyed married woman had
given something, but even that had been a trifle. She
had been standing near the stone threshold amid the
drying spring mire upon a hard-beaten path, holding a
pretty little girl, whose little eyes did not show any glim¬
mer of intelligence, perched in her arms; the child had
on a little patchwork cap, and, pressing her close against
her, the woman was dancing, stamping her bare feet,
and, as she turned, her cotton skirt would swell out.
"There's an old man; I'll give you to him to put in
his little wallet," she was saying through her teeth, her
lips feasting on the little girl's cheeks:
'Tm a-goin' to dance
So's the floor will creak. . . ."
And, turning, completely around, she changed her
voice to a ringing, coquettish tone, evidently imitative
of some one:
"Old man, old man,—don't you need a little girl?"
The girl was not a bit frightened; she was calmly suck¬
ing a round cracknel, and the mother began coaxing the
little girl, in all sorts of ways, to give it to the smiling
beggar who had come up :
"Give it to him, my little babe, give it to him; for
you and I are all, all alone on this whole farm; so we
have nothing to give alms with. . . ."
And the little girl stolidly stretched out her short
[120]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
little arm, with the saliva-moistened cookie clenched in
her little fist. And the beggar, smilingly shaking his
head at other folks' happiness, took it and munched it
as he went on his way.
He held his stick lightly, in readiness, as he went; now
it would be a wicked, snarling watch-dog that would roll
up in a ball underneath your feet,—and having rolled
right up to you, would suddenly become quiet; or else
a yellow, downy hound would ferociously tear the ground
and throw it up with his hind feet, standing near a hay
rick and growling, growling and gasping, with fiery
eyes. . . . Upon approaching the little window of a hut,
the beggar would make a humble bow and would tap
lightly against the frame with his staff. But often no
one would respond to this tap; many were still finishing
up their sowing, finishing up their plowing, many were
out in the fields. And his soul, the soul of a peasant
from of old, even rejoiced in secret; the folks are out in
the field . . . this is the time that feeds the whole year
... no time for beggars. . . . And at times, on the
other side of the panes upon which the beggar tapped, a
fair-faced peasant woman carrying a child at breast in
her arms, would lean over as she sat on a bench.
Through the sorry little window, she appeared very big.
Not at all abashed because the beggar could see her soft
breast, as white as wheat-flour, she would wave him away
with her large hand, covered with silver rings, while
the infant, without letting the sweet nipple out of its
mouth, lay back and looked up at her with its dark,
clear eyes, scratching hard its bare little outspread legs,
all dotted with pink from flea-bites. "God will give you
alms,—don't be angry with us," the peasant woman
[121]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
would say calmly. As for the old women, each one of
them would wrinkle up her face painfully, inevitably
leaning out and complaining for a long time, constantly
re-iterating that she'd be glad as glad could be to give
alms, but there wasn't anything . . . everybody was out
in the fields . . . and to give without asking she was
afraid,—she, being an old woman, had had her head
bitten off long ago, as it was. . . . The beggar would
agree with her, would say, "Well, forgive me, for the
love of God," and would go on farther.
He had done thirty versts ^ that day, and was not a bit
fatigued; only his legs had grown benumbed, dulled, and
had begun to wobble. His long bag was half-filled with
crusts and some odds and ends; while under the patched
long coat, narrow belted and long skirted, under the
sheepskin jacket and the much worn blouse, under the
shirt next his skin, there had long been hanging upon
his crucifix an amulet wherein were sewn ninety-two
roubles in bills. And his soul was at rest. Of course, he
was old, thin, all weather-beaten,—his mouth contracted,
parched, until it was all black; his nose was like a bone;
his neck all in wrinkles resembling cracks, criss-crossing
one another, as though his neck were made of cork. But
he was still spry. His eyes, which once upon a time had
been black, were now rheumy and dimmed by thin cata¬
racts; but still they could see not only the full-flooded
pond, but, as well, the roseate tint upon its farther side,
and even the clear, pale sky. The air was getting
fresher; more loudly, but seemingly from a still greater
distance, came the receding cry of the child; there was
a scent of the chilling grass in the air. ... Two pigeons
lA verst is about two-thirds of a mile. Trans.
[122]
AN EVÈNING IN SPRING
Soared together over the roofs, fell to the clayey little
bank of the pond, and, raising their little heads, began
to drink. ... Just a little before, in a lonely farm near
the great road, some women had grown generous and had
given him a big piece of calico and a pair of good
trousers,—oh, good as new, you might say; a young fel¬
low that belonged to their farm had made them for him¬
self, but he had been crushed in a pit, in the quarry
where the moujiks had been digging for clay. Now the
beggar was walking along and deliberating: should he
dispose of them, or put them on himself, and throw
away those he had on—which, by now, were really none
too presentable,—near the edge of some field?
Having come to the end of the village, he entered a
short little lane that led out into the steppe. And into
his eyes glanced the many-rayed, fair-weather sun of
April, sinking far beyond the plain, beyond the gray
fallow-lands and the newly tilled fields of spring-corn.
At the very end of the village, at a turn of the well-
beaten, glistening road, leading to that distant, humble
hamlet where the beggar was thinking of passing the
night, stood a new hut, not large, well-roofed with new
thatch, which was lemon-coloured and resembled a well-
combed head. Keeping aloof from everybody, a man
and his wife had settled here a year ago,—there were
shavings and chips still knocking about here and there.
They were a thrifty, hard-working, agreeable couple, and
sold vodka on the sly. And so the beggar went straight
toward this hut,—there was a possibility of selling the
new trousers to its owner,—and besides, he liked just
to enter it; he liked it because it seemed to be living some
especial life, all its own, quiet and steadfast, standing at
[123]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
the end leading out of the village and gazing with its
clear little windows upon the setting of the sun, while
the sky-larks were finishing their song in the chilling air.
Near the blind wall that gave out upon the by-lane lay
a shadow, but its front wall was gay. Last fall its owner
had planted three acacia bushes beneath the little win¬
dows. Now they had taken root and were already downy
with a yellowish verdure tender as that of a willow.
Having skirted them, the beggar walked in through the
entry into the main room.
At first, after the sunlight, he could not see anything,
although the sun was looking in here as well, lighting
up the blue transparent smoke floating over the table,
that stood underneath a hanging tin lamp. To gain time
while his eyes grew accustomed, he bowed and crossed
himself for a long time in the direction of the new tin¬
selled icon hanging in a corner. Then he laid down his
bag and his staff on the floor near the door, and made out
a large-bodied moujik in bast shoes and a tattered short
sheepskin coat, sitting with his back to the door, on
a stool near the table; the well-dressed mistress he saw
sitting on a bench.
"The Lord's blessing be with you," said he, in a low
voice, bowing once more. "Greetings of the holiday
just past."
He wanted to sing the paschal Christ Is Risen, but
felt that it would be out of place, and reflected:
"Well, I guess the master is not at home. . . . What
a pity."
The mistress was not at all bad-looking, with a very
shapely waist, with white hands,—just as though she
were no mere peasant woman. She was in a gala-dress,
[124]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
as always; in a pearl necklace, in a blouse of coarse calico,
with thin puffed-out sleeves, with an apron broidered
in red and blue, in a skirt of indigo wool with terra¬
cotta checks, and in half-boots, rough but well-sown and
made to fit the foot, their heels shod with steel. With
her neat head and clear face bent down, she was em¬
broidering a blouse for her husband. When the beggar
had greeted her, she raised her steady but unglittering
eyes, threw an intent glance upon him, and nodded ami¬
ably. Then, with a light sigh, she laid her work aside,
deftly stuck her needle in it, went toward the oven, her
half-boots clacking over the wooden floor and her flanks
swaying, and took a small bottle of vodka and a thick
cup with blue stripes out of a little cupboard.
"I have gotten tired, though . . said the beggar, as
if he were talking to himself,—both in apology for the
vodka and because he was confused by the silence of the
moujik, who had not turned around toward him.
Stepping softly in his bast-shoes, humbly walking
around him, the beggar sat down upon another stool, at
àn opposite corner of the table. As for the mistress, she
put the cup and the small bottle before him, and went
back to her work. Then this stalwart, tattered son of the
steppes raised his head heavily,—there was a whole
greenish demijohn standing before him,—and, narrow¬
ing his eyes, he fixed his gaze upon his humble bottle-
companion. He may have been pretending just a trifle;
but still, his face was inflamed; his eyes were drunken,
filled with the dull glitter of tipsiness; the lips, grown
soft and flabby, were half-open, as in a fever,—evidently,
this was not the first day of his spree. And the beggar
grew a little more wary, and carefully began filling his
[125]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
cup. "After all, now, he'll drink his and I'll drink
mine. . . . This is a tavern, and we don't bother one
another," he was thinking. He raised his head, and his
mistily-black eyes, the colour of ripe sloe-thorn, as well
as his whole visage, made rough and weather-beaten by
the steppe, were void of all expression.
"Where was you tramping?" asked the moujik, roughly
and crazily. "Have you come to steal, seeing as how
all the folks are out in the fields?"
"Why should I be stealing?" the beggar replied, evenly
and meekly. "I've had six children of my own, and my
own house and goods. . .
"You're blind and you're blind, but, never fear, many's
the feather and the twig you've carried to your nest!"
"Why should you be saying that? I've worked hard
as could be for ten years in the quartz mines. . . ."
"That ain't work. That's. . .
"Don't you be saying anything out of the way," said
the mistress, without elevating her voice, without raising
her lashes, and bit off the thread. "I don't listen to any¬
thing unseemly. I ain't heard it from my husband
yet."
"Well, that will do; I won't do it any more . . .
lady!" said the moujik. " 'Scuse me . . . I'm after ask¬
ing you," said he to the beggar, frowningly, "what can
you get out of the ground, now, when it ain't been
ploughed nor sown?"
"Well, now, of course. . . . Whoever has the land, for
example. ..."
"Wait,—I'm smarter than you be!" said the moujik
slapping the table with his palm. "Answer what you're
asked : did you serve for a soldier?"
[126]
AN. EVENING IN SPRING
"I was a non-commissioned officer of the Tenth Grena¬
diers Regiment of Little Russia, under Count Rumiyant-
zev-Zadunaisky. . . . What else should I be doing but
serving for a soldier?"
"Keep still, don't gabble more'n you're asked! What
year was you took?"
"In 'seventy six, in the month of November."
"Wasn't you ever at fault?"
"Never."
"Did you obey the officers?"
"There was no way of my doing otherwise. I had
taken an oath."
"But what's that scar doing on your neck? Do you
understand what I'm driving at now? 1 am testing
him," said the moujik, with his eye-brows working
surlily, but changing his commanding voice for a more
simple one, and turning toward the mistress his crazed
face, aureately illumined through the tobacco smoke by
the sunset; "1 may be poor, all right, but I've caught
more than one fellow like that! I know enough to come
in out of the rain!"
And again he put on a frown, looking at the beggar:
"Did you bow down before the Holy Cross and the
Cospel?"
"That I have," answered the beggar, who had managed
to take a drink, to wipe his mouth with his sleeve, to sit
up straight again, and to impart to his face and his
misty eyes a dispassionate expression.
The moujik surveyed him with glazed eyes.
"Stand up before me!"
"Don't raise any fuss. Am I talking to you, or am I
not?" the mistress quietly intervened.
[127]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
"Wait, for the love of God," the moujik waved her
away in vexation. "Stand up before me!"
"Honest to God, what are you up to. . . the beggar
began to mumble.
"Stand up, I'm telling you!" yelled the moujik.
"I'm a-going to examine you."
The beggar stood up and shifted from foot to foot.
"Hands at the sides! So. Got a passport?"
"But are you an inspector, or something?"
"Keep still,—don't you dare to jaw back at me like
that! I'm smarter than you be! I went all through
this myself. Show it to me this minute!"
Hastily unhooking his long overcoat, then his sheep¬
skin jacket, the beggar submissively rummaged within
the bosom of his shirt for a long time. Finally he pulled
out a paper wrapped up in a red handkerchief.
"Give it here," said the moujik abruptly.
And, unwrapping the little handkerchief, the beggar
handed him a small frayed gray book, with a large wax
seal. The moujik awkwardly opened it with his gnarled
fingers and pretended to read it, putting it at a dis-
tánce from him, leaning back, and looking at it for a
long time through the tobacco smoke and the red light of
the evening glow.
"So. I see now. Everything ship-shape. Take it
back," he said, his parched lips moving with difficulty.
"I am poor as poor can be; it's the second spring, you
might say, that I'm neither ploughing nor sowing; folks
have done for me. ... I fell down at his feet, the dog
that he is. . . . And yet I'm beyond a price, you might
say. . . . But you just tell me all that you've stolen, or
[128]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
else I'll kill you right off!" he yelled ferociously. "I
know everything; I've gone through all sorts of
things. ... I've been boiled in pitch, you might say,—
that's how I've suffered. ... It is the Lord that gives
us life, but any vermin can take it away. . . . Give the
bag here, and that's all there is to it!"
The mistress merely shook her head, and leaned back
from her embroidery, contemplating it. The beggar
went toward the door and gave the moujik the bag,
just as he had given him the passport. The moujik
took it, and, as he laid it near him on the stool, he said;
"That's right. Now sit down,—let's chat a bit. I'll
get to the bottom of all this here. I'll make an inspec¬
tion of my own, don't you fret!"
And he became silent, staring at the table.
"Spring . . he muttered. "Ah, but what a sorrow¬
ful sabbath-day it is, that a man may not work in the
fields. . . . Go on!" he cried out to some imagined person,
trying to snap his fingers:
"Oh, the lady starts to dance.
And her fingers is all blue. . . ."
And he relapsed into silence. The mistress was smooth¬
ing down the embroidery with her thimble.
"I'm going out to milk the cow," said she, getting up
from her seat. "Don't blow up the fire whilst I am out, or
else you'll burn us out in your drunkenness."
The moujik came to with a start.
"Lordy!" he exclaimed, in hurt tones. "Little mistress!
How can youse say that. . . . You've grown aweary for
your husband, never fear?"
[129]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
"That's none of your worry," said the mistress. "He's
in town, on business. ... He don't go traipsing around
no inns."
"You'd go traipsing, too!" said the moujik.
"Well, what would you have me do, now,—go out on
the wayside, or what? You rich devils are all
right. ..."
The mistress, picking up a milk-pail, went out. It
was growing dark in the hut; everything was quiet, and
the roseate light was suffused in the soft, spring ob¬
scurity. The moujik, with his elbows on the table, was
dozing, as he pulled at an extinguished, crudely made
cigarette. The beggar was sitting peacefully, with never
a sound, leaning against the dark partition, and his face
was almost invisible.
"Do you drink beer?" asked the moujik.
"I do," came the low answer out of the dusk.
The moujik was silent for a while.
"We are vagabones, you and me" said he, morosely
and meditatively. "Poor wayside rubbish. . . . Beggar-
men. ... I feel weary in your company!"
"That's right. . . ."
"But as for beer,—I like it," said the moujik loudly,
after another silence. "She don't keep it, the carrion!
Otherwise I would have drunk some beer . . . and would
have had a snack of something. . . . My tongue's all
soaked,—I want to eat. ... I would have had a snack
and drunk something. . . . Yes. . . . But she, the
mistress, ain't got such a bad face! If I was harnessed
up with one like her, I would. ... All right, never mind,
sit down, sit down ... I got respect for the blind.
Whenever a grand holiday used to come around, I would
[130]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
take twenty of these here blind men, now, and seat them
at table,—you would have had to look and look to find
another household like ours! And they would sing a
stave for me, and make me a bow to boot. ... Do you
know how to sing staves? About Alexei, the Man of
God? 1 do take to that stave. Pick up your cup,—I'll
treat you to some of mine."
Having taken the cup from the beggar's hands, he held
it up to the faint light of the evening glow and half-
filled it. The beggar got up, made a low bow, drained
the cup to the bottom, and again sat down. The moujik
dragged the beggar's bag upon his knees, and, untying
it, began to mutter:
"I sized you up at once . . . I've got enough money of
my own, brother; you're no mate for me. ... I go
through my money in cold blood ... I drink it
away ... I drink away a horse a year, and send a
good ram up in smoke. . . . Aha! So you've run up
against a bit of a moujik,—do you understand who I am?
But still, I feel sorry for you. I understand! There's
thousands of the likes of you roaming about in spring¬
time. . . . There's mire, and sloughs, and never a path or
a road,—but you've got to keep on going, bowing before
everybody. . . . And you can't never tell whether they'll
give you anything or no. . . . Eh, brother! Don't I
understand you?" asked the moujik with bitter sorrow,
and his eyes filled with tears.
"No, this time of the year is not so bad, it's all right,"
said the beggar quietly. "You walk along a field, over
a big, abandoned tract that had once been planned for
a road. . . . All alone, with never another soul nigh.
. . . Then, too, there's the dear sun, and the warm
[131]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
weather. . . . True, there's many a thousand of the likes
of me roaming about. Half of Russia is roaming so."
"I've drunk away two horses," said the moujik, rak¬
ing the crusts out of the bag, pulling out a waist-coat,
the calico, the trousers, and a bast shoe. "I'm goin' to
go all through all your miserable pickings, and old rags.
. . . Hold on! Pants! 1 must buy them from you, soon
as 1 come into a little money. . . . How much?"
The beggar thought for a while.
"Why, I'd let it go for two. . . ."
"I'll give you three!" said the moujik, getting up,
placing the trousers under him, and sitting down upon
them. "They're mine! But where's the other shoe? It
will pass for new,—that means you must have stolen it,
for sure. But then, it's better to be thieving, than to be
grieving your heart out in the springtime, the way 1
am a-doing now; to be perishing from hunger, to be com¬
ing to the end of your rope,—when you take the very
least of the shepherds, and you'll find him at work. . . .
1 have drunk a horse away,—but a beastie like that is
worth more nor any man. . . . But am 1 no ploughman,
no reaper? . . . And now you sing a stave, or I'll kill
you right off!" he cried out. "1 feel weary in your
company!"
In a quavering, modest, but a practiced voice the
beggar began to sing out of the obscurity:
"Once upon a time there lived and were two brethren—
Two blood-brethren, two brethren in God and Christ. . ,
"Eh, two brethren in God and Christ!" the moujik
chimed in, in a high-pitched and piteous tone, straining
his voice.
[132]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
The beggar, with even churchly chanting, continued:
"One dwelt in cold and poverty.
Rotting in his leprosy. . .
"And the o-other was rich!" out of tune, drowning out
the beggar, with tears in his voice, the moujik caught
up the song. "Put more heart in it!" he cried out, as
his voice broke. "Grief has swallowed me up; all men
are having a holiday, all men are sowing,—but here 1
be, biting the earth; it's the second spring that my mother
earth has been barren. . . . Let me have your cup, or
I'll kill you right off! Open the window for me!"
And again the beggar submissively gave him his cup.
Then he started to open the window. Being new, it had
swollen and would not yield for a long while. Finally
it did yield, and flew open. A fresh, pleasant odour of
the fields floated in. It was completely dark out there
now, the roseate night glow had become extinguished,
barely shimmering over the soft darkness of the quiet,
joyous, fecundated field. One could hear the half-drowsy
sky-larks finishing their very last songs.
"Sing, Lazarus,—sing, my own brother!" said the
moujik, extending a full cup to the beggar. "We're two
of a kind, you and me. . . . Only what are you alongside
of me? A vagabond Whereas I am a working man,
that gives food and drink to all those that suffer. . .
He sat down suddenly, losing his balance, and again
dug into the bag.
"And what might you have here?" he asked, examin¬
ing the calico, which had turned the faintest pink in the
barely perceptible light of the evening glow.
"Oh, that's just so. . . . Some women gave it to me,"
[133]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
said the beggar quietly, feeling everything floating be¬
fore him from tipsiness, and that it was time to be going,
and that it was necessary to extricate the trousers from
underneath the moujik somehow.
"How can that be! You lie!" cried out the moujik,
banging the table with his fist. "It's a shroud,—1 can
see! It's a grave-shroud!" he cried out with tears in
his voice, and was silent for a while, hearkening to the
abating songs of the sky-larks. Then he shoved the bag
away from him, and, shaking his tousled head, began
to cry: "I have risen in my pride against God!" said
he bitterly, weeping.
And then, straining himself, he began to sing loudly,
keeping good time:
"Oh my mother gave me birth and she guarded me.
Though I now a sinner be, unforgivable!
All the torments have 1 borne.
All the sorrows have 1 borne,—
Nowheres found 1 joy for me.
Oh, my mother spoke to me
And she cautioned me;
If she only knew, if she only saw.
She could never bear
Such calamity. . . "
"Oh, my soul is a sinner and a creeping thing!" he
cried out wildly, weeping, and suddenly started clapping
his palms with an elderitch laughter: "Beggar-man, give
me your money! I know you through and through; I
feel you through and through,—give it to me! I know
you have it! It can't be otherwise,—give it to me for
love of the Lord God Himself!"
And, swaying, he arose, and the beggar, who had also
[134]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
arisen, felt his legs giving away from fear, felt a dull
ache start in his thighs. The tear-stained face of the
moujik, barely discernible in the twilight, was insane.
"Give it to me!" he repeated, in a voice suddenly grown
hoarse. "Give it to me, for the Love of the Queen of
Heaven! I can see, I can see,—you're grabbing at your
bosom, at your undershirt; that means you've got it,—
all your kind has! Give it to me,—it ain't of no use to
you, anyway, whereas it will set me on my feet forever!
Give it to me of your own will,—brother, don't lead me
into sin!"
"Can't do it," said the beggar, quietly and dispas¬
sionately.
"What?"
"Can't do it. I've been saving for twenty years.
Can't bring myself to do it."
"You ain't goin' to give it to me?" asked the moujik
hoarsely.
"No . . ." said the beggar, barely audible but un¬
shaken.
The moujik was silent for a long while. The beating
of their hearts could be heard in the darkness.
"Very well," said the moujik, with an insane submis-
siveness. "I will kill you; I'll go and find me a stone
and then kill you."
And, swaying, he went toward the threshold.
The beggar, standing erect in the darkness, made a
sweeping and slow sign of the cross. As for the moujik,
he, with his head lowered like a bull, was already walk¬
ing about under the windows.
Then there came a crunching sound,—evidently he was
pulling a stone out of the foundation.
[135]
AN EVENING IN SPRING
And a minute later the door slammed again,—and
the beggar drew himself up still more.
"For the last time I'm a-telling you . . the moujik
mumbled out with his cracked lips, walking up to him
with a big white stone in his hands. "Brother. . .
The beggar was silent. His face could not be seen.
Swinging back with his left arm and catching the beggar
by his neck, the moujik struck hard his shrinking face
with the chill stone. The beggar tore away, backward,
and, as he fell, catching the table with his bast-shoe,
he struck the back of his head against a stool, and then
against the floor. And falling upon him, the moujik,
squeezing the breath out of his chest, frenziedly began
to batter in his throat with the stone.
Ten minutes later he was already far out in the dark,
even field. There were many stars out; the air was fresh;
the earth gave forth a metallic odour. Completely
sobered up, he was walking so rapidly and lightly that
he seemed capable of covering a hundred versts more.
The amulet, torn off the beggar's crucifix, he was holding
tightly clenched in his hand. Later, he flung it from
him into a dark, freshly ploughed field. His eyes were
staring fixedly like an owl's; his teeth were tightly
clenched, like a lobster's claws. Although he had looked
for his cap for a long while, he had been unable to find
it in the darkness; the chillness beat upon his bared
head. His head seemed to him to be of stone.
1914.
[136]
THE SACRIFICE
SIMON NOVICOV, who was living in Oats Ford
with his brother Nicon,—Nicon of the withered
arm,—was burned out in midsummer, about the
fast of St. Peter. The brothers decided to divide their
property, and Simon, intending to leave the Ford, was
putting up a hut for himself near the great highway.
On the evening before Elijah's Day the carpenters had
asked for leave to go home. After supping with the large
family of his brother, in the midst of flies and the clam¬
our of children, he lit his pipe, put on his short sheepskin
coat, and said to his folks:
"It's stuffy in here. I'm going to the building,—I'll
sleep the night there. I'm afraid the tools might be
stole."
"You ought to take the dogs with you, at least," one
of the women counselled him.
"Get along with ye!" said Simon, and went out.
There was a full moon out that night. What with his
thoughts of his future household, Simon did not even
notice how he had climbed up hill by the broad path
to the pasture lands that led out of the village, and, after
putting about a verst behind him on the big road, had
come right up to his hut, which had a ceiling but was,
as yet, unroofed. It stood at the edge of the fields of
grain, in the midst of an empty field. Its sashless win¬
dows gaped blackly, and it was dully glistening against
[137]
THE SACRIFICE
the light of the moon with the ends of its new corner-
beams, with the tow sticking out of its joints, and the
sticks and shavings about its threshold. The aureate
July moon, which had risen far beyond the ravines of
the Ford, hung low and was turbid. Its warm glow
was diffused over everything. The ripe grain glimmered
whitely ahead,—dully, sombrely, like stretches of sand.
But toward the north the sky was altogether overcast,
—a cloud was gathering there. A soft breeze, blowing
from all sides, would at times gather strength and run
fitfully over the rye and oats,—and they would rustle
crisply, disquietingly. The cloud toward the north ap¬
peared immovable, but it was frequently shot with an
eerie, fleeting, golden sheen.
Simon, stooping at the threshold through habit, entered
the hut. It was dark and stuffy within it. The yellow
moonlight, looking in at the unglazed windows, did not
blend with the darkness, but only intensified it. Simon
threw down his short sheepskin coat upon the shavings in
the middle of the hut, directly in the path of one of the
rows of light, and lay down on his back. After drawing
at -his extinguished pipe for a space, he put it in his
pocket, and, after thinking for a little while longer, fell
asleep.
But now the wind began blowing in at the windows,
and, by way of the entry, through the door. The thunder
began muttering dully in the distance. Simon sat up.
The wind increased—it was now running over the fever¬
ishly murmuring grain without cease, and the light of
the moon had become still dimmer. Simon walked out
of the hut, and, turning the corner, was among the crisp
and sultry swishing of the oats, which were as pallid
[138]
THE SACRIFICE
as a shroud. He glanced at the cloud,—the colour of
dark slate, it had taken up half the heavens. The wind
was blowing straight in his face, tugging at his hair and
tangling it, interfering with his vision. The flashes of
lightning, too, interfered with his vision and blinded it,
as they flared up, more and more ominous and fiery.
Simon, making the sign of the cross, got down on his
knees: in the distance, in the midst of the sea of oats,
standing out against the bank of the cloud, a small
throng was advancing toward him. Their heads were
bared; in white girdles, in new short sheepskin coats,
they were with difficulty bearing a seven-foot altar-piece,
painted by some ancient master. The throng was mistily-
spectral, but the image was very plain,—an awesome,
severe countenance, showing red upon a black panel,
which was burnt by candles, dripped over by wax, and
bound at the edges by old, blue-coloured silver.
The wind had parted the hair upon Simon's brow,
pleasantly blowing it back, and Simon, in fear and
joy, bowed down to the ground before the image.
When he finally did raise his head, he saw that the crowd
had halted, awkwardly supporting the image, which was
majestically leaning backward; while upon the cloud was
limned, as in a church picture, a towering, enormous
visage: the mighty, hoary-bearded Elijah himself, clad in
chitons of fire, and sitting, like God-Sabbaoth, upon the
lifelessly-blueish tiers of the lower clouds, while two
greenish-orange rainbows were flaming above him, against
the slate-coloured background. And, flashing his light¬
ning-like orbs, blending his voice with the distant rumble
of the thunder, Elijah spake to Simon:
"Stand up straight, Simon Novicov. Hearken, ye
[139]
THE SACRIFICE
princes and peasants! I am about to judge him, Simon
Novicov,—a peasant tenant of the Eletz province, of the
Predtechev District, of the little village of Oats Ford."
And the entire field, glimmering as white as sand
all around, with all its ears of grain together with the
tares darted forward, bowing down before Elijah, and
amidst their murmur Elijah began to speak;
"I was wroth with thee, Simon Novicov,—I wanted
to punish thee."
"Wherefore, Father?" questioned Simon.
"It is no fitting thing for thee, Simon Novicov, to be
questioning me, Elijah. Thou art the one to make an¬
swer."
"Well, forgive me; let it be as thou dost will," said
Simon.
"Summer before last I did kill Pantelei, thy eldest son,
with a stroke of lightning; wherefore didst thou bury him
in the ground up to his waist, bringing him back to life
through black magic?"
"Forgive me. Father," said Simon, bowing, "I felt
sorry for the young lad. Judge for thyself,—^why, he
would be the one to give me food and drink in my old
age."
"Last summer I did mow, I did trample down thy
rye with hail and with whirl-winds: why didst thou get
knowledge of it beforehand, and sell this rye while it
yet stood uncut?"
"Forgive me. Father," said Simon, bowing. "My
heart felt a forewarning; need did force me to it."
"Well, was it not 1 that burned thee out but just now,
at St. Peter's fast? Wherefore dost thou hasten to build
anew, to divide thy goods with thy brother?"
[140]
THE SACRIFICE
"Forgive me, Father," said Simon, bowing. "My
brother of the withered hand is unlucky; I thought all the
misfortunes were coming from him."
"Shut thy eyes. We shall ponder, we shall take coun¬
sel, as to thy punishment."
Simon shut his eyes; he bowed down his head. The
wind was noisy,—under cover of its noise he was trying to
eavesdrop, on the sly, what Elijah and the peasants were
whispering together about. But there came a heavy peal
of thunder near at hand,—not a thing could he hear.
"No, we can't think of anything," said Elijah with all
his voice. "Thou thyself must counsel me."
"And may 1 open my eyes?" asked Simon.
"There is no need of that. A blind man thinks all the
surer."
"Thou art a queer fellow. Father," Simon smiled
thoughtfully. "Well, what is there to think about? I
shall place a three-rouble candle before thee. . . ."
"Thou hast not the wherewithal. Thou hast spent
everything on building."
"Well, in that case 1 shall go on a pilgrimage to Kiev,
or to Belgorod," said Simon, irresolutely.
"That's just loafing, and a waste of shoe-leather.
Who's going to take care of the household?"
Simon went into deep thought.
"Well, then, slay my little girl Anphiska. She's just
going on three. The girl, to tell the truth, is a kind-
hearted, endearing little creature,—we will all feel sorry
for her; but then, there's no help for it. . . . One can't
get everything with just a little!"
"Lend ear, ye faithful," said Elijah loudly. "I agree."
And the cloud was rent by such a flame that Simon's
[141]
THE SACRIFICE
lids almost caught fire, and the heavens were split by
such a peal that all the earth quivered beneath him.
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God-Sabbaoth!" whis¬
pered Simon. "Heaven defend us!"
When he came to, opening his eyes, Simon beheld only
the dust-laden cloud, the deserted, agitated grain, and
himself, standing on his knees in the midst of its ears.
The wind was whirling in a pillar over the road, and the
moon had grown entirely dimmed.
Simon jumped up on his feet. Forgetting all about his
short coat, about the axes and the planes, he started off
for home, for the village, braving the whirl-winds. The
heavy rain caught him out on the common. The dark
clouds had piled up above the darkened ravines. The
red moon was sinking beyond them. The village was in
heavy slumber, but the cattle in the yards were stirring
uneasily, the roosters were crowing in alarm. And,
running up to his old, half-burned-down hut, Simon
heard the wailing of women within. Nicon of the
withered arm was standing at the threshold, in his sheep¬
skin coat and without a hat; scrawny and wrinkled
beyond his years, he was looking about dully and con¬
fusedly.
"There's been a calamity at your house," he said, and
one could tell by his voice that he was not yet thoroughly
awake.
Simon ran into the hut. The women-folk were running
about in the darkness, screaming, looking for the sulphur
matches. Simon snatched a small box of them out from
behind the image, and lit a tallow-wick. The cradle,
which was hung near the oven, was swinging from
side to side,—the women had been striking against it
[142]
THE SACRIFICE
when they were running about. And within it lay the
Ifttle girl, dead. She had turned all livid, and a quilt
work cap was smouldering on her head.
Simon has been living happily, ever since.
1913.
[143]
AGLAIA
IN that community, in that forest village where Aglaia
was born and had grown up, she was called Anna.
She was bereaved of her father and mother at an
early age. The small-pox visited the village one winter,
and many of those who had gone to their rest were carted
off then to the churchyard in the settlement beyond
Sviyat-Oziero.i Two coffins in one day stood in the hut
of the Skuratovs as well. The little girl had experienced
neither fear nor pity; she had only come to remember
forever that odour which emanated from them, which is
like nothing else on earth and is unknown and oppressive
to the living, and that winter freshness, that cold of the
Lenten thaw before Easter, which had been let into
the hut by the peasants who were carrying the coffins out
to the wide sledge standing under the windows.
In that forest-covered region the villages are few and
small; their crude, log-enclosed yards are scattered with¬
out any order, just as the clayey hummocks permit and as
near as possible to the little rivers, to the lakes. The
folk thereabouts are not so very poor and watch after
their goods, their ancient way of living,—notwithstanding
the fact that they have been going out to hire since time
out of mind, leaving the women to plough the step¬
motherly earth, where it is free of the forest; to mow the
1 Holy Lake. Trans.
[144]
AGLAIA
grasses in the forest ; and in winter to whirr at the weav¬
ing loom. Toward that way of living did Anna's heart
incline in her childhood; endeared to her were both the
black hut and the burning rush light in its cresset.
Katherine, her sister, had long been married. She it
was who managed the house,—at first together with her
husband, who had been taken into the household; and
later, when he began going away for a whole year at a
time, all by herself. Under her eyes the girl grew,
steadily and rapidly; never did she cry, never did she
complain of aught; only she had constant fits of pensive-
ness. If Katherine called to her, asking what the matter
with her was, she would answer simply, saying that her
neck was creaking, and that she was listening to it.
"There," she would say, turning her neck, and her fair
little face, "do you hear it?" "And what are you think¬
ing of?" "Oh, just so. I don't know." During her
childhood she never had anything to do with girls of her
own age, and never did she go anywheres,—only once had
she gone with her sister to that old settlement beyond
Sviyat-Oziero, where in the churchyard, under pine trees,
crosses of pine wood stick up out of the ground, and
where stands a little church of logs, roofed with blackened
tiles of wood that look like scales. That was the
first time that she had been dressed up in bast slippers
and a sarafan of bright coloured linen, and that a
necklace and a yellow kerchief had been bought for
her.
Katherine grieved about her husband and wept; wept,
too, about her childlessness. But, having shed all her
tears, she gave a vow to have no more knowledge of "her
husband. When her husband would come, she would
[145]
AGLAIA
meet him joyously, speaking with him cheerily, painstak¬
ingly looked over his shirts, mending all that stood in
need of mending; she bustled about the oven, and was
pleased when he liked anything; but they slept apart, like
strangers. And when he would go away, she would again
become wearied and quiet. More and more frequently
did she leave the house, staying at a near-by nunnery,
visiting the holy old man Rodion, who was striving for
his soul in a hut within a forest that was beyond that
nunnery. She was perseveringly learning to read, bring¬
ing saintly books from the nunnery, and would read
them aloud; not in her usual voice, but pitching it in high
sing-song. She would be sitting at a table, her eyes cast-
down, holding the book with both hands, while the girl
stood near by, listening and picking a splinter from the
table, looking all about the hut, which was always in the
best of order, Drinking in the sounds of her own voice,
Katherine read on of saints, of martyrs, who had con¬
temned the dark things of our earth for things heavenly,
desirous of crucifying their flesh with its lusts and its
passions. Anna listened attentively to the reading, as to
a chant in an unknown tongue. But as soon as Katherine
would shut the book, she would never ask her to read
some more; the book was always beyond her understand¬
ing.
In adolescence she grew not by days, but by hours.
When she was about thirteen, she became exquisitely
slender, tall, and strong. She was gentle, fair of face,
blue-eyed, but the work she liked was of the commonest,
of the roughest. When summer came on, when Kath¬
arine's husband returned, when the entire village went to
the mowing, Anna, too, went with her people and worked
[146]
AGLAIA
like a grown-up. Only, there is not a great deal of sum¬
mer work in that region. And once more the sisters
would be soon left alone, once more they would return to
their placid existence; and, once more, having done for
the day with the live stock, with the oven, Anna would be
sitting at her sewing, or the loom, the while Katherine
read aloud: of seas, of deserts, of the city of Rome, of
Byzantium, of the miracles and deeds of the first Chris¬
tians. In the black hut in the forest sounded then words
that enchanted the ear: "In the land of Cappadocia, in
the reign of the devout Byzantian emperor, Leo the
Great ... In the days of the patriarchship of the most
holy Joachhim of Alexandria, in ¿Ethiopia, which is most
distant from us. . . ." Thus did Anna come to know of
the virgins and youths, torn to pieces by wild beasts at
pagan circuses; of the heavenly beauty of Barbara, be¬
headed by her cruel, ferocious, unnatural parent; of the
relics of saints, guarded by angels on the Mount of Sinai;
of the warrior Eustacius, converted to the true God by
the call of the Grucified Himself, who burst out like a re¬
fulgent sun between the horns of a deer that he, Eustacius,
had been pursuing in the chase; of the labours of Sabbas
the Sainted, that dwelt in the Vale of Fires; and of many,
many others, who had spent their bitter days nigh desert
springs, in crypts, and in mountain cenobies. . . . During
her adolescence she had beheld herself in a dream, clad in
a long linen shift and with a crown of iron on her head.
And Katherine had told her: "That stands for dying,
sister,—for an early death."
And when she was going on fifteen, she became alto¬
gether maidenly, and folks marvelled at her loveliness;
the aureately-white colour of her face was just the least
[147]
AGLAIA
bit tinged with a delicate blush ; her eyebrows were bushy,
of a light flaxen colour, her eyes blue; she was light, well-
made,—unless it were that she was disproportionately tall,
slender, and long of arm; quietly and beautifully did she
raise her lashes. The winter that year was a rigorous one.
The forests, the lakes, were snowed under; the openings in
the ice were thickly frozen over; the frosty wind burned;
and of dawns, two mirror-like, rainbow-tinged suns were
flashing at the same time. Before the Christmas holidays
Katherine ate hxtz.à-znà-kvass pudding, and dried oat¬
meal; but Anna would nourish herself only with bread:
"I want to fast till I get another prophetic dream," she
had told her sister. And toward the New Year again
did she have a dream: she saw an early, frosty morning;
the blinding, icy sun seemed to have just rolled out from
beyond the snow-drifts, and a cutting wind was making
her catch her breath; she was flying upon skiis against the
wind, toward the sun, over the white plains, in pursuit of
some wondrous ermine,—but she suddenly tumbled off
into some abyss, and was blinded, stifled in the cloud of
snow dust swirling up at the edge of the precipice from
under the skiis.
She could understand nothing of this dream; but Anna,
during all New Year's day, did not once look into her
sister's face. The priests were going through the village;
when they came to see the Skuratovs in their turn, she
hid behind the curtains of the sleeping place above the
big oven. During that winter, not having yet become
settled in her intentions, she was frequently dreamy, and
Katherine would say to her: "I have long been calling
you, to go to Father Rodion,—he would ease you of all
your worries!"
[148]
AGLAIA
She read to her that winter of Alexis, the Man of God;
and of John, who dwelt in a hut of branches,—both had
died in poverty at the gates of their well-born parents;
she read of Simeon Stylites, who had rotted alive
while standing upon a pillar of stone. Anna asked her:
"But why doesn't Father Rodion stand on a pillar?"
And she answered, that the tasks of holy people are
varied, that our Russian martyrs had sought salvation,
for the most part, in the caverns of Kiev,—and, later on,
within impassable forests; or else had attained the
Kingdom of Heaven as naked, useless innocents. During
that winter did Anna find out about the Russian saints as
well,—her spiritual forefathers: about Matthew the
Clear-Seeing, upon whom was bestowed the gift of seeing
only the dark and base things of this world, of penetrating
into the innermost hidden recesses of filth in the hearts of
men, of beholding clairvoyantly the visages of under¬
ground devils and of hearing their impious counsellings.
She heard of Mark the Grave Digger, who had dedicated
himself to the burial of the dead, and who through his
incessant proximity to Death had gained such sway over
it that it trembled at the sound of his voice; she heard of
Isaac the Anchorite, who had clad his body in the un¬
dressed hide of a goat which had grown to his skin for¬
ever, and who gave himself up to mad dances with evil
spirits, that enticed him of nights into skipping and
reeling to their noisy calls, reeds, tympani and dul¬
cimers. . . . "From him, from Isaac, started all these in¬
nocents," Katherine had told her. "And how many
there were of them afterward, none can reckon up!
Father Rodion said thus: 'There have been none of them
in any other land save ours; only to us did the Lord send
[149]
AGLAIA
them as a visitation for our great sins, and through His
great grace.' " And she added what she had heard in the
nunnery,—the grievous tale of how Russia had retreated
out of Kiev into impassable forests and morasses, into
its little towns of bast, under the cruel rule of the princes
of Muscovy; what Russia had endured from seditions,
from internicine wars, from ferocious Tartar hordes and
from other chastisements of God: from plague and
famine, from fire and heavenly portents. There was
then, said she, such a vast multitude of the folks of God,
suffering and acting the innocent for the sake of Christ,
that the holy songs were not to be heard for their squeal¬
ing and clamouring in the churches. And a considerable
number among them, said she, were canonized among the
heavenly throng. There was Simon, from the, forests of
the Volga regions, who wandered over desert waste lands,
hiding himself from the sight of man, clad only in a torn
shift, and afterward, dwelling in a city, he was castigated
every day by its citizens for his uselessness, and expired
from the wounds inflicted during such castigations.
There was Procopius, who took upon himself ceaseless
tortures in the town of Viatka, for that he would, in the
night-time, clamber up into belfries and ring the bells in
quick alarum, as though there were a fiery conflagration.
There is a Procopius that was born in the region of Zir-
yan, amongst savages, amongst hunters after beasts; all
his life did he go about with three coal-rakes in his hands;
he did adore the desert places, the mournful wooded
banks of the Sukhona, where, perched upon a little bowl¬
der, he did with tears pray for those that sailed upon it.
There was Jacob the Beatified-, who sailed in an oaken
log, hollowed out into a coffin, upon an ice block, down
[150]
AGLAIA
the river Msta to the benighted dwellers of that poor
region; there is John the Hairy, from near Rostov-the-
Greater, whose hair was so unruly that it threw into a
panic all whosoever might behold it; there was John of
Vologda, called Big Cap, small of stature, wrinkled of
face, all hung over with crosses,—until his very death he
never took off his head covering, that was like to a pot
of cast-iron; there was Basil, that went about naked, who
wore for apparel, in winter cold and summer heat, only
iron chains and a little handkerchief that he bore in his
hand. . . . "Now, sister," Katherine had said, "they are
standing before the face of the Lord, rejoicing among the
throng of His Saints; as for their imperishable relics,
they repose within shrines of cypress and of silver, in the
holiest of cathedrals, by the side of kings and prelates!"
"But why doesn't Father Rodion be an innocent?"
again asked Anna. And Katherine answered that he had
followed in the steps of those who imitated not Isaac, but
Sergius of Radonezh; he had followed in the steps of the
men who had founded monasteries in forests. Father
Rodion, said she, had at first sought salvation in an
ancient and famed desert place, located in the same re¬
gions where, in the midst of a dreary ^orest, in the hollow
trunk of an oak, three centuries old, agr^at saint had once
dwelt. There had Father Rodion served a strict novitiate
and taken the habit; had merited through the tears of his
repentance, and through his mercilessness toward the
flesh, a sight of the countenance of the Queen of Fleaven
Herself; he had fulfilled his vow of seven years' seclusion
and seven years' silence, but he was not satisfied with
that,—he left the monastery, and had come,—it was now
many, many years ago,-—into these forests. Fie had put
[151]
AGLAIA
on shoes of bast, a white robe of sack-cloth, a black stole
with an eight-pointed cross upon it, with a depiction of
the skull and bones of Adam; he subsists only upon
water and uncooked swamp-grass; he has barred the
little window of his cabin with a holy icon; he sleeps in a
coffin, under an ever-lit holy lamp, and at the hour of
every midnight he is incessantly beset by howling beasts,
by throngs of ravening dead men, and by devils. . . .
On her fifteenth birthday, at that very age when a
maid ought to become a bride, Anna forsook the world
forever.
Spring that year came early and was a warm one.
The berries ripened in the woods beyond number; the
grasses were waist-high, and at the beginning of the Fast
of St. Peter ^ the entire village went out to mow them.
Anna worked with a will; became sunburned among the
grasses and the flowers; the blush flamed darker upon
her face; the kerchief, pushed lower over the forehead,
hid her warm glance. But once, in the meadow, a great
glistening snake with an emerald head wound itself
around her bare foot. Seizing the snake with her slim
and long hand, tearing away its icy and slippery plait,
Anna cast it far from her without even lifting her face.
But she was very much scared,—she had become whiter
than linen. And Katherine said to her: "This, sister,
is the third sign for thee: dread the Arch-Tempter, a
dangerous time is coming for thee!" And it may have
been the fright, or it might have been these words,—
but for a week after that the deathly pallor did not de¬
part from Anna's face. And just before St. Peter's Day,
suddenly and unexpectedly, she begged to go to the
^ In midsummer. Trans.
[152]
AGLAIA
nunnery to hear the all-night mass,—and did go, and
did spend the night there, and in the morning was found
worthy of staying in the crowd of humble folk near the
threshold of the recluse. And a great grace did he show
to her: out of all the crowd did he remark her and did
beckon her to him. And she came out of his cabin with
her head bent low, covering half her face with her ker¬
chief, having pushed it down over the fire of her flaming
cheeks, and in the confusion of her emotions did not see
the ground beneath her. And a chosen vessel, a sacrifice
to God, had he called her; had lit two little wax tapers,
and, taking one himself and giving the other to her, had
stood a long while in prayer before an image. And after¬
wards he had ordered her to kiss that image,—and had
given her his blessing to enter the nunnery for a novitiate
within a short while. "My joy,—thou simple sacrifice!"
he had said to her. "Be thou a bride not of this earth
but of heaven! I know, full well, thy sister hath pre¬
pared thee. 1 shall concern myself with this also, sinner
that I am."
In the nunnery, in the monastic atmosphere, aban¬
doning the world and her own will for the sake of
her spiritual godfather, Anna, who has been named
Aglaia upon taking the veil, passed three and thirty
months. And when the thirty-third month was almost
run, she did depart this life.
How she had lived there, how she had sought her
salvation, is known to none, for the remoteness of time.
But still some things have remained in the memory of
the people. Once upon a time, some peasant pilgrim
women, from various and distant places, were bound
for that wooded region where Anna had been born.
[153]
AGLAIA
Near a small river which they had to cross, they met the
usual wanderer over holy places, in appearance ill-
favoured, tattered,—even, to put it plainly, queer, for the
reason that his eyes, underneath a derby that had once
been high in the world, were bandaged with a kerchief.
The women began questioning him about the ways, the
roads to the nunnery; about Father Rodion himself, and
about Anna. He, in answering them, spoke a bit about
himself at first: "1, now, little sisters, don't know such
a terrible lot, myself ; however, 1 can chat a bit with you,
for 1 am returning from those very parts. You," he
said, "must feel uncanny in my company, and 1 don't
wonder at it: I'm not a sweet sight to many; whoever 1
meet, whether he be afoot or on horseback, seeing a little
old pilgrim going through a forest, hobbling along all by
his lonesome with a white kerchief over his eyes, and.
to boot, chanting psalms to God,—of course, he's
taken aback. But then, for my sins, far too greedy and
quick are my eyes; my sight is so rare and penetrating,
that I can see even at night, like a cat; and being in
general sharp-sighted beyond measure, because 1 don't
travel with other folk but keep to myself,—^well, for that
reason have 1 resolved to curb a little my corporeal
sight. . . ." Then he began telling them how great a
distance, by his reckoning, the pilgrim women had left
to go; toward what regions they should direct their way;
where they might have lodgings and rest; and what sort
of a place the nunnery was.
"First," said he, "will come the settlement near Sviyat-
Oziero; then that very village where Anna was born;
and then you'll see another lake, belonging to the convent,
which lake, though shallow, is of a decent size, and you'll
[154]
AGLAIA
have to sail over this lake in a boat. And, as soon as
you get out of the boat, right there is the convent it¬
self, so near you might almost reach it with your hand.
Of course, there's no end of woods on the other shore
as well, and through the trees you can see, as always,
the walls of the convents, the domes of chapels, the cells,
the hostels. . .
Then, for a long while, he related to them the life of
Rodion, the childhood and adolescence of Anna, and, in
the end, he told them of her stay in the nunnery:
"Oh, her stay was not a long one," said he. "It is a
pity you say, with such beauty and youth? Of course,
to such fools as we, it would be a piteous thing. But
it's plain to be seen Father Rodion knew well what he
was about. For be was that way with everybody,—
kindly, and meek, and gladsome, yet set on having his
way, unto mercilessness; but he was especially so with
Aglaia. I, my little ones, have been at the spot where
she is resting. ... A long little grave, beautiful, all grown
over with grass, all green. . . . And I won't hide any¬
thing,—I won't hide that it was there, at her grave, that
I thought of tying up my eyes; it was Aglaia's example
that gave me the idea; for she, 1 must tell you, during
all her stay in the nunnery, did not for a single hour
raise her eyes; even as she had pushed the veil down
over them, so did it remain, and she was so sparing of her
speech, so evasive, that even Father Rodion himself won¬
dered at her. And yet, come to think of it, it was no
easy matter for her to bear her task—to bid eternal
farewell to the world, to the face of mankind! And
her work in the nunnery was the very hardest that she
could find, while her nights she spent standing in prayer.
[155]
AGLAIA
But then, how Father Rodion had come to love her! He
marked her out from all the rest, let her come every day
into his little cabin; held long converse with her about
the future fame of the nunnery; even revealed his vi¬
sions to her,—with a strict order of silence. Well, and
so she burned out, like a candle, in the briefest time. . . .
Again do you sigh, being sorry? 1 do agree with you, it
is a sad thing! But I will tell you something far greater;
for her great humility, for her disregard of this world,
for her silence and for her toiling beyond her strength,
he wrought a thing unheard of; toward the end of the
third year of her striving, he invested her with the habit,
and afterward, after prayer and holy meditation, he did
summon her to him on a certain fearsome hour and com¬
manded her to her end. Yes, that is just the way he
spoke to her; 'My joy, thy time has come! Remain
thou in my memory just as glorious as thou now art,
standing before me in this hour; depart to God!' And
what think ye? Within four and twenty hours she
did forsake this life. She lay down, burning as with
a fire,—and passed out. True, he did console her,—he
confided to her before her end that by reason of her
not having been able, during the first days of her
novitiate, to keep just a few things of his secret discourses,
only her lips would be rotted. He offered up silver
coins for her funeral, and coppers to be given out at her
burial; a bundle of candles for a forty days' mass for
her; a yellow candle worth a whole rouble for her coffin;
and the coffin itself,—rounded out, of oak, hollowed out
of one piece. And he blessed her as she was laid out,
slender and just a trifle too tall, within that coffin, with
her hair all let out, in two shroud-shifts. She was in an
[156]
AGLAIA
under-cassock of white, with a black selvage all around,
and in a black mantle with white crosses on top of it; upon
her little head they put a green little cap of velvet,
broidered with gold; on top of the cap a small skull
cap; and after that they tied a blue shawl with tassels
upon her head, and then they put a leathern rosary into
her dear hands. . . . Oh, 1 can't tell how fine they ar¬
rayed her. And yet, little ones, there is a spiteful rumour
which is of the devil, that she did not want to die,—oh,
how she didn't want to!
"Departing in such youth and in such beauty, she took
her farewell of everybody, so they say, with tears, say¬
ing to all, in a loud voice, 'Forgive me!' And at the
very last she closed her eyes and said distinctly; 'And
against thee, Mother-Earth, have I sinned in body and
soul,—wilt thou forgive me?' And those words are fear¬
ful words: touching their foreheads to the earth, men
uttered them in the prayer for repentance throughout
ancient Russia, before Whitsuntide, before the heathen
day of the water nixies."
1916.
[157]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
Acertain Ivlev was once travelling, in the be¬
ginning of June, to a distant region of his Prov¬
ence.
The tarantass, with its dusty top all awry, had
been given him by his brother-in-law, at whose estate
he was passing the summer. The troika ^ of small but
well-broken horses, with thick matted manes, he had
hired in the village, from a wealthy moujik. They
were driven by a son of that moujik, a lad of eighteen,
—a plodding fellow, a good husbandman. He was all
the time cogitating about something with displeasure,
seemed to be offended at something, could not take a
joke. And, having become convinced that there was no
possibility of getting into talk with him, Ivlev yielded to
that peaceful and aimless observation, which chimes in
so well with the beat of hoofs and the jangling of little
bells.
The drive was very pleasant at first: the day was
warm, grayish: the road a much travelled one; the
meadowlands were full of flowers and sky-larks; from
the grain-fields, from the dove-coloured fields of rye,
spreading onward as far as the eye could see, a pleasant
little breeze was blowing, bearing flower pollen over
slanting masses of the grain and rye, at times making
this pollen dust swirl like smoke,—and the distance even
1 Three horses, harnessed abreast. Trans.
[158]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
seemed misty from it. The lad, in a new cap and a
clumsy jacket made of lustrine, was sitting upright; the
fact that the horses were completely entrusted to him,
and that he was wearing his best clothes, made him
especially serious. As for the horses, they coughed and
ran along without hurrying; the off-horse at times made
the whiffle-tree scrape against the wheel, at others strained
in his harness, and one horse-shoe was constantly flashing
under him with its white steel.
"Will we stop at the count's?" asked the lad, without
turning around, when a village came into view ahead
of them, enclosing the horizon with its hedges and gar¬
den.
"What for?" said Ivlev.
The lad was silent for a time, and having knocked
off with a whip a large gadfly that had stuck to a horse,
answered sombrely;
"Why, to drink tea. . . ."
"It isn't tea you've got on your mind," said Ivlev,
"you're always trying to save the horses."
"It isn't travelling that worries a horse,—it's food,"
answered the lad with conviction.
Ivlev looked about him: the weather had turned
bleaker, discoloured clouds had gathered from all sides,
and drops of rain were already falling,—these unassum¬
ing days always wind up with a downpour. ... An old
man in spectacles, who was ploughing near the village,
said that only the young countess was at home, but they
drove up never the less. The young fellow pulled a
long coat over his shoulders, and satisfied with the fact
that the horses were resting, was calmly getting soaked
under the rain upon the driver's seat of the tarantass,
[159]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
which had been drawn up in the middle of the dirty
yard, near a stone trough that had sunk into the ground,
which ground was all trampled over by the hoofs of
cattle. He was inspecting his boots, was adjusting with
his whip-stock the breech-band of the shaft-horse; while
Ivlev sat in the drawing room, which was darkening from
the rain. He was chatting with the countess and await¬
ing tea. There was already a smell of shavings burning;
the thick green smoke of the samovar, which a bare¬
footed wench on the steps was stuffing with bundles of
brightly burning sticks, pouring kerosene over them,
floated past the window. The countess was in a capa¬
cious pink dressing gown, which showed her powdered
bosom; she smoked, inhaling deeply; she patted her hair
frequently, baring her firm and rounded arms to the
shoulders; inhaling the smoke and laughing, she kept
on leading the talk around to love, and, among other
things told him about her near neighbour, the land¬
owner Khvoshchinsky, who, as Ivlev had known ever
since childhood, had ^11 his life long been a maniac over
his love for his chambermaid Lushka, who had died in
early youth. "Ah, this legendary Lushka!" Ivlev had
remarked jestingly, slightly confused over his confession.
"Because this queer fellow had made a divinity of her,
had dedicated all his life to insane dreams of her, I,
in my youth, was almost in love with her: I fancied, in
thinking of her, God knows what; although, they do
say, she was not at all good-looking." "Yes?" said the
countess, without listening. "Why, he died this winter,
you know. And Pisarev,—the only one whose visits he
tolerated, because of their old friendship,—affirms that
in everything else he was not in the least insane, and I be-
[160]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
Heve it,—he was simply different from the run of the
men of to-day. . . Finally the barefooted wench with
unusual carefullness served him with a glass of strong
gray tea out of a teapot, and with a small basket of fly-
specked tea cookies.
When they started off again, the rain had set in in
earnest. It was necessary to raise the top, to cover up
with the calcined, shrunken apron, to sit all hunched
up. The horses clattered their muffled bells; little
streams ran over their dark and glistening haunches; the
grasses swished succulently under their wheels as they
passed some boundary or other, among the fields of grain,
through which the young fellow had driven in the hope
of shortening the way; the warm rye-scented air gathered
underneath the top, blending with the odour of the old
tarantass. . . . "So that's how things are,—Khvoshchin-
sky has died," Ivlev was thinking. "I absolutely must
drive up, just to have a glance at this deserted sanctuary
of the mysterious Lushka. . . . But what sort of a man
was this Khvoshchinsky? A madman, or simply some sort
of an overwhelmed soul, all centred in one thing?" To
Judge by the stories of old land-owners, who were of the
same age as Khvoshchinsky, he had at one time passed
for an extraordinarily clever fellow in this prov¬
ince. And suddenly there fell upon him this love, this
Lushka; then her unexpected death came,—and every¬
thing went to rack and ruin. He locked himself up in
the house, in that room where Lushka had lived and died,
and had sat there through more than twenty years,—
not only not going out anywhere, but not showing him¬
self to anybody even on his own estate. He had sat a
hole through and through the mattress on Lushka's bed,
[161]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
and ascribed literally everything that took place in the
world to Lushka's influence: if there were a thunder¬
storm,—it was Lushka who sent it; if a war were de¬
clared,—it meant that Lushka had so decided; if the har¬
vest happened to be bad,—the peasants had not succeeded
in pleasing Lushka. . .
"You're driving to Khvoshchinsky's, aren't you?"
called out Ivlev, putting his head out in the rain.
"To Khvoshchinsky's," came from the lad, indistinctly
through the noise of the rain; water was running down
from his drooping cap by this time. "Going up Pisarev's
hill. . . ."
Ivlev did not know any such road. The settlements
were constantly becoming poorer and farther away from
the world. The boundary came to an end, the horses
were going at a walk, and brought the careening taran-
tass through a washed-out hollow to the bottom of a
little hill, into some still unmown meadows, the green
declivities of which stood out mournfully against the
low-lying clouds. Then the road, now disappearing, now
finding itself anew, began to wind in and out, along the
bottoms of gullies, through ravines filled with alder
bushes and branching osiers. They came upon some¬
body's little apiary—several small logs standing upon a
slope, among tall grass with wild strawberries glimmering
red through it. . . . They made a detour of some old
dam, sunk among nettles, and a pond long since dried
up—a deep hollow, grown over with burdocks taller than
a man in height. ... A pair of black snipe with a
mournful cry darted out of them towards the rainy
sky. . . . But upon the dam, amidst the nettles, an old,
big bush was blossoming out with little pale pink
[162]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
flowers,—that charming little tree which is called God's
Own Tree,^—and Ivlev suddenly recalled the localities,
recalled that he had ridden through here more than once
on horseback in his youth, with a gun slung over his
shoulders. . . .
"They do say that she drowned herself right here,"
said the young fellow unexpectedly.
"You're talking about the mistress of Khvoshchinsky,
aren't you?" asked Ivlev. "That isn't so; she didn't
even think of drowning."
"No,—she did drown herself," said the lad, "only,
they think that he went mad from his poverty, most
likely, and not on account of her. . . ."
And after a silence, he roughly added:
"Well, we ought to be driving on again. . . . For this
same Khvoshchinskoë now. . . . Look at how petered out
them horses be!"
"Suit yourself," said Ivlev.
Upon the hillock whither the road (now lead-coloured
from the rain) led, upon a clearing from which the trees
had been carried away, among the wet, rotting chips
and leaves, among the stumps and young aspen growths,
with their bitter and fresh scent, a solitary hut was
standing. There was never a soul around,—only the
singing green-finches, sitting under the rain upon tall
flowers, rang through the entire thin forest that stretched
upward beyond the hut. But when the troika,
splashing through the mud, had come abreast of its
threshold, a whole pack of huge hounds dashed out from
somewhere,—black, chocolate, and smoke-coloured,—
and with ferocious baying swirled around the horses,
lAbrotanum; southern wood. Trans.
[163]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
jumping up to their very muzzles, turning head over heels
as they ran, and even spinning up to the very top of the
tarantass. At the same time, and just as unexpectedly,
the sky over the tarantass was split by a deafening peal
of thunder, which had not sounded once during the day,
while the young fellow began in a rage to lash the dogs
with his whip, and the horses dashed away at a gallop
among the aspen trunks that began flashing before the
eyes. . . .
The village of Khvoshchinskoë could already be seen
beyond the forest. The hounds lost ground and at once
grew quiet, trotting back in a business-like manner; the
forest gave way and again fields opened up ahead. Eve¬
ning was coming on, and one could not determine now
whether the storm-clouds, on three sides, were disper¬
sing or encroaching. On the left was one almost black,
with blue openings through which light showed; on the
right, a hoary one, rumbling with ceaseless thunder; while
toward the west, from Khvoshchinsky's estate, from
beyond the sloping hills over the river valley, was a
turbidly blue one, with dusty streaks of rain through
which could be seen the roseate mountains of clouds
piled in the distance. But the rain was abating about
the tarantass, and Ivlev, standing up, all bespattered with
mud, threw back with pleasure the top, now grown heavy,
and freely breathed in the fragrant dampness of the
field.
He was looking at the approaching estate, was be¬
holding, at last, that of which he had heard so much;
but, even as formerly, it seemed to him that Lushka had
lived and died not twenty years ago, but almost in times
immemorial. Looking out over the bottom-land, all
[164]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
trace of the shallow little river was lost in the lush veg¬
etation, over which a white king-fisher was soaring.
Further on, on a mound, lay rows of hay, grown dark
from the rain; among them, far apart from one an¬
other, were spread out ancient silvery poplars. The
house, rather a large one and at one time white, with
its wet roof glistening, stood upon an absolutely bare
spot. There was neither garden, nor any outbuildings
around it,—only two pillars of brick in lieu of gates,
and with burdocks growing in the ditches. When the
horses had crossed the little river by a ford and had gone
up the hill, some woman, in a man's summer overcoat with
its pockets hanging down, was driving a few turkey hens
through the burdocks. The façade of the house was un¬
usually bleak; it had few windows, and all of them were
small, and set within thick walls. But then, the sombre
front entrances were enormous. From one of them a
young man in the gray blouse of a high-school student,
belted with a broad strap, was looking with wonder at
the arrivals; he was black-haired, with handsome
eyes, and of very pleasing appearance, although his
face was pale, and as spotted with freckles as a bird's
egg-
It was necessary to explain the visit in some way.
Having climbed up to the entrance and given his name,
Ivlev said that he wanted to see, and perhaps to buy,
the library that, so the countess had said, had been left
by the deceased. And the young man, flushing deeply
and pulling down his blouse from behind, at once led
him into the house. "So this, then, is the son of the
famous Lushka!" reflected Ivlev, throwing a rapid glance
at everything that met his eyes. He looked back fre-
[165]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
quently and said anything that came to mind first, just
so as to have an additional glance at the master of
the house, who appeared too youthful for his years.
The latter answered hurriedly, but monosyllabically; he
was evidently confused both by his bashfulness and his
greed. That he was fearfully glad over the possibility
of selling the books, and that he had conceived the notion
of not parting with them at a cheap price, was apparent
from his very first words, from that awkward hastiness
with which he announced that books such as those in
his possession could not be gotten for any amount of
money. Through the half-dark entry, which was spread
with straw rusty from dampness, he led Ivlev into a
large ante-room.
"So this is where your father lived?" asked Ivlev, enter¬
ing and taking off his hat.
"Yes, yes,—here," the young man hastened to answer.
"That is, of course, not just here ... for they used to
sit in the bedroom most of all . . . but, of course, they
came here also. . . "
"Yes, 1 know,—for he was ill," said Ivlev.
The young man flared up.
"That is, ill in what way?" he said, and manlier notes
sounded in his voice. "That's all gossip; he was not
at all ailing mentally. ... he simply read all the
time, and did not go out anywhere, that is all. . . . But
no, don't you take your hat off, please,—it's very cold
here, for we don't live in this half of the building. . . "
True, it was far chillier in the house than it was out
in the air. In the dismal ante-room, its walls pasted
with newspapers, upon the sill of a window, dismal from
the storm clouds, was standing a quail cage made out
[166]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
of bast. A little gray bag was hopping over the floor
of its own volition. Bending down, the young man
captured it and put it down on a bench, and Ivlev under¬
stood that there was a quail imprisoned in the little
bag. They next entered the parlour. This room, with
its windows toward the west and toward the north, took
up almost half the entire house. Through one window,
against the gold of the evening glow that showed through
the clearing clouds, could be seen a century-old weeping
birch tree, all black; through the remaining window, a
tall, withering acacia tree. The front corner was taken
up by a shrine without glass, with images standing and
hanging within it; among them stood out, both by its
great size and its antiquity, one trimmed with silver,
and upon this image, their wax gleaming yellow like
dead flesh, were lying wedding candles tied with pale-
green bows.
"Pardon me, please," Ivlev was about to ask, over¬
coming his scruples, "but, did your father really. . . ."
"No, that's just so," mumbled the young man, instantly
grasping his meaning. "He bought these candles after
her death already. . . . And he even wore a wedding
ring all the time."
The furniture in this parlour was crude. But then, in
the spaces between the windows stood exquisite what¬
nots, crowded from top to bottom with porcelain knick-
knacks, crystal, tea china, and goblets rimmed with gold.
As for the floor, it was entirely strewn over with dead
bees, that crackled under foot. The empty parlour, as
well, was strewed with the bees. Having traversed it,
and also some other sombre room with a sleeping ledge
built against the side of a stove, the young man came
[167]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
to a stop before a low little door and took a big key
out of his trousers'-pocket. Having turned it with dif¬
ficulty in the rusty key-hole, he threw open the door,
mumbling something,—and Ivlev saw a cubby-hole with
two windows: against one wall stood a bare iron cot
without any bedding; against another—two little book¬
cases of bird's-eye birch.
"So this is the library?" asked Ivlev, walking up to
one of these.
And the young man, having hastened to answer in the
affirmative, helped him to open the little book-case, and
began to follow his hands covetously.
The strangest of books did this library consist of!
Ivlev would open the thick bindings, would turn over
a rough, gray page, and would read: The Forbidden
Ground. . . . The Morning Star and Night Dcernons. . . .
Reflections on the Mysteries of Creation. ... A Mar¬
vellous Journey into a Magick Region. ... The Latest
Dream Book. . . . And yet his hands would persist in
trembling slightly. So this was what that lonely soul,
which had secluded itself forever from the world in this
little room and had but lately quitted it, had nurtured it¬
self upon? . . . But perhaps this soul had not really
been insane, after all?
" 'There is a state. . . The lines of Baratynsky
came into Ivlev's mind:
There is a state,—
But what name shall it be given?
'Tis neither dream nor waking, wavering twixt both;
And comprehending it within him, man
To frenzy's verge is driven. . . ,
[168]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOXE
It had cleared up in the west; gold was peeping out
from behind the beautiful lavender-coloured clouds and
strangely illumined this humble sanctuary of love,—a
love beyond understanding, which had transformed into
some ecstatic existence a whole life that perhaps was
destined to be a most commonplace one had there not
happened to be a certain Lushka, mysterious in her en¬
chantment. . . .
Taking a little foot-stool from under the cot, Ivlev
sat down before the cabinet and took out his cigar¬
ettes, imperceptibly scrutinizing and memorizing the
room.
"Do you smoke?" he asked the young man who was
bending over him.
The latter again blushed. "1 do," he mumbled, and
tried to smile. "That is, 1 don't exactly smoke,—rather,
I try to jolly myself. . . . But, however, if 1 may,—
very much obliged to you. . . ."
And, having clumsily taken a cigarette, he lit it with
his hands trembling, walked over to the window-sill and
sat down upon it, barring out the yellow light of the
evening glow.
"And what is this?" asked Ivlev, bending down to the
third shelf, upon which lay only a single volume, very
small, resembling a prayer-book, and where also stood a
casket whose corners were trimmed with silver, grown
black with time.
"That's just . . . the necklace of my late mother,"
answered the young man, after a confused hesitation, but
trying to speak negligently.
"May 1 have a look?"
[169]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
"If you please , . . although it really is very simple
... it won't interest you. . .
And opening the casket, Ivlev saw a much worn bit
of cord, a string of very cheap little round blue globules,
resembling stone ones. And such emotion possessed him
upon glancing at these globules, which had at one time
lain upon the neck of her whose lot it was to be so be¬
loved, and whose dim image could no longer be anything
but beautiful, that his eyes grew dim from the beating
of his heart. . . . Having looked his fill, Ivlev carefully
put the casket back in its place; he then took up the
little book. This was a tiny, beautifully made Grammar
of Love, or the Art of Loving and of Being Loved in
Return, published almost a hundred years ago.
"This book, to my regret, I cannot sell," said the young
man with difficulty. "It's very valuable. ... He even
put it under his pillow."
"But perhaps you will let me have just a look at
it?" said Ivlev.
"If you please," said the young man in a whisper.
And, overcoming his compunctions, vaguely oppressed
by the young man's gaze, Ivlev began slowly turning the
leaves of The Grammar of Love. It was all divided into
short chapters: Of Beauty, Of the Heart, Of the Mind,
Of Deportment, Of Love's Signs, Of Attack and Defense,
Of Falling Out and Reconciliation, Of Platonic Love.
. . . Each chapter consisted of very brief, elegant, at times
very subtle, sentences, and some of them were very
lightly marked by a pen in red ink. "Love is not a
mere episode in our Life," Ivlev read. "Our Reason
contradicts the Heart and doth not convince the latter."
"Women are never so strong as when they arm themselves
[170]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
with Weakness." 'We adore Woman because she
holds sovereign sway over our Ideal Dream." "Vanity
chooses; True Love,—never." "A Woman of Beauty
must take second place; the first belongs to the Woman
of Charm. It is the latter that becomes the Sovereign
of our Heart; before we have rendered our Heart an ac¬
count of Her, our Heart becomes a Captive to Love for
Eternity. . . ." Then followed An Explanation of the
Language of Flowers, and again here and there were
marked passages:
Wild Poppy—Sadness.
Priest's Cap—Thy alluring beauty is imprinted on my heart.
Periwinkle—Sweet Remembrances.
The Mournful Geranium—Melancholy.
Worm-wood—Eternal Bittnerness.
While upon a blank page at the very end, in tiny, bead¬
like characters, was a stanza of eight lines, written in
the same ink. The young man stretched out his neck
as he peeped into The Grammar of Love, and said with
a forced smile:
"He wrote that himself."
Half an hour later, Ivlev bade him good-bye with
relief. Out of all the books he had bought only this
small volume at a high price. The turbidly-golden eve¬
ning glow was fading in the clouds beyond the fields,
yellowly reflected in the puddles; the fields were wet
and green. The lad was not in any hurry, but Ivlev
did not spur him on. The young fellow was saying that
that woman who had been driving the turkey hens
through the burdocks before was the deacon's wife; that
young Khvoshchinsky has been living with her for a
[171]
THE GRAMMAR OF LOVE
long time now, that he already has children. Ivlev was
not listening. He was constantly thinking of Lushka;
of her necklace, which had left a complex feeling within
him, resembling that which he had once experienced in
a little Italian town upon beholding the relics of a fe¬
male saint. "She has come into my life forever!" he
reflected. And, taking The Grammar of Love out of
his pocket, he slowly read over, by the light of the eve¬
ning glow, the verses written upon its last page;
We were assigned a thorny wreath
In this world, where all evils be;
The love 1 bore was unto death,—
It died with me.
But—"Live thou in legends of Love's bliss!"
Shall greet it hearts that with Love strove;
And to their grandchildren shall show this
Grammar of Love.
1915.
[172]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
1
The sky had been silvery with stars all night long,
the fields beyond the garden and the threshing
floor was darkling evenly, and the wind-mill, with
the two horns of its wings, showed sharply black against
the dear horizon. But the stars gave out sparks, trem¬
bling, frequently cutting the sky with narrow green
streaks; the garden was fitfully murmurous, and already
chill autumn could be heard in its murmurings. From
the direction of the mill, from the sloping plain, from the
desolated stubble-field, a strong wind was blowing.
The farm hands had sated themselves at supper,—it
was the holiday of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin,
—and had avidly smoked their fill on their way through
the garden to the threshing barn. Having thrown on
their long great coats, tight at the waist, and falling in
folds over their short sheepskin coats, they were going
there to sleep, to guard the heaps of grain. Following
behind the farm hands, dragging a pillow, walked the
master's son, a tall high-school student, with three white
boîToi hounds running at his heels. Upon the threshing
floor, in the fresh wind, there was a pleasant smell of
chaff, of new rye straw. They all lay down comfortably
in it, in the very biggest stack of all, as near as possible
to the piles of grain and the corn kiln. The dogs fussed
[173]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
about, rustled for a while at the feet of the workers, and
also quieted down.
Over the heads of the recumbent men the broad Milky
Way, dividing into two smokily-translucent branches,
glimmered whitely and faintly, filled with the fine star
dust suspended within them. It was quiet and warm in
the straw. But a north-east wind, again and again, ran
disquietingly through the brushwood that was darkling
along the ditch to the left, with its rampart of earth;
and increasing, it neared with an inimical noise. Then
a cool breath would reach the face, the hands, together
with a bad odour from the lanes between the heaps of
grain. And over the horizon, beyond the irregular black
blotches of the brushwood, icy diamonds vividly flared
up; the Capella was bursting into vari-coloured fires.
Having settled down, they all shut their eyes, after a
yawning spell. The wind was dreamily rustling the
prickling straws that stuck out above their heads. But
its coolness reached their faces, and they all felt that
they did not want to sleep as yet,—they had slept their
fill after dinner. The high-school student alone was
languishing from a sweet longing for sleep. But the
fleas would not let him sleep. He started scratching, let
his thoughts run on wenches, on the widow through whom
he, with the help of the farm hand Pashka, had lost his
innocence that very summer, and he also became broad
awake.
This student was a thin, awkward stripling with an un¬
usually soft colouring—his face was so white that even
sunburn had no effect upon it; he was blue-eyed, with
outrageously big hands and feet, with a big Adam's-
apple. He had not parted company with the farm hands
[174]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
all summer,—at first he had carted manure, then the
sheaves; he put in order the piles of grain, he smoked an
atrocious cheap tobacco, he imitated the moujiks in
speech and in his roughness with wenches, who always
started laughing at him in chorus, greeting him with cat¬
calls and cries of "Veretenkin! Veretenkin!"^—a stupid
nickname invented by Ivan, who was a helper at the
threshing machine. He passed his nights now at the
threshing floor, now in the horse stable; he did not change
his linen and his canvas clothes for weeks at a time, nor
would he take off his tarred boots; he raised blood-blisters
on his feet, unaccustomed to coarse foot-cloths; he lost all
the buttons on his summer uniform overcoat, which had
been soiled by wheels and manure, had broken the letters
and the little silver leaves on his uniform cap.
"He has broken away from the house entirely!" his
mother would say of him, with a caressing, kindly regret,
enraptured even by his defects. "Of course, he'll pick
up, become stronger,—but just look what a matted choate
he is,—he doesn't even wash his neck!" she would say,
smiling to her guests and pulling his soft, chestnut locks,
trying to get at the soft little spiral, curling like a girl's,
at the nape of his neck,—dark, contrasting with the
childishly white flesh visible under the blouse that but¬
toned at the side, contrasting with the large vertebrae
under the fine, smooth skin. But he would sulkily turn
his head away from under her caressing hand, frowning
and blushing. He grew not by the day but by the hour,
and as he walked he stooped, whistling meditatively, an¬
gularly lumbering from side to side. He still ate linden
blossoms and the gum of cherry trees; he carried, al-
1 "Spindle-Shanks I Spindle-Shanks!" Trans.
[175]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
though by now secretly, a sling shot to shoot sparrows
with, but he would have been consumed with shame had
this been revealed, and he constantly kept his hands in his
pockets. Only last winter he had played Redskins with
his little sister Lily. But in the spring, when through all
the streets of the town streams were running and shim¬
mering with a blinding dazzle; when the white window-
sills in the class-rooms were aflame with the sun; when
the teacher's room was shot through and through with the
sun, and the principal's cat was lying in ambush for the
first finches in the high-school garden, still filled with sil¬
very snow,—in the spring he had gotten the notion that
he had fallen in love with the slender little Youshkova, a
bookish, serious-minded high-school girl; he had struck
up a close friendship with Simashko, a spectacled six-
termer, and had determined to dedicate his entire summer
vacation to self-culture. But in the summer his dreams
about self-culture were already forgotten; a new resolve
was taken,—to study the common people; which resolve
had soon passed into a passionate infatuation with the
moujiks.
On the evening before the Assumption, the high-school
boy was heavy with sleep while still at supper. Toward
the end of every day, when his head would grow heavy
and fall down on his chest,—from fatigue, from talking
with the farm hands, from his rôle of a grown-up,—
his boyishness returned: he wanted to play a bit with
Lily, to have a brief reverie, before falling asleep, of
some distant and unknown lands, of extraordinary mani¬
festations of passion and self-sacrifice, of the lives of
Livingston and Baker, and not of the moujiks written
about by Naumov and Nephedov, whom he had given his
[176]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
word of honour to Simashko to read; he wanted to sleep,
for at least one night, at home, instead of getting up
before the sun, in the cold morning light, when even dogs
yawn and stretch so languorously. . . . But the maid
entered, saying that the farm hands had already gone
to the threshing floor. Without listening to his mother's
calls, the high-school lad threw his uniform overcoat with
its bobbing belt over his shoulders, and put on his cap;
grabbing the pillow out of the maid's hands, he caught
up with the farm hands in the lane. He staggered from
drowsiness as he walked, dragging the pillow by a corner,
and, as soon as he had stumbled up to the heap of
straw and had crawled under an old raccoon overcoat
lying there, he sailed off into some sweet, black darkness.
But the tiny dog-fleas began to burn him as with
fire; the farm hands began talking among them¬
selves. . . .
There were five of them: Khomut,i a kindly, shaggy
old man; Kiriushka, a lame, white-eyed, irresponsible lad,
who gave himself up to a childish vice, which fact every¬
body knew and which made Kiriushka still more ir¬
responsible, making him bear in silence all sorts of jeers
about his short leg, twisted at the knee; Pashka, a good-
looking moujik of twenty-four and recently married;
Theodot, an elderly moujik, from another region, some¬
where near Liebedyana, nick-named Postnii; ^ and Ivan,
—a very stupid fellow, but one who deemed himself an
amazingly clever, cunning, and mercilessly-scoffing man.
This last held in contempt all work, save work with agri¬
cultural machines; he wore a blue blouse and had im-
1 "Horse-collar." Trans.
2 "Lenten." Trans.
[177]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
pressed everybody with the idea that he was a born ma¬
chinist, although everybody knew that he did not know a
blamed thing about the construction of even a simple
winnowing machine. He was always narrowing his
morosely-ironic little eyes and pursing up his thin lips,
never letting a pipe out of his teeth. He generally kept a
portentous silence; but whenever he did speak, it was
only to annihilate somebody or something with a com¬
ment or a nick-name. He scoffed at absolutely every¬
thing: at sense and folly, at simplicity and slyness, at
despondency and laughter; at God and his own mother,
at the gentry and the moujiks. The nick-names he be¬
stowed were absurd and incomprehensible, but he uttered
them with such an enigmatic air that it seemed to every¬
body that they had both a meaning and a caustic apt¬
ness. He had not spared even himself, and had given
himself a nick-name: "Rogojkin," ^ he had said once in
reference to himself, hinting at something so weightily,
so maliciously, that everybody rolled from laughter, and
afterwards he was never known as anything but Rogojkin.
He had christened the high-school student as well, had
said something nonsensical about him as well: "Veret-
enkin."
The school-boy,—so he thought,—had come to know
these people well during the summer, had become
attached to all of them in different ways,—even to Ivan,
who unmercifully made fun of him. He was learning one
thing or another from them, was adapting their pronoun-
ciation,—absolutely, as it proved, unlike the speech of the
moujiks in books; adopting their unexpected, absurd,
but unshakable conclusions, the uniformity of their
i"Made out of matting." Trans.
[178]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
ready wisdom, their coarseness and indifference, their
capacity for work and their dislike of it. And, had he
gone to the city after the vacation, without reverting to
his infatuation for the life of the moujiks during the next
summer, he would all his life have thought that he had
observed the common people of Russia very well,—if, by
accident, a lengthy, frank conversation had not sprung up
among the farm hands on this night.
It was started by the old man who was lying alongside
of the school-boy and who was scratching more than
anybody else.
"Pestering the life out of you, young master, hey?
They're nothing but a misery, Khomut!" said he,—the
word "Khomut" he used to characterize not only his en¬
tire existence, but also all its weariness, all its unpleasant¬
ness.
"Can't stand it," replied the school-boy. "The women
and wenches now, the devil take them, they won't touch.
But who would you think they ought to be biting if not
them?"
"Main thing is, whether a body wear drawers or no, it
makes no difference to them fleas," indifferently agreed
the old man, giving off, as he tossed about, a strong
odour,—of a body long unwashed, and of a worn peas¬
ant's coat that had become permeated with the smoke of
a chimneyless hut.
The others kept silence. Usually, they were jocose be¬
fore falling asleep, questioning Pashka about his con¬
jugal life, while he answered them with such unperturbed
and gay shamelessness that even the school-boy, who was
constantly entranced by him, never taking his eyes off his
intelligent and animated face, was vexed over any one's
[179]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
being able to speak so of one's own young wife. Now no
one seemed about to begin questioning, and the student
wanted to do so himself, in order to excite his imagi¬
nation, forever empoisoned by the widow, and to hear
the self-assured voice of Pashka,—when the latter
stretched himself, sat up, and began rolling a crude
cigarette. The old man raised up his head, covered with
a cap, and shook it.
"Eh, but you'll burn this place down some day, young
fellow!" said he. "Watch out. It don't take much to
bring on trouble."
"Well, I'll get out of it by blamin' the young master,"
answered Pashka, a trifle hoarse from a cold; and, having
cleared his throat, he started laughing. "He's smoking
all the time himself. Wonderful night to-night, young
master," said he, changing his tone to a serious
one and turning around to the school-boy. "What's the
only thing lacking on this night, you might say? Why,
the moon."
They all felt that he wanted to tell something. And,
truly, having kept silent for a while, without eliciting any
reply, he suddenly added:
"Are you asleep, young master? What hour might
it be now?"
The school-boy raised himself up, pulled his silver
watch out of his trouser's-pocket, and began inspecting it
by the light of the stars.
"Half-past ten," said he, bending over.
"Well, now, I just knew it was that," concurred Pashka,
gaily and self-assuredly, lighting his cigarette, which
was rolled somewhat in the form of a pipe; it was gripped
in one corner of his mouth between his teeth, and he lit
[180]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
it with a stinking sulphur match flaming within his
cupped hands. "Just exactly at this time last year I
killed a man."
And the school-boy at once straightened up, letting his
hands drop,—and he seemed to be turned to stone during
all the time that the others talked. At rare intervals he
would put in a word, but it was as though it were not he,
but some other who was talking in his stead. Then
everything within him began to shiver in an icy ague fit
inducive of senseless laughter, and his face began to burn,
as though it were aflame.
11
Ivan, as always, maintained a portentous silence.
Kiriushka was not at all interested in whatever they
were talking about; he lay thinking his own thoughts,—
mostly about an accordéon, the purchase of which was
his most cherished dream. Theodot, too, who lay leaning
upon his elbow, was silent for a long while. He was a
strong, flat-chested moujik, who at the beginning of the
summer had not been considered by the farm hands as
one of them, because he wore a short sheepskin coat, with¬
out a waistline and without folds in its skirts,—which
was the kind worn by the Tartars of Kazan. He had
seemed a stranger to the school-boy as well. Just as he
liked the cheerful composure of Pashka, the smoothness
of his mannerisms, his sun-burned face, so he was not
disposed to intimacy by the face of Theodot, also calm
but devoid of any expression, large, ashen-gray, wrinkled,
with sparse moustaches, always wet from the slavering
caused by his pipe; his whitish, weather-beaten lips were
[181]
A NIGHt CONVERSATION
turned considerably outward. Theodot was listening at¬
tentively, but did not put in a single word during
Pashka's narrative,—only now and then he would give a
consumptive cough and spit into the straw. And at first
the conversation was sustained only by the dumbfounded
school-boy and the old man.
"What are you lyin' about nothin' at all for?" said the
old man indifferently, upon hearing the boastful decla¬
ration of Pashka. "What sort of a man could you
have killed? Where?"
"Bust my eyes if I'm lyin'l" responded Pashka warmly,
turning in the old man's direction. "Last year, on As¬
sumption. Not only was it wrote up in all the papers,—it
was even in the order sent to the regiment."
"Well, where was it you killed him?"
"Why, in the Caucasus, in the Zukhdens. Honest to
God! Of course, I ain't agoin' to lie about it; I didn't
do it all single-handed,—Koslov also fired a shot; he's
also one of ours, from the Eletzkaya province. I wasn't
the only one that got the thanks for it; the division com¬
mander thanked him too, in front of all the men lined
up, and rewarded us with a rouble each, right off; but
then, 1 know without any mistake that it was me that
winged him."
"What him?" asked the high-school student.
"Why, a convict; this Cheorchian, now."
"Hold on," the old man interrupted him. "You just
tell the whole thing sensibly. Where was you sta¬
tioned?"
"There he goes again!" said Pashka with assumed
vexation. "There's a queer fellow,—won't believe
[182]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
nothing. We was stationed at these New Ceniyaks,
now. . . ."
"I know the place," said the old man. "We, too, was
stationed there for eighteen days."
"There, you see now,—that means 1 ain't just making it
up as 1 go along, for 1 can tell you how this happened,
just about. We wasn't stationed for no eighteen days
then, brother, but for a whole year and seven months; as
for these here convicts, we was in duty bound to escort
them up to the very Zukhdens. These here convicts,
now, was the most important criminals what could
possibly be,—rebels, they was. So then, ten of them in
all was caught in the mountains and put in our keep¬
ing. . . ."
"Hold on," interrupted the high-school student, imitat¬
ing the old man, and feeling his hands turning to ice;
"but how was it you told me that you'd never get to shoot¬
ing any rebels,—that you'd liefer shoot any officer who
might order you to fire at them?"
"Well, 1 wouldn't let my own father off, when need
be," answered Pashka, throwing a furtive glance at the
student, and again turning to the old man. "Maybe I'd
never have laid a finger on him, even, if he hadn't taken it
into his head to ruin us all; but no, he went in for foxi-
ness and we might all have been sentenced to hard labour
for a whole year. But as it turned out, it was all for the
best; we got thanks and turned out to be a bit smarter
than him. Just you listen, now," he said, pretending that
he was addressing the old man only. "We was leading
them along, all fair and square. We didn't have any of
these carryings on, like beating them, now, for example, or
[183]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
urging them on with the butt-end of a gun. . . . But one
of them,—a sort of a skinny fellow, short of stature,—
was walking along and complaining about his stomach
all the time, asking us all the while to let him do some¬
thing. ... He just barely managed to tinkle along in his
leg-irons. Then, at last, he approaches the superior offi¬
cer: 'Let me lie down in the cart' Well, he was
allowed to do so, like he was real sick. Only by now we
come to the Zukhdens. And the night's as black as
pitch, and it's raining cats and dogs. We made 'em sit
down on the front entrance, and watched 'em ; each one of
the soldiers had a little lantern in his hands, of course,
while the superior officer went off into the room, to try
the bars at the windows to see if they was all right, now,
and hadn't been filed away by some hidden file."
"Absolutely,'' said the old man. "According to law
he's got to take over everything in good shape."
"That's just what I'm talkin' about," confirmed
Pashka, again hastily hiding a lit sulphur match in his
cupped hands. "You know all this business, now, and
that makes it interestin' to be telling you about it. Well,
the superior officer had gone off," he went on, squeezing
out the match and letting the smoke out of his nostrils,
"he'd gone off, inspecting things, while we stand around,
nodding our heads,—we wanted to sleep something dread¬
ful,—when this here Cheorchian suddenly jumps up, and
off 'round the corner with him! That means, you under¬
stand, that he had all this business figured out, while he
was still in the cart; he had cut the strap around his legs
that held the shackles, with the first thing that had come
to his hand; had loosened them upon him, then picked
'em up in his hand, so,—" Pashka bent over and, spread-
[184]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
ing his legs, demonstrated how the prisoner had grabbed
up the shackles, "and then had taken to his heels! But
me and Koslov was no fools; we dropped our lanterns
and took after him: Koslov ran around the corner too,
whilst 1 went straight ahead to cut him off. 1 keep on
running, but all the time I'm trying to catch the clink,—
where his chains might be clanking, that is. It ain't
even worthwhile to be shootin' at haphazard, thinks 1.
At last, 1 catch the sound,—and bang! 1 feel it go past
him. 1 fire another shot,—again 1 hear it go by him.
But Koslov is popping away right and left; like as not to
get me any minute. . . . Then 1 got riled; 'Ah,' thinks
1, "may your eyes bust out!' 1 put the gun to my
shoulder and 1 let 'er go ; glory be to the Lord, 1 got him,—
I hear by the sound that he must have fallen down. 1 let
out two more shots toward the same spot, and ran; and
there he was sitting on his bottom on the ground. He's
sitting down, propped up with his hands in the dirt; his
teeth are bared, and he's rattlin': 'Quick,' says he,
■quick, Russ, stick your bayonet into me right here. . . .'
Meaning his chest, that is. 1 charged with my bayonet
on a run,—straight through his heart. . . . Why, the bay¬
onet went right out at his back!"
"Good work!" said the old man. "Let's have just one
good puff. . . . Well, and where was Koslov at now?"
Pashka inhaled some smoke, deeply and quickly, and
thrust the fag-end into the old man's hand.
"Why, Koslov," he answered, hurriedly and gaily,
flattered by the praise, "why, Koslov is running, yelling
with all his might: 'Did you do for him?' 'I've done
for him' says 1, 'let's drag the carcass away. . . .' We
took him by the shackles at once and dragged him back,
[185]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
to the porch. ... I cut him down like a weed," said he,
changing his tone to a calmer and more self-satisfied one.
The old man cogitated for a while.
"And you say the officer rewarded you with a rouble
each?"
"That's straight," answered Pashka. "He gave it to us
right out of his own hands, with all the battalion lined
up on parade."
The old man, shaking his cap-covered head, spat into
his palm and extinguished the cigarette end in the spittle.
Ivan, leisurely, through his teeth, drawled out;
"Well, it's plain to be seen there's lots of fools among
the soldiers too."
"How do you make that out?"
"Why, here's how," said Ivan, "you durn fool! What
should you have done? You oughtn't to have dragged
him, but should have sent your mate with a report, and
stood guard with a gun over the dead body. D'you
understand now, or don't you? "
111
Theodot began speaking even more plainly, after a gen¬
eral silence and a muttering of: "Ye-es . . . well
done. . .
"Well, now," he began slowly, lying back on his elbow
and casting an occasional glance at the dark figure of the
student, motionlessly stuck before him against the back¬
ground of the starry sky; "well, now, 1 sinned absolutely
over nothing. I killed a man over a mere trifle, you
might say; all on account of a she-goat I had."
[186]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
"What do you mean,—over a she-goat?" the old man,
Pashka, and the school-boy interrupted him in unison.
"Honest to God, that's the truth," answered Theodot.
"But you just listen a while to what sort of bane this
she-goat was. . . ."
The old man and Pashka again lighted cigarettes and
began to stamp down the straw, in preparation to listen¬
ing. The student, too, wanted to light up, but his icy
hands would not stir, would not come out of his pockets.
As for Theodot, he continued seriously and calmly;
"The whole trouble was just on account of her. 1
didn't do the murder on purpose, of course. ... He was
the first to beat me up. . . . And there was quarrelling,
going to court. ... He came, drunk, whilst I jumped
out, all heated up, and hit him with a whet-stone. . . .
But what's the sense of talkin' about it; as it was, I done
penance for half a year at a monastery on account of
him; but if there hadn't been this here she-goat, nothing
at all would have happened. Main thing was, none of
us had ever kept these here goats; they ain't in the
■moujik's line, and we can't understand the handling of
them; and then, to top it all, the goat turned out to be
a bad one, and frisky. What carrion she was,—the Lord
save me from such another! Just the same as a little
borzoi bitch, she was. Maybe 1 wouldn't have wanted
to get her,—everybody was laughing, talking me out
of it as it was; but I was downright forced to it by
need. We ain't got any large, well-managed farms, nor
any sort of free land or forests. . . . We ain't had a
common pasture land of our own from time out of mind,
and as to what small live-stock we might have, it simply
[187]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
has to find forage on the waste-lands. As for large
cattle,—we used to put the cows into the big owner's
grounds, and for all that sort of thing us little fellers
was supposed to mow, and bind in sheaves, two acres of
grain, and plough two acres of fallow-land; and put in
three days with the old woman at mowing, and three
days at threshing. . . . Count it up,—and what don't it
come to?"
"The Lord deliver us!" the old man supported him
sympathetically.
"Whereas to buy a she-goat," Theodot went on, "well,
that meant scraping off seven, or say eight, roubles to
give away for her; on the other hand, if she tried hard,
she'd yield four bottles, no less, of milk, and the milk
she'd give was thicker and sweeter nor cow milk. The
hard part about her was, of course, that you couldn't
keep her together with the sheep; a she-goat fights with
them a lot, when she's carrying a kid, and once she starts
in she gets fiercer'n a dog,—just can't bear to look at
them. And what a creature she was for climbing,—it
didn't mean nothin' to her to get up on top of a hut,
or a clump of willows. Wherever there was a willow, she
was dead sure to strip it bare, would strip off all its
tender bark—there was nothing she liked better'n that!"
"But you wanted to tell us how you killed a man," the
school-boy uttered with difficulty, looking all the while
at Pashka, at Pashka's face, indistinct in the light of
the stars; he was incredulous that this very Pashka was
a murderer, and he was picturing to himself a small,
dead Georgian, whom two soldiers were dragging along
by his chains, through the mud, surrounded by a dark
rainy night.
[188]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
"Well, and what else was I talking about?" answered
Theodot, somewhat rudely, and began speaking a trifle
livelier. "You can't understand this business, you ain't
tried yet to live on your own; but to live at home with
mamma is a thing any one can do. That's just what I
was talking about,—that a sin like that came about
through just nothing at all. 1 slaughtered three sheep all
on account of her," said he, addressing the old man. "1
took in nine and a half for the sheep, and paid eight
for her. She didn't cost me cheap, at that. . . . And for
another thing, 1 started having rows with my old woman
almost every day. Well, as I was saying, I got a triflin'
sum, gave away eight for the she-goat; then, too, 1
bought a thing or two for the household, a matter here
and there, got some little whistles for the youngsters,
and started off for home. 1 pegged along and pegged
along, and came home toward morning. I look,—and 1
am shy a half; that meant that I must have shoved it
in my pocket and sown it as 1 went. The old woman
started counting the money. 'Where,' says she, 'is the
half? Did you swallow it? I told you, you fool, to
sell the sheep as carcasses, and to keep the skins for your¬
self. . . .' One word led to another, and then a row
began,—may the Lord save me from such another! My
old woman, to tell the truth, is such a dog as you'd have
to look through all the county to find the like of. . . ."
"That goes without saying," Pashka put it in a busi¬
ness-like manner. "The more you beat 'em, the better
they be."
"That's understood," said Theodot. "Well, she came
to her senses and gave in. And when she had milked
the she-goat, she became downright glad : the goat turned
[189]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
out to be a good milker, and the milk was fine. So we
started in rejoicing. We drove it into the flock. I gave
the little shepherd boys something for tobacco, treated
them to a cup of vodka each. . . . Otherwise they would
train her to butt the sheep in the belly, the sons of
bitches. . . . Only when the flock comes back at eve¬
ning,—I look, and my goat ain't there. I ask the shep¬
herd; 'How is it our she-goat ain't here?' 'Why,' says
he, 'we drove the herd to the waste-land near the woods;
your goat started playing with the cows, and tackled
the bull; she'd back away from him, get one good running
start, and then let herself fly straight between his eyes!
He got so petered out on account of her that he began
hiding from her behind the cows, and when we'd go for
her to chase her off, she'd scoot into the oats. . . . She
just knocked us off our feet! And then she ran away;
the helper ran after her; he ran all through the forest,
couldn't find her nowhere,—just like she'd fallen through
the earth. . . "
"Well, right you were 'bout that goat being poison!"
remarked the old man.
"A-a!" said Theodot, malignantly. "Why this ain't
nothin' at all,—you just listen to what's coming! When
this same she-goat had disappeared, me and the old
woman plumb lost our heads. Well, now, thinks we, it's
bye-bye; there goes our good money; she sure will make a
mouthful for some wolf. But, of course, we don't reckon
at all on the fact that it would be far better if she was
to go to all the devils. Soon as day came we ran for
the forest; we left nary a likely place untouched, 1 don't
think; we beat up the entire forest to the last twig,—
she wasn't nowheres, and that's all there was to it!
[190]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
Gawd knows how I grieved; however I went to plough¬
ing,—it was just ploughing time then. I took a bit of
bread with me, wrapped up in a kerchief, laying it down
near the edge of the field where I was working. Now,
on another mound, there was one of our village lads
ploughing,—suddenly, 1 hear him shouting something,
pointing with his hand. 1 look around and just gasp;
there was the she-goat! She had dragged out the little
bundle, seizing it in her teeth; she had shaken it loose
and was standing, jerking her beard, and eating the
bread. ... 1 dropped my plough as fast as 1 could and
went for her. 1 go after her, and she goes away from
me. 1 go after her, and she goes away from me,—she'd
run a little ways, and stop, and munch the bread,—a
lot she cared! And such a happy and a clever carcass
she was,—she watched every move 1 made. 1 had my
heart set on her, I sure wanted to catch her. 1 just
could have smashed her to bits, it seems! She gobbled
down the bread and went off; she'd turn around and
give me a look, shaking her tail,—well, just making fun
of me!"
"No use talking,—it's a carefree creature!" said the
old man.
"That's just what I'm saying!" exclaimed Theodot, en¬
couraged by the sympathy. "That's just what I'm talk¬
ing about,—that she downright ruined us! There hadn't
even a week passed, when everybody had it in for me;
'Your goat,' says they, 'as good as lives amongst our
grain.' She trampled down a whole eighth of an acre of
my own, tearing down all the ears of oats. Then one
day a thunder-storm came up; the lightning started in
flashing, and the rain poured down,—1 looked and I see
[191]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
my white she-goat sailing along with all her might
straight toward our place, bleating like she was scared
out of her own voice—and then she pops straight into our
doorway. I started off as fast as my legs would carry me
after her; 1 got her into a tight corner, drew a cord that
I used for a belt over her horns, and began letting her
have it. . . . The thunder rumbles, the lightning flashes,
but I keep on lambasting her, 1 keep on lambasting her!
I must have beat her for more than an hour, without
lying. Then 1 put her up on the brewing vat, tied her
up with the rope girdle . . . but who knows whether the
girdle was rotted, or whether it was something else,—
only when we look in the morning, the goat's gone again !
Then—would you believe it?—1 was so vexed, that I
just burst into tears!"
I V
Theodot's tone had become so simple, so sincere, so
filled with the tones of husbandry aggrieved, that it
would never have entered anybody's head that here was
a murderer, confessing his sin. Then, too, he was
listened to in a spirit of simplicity. Kiriushka was ly¬
ing flat on his belly, his head covered with his great coat;
his feet, in big bast sandals and thickly wrapped in
foot cloths, were sticking out. Ivan, with his cap shoved
down over his forehead, his hands tucked into his sleeves,
was lying on his side, also without moving; as for his
stern and serious silence, he maintained it because he
deemed it beneath his dignity to be interested in fools.
He was so little concerned whether those before him were
murderers or not, that he had even called out once:
[1921
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
"Time to sleep! Finish that gabbing to-morrow!"
As for Pashka and the old man, both half-reclining
and biting little straws, they merely shook their heads
and grinned occasionally, as if to say: "Well, Theodot
sure has known his fill of trouble with that she-goat!"
And Theodot, evidently deeming himself already vin¬
dicated by this sympathy for his ridiculous and hard
situation, lost entirely his diffidence about digressions.
And the high-school boy, gritting his teeth both from the
wind and from the inner cold, would at times look about
him wildly; Where was he, and what queer night was
this? But it was still the same simple, familiar country
night, of which there had been many. The field was
dark, the corn-kiln stood out in a sharp triangle against
the starry sky; through the underbrush, beyond which
the stars flared up and fell, a wind was blowing; its cool
breath, with the pleasant scent of the chaff, reached the
face and hands, rustled in the straw, and again grew
still, dying away. . . . The hounds—white balls sunk in
the straw—were fast asleep. . . . And all the horror lay
only in that it was late, that a small cluster of silver
stars had risen high in the north-east, that the dark
mass of the slumbrous garden was murmuring in the
distance, dully, autumn-wise; that the eyes in the faces
of those conversing were sparkling in the starlight.
"Yes, little brother of mine," Theodot was saying,
laughing over his own ridiculous and sad predicament,
"nobody can't say it weren't a misfortune! At last they
tell me, now, that a moujik in the Prilepakh had driven
my she-goat to his place. I start out to get her back;
no help for it,—such seemed to be my lot. I come to
the village; there's nobody around, wherever I look,—
[193]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
everybody's out in the fields. A lad is riding ofli for
water; 1 ask him,—'Where's Bockhov's house?' 'Why/
says he 'right there, where the old woman in the red
petticoat is sitting under a bush.' I walk up: 'Is this
Bochkov's place?' The old woman waves her hand at
me, pointing to a little yard in the blazing sun. . .
"Must have gone daft from old age," put in Pashka,
starting to laugh so pleasantly that the student looked
around at him with amazement and fear, reflecting:
"Why no,—it can't be true; he must have told lies about
himself!"
"She was gone daft," confirmed Theodot. "Just kept
on waving her hand. But 1 had already been hearing a
hog grunting in the little yard. 1 open the door to a
sty, a corner fenced off with plaited willow, where this
same pig was kept. I see a big sow pulling a woman
around; the woman's thrown her weight upon it, holding
it with both hands, pouring out of a pail upon it with
the other. And the sow is all black from mud, lugging
the woman, dragging her along,—the woman can't man¬
age her nohow, and her clothes is pulled up to her belly.
It was both to sin and to grin! Soon as she saw me,
she pulls down her skirt,—her legs, her hands was all
in manure. . . . 'What d'you want?' 'What do I want?
I'm here on business. You drove my she-goat up here;
you're keeping strayed cattle, but ain't giving out no
notice of it.' 'We ain't keeping any she-goat of yours,'
says she. 'We let her go. We drove her into the owner's
place.' And she laughs at something. 'So-o,' thinks I,
'that means I'm in hot water again: well, just you wait!'
1 went out and kept on; 1 had just gone past the next
farm, had turned up a path through some flax, when a
[194]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
red-haired little fellow bobs up from somewheres right
in my way. 'Did you come for the goat?' 'For the
goat,—but why?' Suddenly 1 hear a woman yelling be¬
yond the hut: 'Where you gone to, Kuzka, damn your
eyes!' 'Run quick,' I says, 'here's your mother comin'
with some stinging nettles.' And there she was, right on
the spot; she sees him and runs; 'Didn't 1 tell you to
look after the little one? But where did you go off to,
you so-and-so?' And then she pounces on me! 'Where
you from?' 'And what business of yours may that be
now?' 'Oh, no, you tell me where you're from!' 'I'm
the man in the moon. What are you yelling about? I'm
looking for my she-goat.' 'Oh, so it's you, is it, damn
your eyes, that don't give any peace to the village with
your goat!' And suddenly 1 see a tall moujik rushing
toward me from the corn kiln,—without a cap, beltless,
in boots. He ran on me at full speed. 'Your goat?'
'Mine. . . .' He unwraps himself, swings back, and lets
fly one in my ear."
"Good work!" exclaimed the old man and Pashka in
the same breath; as for the school-boy, he even let out
a little squeal: this, then, was the most horrible part of
all! But Theodot calmly pulled out the skirt of his
short coat from under him, and calmly continued:
"Oh, yes, he warmed me up so that my head just be¬
gun to hum. 1 grab him by his hands, and ask him, what
that was for? And by now people was running up. . . .
Right in front of everybody, 1 ask them to be witnesses
of this here matter; again I ask what it was my goat had
gone and done? It turns out that she had knocked a
child off its feet, had broken its head, making it bleed;
had chewn up a shirt, and had trampled some rye. Very
[195]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
well,—complain to the court about it; there I'll be called
to account and you won't be let off either. 'Now,' says
I, 'you ain't a-goin' to get a durn thing off mel' I put
on my cap and went as fast as 1 could to the owner's
yard. I grew a trifle cheerier: the goat, thinks I, won't
get away from me now; and you can't sue me now,—
you should have waited before you started in fighting
with me. 1 draw near and 1 see, on a pony with a clipped
tail, a lad in a satin cap, his legs and arms bare,—-a
jockey, they calls it. The horse is playful, and he flicks
it with a little whip. 'How do you do, now; allow me
to ask,—has your grace got my she-goat?' 'And who may
you be?' 'I'm the owner of that there goat.' 'Well, now,
my daddy ordered it to be driven in.' Things are going
along fine; 1 go on farther and meet a beggar, from
whom 1 lay in some bread,—for the hounds in the
owner's yard are pretty big. I enter the yard and see
a four-horse carriage standing on the gravelled drive
near the house,—the horses are well-fed, spirited.
There's a flunky at the grand entrance, his beard parted
in two. A grown-up young lady walks out in a hat
trimmed with ribbons, her face all covered up with
muslin. 'Dasha!' she yells to the maid in the house,
"ask the master to come as soon as possible. He's at
the riding-ground.' 1 start for the riding-ground.
There 1 see the owner himself standing, in a uniform
frock with a green collar; he wears a medal and carries
his cap in his hand; his bald head simply blazes in the
sun, his belly is all in creases, and he's all red himself.
And there's a little lad perched up on the roof, his arm
plunged in under the roofing, looking for something,—
must be for starlings, thinks 1 to myself. But no,—he
[196]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
was taken up with sparrows. The owner looks on, yell¬
ing: 'Catch them, catch, them, the sons of bitches!'
And the little boy catches the young sparrows, pulls them
out, and knocks them against the ground. The owner
catches sight of me ; 'What do you want?' 'Why, now,'
says I, "your gardener caught my she-goat at the straw¬
berries. Allow me to take her away, so's I may kill her.'
'This isn't the first time, now,' says he, 'I shall fine
you two roubles.' 'I agree with you,' I says, 'I'm at
fault, and I admit it. What hard luck!' I says, 'I al¬
ways have two wenches watching it; but yesterday, as
though for spite,—the deuce knows whether they ate too
many raw mushrooms, or what it was,—they was rolling
around, spewing up; and as for my wife, she also didn't
watch out, to tell the truth,—she was lying in the barn,
yelling with all her might,—her hand had all swollen
up. . . .' A man's got to excuse himself somehow. I
tell him all about what a baneful creature my she-goat
is, how I was given one in the ear for her,—he laughs
and grows good-natured. 'No matter how I chase her,'
says I, 'I can't catch her nohow; and I so wanted to ask
your grace for a little gunpowder and to borrow a gun
from the truck gardener, so's to shoot her with it. Well,
of course, he softened a lot, allowed me to take her, and
I done for her on the spot."
"You done for her?" asked the old man.
"Absolutely," said Theodot. " 'Well, take it,' says he,
'only watch out, don't mix it up with mine.' 'That
won't happen, nohow,' says I, 'I'd know her amongst a
thousand.' We went out to the fold, taking Pakhomka
the shepherd along with us. I give one look,—and at
once notice her behind the sheep ; she was standing, look-
[197]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
ing at me sharply for some reason, eyeing me askance.
Me and Pakhomka got the sheep into a corner as tight
as we could, and I began to walk up to her. I make
two steps,—she gives one jump over a ram! And again
she stands, looking. Again I start for her. . . . And
then, she points her head with its horns toward the
ground and makes one dash for the sheep, and they
all just rush away from her,—they parted like water!
Then I got mad. Says I to Pakhomka: 'You just
drive her up as easy as you can, the whilst I climb up
on the shed, where it's darker, and grab her by the
horns.' And it's awful how much manure there was in
that yard, right up to the very sheds in some places.
1 climbed up on the shed, laid down, grabbed a beam
as hard as I could, whilst Pakhomka kept on scaring her
on toward me. I waited and waited, until finally she
came under the very shed,—and then 1 made a grab for
her horns! And then she starts in bleating. I even got
scared! I fall off the shed; I dig my feet in, holding on
to the horns, while she dashes with me all over the yard,
drags me up to a pit; then she squirms out, scraping me
with her horn over the beard, over the nose,—till every¬
thing turned black. . . . When I look up, she's already
up on the roof : she'd jumped up on the pile of manure,
from the manure on to the roof, from the roof into the
tall grass. . . . We could hear the dogs getting noisy in
the yard; the other dogs picked it up, raising a racket in
the village. We, of course, jumped out after her. But
she's flying along with all her might, and straight for
the last hut: there was a new hut being built there; the
windows was still boarded up and there was no entry
yet, while there was just bare poles laid aslant for the
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A NIGHT CONVERSATION
roof. So she clambered up them up to the very ridge—■
a power like a whirlwind must have carried her up there!
We ran up as fast as we could; as for her, she must
have felt her death coming,—she was bleating for all
she was worth, all scared. 1 picked up a hefty brick,
took aim,—and caught her so neat that she just jumped
up in the air, and then started with a swish down the
roof! We ran up, but she was just lying there, her
tongue jerking in the dust. . . . She'd take a breath and
then rattle, take a breath and rattle again,—till the dust
rose up near her nose. And her tongue was long, just
like a snake. . . . Well, of course, after half an hour or
so, she had croaked."
V
There was a silence. Theodot raised himself up to a
sitting posture, and, bending down, spreading his hands,
began slowly to unwind the cords with which his old,
constantly falling foot-cloths were tied up. And a
minute later the school-boy with horror and repulsion
saw that which he had seen so many times before with
perfect calmness: a moujik's bare foot, dead-white, enor¬
mous, flat, with a monstrously grown great toe lying
crookedly on top of the others, and the thin, hairy skin,
which Theodot, having unwound and dropped the foot-
cloth, began to scratch hard in a delectable fury, tear¬
ing it with his nails, as strong as those of a beast.
Having scratched his fill and wriggled his toes, he took
the foot-cloth with both hands,—it was hardened, bent,
and blackened at the heel and sole, just as though it
had been rubbed with black wax,—and shook it out,
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A NIGHT CONVERSATION
spreading an unbearable stench upon the fresh breeze,
"Yes, murder means nothing to him!" reflected the
student, shivering. "That is the foot of a real murderer!
How horribly he killed this beautiful she-goat! And the
man that he killed with a whet-stone ... he must have
been sharpening a scythe . . . and must have struck him
straight in the temple, killing him on the stop. . . . But
Pashka! . . . Pashka! . . . How could he tell about it
so gaily and with such enjoyment, too! 'It came right
out at his back!' "
Suddenly, without raising his head, Ivan began speak¬
ing morosely;
"Fools are beaten even at the altar. Why, Postnii,
it wouldn't be half-enough to beat you to death for this
here she-goat. What did you go and kill her for? You
should have sold it. What sort of a husbandman do
you call yourself after that, you durn ninny, when you
don't understand that a moujik can't get along without
live-stock? It should be valued. If I only had a she-
goat, now. . . ."
He didn't finish his sentence, was silent for a while,
then suddenly grinned.
"There was an affair in Stanova, now; well that really
was something. ... It wasn't worse than your goat,
now; a land-owner by the name of Mussin was keeping
a wild bull. This bull just wouldn't let anybody pass;
he gored two young cowherds to death. They'd fasten
him up with a chain, but still he'd tear loose and go off.
Just the very same way, too, like your goat, he'd trample
the peasants' grain; but no one dared to chase him off:
they were afraid, and would walk a mile around him.
Well, of course, they sawed off his horns, gelded
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A NIGHT CONVERSATION
him. ... He quieted down a bit. Only the moitjiks
scored up everything against him. When these here
riots began, here's what they did: they caught him in
the field, tied him up with ropes, threw him off his
feet. . . . They didn't beat him at all, but just took and
stripped him to the last hair. So, all bare, he dashed
into the owner's yard,—he ran in at full speed, fell all
in a heap, and died right on the spot,—losing all his
blood."
"How?" asked the school-boy; "they took his hide
off? While he was alive?"
"No, while he was cooked," mumbled Ivan. "Oh you
Moscow city feller!"
Everybody started laughing; while Pashka, laughing
more than all of them, quickly picked up the conver¬
sation.
"Well, there's a lot of murderers for you! And you
was saying, just like that, that we ought to be treated
kindly. No brother, guess you can't get along here
without us marching soldiers! When after the Seniyaks
we was stationed at Kursk, now, we was also restoring
order in a certain settlement. The moujiks had gotten it
into their head to ruinate an owner. . . . And the owner,
they do say, was a good sort, at that. . . . Well, the
whole settlement went for him, and, naturally, the women
tagged along. The watchmen came out to meet the
villagers. The peasants went for them with stakes and
scythes. The guards fired one volley, and then, of course,
took to their heels: what the devil sort of strength can
you expect from those dunderheads!—but one bullet did
get a baby in a woman's arms. The woman was left
alive, but he, of course, didn't even let out a squeak,—
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A NIGHT CONVERSATION
just gave one jerk with his little legs. So, good Lord!"
said Pashka, tossing his head from laughter and seating
himself more comfortably, "what only didn't the
moujiks do! They broke everything to smash and
smithereens; chased this same owner into a corner, tram¬
pling him down, while this moujik, the father of this here
child, ran up to that very spot with this same baby;
he was all gasping and crazed from grief, and he starts
in to beat the owner over his head with this dead baby!
Grabbed him by the little legs and starts in lambasting
the owner. And then the others fall upon him, and, of
course, all for one and one for all, they finished him.
We were rushed up, but he was already beginning to
rot when we got there."
"Well, what are you laughing about, you fool!" the
school-boy wanted to cry out, suddenly feeling a fero¬
cious hatred for Pashka's laughter, for Pashka's voice.
But here Kiriushka suddenly stirred, and, raising his
head, said with childish naïveness:
"But that which took place when Kochergin the land¬
owner was bein' wrecked,—that was something awful!
1 was then living with him as one of his shepherds. . . .
So all their mirrors was thrown into the pond. . . .
Afterwards, people from the village would come over for
a swim, and would always be pulling them out of the
slime. . . . You'd dive, stand up,—and then your foot
would just slide over a mirror. . . . And this, now . . .
how do you call it . . . fortopianner was dragged into
the rye. . . . We used to come. . . ." Kiriushka raised
himself up, and, laughing, leant back on his elbows; "we
would come and there it would be standing. . . . You'd
take a club, and start banging upon it,—upon its keys,
[202]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
that is. . . . From one end to the other. . . . Why, it
would play better nor any accordéon!"
Everybody laughed once more. Theodot had adjusted
his foot-gear, had again criss-crossed his foot-cloths ac¬
curately with the cords, and, having set himself to rights,
had resumed his former position. And, having waited
for a moment of silence, he began to finish his story in
measured tones:
"Yes, he gave me one on the ear, and yet put in a
suit as well. . . . For all these, now, losses and damages,
for the forage, that is. He was called Andrei Bogdanov,
—Andrei Ivannov Bogdanov. A tall moujik, he was,—
red-faced, thin, always evil-tempered, always drunk.
Well, now, so he started a suit. It was he that had
warmed my ear, and he it was that was suing me
to boot. Here the busiest time of the year came along,
with nary a breathing space; but I've got to be hiking
off fifteen miles away. ... 1 guess that's just what the
Lord must have punished him for. . . ."
As he gazed at the straw, stifling his cough and wiping
his flat lips with the palm of his hand, Theodot's speech
was becoming more and more sombre, more and more
expressive. Having said "The Lord must have pun¬
ished him," he was silent for a while, and then went on :
"The suit, of course, came to nothing. A peace was
patched up between us. We was both at fault, that is.
But only he wasn't content with that. He made up with
me, but right after he walked away, drank till he was
blind-drunk, started threatening to kill me. He yells be¬
fore everybody: 'Wait,' says he, 'wait, 1 ain't drunk yet,
now; but when I've drunk enough I'll settle your hash.'
1 wanted to get away from the mixup,—it made me feel
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A NIGHT CONVERSATION
sick in the stomach. . . . Then he took to coming to our
village: he'd come under my windows, drunk as drunk
could be, and would start in to curse me out, saying
things about my mother. And I have a grown-up
daughter. . . ."
"That weren't right," sympathetically grunted out the
old man, and yawned.
"Oh, it was a grand story!" said Theodot. "Well, now,
so he comes on an evening before the Kiriki. I
hear him making a hubbub in the street. I got up, with¬
out saying a word, went out into the yard, sat down on
a harrow, and started sharpening a scythe. But I was
taken with such a rage that 1 saw red before my eyes.
Then I hear him walking up to the hut, raising a rumpus.
Must be wanting to break the panes, thinks I to myself.
But no; he just made a lot of noise and was already going
somewhere else. That would have been the end of it
perhaps,—if only Ollka, my daughter, hadn't jumped
out. . . And then she starts in yelling, with a voice not
her own: 'Help, father, Andrushka is beating mel' 1
dashed out with the scythe whet-stone in my hand,—and,
all in a passion, hit him once right over his head! He
just hit the ground. Folks ran up, started dousing him
with water . . . but he lies there, and by now he's only
hiccoughing. . . . Maybe something might have been
done then. . . . Like putting a cold pack on him, or
something like that. ... He ought to have been carried
off to a hospital as fast as possible, and a tenner should
have been handed to the doctor. . . . But where was a
tenner to be gotten? Well, so he hiccoughed and he
hiccoughed, and he passed away toward night. He
threshed about and threshed about; then turned over on
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A NIGHT CONVERSATION
his back, stretched himself out, and there he was, all
ready. And the folks were standing around, looking,
all silent. And the lights was already lit by that time."
All atremble with a quick shivering, his face flaming,
the high-school student got up, and, sinking in the straw
up to his waist, started climbing down the stack. A
hori^oi bitch, frightened by him, suddenly jumped up and
gave a jerky bark. The student drew back sharply, fall¬
ing into the straw, and stood stock still. The chill wind
was rustling; a cluster of chill autumn stars showed white
above his very head, while from beyond the hillock of
rustling straw came the measured, low-pitched voice of
Theodot.
"1 sat in the barn for two days under guard, and saw
the whole thing through a little window. . . . How they
cut him up, that is. The people flocked in from all the
villages, to have a look at this murdered man,—and me
too, for that matter. They used to shove their way right
up to the very barn. Two benches was carried out on the
common, placed right near the barn, and the murdered
man put upon them. A log of wood was put under his
head; chairs and a table were brought out for the coro¬
ner and the sawbones. The sawbones walks up to him;
he tears off his shirt, tears off his drawers,—and 1 see a
corpse lying all naked, already stiff; yellow here and green
there, while his face was all like wax; the red beard had
become thin, and simply stood out. The sawbones put a
burdock over you know what place. Right at hand, as
usual, there was a box with all sorts of contraptions.
The sawbones walks up, parts his hair from ear to ear,
makes a cut, and begins to take off the scalp together with
the hair, in halves. Where it was thin, he scraped with
[205]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
a little knife. He tore away a half to either side,—soon
as he gets one piece off, he pulls it down over the eye.
The whole skull became visible,—like some kind of a
little pot, it was. . . . And there's a black spot on it,
near the right ear,—black clotted blood; where the blow
had come, that is. The sawbones says something to the
coroner, and the coroner writes: 'Three cracks on such
and such parts.' Then the sawbones starts in sawing
through the skull all around. The saw don't work, so he
takes a little hammer and a small chisel, see, and goes
over the marks that he'd made with the saw, breaking
through with the little chisel. And the top of the skull
just fell away, like a cup,—the brain was all plain to be
seen. . . ."
"What don't they do, the murdering cut-throats!"
hoarsely remarked the old man, who had just dozed off.
But Theodot was firmly finishing his say:
"Then he took out a heavy knife, and starts cutting the
chest, right through the gristle. He hacks out a three
cornered piece, and starts pulling it away,—it even
started cracking. . . . All the stomach came to view,
and the blue lungs, and all the innards. . . ."
Deafened by the beating of his own heart, the student
got up on his feet, standing up to the full of his great
height,—in his cap, shoved back on the nape of his neck,
in his light uniform overcoat, which was already too short
for him. Gray, huge, dreadful in his Mongolian calm¬
ness, Theodot was speaking in measured tones, his pipe
gripped between his teeth; but the student was no longer
listening to him. With all his eyes he was looking at
all these men—so familiar and yet so unknown, so in¬
comprehensible,—who had made his whole soul so sick
[206]
A NIGHT CONVERSATION
on this night. Pitiful in his vice and his meekness, in
all his pastoral primitiveness, Kiriushka was sleeping,
covered with his great coat, one thick leg, swathed in
white foot-cloths, and twisted at the knee, sticking out
from underneath it. Ivan, too, was sleeping; Ivan of
the morose, disdainful face, whose mother, a horrible,
black old woman, had been dying for three years now,
in his black mud hut, standing near the ditches at the
edge of the bare village, in the darkness and the dirt,
underneath the low ceiling, underneath the low roof of
sods, and yet cannot in anyway die, to her grief; while
his buck-toothed thin wife feeds at her dark-yellow,
hanging dry breast a bare-bellied, clear-eyed child, with
its nose running, and its lips bitten into blood by the
countless flies in the hut. The happy Pashka was sleep¬
ing his heavy, healthy sleep in the fresh wind, in his
soldier's cap, heavy boots, and his new short coat. As
for Khomut, the old man, who has not got even a short
coat (he has only a long coat, frayed and with a large
hole through the shoulder), whose drawers always hung
so low upon his flabby thighs,—he was sitting with his
back to the wind, bare-headed, stripped to the waist.
He, senilely emaciated, yellow of body, with his shoulders
elevated at a slant, with his twisted prominent back¬
bone glistening in the light of the stars, was sitting with
his big tousled head, ruffled by the fresh wind, bowed
down, bending his neck which was already scrawny and
all in coarse wrinkles. He was intently examining the
shirt he had taken off, and, as he listened to Theodot,
he would at times squeeze its collar band between his
thumb-nails.
The student jumped down upon the hard and smooth
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A NIGHT CONVERSATION
autumnal earth, and, stooping, quickly walked toward
the dark, murmurous garden, toward home.
All three dogs also arose, and, showing dimly white,
started running sideways after him, with their tails
curled tightly.
1911.
[208]
A GOODLY LIFE
My life has been a well-spent one; 1 got every¬
thing 1 went after. 1 even own real property,—
my little old man right after the wedding signed
the house over in my name; and 1 keep horses, and two
cows, and we have a business all our own. Of course,
not a regular shop, now, but just a little store, as they
say,—but then, in our village, it will pass. I always was
successful, but then 1 have a persistent character, at that.
As to all sorts of work, it was still my daddy that
learned me. Though he was a widower, and took to
drink, he wasn't far behind me in being awful smart,
business-like, and heartless. When the serfs was freed,
now, he up and says to me:
"Well, wench, I'm my own master now; let's save up
some money. As soon as we save it up, we'll go to
the city, buy a house all to our own selves; I'll marry
you off to a fine gentleman, and live like a king. As
for our masters, it's no use sticking here with them,—
they ain't worth it."
Our masters, now,—although, to tell the truth, they
were good and kind,—was the poorest of the poor; actual
beggars, you might say. And so we went away from
them to another settlement; as for the house, the cattle,
and whatever household goods we had, we sold them.
We moved right near to the city, and hired a cabbage
[209]
A GOODLY LIFE
patch from a lady by the name of Meshcherina. She had
been a fräulein in the Tsar's court; she was plain,
freckled, and had grown gray as a maid,—nobody would
take her to wife, so she lived in retirement. So, then, we
hired the meadows from her, and settled down in our little
hut, all peaceful and quiet. The weather's chill; fall is
coming on,—but little we care! We sit and wait for
good profits and never feel trouble coming along. But
the trouble was right there,—and what trouble, at that!
Our venture was drawing near the winding up, when
suddenly something terrible happens. We had had our
tea in the morning,—it was a holiday,—so 1 stood, just
so, near the hut, watching the folks coming from church
over the meadow. As for my daddy, he had gone to
see about the cabbages. It was a sort of a bright day,
even though it was windy, and so 1 was gaping and
didn't notice that there was two men approaching me.
One was the priest,—so tall, you know, in a gray cassock
and carrying a stick; his face was dark, earthy; he's got
a mane like any fine horse, just simply spreading out in
the wind. The other was just a common peasant,—his
farm hand. They walked right up to the hut; 1 got con¬
fused, made him a bow, and says:
"How do you do. Father? Thanks for thinking of
us and calling."
But he, I see, is angry, sullen, doesn't even look at me;
he just stands and breaks up clods with his stock.
"And where," says he, "is your father?"
"They've gone to the cabbage field," says I. "If you
like, now, I can call them. But there he's coming, him¬
self."
"Well, you just tell him to take away whatever goods
[210]
A GOODLY LIFE
he's got, together with this dinky little samovar, and get
away from here. My watchman is coming here to-day."
"What do you mean, a watchman? Why, we have al¬
ready given the lady the money, ninety roubles it was.
What do you mean. Father?" (Though I was young, I
knew just what was what in such things.) "Are you
joking, or something?" 1 says. "You ought to produce
some proper paper," I says.
"No talk out of you!" he yells. "The owner is going
to live in the city; I've bought the meadows from her,
and now the land is my own property!"
But he, himself, waves his arms about, knocks his stick
against the ground,—like as not to hit you in the snout
any minute.
Father sees these goings-on, and starts running toward
us,—he was awful hot-headed. He runs up and asks:
"What's all this noise about? What are you yelling
at her for. Father, without knowing yourself what's what?
You oughtn't to be shaking your stick, but ought to
come right out and explain by what sort of right the
cabbages have come to be yours? We are poor folks,
now, we can go to court about it. You," he says, "are
a person in holy orders; you can't hold no enmity against
nobody; your kind can't touch the holy sacrament if
you do."
Father, you understand, hadn't said as much as one
saucy word to him; but the other, though he was a
pastor, was as wicked as the most ordinary drab moujik;
and so, when he heard that kind of talk, he just grew
pale,—not a word could he say, but you could just see
his legs quivering under his cassock. And then, don't
he let out a squeal, and don't he go for father,—to hit
[211]
A GOODLY LIFE
him over the head, you understand! But father got
from under it, grabbed the stick, tore it out of the
priest's hands, and then went smash! over his knee with
it. The other tried to grapple with him, but father
breaks it in halves, flings the pieces away as far as he
can and calls out:
"Don't come near me, for God's sake, your reverence!
You," he calls out, "are black and like a beetle, but 1 am
still more of a beetle than you be."
And then he grabs him by the arms!
What with courts and law, father was sent to a con¬
vict colony for this here thing. I was left all alone in
this world, and thinks 1, what am 1 to do now? Plainly,
you can't get through the world on righteousness alone;
plainly, you must needs keep your eyes open. I figured
it out a whole year, living with my aunt; then I saw
there was nowhere for me to go,—1 had to marry fast
as 1 could. My dad had a good friend in town, a har¬
ness maker,—well, him it was that courted me. You
couldn't say as how he made a striking bridegroom,—
but still he was a good catch, at that. There was, to tell
the truth, one man that I liked,—and liked right well; but
then he was poor too, about as bad off as 1 was, also
living with strangers, like me; but the other was his own
master, after all. 1 didn't have a copper of dowry, and
here, I see, he is taking me without anything,—how could
I let a chance like that pass by? 1 thought, and 1
thought, and went and married him,—although, of
course, I knew that he was an elderly man, and
a drunkard, and always excitable; a cut-throat, to put it
plainer. ... I married him and became, you understand,
not an ordinary wench any more, but Nastasiya Semen-
[212]
A GOODLY LIFE
ovna Zhokhova, a citizen's wife, living in a city. ... Of
course, it seemed flattering.
I suffered for nine years with this husband. That
citizen business was just a name; we was so poor really
that we was about as bad off as the moujiks! And then
there was scrapping and rows every blessed day. Well,
the Lord took pity on me, and took him away. The
children I had by him all used to die on me; there was
only two boys left,—one was Vanniya, going on nine;
the other was an infant in arms. He was an awful lively
and healthy boy; about ten months he started in to walk,
to talk; all of my children, now, used to begin walking
and talking about the eleventh month. He got to drink¬
ing tea all by his own self,—used to sink his little face
in the saucer so's you couldn't pull it away, nohow. But
this boy died, too, when he weren't a year yet. 1 come
home one day from washing clothes in the river, and my
sister-in-law,—we used to rent our rooms off her,—up
and says:
"Your Kostiya was yelling and squirming all day to¬
day. 1 done all sorts of things to him already; 1 worked
his arms and 1 patted him hard, and 1 gave him some
sugar and water; but all he does is gag, and throw up
the water through his nose. Either he's gone and caught
a cold, or else he's ate something; for the children always
put everything in their mouth,—how is a body to look
after them?"
1 was just scared stiff. I make a dash for the cradle
and throw back the curtain, but he was already beginning
to pass away then; couldn't even as much as cry out.
My sister ran to get a doctor's assistant we knew; when he
comes, he asks: "What did you feed him with?"
[213]
A GOODLY LIFE
"He's eaten some manna porridge, now, and that was
all."
"And wasn't he playing with something?"
"That's right, he was," says my sister. "There was a
copper ring from a horse-collar knocking about all the
time,—well, he was playing with that."
"Well," says the doctor's assistant, "he must have swal¬
lowed it, for sure. May your arms wither!" says he.
"You've gone and done it now,—why, he's going to die
on your hands!"
Of course, it turned out just like he said. Not even
two hours had gone when he passed away. We took on
and we took on, but there was nothing as could be done
about it; for it's no use going against the will of God. So
1 buried him too; only Vanniya was left. Only he was
left; but then, as they say, one is enough. A small crea¬
ture, it's true, and yet he'll eat and drink as much as a
grown-up. So I started scrubbing floors at the home of
Nikulin,—a colonel in the army, he was. Him and his
wife was rather well off ; they paid thirty roubles a month
for the rooms they had. They lived in the upper floor;
the kitchen was below. The woman they had to get up
their meals was a no-account little old woman; she wasn't
responsible, and yet she was loose. Well, naturally, she
got in the family way. Couldn't bend down to scrub the
floors, couldn't pull a pot out the oven. . . . She went
away when her time came, and I just grabbed her place:
that's how I had gotten around the masters! To tell the
truth, I've been clever and cunning from a girl up; no
matter what I took a hold of, I'd do it neat, accurate,
better nor any waiter. Again, I knew how to please
them: no matter what the masters would say, I'd just say
[214]
A GOODLY LIFE
"Yes, sir," or "Yes, ma'am," all the time, and "You are
absolutely right. ..." 1 used to get up when you could
still see the moon. I'd mop up the floors, make the stove,
polish up the samovar,—in the meanwhile the masters
would wake up, but 1 had everything ready. And then,
of course, 1 always kept myself clean, and was well-built,
■—I was spare, but still 1 was handsome. There was times
when I'd even get to feeling sorry for myself: what were
my beauty and my knowledge going to waste for, now,
in such hard work?
Thinks 1, 1 ought to take advantage of the opportunity.
And the opportunity was, that the colonel was awful
strong himself and couldn't bear to look at me calmly.
His wife, now, was a German,—fat, ailing, and some ten
years older than he. He weren't good-looking; heavy-
bodied, short-legged, looking like a wild pig,—and she
was still worse. Well, 1 see he's started to pay court to
me, to sit in my kitchen, to teach me smoking. Soon as
his wife went out, he was right there on the spot. He'd
chase his orderly into town, as though on some errand,
and be sitting there. He bored me to death, but, of
course, 1 pretended otherwise: I'd laugh, and I'd sit and
swing my leg,—getting him heated up in all sorts of ways,
that is. . . . What can you do when there's poverty; and,
as they say, this little was as good as a feast. Somehow
one day, on the Tsar's birthday, he comes down to the
kitchen in his uniform frock, in epaulettes, belted with
that white belt of his like with a hoop, with kid gloves in
his hands. He's buttoned his collar so tight that his
neck is all swollen and he's all blue in the face; he's all
perfumed,—his eyes shining, his moustache black and
thick. ... He comes down and says;
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"I'm going to the cathedral with the missus right away;
dust off my boots,—I've only gone through the yard and
yet I managed to get all dusty."
He put his foot in its patent-leather boot upon a bench,
—just like a big iron pillar, his leg was; 1 bent down,
wanting to wipe it off, but he grabs me by the neck, even
tearing my kerchief off; then he grabbed me tight about
the bosom and was already dragging me behind the stove.
I try this way and that,—can't get away from him nohow.
And he is hot all over, just swelling up with blood,—try¬
ing to overpower me, that is; to get at my face and kiss
me.
"What are you doing!" I says. "The mistress is com¬
ing,—go away, for the love of Christ!"
"If you will get to love me," he says, "I won't begrudge
you anything!"
"Oh yes, now, we know all about those promises!"
"May 1 never leave this spot,—may 1 die without ab¬
solution!"
Well, of course, there was more of the same sort of
thing. But, to tell the honest truth, what did 1 know at
that time? I could have very easily been taken in by
his words; but, glory be to God, things didn't turn out
his way. Somehow he caught hold of me another time, at
an unlucky moment. 1 broke away, all mussed up, and
got mortal angry,—and there was the mistress, now; she
was coming down, dressed up, all yellow, fat, like a dead
person, groaning, her dress rustling on the stairs. 1 break
away, and stand there without my kerchief,—and there
she is, heading straight for us. He goes past her and
shows his heels, but I stand there like a fool, not knowing
what to do. She stood opposite me, and she stood some
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more, holding the silk skirt of her dress,—I remember like
it was to-day: she was going out visiting, and had on a
brown silk dress, and white mittens without fingers, and
she carried a parasol, and wore a hat like a basket. She
stood for a while, let out a groan, and went out. To tell
the truth, though, she never said a word to him or to me.
But when the colonel went away to Kiev, she just took and
drove me out.
So I got all my little belongings together and went back
to my sister,—Vanniya was living at her house, you under¬
stand. I went away from this place, and again I figure:
my brains are just going for nothing; I can't save up
anything, nor make a decent match and have a business
of my own,—God has wronged me! I'll get in harness
once again, thinks 1, turn about somehow, and I will get
what I'm after, and will have a capital of my own, or die
trying! So 1 thought it all out, apprenticed Vanniya to a
tailor, and then got a place for myself as maid with
Samokhvalov the merchant. . . . And that was the be¬
ginning of my rise.
They gave me a wage of two and a quarter. There
was two servants,—me, and a girl by the name of Vera.
One day 1 wait at table, and she washes the dishes; the
next day 1 wash the dishes, and she waits at table. You
couldn't call it a large family: there was the master, Mat-
vei Ivannich; the mistress, Liubov 1 vanna; two grown-up
daughters; and two sons. The master himself was a
serious-minded man, not much given to talking,—he was
never even at home on week-days, and whenever there was
a holiday, he'd be sitting upstairs in his room, reading
all sorts of newspapers and smoking a cigar. As for the
mistress, she was a simple soul, kind, and, like myself,
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from the middle classes. They wasn't long in marrying
off their daughters, Anna and Klasha, and held two wed¬
dings in one year,—married them off to military men.
Right there, to tell the truth, is where 1 begun to save up,
—for the military men did give me a great deal in tips.
If you just did anything, even a trifle,—like handing them
the matches, say, or their overcoats and rubbers,—right
off you'd have twenty kopecks, or thirty. . . . But then I
used to go about awful neat, and I pleased the military.
Vera, to tell the truth, was always putting on some airs,
like some miss or something; she took short, mincing steps,
was tender and awful easy hurt,—the minute anything
would happen, she'd knit her downy eye-brows, her lips,
like cherries, would start to quiver, and there was the
tears in her eye-lashes. True, she did have pretty eye¬
lashes, great big ones, I never saw anybody else with
anything like them. But then, I was wiser. 1 used to
put on a smooth waist, cut on a bias, with open-work; I'd
put a switch on my head with a black velvet bow, and 1
wore a starched white apron,—it would interest anybody
just to look at me. Vera, she always used to lace herself
tight in corsets; she'd lace herself so tight she couldn't
stand it, and at once her head would start aching till she'd
throw up,—but I never even had no use for a corset,
and was all right as I was. . . . And when the military
men were gone, the sons started in tipping me.
The elder had already reached twenty when I took the
place, and the younger was going on fourteen. This boy
had to sit all the while, poor fellow. He had broken all
his legs and arms,—I seen that business_many a time.
When he'd break something, the doctor would come to
him right away, bandage it up with cotton, lint, and all
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that sort of thing; then he'd pour something over it like
lime; this same lime would dry up together with the lint,
would become like a splint; and when the hurt part was
healed up, the doctor would just cut all that stuff, taking
it all off,—and the arm, when you'd look at it, was all
grown together. He couldn't walk by himself, but
crawled around on his bottom. He used to simply dash
upon sofas, and over thresholds, and up the stairs.
He even, used to crawl across the whole yard into the
garden. He had a great big head, clumsy looking, like
his father's; his temples coarse, red-haired, like a dog's
wool; he had a broad, old-looking face. That was be¬
cause he used to eat an awful lot,—he'd eat sausage, and
chocolate bon-bons, and pretzels, and pastry made out of
layers of dough,—whatsoever his heart might desire. But
his little legs, his little arms, was like a sheep's, and all
broken, all in scars. They used to keep him just so for a
long time, making long shirts for him of different colours;
sometimes blue, sometimes pink. They had a lady
teacher from a parochial school coming over to our house
to teach him. He was a great hand for learning, and had
a good head on his shoulders! And the way he'd play
on an accordéon—you couldn't find even a whole person to
play like that! He'd play, and sing in time with the
music. He had a strong, piercing voice. He used to go
way, way up when he'd sing: "I'm a monk, and hand¬
some too!" He used to sing that song often.
The elder son was in good health, but also a sort of in¬
nocent, not fit for any business. They gave him away for
instruction into all sorts of schools,—and he was chased
out of all of them; they couldn't learn him anything.
Come night,—he'd get full some place or other, and be
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gone until dawn. Still, he really was afraid of his mother,
and would not come in through the front door for any¬
thing. I'd get through with my work in the evening, and
wait until the master and mistress would be asleep; then
I'd steal through the rooms, open the window in his little
den, and then go back to my place again. He'd take his
boots off in the street, crawl through the window in only
his stocking-feet, and never a squeak or a creak out of
him. The next day he'd get up like he'd never been any
place, and in some spot where we couldn't be seen he'd
shove what was coming to me into my hand. It wasn't
none of my worry, and I'd take it right gladly! If he was
to break his neck, that would be his lookout. . . . And
then 1 started in having an income from the younger,
from Nicanor Matveich.
1 was after what 1 wanted day and night, you might
say. Once 1 took into my head that one idea, to abso¬
lutely provide for myself and to marry a decent party, I
had taken a fresh hold on life. 1 used to save every little
copper, now; money, you know, has little wings, once
you let it out of your hands!
1 got rid of this here Vera,—but she, to tell the truth,
was there really without need; 1 just put it that way to
the master and mistress: "1 can get along all by my
own self," 1 says; "you just add any trifle you like to my
wage, and you'll do better nor now." So, then, 1 was
left alone and managing everything myself. 1 wouldn't
even take the wages in my hands,—soon as twenty or
twenty-five roubles would gather, I'd beg the mistress to
go to the bank and put it away in my name. Clothes, and
shoes, and everything else went with the place,—what was
1 to spend money for? The only expenses 1 had was to
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A GOODLY UFE
put up a little stone at my husband's grave,'—I paid two
roubles seventy, so's people wouldn't talk. And right
here, the Lord forgive us,—such was my luck and his mis¬
fortune,—this poor wretch had to go and fall in love with
me. . . .
Of course, now I often think: maybe it was on account
of him that God punished me through my son. Some¬
times I can't get it out of my head,—I'll tell you right
away what he went and done to himself. And besides,
just consider that it really was very hard,—1 used to look
at this big-headed fellow, and what a vexation would
take hold on me! "May this and that befall you," I'd
think, "you was born, with a silver spoon in your mouth!
Even though you be a cripple, yet how rich you live. . . .
Whereas mine is all sound, and yet he don't eat or drink
as much on a holiday as you do on a week-day, just so."
Then I started in to notice,—it looked like he'd fallen in
love with me; well, now, he just wouldn't take his eyes
off my face. By that time he was already sixteen, and had
taken to wearing wide trousers, and to belting his blouse;
a red-haired moustache started cropping out. But he
was homely, tow-haired, green-eyed—God deliver me!
His face was broad, but he himself was as thin as a bone.
At first, evidently, he got it into his head that he could
be pleasing,—he began to dress up, to buy polly-seeds,
and used to play on his accordéon so fine that you could
listen to him for hours. He played well, to tell the truth.
When he seen that his affair weren't coming along, he
grew quiet and thoughtful-like. Once I was standing in
the balcony, and 1 see him crawling through the yard
with a new German accordéon. He had shaved and
combed himself once more; had put on a three-buttoned
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A GOODLY LIFE
blouse with a high collar, fastening at the side; his head
was thrown back,—looking for me, that is. He looked
and he looked; his eyes became longing-like and dim,
and then he began a polka:
"Let us go, let us go,
1 would dance a polka through;
Dancing makes one braver; so
1 can speak my love for you. . . ."
But, like as if I hadn't noticed him, I took and threw
down a slop-bowl, with water! I threw it down, and
then was scared myself. But he crawls, he struggles up
the stairs, drying himself with one hand and dragging
the accordéon by the other. His eyes were lowered, and
he was all white, and he spoke meek-like, all acquiver:
"May your hands wither. What you've done is a sin,
Nastiya."
And that was all. . . . True, he was a peaceful one.
He was losing flesh at that time, not by the day but by
the hour; and the doctor had already said that he wasn't
long for this world, that he was bound to die from a con¬
sumption. It made me shudder even as much as to
touch him. But then a poor person ain't got no call to be
particular,—money can do anything, and so he started
in to bribe me. Just as soon as everybody used to fall
asleep, right off he'd call me to him,—either into the
garden or into his room. (He lived apart from every¬
body, living downstairs; his room was large, warm, and
yet bleak; all the windows looked out into the yard, the
ceiling was low, the wall paper was old and brown.)
"You just sit with me a while," he says, "and I'll give
you some money for that. 1 don't want anything from
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you,—1 have simply fallen in love with you, and want
to be with you; these walls have near drove me crazy."
Well, I'd take the money and sit for a while, and I got
together about half a hundred in that way. And then I
had about four hundred of wages and interest laid by.
So, thinks 1 to myself, it's about time now for me to be
crawling out of the harness, bit by bit. But, to tell the
honest truth, it was a pity to do so,—I wanted to bide
my time for another year or so, to save up a little more.
But the main thing was,—he had let it slip once when he
was talking with me,—he had a little toy saving bank
that he was keeping most secret,—he had gotten over two
hundred roubles in trifling sums from his mother. Nat¬
urally, with him lying sick, always abed, and all alone,
his mother would thrust the money upon him to cheer
him up. But no matter how 1 tried not to, I still would
think once in a while: "The Lord forgive my trans¬
gression, but it would be best if he gave that money to me!
It's of no use to him, anyway; he's like to die at any mo¬
ment; whereas I'd be well-fixed for all time with it." I
just waited to see how this business might be worked, as
cleverly as possible. I became more kind to him, of
course; began to sit with him more often. I used to come
into his room, and then look over my shoulder on pur¬
pose, as though 1 had come in by stealth. I'd close the
door and begin speaking in a low whisper:
"There now," I'd say, "I've got away; let's sit together
like a lovin' couple."
Making believe, that is, like I had a meeting arranged
with him, but that I was losing my courage, and yet at
the same time was glad that I had got through with my
work and could now be with him. Then 1 began to put
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A GOODLY LIFE
on a weary air, to pretend I was in deep thought. And he
was always trying to get the reason out of me:
"Nast, why have you grown so sad?"
"Oh, just so! I've got more than my share of trouble!"
And then I'd top that with a sigh, become quiet, and
lean my cheek on my hand.
"But just what," he'd say, "is the matter?"
"Well," I says, "poor folks got a lot of things the mat¬
ter with them, but who ever worries about them? I
wouldn't even want to bore you with them."
Well, he guessed what was what pretty soon. He was
clever, like 1 said,—he'd be a match even for a healthy
person. One day 1 came into his room,—it was, as 1
remember even now, in mid-Lent; the weather was sort
of gloomy, wet, with a fog outside; everybody in the
house was sleeping after dinner. 1 come into his room
with some needle-work in my hands,—1 was sewing some¬
thing or other for myself; 1 sat down near his bed and
was just wanting to heave a sigh, and again make believe
1 was aweary, and then start leading him on to my idea
easy-like, when he starts in talking about it himself. 1
can see him right now, lying in his pink blouse,—brand
new, never yet washed; in blue wide trousers; in new
small boots with patent-leather tops; his legs laid one
acrost the other, and him looking out of the corner of
his eye. His sleeves was wide, the trousers wider still,
and his little legs and arms like match-sticks; his head
was heavy, big, and he were all little himself,—it even
made a body unwell to see him. To look at him, he
seemed a boy, yet his face was that of an old man, al¬
though it was somehow youngish at the same time,—that
was on account of him being clean-shaved,—and he had
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A GOODLY LIFE
a thick moustache. (Come to think of it, he shaved
himself every day, that's how fast his beard would grow;
his hands looked like they was covered with tow, and
the hair upon them was all red, too.) Well, as I was
saying, he's lying there, his hair parted on one side, his
face turned toward the wall ; he was picking at the wall¬
paper, and all of a sudden he says:
"Nast!"
I even shuddered all over.
"What is it, Nicanor Matveich?"
And meanwhile my own heart rolled up to my mouth.
"Do you know where my toy bank is lying?"
"No," I says, "how should 1 know that, Nicanor
Matveich? I never had no evil designs in my mind upon
you."
"Get up; draw out the bottom drawer in the ward¬
robe; take out the old accordéon,—that's where the toy
bank is. Let me have it here."
"But what do you want it for?"
"Just so,—1 want to count the money."
I got at the drawer, opened the cover of the accor¬
déon,—-and there, stuffed into the bellows, was a tin
elephant,—feeling pretty heavy. I take it out and hand
it to him. He takes it, rattles it, lays it by him,—just
like a baby, he was, honest to God,—and goes off into
thought about something. He keeps silent, and he keeps
silent; then he smiles, and says:
"To-day, Nast, I had a fine dream. I even woke up
before daybreak on account of it, and it has made me
feel very good all day, up to dinner. Just look,—I have
even shaved myself, and have got all dressed up for
you."
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A GOODLY LIFE
"But then, Nicanor Matveich, you always go about
neat-dressed, anyway."
And I don't understand myself what I'm saying, I'm
that excited.
"Well," says he, "I guess I will be able to go about in
the other world. You can't even imagine what a good-
looking fellow I'm going to be in the other world!"
I even got to feeling sorry for him.
"It's a sin to make fun of such things, Nicanor
Matveich, and I can't even understand why you say
such things. Perhaps," I says, "God will send you
health yet. You'd do better to tell me what your dream
was."
ffe started in beating about the bush again; started in
to smile wryly,—^"What good am I alive!" he says.
Then he began, without rhyme or reason, to talk about
a cow we had:
"For God's sake," says he, "tell mother to sell it; I
can't stand it no more, that's how tired I am of it; I
lie here in bed and look at the little barn where she's
kept, and she always looks back at me through the
bars,"—and all the while he's rattling the money, and
keeps from looking me in the eyes. And I listen, and
also can't understand half of what he's saying,—just like
two persons out of their minds, we was, saying anything
that came into our heads. Finally I couldn't stand it
no more; for, thinks I, everybody will wake up at any
second, and they'll be calling for a samovar, and then the
whole business falls through! And so I interrupt him
as soon as I can, going in for cunning:
"But no," I says, "you'd better tell me what dream you
saw. . . . Was it anything about us two?"
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A GOODLY LIFE
Of course, I wanted to say something that would please
him, and I struck it so right that he even changed colour
entirely, and cast his eyes down. All of a sudden he
takes the toy bank, gets a little key out of his trousers'-
pocket, and wants to open it,—and can't, nohow; just,
can't get at the key-hole, his hands are trembling so.
At last he does manage to open it and pours out all it
held onto his belly,—I remember it all like it was now:
there was two paper bills and eight gold pieces; he scoops
it all into his hand, and suddenly says in a whisper:
"Could you kiss me just once?"
My hands and feet just got numb from fright. But
he's carrying on like he was going out of his mind, whis¬
pering, stretching upward to me:
"Nastechka, just once! God is my witness I will never
say another word, never ask again!"
I looked over my shoulder,—well, thinks 1, I might
just as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,—and I
kissed him. So he was all just gasping; he grabbed me
around the neck, caught my lips, and I guess he didn't
let me go for a whole minute. Then he shoves all the
money into my hand,—and turns his face to the wall.
"Go," he says.
I ran out and went straight into my room. I put the
money away under lock and key, grabbed hold of a
lemon, and started in to rub my lips. 1 rubbed them so
hard that they simply turned all white. I was awful
afraid, to tell the truth, that I might get a consumption
from him. . . .
Well and good,—this business, then, turned out all
right, glory be to God; so 1 begin to lay my plans for
the next move, of more importance,—the one which 1
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A GOODLY LIFE
had the most struggles about. I felt that there was
trouble brewing; I was afraid he wouldn't let me leave
my place. "He'll start in," thinks I, "to pester me with
his love, will want to become my husband on account of
this money." But no; nothing happens, I see. He don't
try to annoy me; he treats me rightly, the same like be¬
fore, as though nothing had taken place between us,—■
even more modestly, it looks like,—and he don't call me
into his room: that meant he was keeping his word.
Then I bring the talk around to my going away, putting
it up to my master and mistress: it's time for me to see
about my son a little, now; to be free for a little while.
They won't even hear of it. And as for him, you can
understand how he felt, without my saying a word about
it. 1 hinted about my going away to him at one time,—
so he just got all white. He turns his face to the wall,
and says with a sort of a bitter little smile:
"You have no right to do it," he says. "You have
led me on, have got me used to you. You must wait,—
I will die soon. But if you go away now, I will strangle
myself."
A fine modest fellow he turned out to be, didn't he?
"Ah," thinks I, "damn your shameless eyes! Here I have
forced myself to do like you wanted, but you take to
threatening me! Oh, no, you haven't come across one
of that sort in me!" And I started looking for an excuse
harder than ever. About that time, most luckily, the
mistress gave birth to another girl, and a wet-nurse was
hired for her; so I picked on that, saying that I couldn't
get along with her. She was, to tell the truth, a wicked,
daft old woman; even the mistress herself was afraid of
her. And she used to drink, on top of that,—there was
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A GOODLY LIFE
always a demijohn on duty under her bed,—and she
couldn't bear anybody to be near her. So she began
saying things about me, making trouble in all sorts of
ways. Either I hadn't pressed the linen right, or else I
didn't know how to wait at table at all. . . . But, if
you was just to say one word to her, she'd get all in a
trembling passion and run off to complain. She'd sob
out loud, and, of course, not so much because she had
been offended, but just dissembling. The furthef it
went, the worse it got, so I up and says to the master
and mistress:
"So and so," I says, "let me go; I can't bear to live
on account of that old woman; I will lay hands on my¬
self."
And in the meanwhile, I already had my eye on a
house on Glukhaya Ulitza.^ Well, hearing me speak like
that, the mistress didn't even try to hold me any longer.
True, when she was saying good-bye to me, she wanted
me to come and live with them again, awful hard; or
just to come on some holidays, or on birthdays:
"You must," she says, "always come to put things in
order, to get everything ready. It's only when you're
around," she says, "that I feel easy. I have grown
used to you, like you was one of the family."
She saw me off with all honours,—which meant that
she no longer held any grudge against me; she baked a
great big white loaf, putting in a whole salt-cellar full of
sugar. I thank her in all sorts of ways, but, of course,
she wasn't anything much in my life,—so 1 thinks one
thing, and I says another. I promised her all she
wanted and more, scraping and bowing low before her,—
1 Blind Alley would be the nearest English equivalent. Trans.
[229]
A GOODLY LIFE
and went my ways. And at once, with the Lord's bless¬
ing, I got busy. I bought the house I had in mind, and
opened a dram shop. The trade started off awful good,—
in the evening, when I'd come to counting what I'd taken
in during the day, there would be thirty, or forty, or
sometimes all of forty-five roubles in the till,—and so 1
got the idea of opening up a store as well, so as, you
understand, to get them coming and going. My hus¬
band's sister had long since married a watchman in the
Red Cross; he was calling me gossip all the time, and was
friendly with me,—so I went to him, got a trifling loan
for all sorts of fixtures, permits, and started in doing busi¬
ness. And right then Vanniya had finished his appren¬
ticeship. 1 took counsel with folks that knew a thing
or two as to where I could place him, now.
"Why," says they, "where else would you place him,
when there's no end of work in your own house?"
And they were right, at that. So I put Vanniya into
the store, and stay in the dram shop myself. And then
we were off ! And, of course, I had even forgot to think
of all this past nonsense,—although, to tell the honest
truth, the poor cripple had just taken to his bed, at the
time 1 was going away. Never a word out of him to
anybody, but just lies down, just like he were dead, for¬
getting his accordéon even. Suddenly, lo, and behold ye,
Polkanikha comes into my yard,—this same wet-nurse.
(The little boys had nick-named her Polkanikha.^) She
comes, and she says:
"A certain man has told me to give you his regards;
says you should come and pay him a visit, without fail."
I went all hot and cold from vexation and shame!
1 Wife-of-a-regiment. Trans.
[230]
A GOODLY LIFE
"What a darling, to be sure!" thinks I to myself. "What
an idea he has gotten into his head! What a mate he
has found for himself!" 1 couldn't hold in and 1 says:
"1 got no use for his regards; he ought to keep in mind
the state he's in, and you, you old devil, ought to be
ashamed to try and be a go-between. Do you hear me,
or don't you?"
She just stopped short. She stands, all stooping, her
swollen eyes glowing at me from under her brows,
and just shaking her cabbage head; she'd grown daft,
either from the heat or from vodka.
"Oh, you heartless creature!" says she. "He was even
crying about you," she says. "All last evening he lay
with his face to the wall, and sobbing out loud."
"Well," says 1, "am 1 to start weeping bucketfuls?
And wasn't he ashamed, the red-head, to be bawling be¬
fore folks? Why, what a baby! Or was he weaned from
the breast, or something?"
And so 1 put the old woman out as empty-handed as
she had come, and didn't go myself. And right soon after
that he took and really did strangle himself. Right then,
of course, 1 felt great regret because 1 hadn't gone; but
at that time 1 had other things to think about, besides
him. 1 had one disgrace coming on top of another, right
in my own house.
1 had rented out two rooms in the house; one was
taken by the policeman on our post,—a fine, serious-
minded, respectable man, Chaikin by name; a young
lady prostitute came into the other. Flaxen-fair she was,
kind of young, and not at all bad to look at,—rather
good-looking. She was called Phenia. Kholin the con¬
tractor used to come to see her,—he was keeping her;
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well, I relied on that, and let her take the room. But
right here some disagreement took place between them,
and so he left her. What was to be done? She had
nothing to pay with, but I couldn't chase her out,—she
had run up a debt of eight roubles.
"Miss," says I, "you must earn off anybody; 1 don't
keep no open house for strangers."
"1 will try," she says.
"But then, somehow a body can't see you trying. In¬
stead of trying, you always stick at home evening after
evening. It's no use," 1 says, "to be placing your hopes
on Chaikin."
"1 will try. It makes me conscience-struck, just to
hear you."
"A-ah!" 1 says, "what a conscience you must have, to
be sure!"
She'll try and she'll try,—but there was no trying of
any sort, if the truth be told. She did try to get around
Chaikin but he wouldn't even as much as look at
her. Then I see that she's going after my boy. No mat¬
ter when 1 look, he's always hanging around her. All of
a sudden, he gets a notion of getting a new jacket.
"Oh, no," I says, "you'll wait a while! As it is, I'm
dressing you like any fine young gentleman; now it's
boots, now it's a cap. I, now, used to deny myself every¬
thing, used to figure every copper as a gold piece, yet
I'd supply you with everything."
"I'm not a bad-looker," says he.
"You daft loon," says I, "what am I to do, sell the
house, or something, on account of your good looks?"
I notice that my business is getting poorer. I started
having shortages, losses. I'd sit down to drink my tea,
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—and even that had lost its taste for me. I started
in to watch. I'd be sitting in the dram shop, and yet
be listening all the time—I'd put my ear to the partition,
without stirring, and listen. I'd hear them rumbling one
day, I'd hear them rumbling the next. ... I begun scold¬
ing him about it.
"And what business is that of yours?" he says.
"Maybe 1 want to marry her."
"So that's how,—it's none of your own mother's busi¬
ness! I see your intention long since," 1 says, "only this
is never going to be in this eternity."
"She's mad in love with me; you can't understand her;
she is tender and shy."
"A fine love you can expect," 1 says, "from a deboshed
slut like that! She's making fun of you, you fool," 1
says. "She's got the bad disease," 1 says, "all her legs
is covered with sores."
He seemed turned to stone for a while; his eyes was
all puckered up, like he was looking at the bridge of his
nose, and he kept silent. "Well," thinks 1, "glory be to
the Lord, 1 got him in the right spot." But still, 1 was
frightened to death; it was plain to be seen, you under¬
stand, that the poor fellow had fallen hard. "So that
means," thinks 1, "that 1 must finish her off as fast as
1 can." 1 take counsel with my gossip, and with Chaikin.
"Tell me, now, what am 1 to do with them?" "Why,"
they say, "catch them on the spot, of course, and throw
them out,—and there's the long and the short of it."
And here is what they thought up. 1 made believe 1
was going out calling. 1 went away, walked for some
time through the streets, and about six o'clock,—when
Chaikin was relieved, that is,—1 set out for home, soft
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A GOODLY LIFE
and easy. I run up and push the door,—just as I
thought, it was locked. I knock,—no answer. And
Chaikin was already standing around the corner. Then
I started knocking on the windows, until the panes
jarred. Suddenly the latch clicks,—and Vanniya comes
out. He's as white as chalk. I hit him on the shoulder
with all my might,—and go straight into the room. And
there is was just like a feast had been laid out,—empty
beer bottles; weak table wine; sardines; a large herring,
all cleaned, as rosy as amber,—everything from the store.
Phenka was sitting on a chair, with a blue ribbon in her
braid. Soon as she saw me, she jumped up, staring at me
with all her eyes; she was all white, and her very lips
had turned blue from fear,—she thought I'd go for
her, to beat her. But 1 just says, natural-like,—al¬
though I could scarcely breath; 1 was throwing my
shawl open, and then muffling myself up again, by
turns :
"What have you got here?" I says; "is it a bethrothal,
or something? Or is it somebody's birthday? Well,
why don't you welcome a body, why don't you treat me
to something?"
They don't say a word.
"Well," I says, "why don't you say something? Why
don't you speak, little son? Is that the kind of a host
you are, my pet? So that's where my hard-earned
money flies away, I see!"
He even got his dander up;
"1 am of full age myself!"
"So-o," I says, "and what about me? That means that
I'm to rent a hutch or something from your grace and
this here little bitch? To get out of my own house? Is
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that it, eh, So I've warmed a viper in my bosom, have
I?"
And then he starts yelling at me !
"You have no right to insult her! You have been
young yourself at one time,—you ought to understand
what love is!"
And Chaikin, the minute he heard that uproar, was
right there: he jumped in without a word, grabbed
Vannka by the shoulders, and straight into a lumber
room with him, under lock and key. (An awful strong
man, he was,—like a bandit or something!) He turns
the key on him, and says to Phenka:
"You are listed as a miss, but 1 can make a wolf out
of you!"
(Meaning he'd make a note on her passport that would
make her hounded like a wolf.)
"Do you want me to do that," he says, "or don't you?
Vacate this room for us this very day, so's there won't
be even a whiff of you left!"
She went into tears. But 1 added something on top
of that.
"Let her first get the money what's coming to me!"
1 says. "Or else 1 won't even let her take away
the least little lousy trunk of hers. Let her get my
money ready, or I'll let the whole town know about
her!"
Well, so we packed her off that same evening. When
1 was chasing her out, she took on something awful.
She cried and she couldn't catch her breath for sobbing;
she even tore her hair. Of course, her fix wasn't any too
sweet. Where was she to go? All her goods, all her
booty, was her own person. But never the less she went
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A GOODLY LIFE
off. Vanniya, too, quieted down for a while. He was
let out from under lock and key in the morning,—and
never a peep out of him; he was very much scared, and
you could see by his face that he was conscience-stricken.
He settled down to work. And so I even rejoiced and
was set at rest,—but not for long. Again there were
leaks from the till; and this here street-walker started
sending a boy into the shop, and my son, now, would
supply her with all sorts of delicacies! Now he'd give
her all the sugar she wanted, now tea, now tobacco. . . .
Or a handkerchief, or soap, again and again,—whatever
came to his hand. . . . How was a body to watch him all
the time? And then he started in to drink, harder and
harder. At last he neglected the store entirely; he didn't
even live at home, come to think of it,—he'd just come
in and eat, and then he'd be off again without as much as
a by-your-leave. Every day he'd go off to see her; he'd
put a bottle under his coat, and away with him; and this
same vodka, now, was already dear then. 1 run around
like a chicken without its head,—from the dram-shop to
the store, from the store to the dram-shop; and by that
time 1 was afraid to tell him as much as a word,—he had
become a downright tramp! He always was a good-
looker,—he took after me entirely; his face was very
fair and soft,—just like a young lady, he was; he had
clear, intelligent eyes; was well-built, broad-shouldered,
with chestnut curly hair. . . . But now his mug was all
bloated; his hair got shaggy and came down over his
collar; his eyes got bleary, and he got all tattered and
had begun to stoop. He always kept silent now, looking
at the bridge of his nose all the time,—in deep thought,
like.
[236]
A GOODLY LIFE
"Don't you bother me now," he'd say, "I'm liable to
do something that will lead to prison."
And when he'd get tipsy, he'd start slobbering, laugh¬
ing over nothing at all; he'd be playing Time Fled Be¬
yond Recall on his accordéon, and his eyes would fill with
tears. Well, 1 see my affairs are in a bad way,—time for
me to get married, soon as 1 can. And right then they
was trying to make a match betwixt me and a certain
widower,—he had a store, too, and lived in a suburb.
An elderly man, he was, but in good standing, with means.
Just the very thing, you understand, that 1 was striving
for. 1 find out as quickly as 1 can from trustworthy
folks all about his life, down to the last stitch; 1 see
there's nothing out of the way whatsoever. 1 got to
decide about getting up an acquaintance as quick as pos¬
sible,—the match-maker had only shown us to each other
in church before that; 1 got to bring it about, you under¬
stand, so's we can visit each other,—sort of make an in¬
spection, as it were. He comes to me first, and gives his
credentials: "Lagutin, Nikolai Ivannich,—store-keeper."
"Very pleased to meet you," I says. 1 see he's altogether
a fine man,—not any too tall, of course, and all gray; but
so agreeable, quiet, neat, diplomatic,—you could see he
was a thrifty sort; he had never run up a copper of debt
to anybody in all his life, he says. Then me and the
match-maker went to see him, like it was on business.
We get there. 1 see he's got a wine-cellar,—Rhine wines,
mostly; and a store stocked with everything that goes
with wines: cured lard, now, and ham, and sardines, and
herrings. The house wasn't large, but neat as a pin.
There was flowers and little curtains on the windows, the
floor was swept clean,—even though he were a bachelor.
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A GOODLY LIFE
In the yard everything was in order, too. There was
three cows and two horses. One was a three-year-old
brood-mare,—he'd been offered five hundred for it al¬
ready, he said, but he'd turned the offer down. Well, 1
just went into raptures watching that horse,—that's how
handsome it was! But he only smiles quiet-like, walks
with little steps before us, crackling his fingers, and tell¬
ing us everything, like he was reading off some price-list:
here's this and this, and there's that and that. ... So,
thinks I, it's no use trying to be too smart here; the busi¬
ness ought to be brought to an end quick. . . ."
Of course, it's only now that I'm telling all these things
so briefly; but only my poor head knows what feelings
1 went through at that time 1 1 couldn't feel my legs un¬
der me for joy,—I'd gotten what 1 was after, you see, 1
had found the party I was looking for! But 1 kept silent,
1 was afraid and shivering all over,—supposing all my
hopes was to be dashed down? And that's almost what
did happen; all my trouble almost went for nothing,—
and 1 can't tell calmly the reason why, even now;—it was
on account of this here poor cripple, and on account of
my darling little son! We was managing this business so
quietly, so genteel, that we thought never a soul would
know. But no, 1 hear that the entire suburb already
knows about my intentions and Nikolai Ivannich's; the
rumour, of course, reached the Samokhvalovs as well,—
never fear, it was nobody else but Polkanikha that whis¬
pered it to them. And he, the poor cripple, now, took
and hung himself, like I'm telling you! "There now,
you,—1 threatened and you didn't believe me, so now, I'll
do it just to spite you!" He hammered a nail into the
wall above his head, fixed a cord from a sugar-loaf to it,
[238]
A GOODLY LIFE
drew it around his throat, and crawled off the bed. It
wasn't no great trick; didn't take much brains! One day
at twilight 1 was standing in the store, putting some
things to rights,—when suddenly some one thunders
again and again against a shutter in the house. My
heart just went down into my shoes. I jump out on the
threshold,—it's Polkanikha.
"What do you want?"
"Nicanor Matveich has passed away!"
She barked it out, turned on her heel, and went for
home. But 1, in the first excitement, didn't take any¬
thing into account,—it was just like 1 had been scalded
with steam from fright. ... 1 threw a shawl over my
shoulders, and started after her. She runs, with her skirt
caught up in front, stumbling, stooping,—and 1 keep
on running too. ... It was just a disgrace before the
whole town! 1 run, and can't understand a thing. 1
had only one thought,—I'm ruined forever! Just think
of what he'd gone and done,—may God not bear it
against him! Just think what little conscience some
people have! 1 run up to the house,—and there are as
many people there as at a fire. The front entrance is
ajar; whoever wants to pushes his way in,—everybody is
curious, naturally. In my lightheadedness 1 tried to get
in there too. But, glory be, something seemed to hit me
over the head; 1 came to my senses and backed out.
Maybe that was what saved me,—else I would have known
what crow tastes like. If any one,—why, even this Pol¬
kanikha, say,—had remembered me! . . . "Here, now,
your honour, is the one we think is to blame, who is the
reason of it all; just you question her,"—and all would
have been over with me. Try and wriggle out of it then.
[239]
A GOODLY LIFE
A person may not have a blessed thing to do with it, but
they grab you and put you away. ... It wouldn't be
the first time a thing like that has happened.
Weil, soon as they buried him, my heart eased up a
little. I'm getting ready for the wedding, hurrying to
wind up my business, to sell what I could without loss,—
when again there's grief and woe. I was knocked off my
feet as it was, what with one worry and another, and was
all roasted from the heat,—the heat that year was simply
unbearable, with dust, with a hot wind, especially in our
neighbourhood, in Glukhaya Ulitza, standing half way
up on a hill,—when suddenly there was another bit of
news: Nikolai Ivannich had taken offense. He sends over
this same match-maker, now, that had brought us together,
—a terrible slut, she was, and kept both her eyes peeled;
never fear, it was she herself that put him, Nikolai Ivan¬
nich, up to it. Nikolai Ivannich lets me know through
her as how he's putting off the wedding until the first of
September,—he's got a lot of affairs to attend to, now,—
and lets me know about my son, about Vanniya: to figure
out what was best to be done with him ; that he was to be
placed anywhere at all,—"Because, now," he says, "I won't
take him into my house, for no amount. Even though he
be your own son," he says, "he's bound to clear ruin us,
and he'll be upsetting me." (And really, just think of
his position! Since he's never known any turmoil, had
never raised any rows, of course he was afraid of any
excitement: whenever he'd get excited, everything in his
head would get muddled,—he wouldn't be able to say
a word.) "Let her get rid of him," he says. And where
was I to place him, how was I to get rid of him? The
young fellow had gotten out of hand entirely; with
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A GOODLY LIFE
strangers he'd break his neck altogether. But there was
no way of getting away from his riddance. As it was, I
was all through with him ever since he'd come to know
Phenka: she had just bewitched him, the bitch! He'd
sleep all day and drink all night,—turning night into
day. ... I couldn't even begin to tell the trouble I went
through with him that summer! He got me so that 1
began to melt away like a candle; I couldn't hold a spoon,
my hands shook so. Soon as it got dark I'd sit down on
the bench before the house and wait until he'd come in off
the street,—I was afeared the boys in the city might do
him up. . . .
Well, having gotten such a decision from Nikolai Ivan-
nich, 1 call my son to me: "So and so, my little son,"
I says, "I've borne with you long enough, but you've
turned out a weakling and have gone astray; you have
disgraced me all over this neighbourhood. You've got
used to having everything soft and nice, now, until at
last you've become a tramp, a drunkard. You haven't
got a gift like 1 have,—no matter how many times I fell,
I always got up again; but you can't save up anything
for yourself. Here am I,—I've come to be respected, and
I own real estate, and I drink and eat no worse nor other
folk; I don't deny my heart nothing,—and all along of
being governed by common sense, always and above all
things. But you, I see, want to stay a flutter-fly, like
you'd always been. It's time you was getting off my
neck. . . ."
He sits there and never a word out of him,—just picks
the oilcloth on the table. I had just called him out to
dinner, for he'd been sleeping all along, and his mug was
all puffed up.
[241]
A GOODLY LIFE
"Well, why don't you say something?" I asks. "Don't
you be tearing that oilcloth,—get one of your own first;
just you answer me."
Again he don't say a word; he bends his head and his
lips quiver.
"You're going to marry?" he says.
"Well," I says, "it ain't known yet whether 1 am or
whether I ain't; but, if 1 do marry, it will be a decent
man, that ain't a-going to let you into his house. I ain't
your Phenka, brother; 1 ain't no street-walkef or some¬
thing."
When all on a sudden he jumps up from his place and
gets all in a passion :
"Why," he says, "you ain't worth one of her finger¬
nails!"
How was that? Good, eh? He jumped up, yelling till
it didn't sound like his own voice, slammed the door like
thunder,—and oif with him. But 1, even though 1 was
no great hand at crying, just went off into tears. 1 cry
one day, I cry another,—1 had only to think of the words
he could find the heart to say to me, and off I'd go. I
cry, but I keep one thing in mind,—I would never for¬
give him such an insult till the end of time, and 1 would
drive him off entirely. . . . But all this time he don't
come home. 1 hear he's carrying on a feast at her house,
dancing and prancing, drinking through the money he had
stolen, and threatening me: "Never mind," he says, "I'll
settle her; I'll lay in wait till she'll be going somewhere
in the evening; and I'll kill her with a stone." He sends
to the store to buy things,—to make fun of me, of course;
now for ginger cookies, now for herrings. 1 just quiver
all over from vexation, but I hold myself in and give
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A GOODLY LIFE
what's wanted. One day I'm sitting in the store, when
suddenly he comes in himself, drunk as a lord. He
brings in some herrings,—a little wench had bought four
of them that morning for his money, of course,—and slap
with them down on the counter!
"How dare you," he yells, "send such abominable stuff
to your customers? They smell; they're only fit for dogs
to eat!"
He's yelling, with his nostrils all puffed out,—looking
for an excuse.
"Don't you be raising no rumpus here," 1 says, "and
don't be yelling; I don't make the herrings myself, but
buy them by the barrel. If you don't like them, don't
guzzle them,—here's your money back."
"But what if 1 had ate them and died?"
"Again," 1 says, "you're swine, and ain't got no call to
be yelling at me,—who are you to be giving me orders?
Guess you ain't such a much. You ought to speak de¬
cent-like, and not be crowding in with a row into some¬
body else's establishment."
But all on a sudden he grabbed hold of a steelyard off
a bin and sort of hisses out:
"I'll swat you over the head," he says, "so's you'll
stretch right out!"
And then he ran out of the shop with all his might.
But 1, the way 1 had sat down on the floor, that's the way
I stayed,—1 just couldn't get up. . . .
Then, 1 hear that they done for him,—the Lord had
punished him on account of his mother! He was barely
alive when they brought him in a cab,—unconscious
drunk, his head bobbing, his hair caked with blood and
covered with dust; his boots and watch had been stolen,
[243]
A GOODLY LIFE
his new jacket was all in tatters,—there wasn't as much as
a square inch of whole cloth left anywhere. ... I figured
and 1 figured,—take him in I did, and I even paid the
cabby; but that very same day I sends my compliments
to Nikolai Ivannich, and say that he be told for sure
that he shouldn't be worried any more over anything;
that 1 had decided about my son, now,—I would drive
him out without any pity right off when he would wake
up. He also sends back his compliments and bids them
say: "Very wisely and well done, accept my thanks and
sympathy . . ." and two weeks later he set the date
for the wedding. Yes. . . .
Well, that's enough; that's where my story ends. Guess
there's nothing more, to tell about. I've gotten along so
well with my husband all my days, that it's just like a
rarity nowadays. As I'm saying, what 1 went through
whilst 1 was struggling to get into this heaven can't be
told in words! But, truth to tell, the Lord hath rewarded
me,—it is now the twenty-first year that I'm living with
my little old man, fenced about as with a stone wall, and
1 know for sure that he wouldn't let nothing or nobody
hurt me; it's only to look at him that he's so quiet! But,
of course, no matter how I try, the heart will start yearn¬
ing once in a while! Especially before Easter, in Lent,
for some reason or other. I think I could die now,—it's
fine, peaceful; they'll be after reading litanies in all the
churches. . . . True, I've had enough of toiling and moil¬
ing in my time,—oh, but Nastasiya Semenovna was the
persistent one! Ought I, with my mind, to be sitting on
the outskirts of a town? My husband calls me Skobele,^
great Russian general and a universal military genius and
strategist. Trans.
[244]
A GOODLY LIFE
as it is. . . . Again, once in a while I get to longing for
Vanniya. Never a bit of news about him in twenty years.
Maybe he's died long since, but I don't know about it.
I even felt sorry for him that time they brought him in.
We dragged him in, and got him up into bed,—he slept
like he was dead the livelong day. I'd climb up, and
listen to his breathing,—to see if he was alive, now. . . .
And in the room there was a sour stench of some sort;
he's lying in bed, all tattered, chewed-up, snoring and
gagging. ... It was a shame and a pity to look at him,
and yet it was my own flesh and blood! I'd look and I'd
look, and I'd listen,—and then walk out. And what an
anguish seized hold on me! I forced myself to sup,
cleared away the table, put out the light. . . . Can't sleep,
and that's all there is to it,—I just lie there and shiver.
. . . And it was one moonlit night. Then I hear he's
waked up. He's coughing all the time, all the time going
out into the yard, banging the door.
"What you walking about for?" I ask.
"My stomach aches," he says.
I can hear by his voice that he's upset and grieving.
"Drink some of that mugwort and vodka that you'll
find in a bottle standing in the image shrine."
I lay a little longer,—I may have dozed off a little,—
when I felt through my slumber, that some one is stealing
up over the flooring. I jumped up,—it was he.
"Mother, dear," he says, "don't be afraid of me, for
the love of Christ! '
And then he went off into a flood of tears! He sat
down on the bed, catching my hands, kissing them, rain¬
ing tears on them,—and just unable to catch his breath,—
that's how he was crying and sobbing. I couldn't bear
[245]
 GOODLY LIFE
it—and went off on my own! It was a pity, of course,
but there was no help for it,—all my future lot turned
upon him. But then, 1 saw he understood all this very
well himself.
"1 can forgive you," 1 says, "but you see yourself, now,
that there's nothing to be done about it. So you just go
away as far as possible, so's 1 shouldn't §ven hear about
you !"
"Mother, dear," he says, "why have you ruined me,
just like you ruined that poor cripple Nicanor Mat-
veich?"
Well, 1 see the man ain't in his right senses yet, so 1
didn't even start to argue with him. He cried and he cried,
then he got up and went away. And in the morning, 1
look into the room where he'd slept, but he was already
gone for a long while. That meant he had gone as early
as possible for shame,—and then he just disappeared, like
a stone in the water. There was a rumour, now, that he
had lived for a while in a monastery at Zadorsk; that he
had then travelled to Tsaritsin,—and there, never fear,
he must have broken his neck. . . . But what's the use of
talking about it—it only troubles the heart! No matter
how much you cook water, it will still be water. . . .
But as to what he'd said about Nicanor Matveich,—
why, 1 think it's even silly. It wasn't like 1 had been
greedy after a great sum, or had pulled it out of his
pocket. He knew his unfortunate condition himself, and
was often taken with spells of sadness. He used to say
to me at times :
"Nastiya, fate has made me a cripple, and my nature
is an insane one: either I'm gay somehow, like just before
some misfortune,—or else 1 have such a melancholy spell,
[246]
A GOODLY LIFE
especially in summer, during the heat, with all this dust,
that I could just lay hands on myself! I'll die; they'll
bury me in the Chernoslobodskaya cemetery,—and this
dust will swirl for all eternity on to my grave, from be¬
yond the enclosing wall!"
"But, now, Nicanor Matveich, why take on so about
that? We don't feel such things when we're dead."
"Why," he says, "what of it that we won't feel them,—
the trouble is that one thinks about them while one is still
alive. . . ."
And, to tell the truth, it was awful wearisome in the
house, in the Samokhvalovs', when everybody would fall
asleep after dinner, and the wind would be swirling this
dust along! And he had laid hands on himself just at
the time of the greatest heat, at the dullest time. Our
whole town, to tell the truth, is wearisome. I was in Tula
the other day, now,—why, you can't even compare them !
1911.
[247]
"l SAY nothing"
WHEN he had been a young man, everybody used
to call Alexander Romanov Shasha; at that
time he was living in the settlement of Limovo,
in an iron-roofed house that stood facing the common,
and his beatings were administered to him by his father,
Roman.
Roman deemed himself the first man in all that district,
—he used to shove his hand out to all the gentry and the
squires whenever he would meet them. He had a store
in the settlement, and a mill beyond it; but the way he
got richer and richer was by buying up groves from the
land-owners and then cutting them down. Makar, his
own brother, had nothing to eat; all in tatters, he might
be hobbling over the common, and, doffing his hat meekly,
would say: "Greetings, brother." But Roman, well-fed,
looking like a deacon, would answer him from his stoop:
"Don't you brother me, you dolt. You've made your bow,
so just keep on going on your way." What, then, must
have been the feelings of the sole heir of such a man?
He used to stroll through the village in a cap that had
come from the city; in a sleeveless overcoat of the finest
broadcloth, in boots with patent-leather tops. He was all
the time cracking polly-seeds, and playing polkas on an
expensive accordéon. Whenever he met any wenches or
young lads,—all his relatives, all consanguine, everyone
of them,—he would be followed by that sort of gaze from
[248]
"i say nothing"
which celebrities feel a chill run down their back. But he
would meet such a gaze with a surly—even a ferocious
—one; all his youth seemed to have passed in a prepara¬
tion for that rôle in which he attained such perfection later
on.
Roman, at the height of his prosperity, began to decline
in strength, and to get muddled in his aifairs. Grizzled,
bearded, pot-bellied, clad in a sleeveless overcoat of casi-
nette that resembled an under-cassock, it was only when
he was in his cups that he plucked up heart; but when
sober he was always despondent and deliberately churlish.
He still retained his glory and his might. Out on the
common, near the church, right opposite his windows,
he had built a school; he was trustee over it, and could
at any instant he liked make the teacher grovel at his feet.
He was still able to give goods on credit to the land¬
owners; to give bribes to the police inspector, without the
least necessity; he could still regale one with smoked
sprats, with a pickled lobster in a rusty can, with sherry
and with wine from Tsimliyan, which is something like
champagne,—and, even as he entertained, he would yell,
if his guest were of the humbler sort: "Drink, you block¬
head!" But it surely was high time to supplant him.
But who could do it? That was just it,—there was no
supplanting him. Shasha was withdrawing more and
more into his rôle of a man upon whom had been in¬
flicted an insult which could be wiped out only by blood,
and his relations with Roman resolved themselves merely
into Roman's dragging him around by his "temples."
Shasha, to use Roman's words, could make an angel lose
his patience,—it was impossible not to be dragging him
around. And drag him around Roman did. But the
[249]
" I SAY nothing"
more he dragged him, the more unbearable did Shasha be¬
come.
Who but he should have taken pride in the house, the
might, the ways of his father? His father would yell at
him, in the presence of guests : "Go on, now, be a trifle
more free and easy, you dolt!" But then, that was the
way of those whom his father imitated, the way of the
merchants; and was it not a matter for the highest pride
to feel one's self a merchant's son? At times his father
would even boast about him, self-complacently saying to
the guest: "Wait, I'll show youse my son!"—and would
shout all over the house: "Shash, c'mon over here,—
Mikolai Mikhalich wants to have a look at ye!" But, oh,
the way Shasha would enter the room where his father and
the guest were sitting! He would enter with his face
crimsoning, glowering from underneath his beetling and
knit eye-brows, holding his arms stiffly akimbo, like a
pretzel, and stepping still more stiffly, toeing in, and as
elegantly as if he were dancing the fifth figure of the
quadrille,—and, having made a scraping bow to the guest,
he would instantly rush backward to the window, toward
the lintel of the door; blowing out his nostrils, he would
tear his hang-nails with his teeth, and, in the ex¬
pectation of an affront from the visitor, answered
all questions with the most ludicrous brevity and abrupt¬
ness. . . . How, then, could one refrain from beating
him? The guest would depart; Roman, having seen him
off, would walk up to Shasha without a word, and, swing¬
ing back his arm, would grab Shasha fast by his hair.
Without a word, Shasha would extricate his head out of
his father's fingers, and, having run out into the ante¬
room, would smite his bosom with his fist:
[250]
"l say nothing''
"All r-r-right, father! I say nothing! I always say
nothing!" he would hiss ominously.
"Why, she-animal that you are!" Roman would bawl
at him. "Why, it's for this same silence and hoiti-toiti-
ness that I'm a-beating you of! So, then, you're striving
for the beating yourself? Why? Wherefore?"
"My ashes when I'm laid in my grave shall know it
all!" Shasha would answer ferociously and enigmatically.
One could have wagered his head that he must have
been in an excellent state of feelings. Had he not been
born with a golden spoon in his mouth? He would order
new boots two or three times in a year; he never ran
short of money or of polly-seeds; he would promenade the
main street with the teacher, and he played on the har¬
monica better and more spiritedly than everybody else;
the wenches used to sing their "heart-breaking" songs with¬
out taking their languishing eyes off him. While in the
fall, in the winter, he would pay court at evening parties
to the coquettish daughters of the priest, to the daughters
of the police inspector, dancing with them to the sounds
of a talking machine; he was usher at weddings, don¬
ning a frock-coat, starched shirt, and new, tight shoes.
But then, even his courting was somehow caustic, offhand.
But what's the use! Even when all by himself, looking
in the mirror as he whipped up his browny fleece with a
metallic comb, he would squint at himself like some mon¬
ster. His nose was squashed, his voice hoarse, his ap¬
pearance that of a convict,—the moujiks used to call him
a hangman. . . . No great honour, that, you would think.
But no,—he took a delight even in that. "The low-down
devil!" the moujiks would say. "Nothing ever pleases
him; everything ain't his way, everything ain't right!"
[251]
"l SAY nothing"
And he, with all his might, tried to justify these by¬
names. "Who? Is it Shasha you mean by low-down?"
Roman would ask with indignation. "Why, you can
pave a pavement with blocks the likes of him! He's a
fool, a play-actor, a born loafer,—and that's all there is
to it! What's he-putting on airs for? What the devil
is he after?" But Shasha just looked on with a venomous
smile, and never let a word out. "Well, now, just take
a look at him,—do!" Roman was saying. "Just look
what he's trying to make out of himself!" But Shasha
only knit his eye-brows, making them turn up higher and
higher; more and more rapidly did he bite his nails, and
by now was convinced even himself that something dread¬
ful was coming to a head within him. "Oh, father!" he
would say, as though unable to hold out. "Oh, but I
would like to tell you a certain thing!" Roman, de¬
spondent, with sagging pouches under his eyes, would
smile like a martyr: "Well, what sort of a thing is it?
Eh? Well, now, say it?" "Who, me?" Shasha would
ask, throwing a glance at him from underneath his eye¬
brows. "Yes, you!" "My ashes when I'm laid in my
grave shall know it all!" "But what is it that they'll
know? Are you drunk, you good-for-nought?"
"Drunk!" Shasha would answer. "Drunk? I say noth¬
ing. I al-ways say nothing!" And, almost weeping,
Roman would again advance upon him, like a bear;
would again catch him by the head, and, bending it
down, would drag him by the hair in an excruciating
transport.
From his twentieth year to his twenty-fifth, Shasha
was almost never beaten,—unless it were sort of casually,
of course. But he made up for this with something else.
[252]
"l SAY nothing"
He sought other occasions for self-torture,—and of occa¬
sions there were as many as he wanted.
He married—and it was a splendid match—the daugh¬
ter of the manager of a great estate which belonged to
a nobleman; his bride was a laughing, freckled girl,
rather pretty. His marriage was celebrated magnifi¬
cently. The owners of the estate resided abroad; there¬
fore Shasha was able to go to the wedding ceremony in
their carriage, and the priest, out of respect to this car¬
riage, felicitated him upon his lawful marriage with espe¬
cial eloquence and servility, although it did seem to
Shasha that he was being made fun of. The wedding
feast, too, was held in the owners' house. Wine flowed
like a river. Roman, amid the general clamour of de¬
light, started in to dance, shaking the parquetry, the
mirrors and the chandeliers. The owners' flunky gave
an excellent imitation of a railroad train: he began with
a rumbling whistle through his fingers, then started in
beating out, with his feet, the slow and heavy clatter of
a train constantly increasing its momentum, and wound
up with a riotous gallop. The sexton, having imbibed
too much cognac at the feast, died on his way home.
The deacon, having fallen down in his own yard into
some half-liquid manure, was almost trampled to death
by his sheep. The nastiest of autumn dawns, pallidly
blue, looked in through the fog into the smoke-filled
seigniorial halls,—but the lights were still burning there;
the talking machine, now grown hoarse, was still gur¬
gling out now the Le^guinka, now The Lancers; the
ushers, all moist from the heat and their exertions, were
still yelling as they supervised the dances; while the
eyes of the young ladies grew glazed from fatigue, and
[253]
"l SAY nothing"
the soles of their white slippers flew off as they
danced. . . . But Shasha did not spare even his own high
celebration; having convinced himself that he was in¬
fernally jealous of his young wife and a certain rather
young land-owner, he, feigning intoxication, suddenly
stepped upon the long train of her dress during a waltz,
and tore it off with a ripping sound. And after that he
made a rush for a knife, trying to cut his own throat,
and, upon being disarmed, he sobbed wildly, tearing off
his starched collar and his white tie, calling upon the
memory of his departed mother. ... As for his be¬
haviour after the wedding,^—Shasha did everything that
lay in his power to wreck his own domestic well-being,
and to hasten the ruin of Roman.
Having attained the zenith, Roman was inevitably
bound, as is always the case in Russia, to start rolling
downward again, toward his former lowly lair. Soon
after the wedding it turned out that he was entirely en¬
tangled, head and foot, in the toils of debt. He became
awesome. His grizzled beard turned white. His face
came to resemble a dirty-gray, milked-out udder. His
eyes died out. His belly, grown flabby, hung down. But
Shasha rejoiced malignantly: "I told you so! I told
you so!"—and was finishing him off; he rioted, kicked
up rows, demanded a winding up of Roman's affairs.
And Roman, turning green from wrath, would rise up
against him like a bear, thirsting to maim him,—but he
no longer could; he no longer could! Crushed down by
the thought of approaching disgrace, of approaching
poverty, he took to drinking harder and harder. Hav¬
ing lost all shame, he got his mistress (a cook and a
soldier's wife), into his own house, Shasha, not being
[254]
"l SAY nothing"
contented with his wife, lived with her too, just to spite
him. As for his wife, he used to exhaust her with his
jealousy and his scares; he used to stay away from the
house and to send moujiks with notes to her, upon which
notes would be written: "Forgive me in death; 1 send
my blessings to the children,"—and below there would
be drawn a grave with a cross. His wife was for a long
while deluged with tears. And then she got together with
the teacher, and now gave Shasha every reason to be
saying "All r-r-right! Only my ashes when I'm laid
in my grave will know it all!" The upshot of it all
was, that Roman was laid low by a stroke of paralysis;
that only the wind-mill beyond the settlement was left
out of all his wealth; that Shasha's wife, taking the chil¬
dren with her, fled to her father, who had gone to the
city of Skopin. The while Shasha, drinking deep of the
delicious draught of his misfortunes, treating everything
and everybody with merciless criticism and opprobrium,
was absenting himself in the village, drinking every bit
as hard as his father, she pulled up stakes and dis¬
appeared.
Roman left the settlement for his mill beggared and
barely alive. Beggared and widowed, gnashing his teeth
with rage, Shasha followed him out of the village. What
with toiling and moiling, even the mill would not have
been a bad thing to live by. But how was Shasha to be
bothered with| it! How could you expect him to have
the strength of getting up on his feet after the awful
finishing stroke fate had dealt him ! Even formerly he,—
not understood, not appreciated, condemned to live in
the midst of enemies and ill-wishers,—had had but one
recourse left him ; to say nothing, and again to say noth-
[255]
"l SAY nothing"
ing, and to say nothing without end. And now? Why,
he could have piled up thousands from this mill alone;
there would have been no getting into it for the carts
full of grain surrounding it,—if he only had two or three
hundred to get him a new shaft and new mill-stones. . . .
Yes, but where was a body to get that money? It's only
into the hands of fools that good luck plays; but you
take an able, sensible man, and Fate will twist him into
a ram's horn. Well, let it,—let it! "I say nothing,"
Shasha would say, malignantly rejoicing; "I al-ways say
nothing!"
The broken trough,'^ familiar to him and appropriate to
his former status of a moujik, again appeared before
Roman in place of palatial chambers. Nor did the rub
lie at all in the fact that, instead of smoked sprats
and Tsimliyan wine, a big slice of black bread and a
wooden vessel of water turned up on his table,—he would
have eaten such food with his former relish; the rub was
in the torments of his pride,—the most cruel of all hu¬
man torments. In a big hut, leaning all to one side, with
an earthen floor and with holes in its corners, atop the
bare oven,—there did Roman sleep now. In the morn¬
ing he would crawl out beyond the threshold, with a
^ The reference here is to a famous folk-tale,—best known in
Pushkin's version, The Little Gold Fish. A fisherman, having
caught a little gold fish, is promised the fulfillment of all his
wishes for its release. All his demands, instigated by his wife,
are granted, beginning with a substitution of a new trough for
a broken one, and up to the attainment of rank and wealth; but
finally the wife insists upon the fulfillment of a wish so insolent
that, upon his return from interviewing his benefactress, the
fisherman finds his wife sitting at the same old broken trough,
before his former humble hut. Trans.
[256]
"l SAY nothing"
tall staff in his hands. With pig-weeds and high rank
grass was the outside of the hut overgrown; stinging
nettles choked up the huge shell of the wide-open wind¬
mill. All this stood out on the bare ridge of the plains,
nigh the highway. And Roman would go out to the
edge of the road, and would place his tremblng, cold
paws upon his staff. He was without a hat; the wind
tangled up his gray, shaggy locks, his gray beard,—the
beard of a moujik Job. He was bare-footed, in short
drawers of striped ticking, in a long blouse filthy from
cinders and the rubbish of the oven. His legs were black
and thin, his torso huge and emaciated. Those whom he
had regaled and lectured at one time now rode past him.
And Roman—it was not for nothing that Shasha had
sprung from his loins—^^even rejoiced that folks saw him
in poverty, in disgrace, and he bowed to the ground be¬
fore them. And of evenings he would stand in the dark
hut before a little painted board hung up in a corner,
and with heavy sighs bowed before it still lower then he
did before men, saying his prayers now in a whisper,
now loudly—warmly and grievously thanking God for
all that He had visited upon him, a miserable, stricken
old man. . . . Shasha, now, enjoyed his humiliation in
a gayer fashion, in low-down inns, in low-down pot¬
houses, drinking away the last scanty remnants of their
former prosperity, and paying for his long tongue by
being beaten. . . .
Then, from his twenty-fifth year on, his beatings be¬
came regular, administered to him upon a previously
designated day; and no longer was he beaten the way his
father used to beat him; he was beaten with heels now,
until he would lose consciousness.
[257]
" I SAY nothing"
The soldier's wife remained faithful to the house of
Roman. She also moved to the mill. And when Roman
died—oh, how proud (with a malignantly joyous pride)
Shasha was over this calamity,—she passed into Shasha's
hands openly. But in the meanwhile her lawful hus¬
band had come home from service. She was as needful
to him as snow in the summertime; but never the less
he held it to be his most sacred duty and his inalienable
right to avenge his sullied honour. And he ingeniously
timed this revenge with the day of the folk-festival at
Limovo.
Every year, on the fifteenth of July, on a great holiday
popularly called the Kiriki, a fair is held in Limovo.
Rain pours down in chill torrents; one is reminded of
the summer only by the rooks in the fields, by the height
and the density of the grains and the grasses, and also
by the sky-larks, that sing above them in the rain asd
are blown aslant by the wind. But on the common at
Limovo a little nomadic city of tents is already spring¬
ing up. The traders from the city have arrived,—and it
is an unaccustomed, strange sight to see in the settle¬
ment these city people, in their long-skirted coats. In
building upon the common, and making it congested,
they have changed the simple village picture with their
thronging, their big, strong carts laden with goods; to¬
gether with these goods they have brought the atmos¬
phere of an Asiatic bazaar; their samovars smoke, and
their braziers emit the fumes of frying mutton. ... On
the fifteenth, since the early morn, they are already
standing behind their counters; while the moujiks with
their women-folk and little ones keep on streaming in,
flocking from all directions toward the village; they have
[258]
"l SAY nothing"
dammed up the common so that there isn't room for
a pin to fail. And above all this swarming, babel, hub¬
bub, and creak of carts, booms the festal pealing of bells,
summoning to mass.
To the sound of these bells, in full view of all the
folks riding through the dirty by-lane that leads past
the wind-mill, Shasha is standing nigh his threshold; his
belt is loose, and, bending downward, he holds a wooden
vessel with water in one hand and with the other hand,
which is wet, he is rubbing his bearded, pock-marked face,
all puffy from sleep. How little does this thick-set moujik
in broken boots resemble the former Shasha! He ap¬
pears calmer than before, yet still more morose. His
hair is fearfully thick even now, but it is already shaggy,
like a moujik's. Having washed himself, he tears his
hair apart with a wooden comb, combs out his tangled
round beard, clears his throat hoarsely, and eyes his little
mirror askance,—eyes his broad, porous face, with the
squashed nose. He hasn't forgotten that he looks like
a hangman. And really, he does look like one,—^espe¬
cially now. Having combed himself, he puts on a
blouse that he saves for gala occasions,—it is of red
calico, and its dye will come off on his body when
he will begin to perspire. On week days he becomes
stultified from ennui, from over-sleeping, from the fact
that no one any longer pays any attention to him, or
listens to him; his boasting about his former state, his
hints about that which was supposed to lurk within his
soul, and his foul tattling about his runaway wife, have
all long since palled upon everybody. But to-day is a
holiday; to-day people would look with curiosity upon
him, the erstwhile man of wealth now walking around on
[259]
"l SAY nothing"
his uppers; to-day he would be pla3dng before an enor¬
mous crowd, to-day he would be fearfully beaten,—
beaten until he would lose conscience,—right before the
eyes of all this crowd. . . . And lo, he is already enter¬
ing into his rôle; he is already excited; his jaws are
tightly clenched; his eye-brows are distorted. . . . Hav¬
ing togged himself out, he puts on a rusty cap, and, with
a constrained step, resolutely and steadily sets out for
the village.
The strangest part of all is the piety with which he
begins this day. He goes directly toward the church,
and, without looking at anybody, but with all his being
feeling upon him the eyes of everybody surrounding him,
he bows and makes the sign of the cross with all his
might. In the church he shoves his way to the very
ambo, where at one time he had had his own rightful
place, and at that moment he is filled to the marrow of
his bones with contempt for the moujiks, reminding them
briefly and sternly, like one having authority, that it
wouldn't be a bad idea for them to wake up and stand
aside. And the moujiks hastily comply. Glowering like
a bull from underneath his eye-brows at the officiating
priests and the icons, he prays frenziedly and austerely
until the very end of the mass, haughtily demonstrating
to everybody that he is the only one who knows just
the right time to bow and to make the sign of the cross.
Just as austerely does he walk through the fair after
the mass, proud of the fact that he had already had a
drink or two, that he could approach some trader in
his tent as an equal, shaking his hand and leaning over
the counter, scooping up a handful of polly-seeds and
bothering the trader with his conversations about the
[260]
"l SAY nothing"
city, and about the state of trade. ... He was also
proud of the fact that he could at times yell at the droves
of wenches, pressing one another against the counter, like
sheep; or at some moujik that, with a bag under his
arm,—there would be a young pig squirming around
in that bag,—has already tested all the penny whistles,
all the mouth organs, and could not, for the life of him,
decide which one to take. The people, pouring out of
the church, have flooded the common; the belfries are
pealing forth their chimes; the beggars are snufflingly
clamorous; the live-stock—^which is also bought and sold
during the Kiriki—bleats and hee-haws; and in the dense
crowd, spitting out polly-seed shells and slipping up in
the mire between the tents, there are already many in¬
toxicated men. Shasha has already managed to drink
some more, and feels that the right time has come. Hav¬
ing had his fill of talking with the traders, he goes with
resolute steps toward the carrousels. A countless multi¬
tude of people has gathered there, watching, until their
heads, too, begin to go 'round and 'round, the wooden
horses and their riders. Almost all of Limovo is there,
and, towering a head taller above everybody, is the
soldier's wife's husband. Shasha's hands grow cold; his
lips quiver; but he pretends not to notice his foe. He
approaches his acquaintances, pulls a bottle out of his
pocket, regales anybody who comes along, and drinks
himself. He talks a great deal, and loudly; he smokes,
and laughs unnaturally and malevolently; but all the
while he is on the alert, waiting. . . . And now, pretend¬
ing to be hopelessly drunk, in a new cap with the store's
price tag still showing white upon it, clean shaven, well-
fed, with sleepy blue eyes, the soldier advances straight
[261]
"l SAY nothing"
upon Shasha, and with all his momentum, as though
without seeing him, strikes him in the chest with his
shoulder. Shasha, gritting his teeth, steps to one side
and continues his conversation. But the soldier comes
back, again passes him,—and once more hits him in the
chest with his shoulder! Whereupon, as though unable
to bear such insolence, Shasha distorts his face,—dis¬
torted enough without that,—and drawls out through his
teeth :
"E-eh, young fellow! Watch out that I don't shove
you in my own way!"
And the soldier, instantly checking his headlong prog¬
ress, suddenly staggers backward and roars out furiously:
"What's 'at?"
Amid the hubbub and rumble of the fair, amid the
clanging of the carrousel bells and the delighted, hypo¬
critically-sympathizing shouts of the oh'ing and parting
crowd, the soldier stuns Shasha and draws his blood
with the very first blow. Shasha, trying to get his fingers
into the soldier's mouth, true to an old usage of the
moujiks, in order to tear his lips, pounces upon him like
a beast,—and instantly falls down in the mire as if he
were dead, underneath the iron-shod heels that beat
heavily upon his chest, upon his shaggy head, upon his
nose, upon his eyes,—already glazed, as in a ram with
his throat cut. And all the folks "oh" and "ah" and won¬
der: "There's a queer, incomprehensible fellow for you!
Why, he knew, he knew beforehand how this matter
would end! Why did he go into it, then?" And truly,—
why did he? And toward what, in general, is he so in¬
sistently and undeviatingly heading, as he devastates his
ruined dwelling from day to day, endeavouring to erad-
[262]
"l SAY nothing"
icate even to the last atom the very traces of that which
was created, in such an unprecedented manner, by the
uncouth genius of Roman, and ceaselessly thirsts after
humiliations, disgrace, and beatings?
Within the church enclosure, on the way to the door
of the chapel, there were some horrible specimens of hu¬
manity, standing ranged in two files. In her yearning
for self-torture; in her yearning-loathing of the curbing
bit, of toil, of her mode of existence; in her infatuation
with all sorts of hideous visages (both those of the
tragedian and of the scaramouche), in her dark, criminal
desires, in her lack of will power, her eternal disquiet,
in her misfortunes, sorrows and poverty,—Russia breeds
these people from of old, and without end. In Limovo
alone some half-hundred of them gather. And what
faces are these, what heads! Just as if they had come
out of the crude wood-cuts made in Kiev, which depict
both fiends and the striving anchorites of the Mother-
Desert. There are ancients with such withered heads,
with such scant locks of long gray hair, with such noses,
as thin as thin can be, and with the slits of their unseeing
eyes so deeply fallen in, that they seem to have lain
for centuries in the caverns where they had been walled
up still in the time of the Kiev princes. . . . And they
had come out of there in half-rotted tatters; they had
thrown upon their remains their beggars' wallets, fasten¬
ing them cross-wise behind their shoulders with odd bits
of rope, and had set off on their wanderings from one
end of Russia to the other, through her forests, over her
steppes, in the winds of her steppes. . . .
There are lantern-jawed blind men,—sturdy and squat
moujiks, that look just like pilloried convicts who have
[263]
"l SAY nothing"
killed their scores of souls,—these have solid, square
heads, their faces seem to have been hacked out by an
axe, and their bare legs are swollen with livid blood and
are unnaturally short, even as their arms are. There are
common idiots, huge of shoulder and of leg. There are
malignant dwarfs with bird-like faces. There are wedge-
headed hunch-backs, who seem to be wearing pointed
caps made out of horse-hair. There are monstrous
marasmi, squatting back on their crooked legs like ter¬
riers. There are foreheads squeezed in at the sides and
forming skulls that look like the cap of an acorn. There
are bony old women, without a vestige of a nose,—for
all the world like Death itself. . . . And all this mass,
prominently displaying its tatters, its sores and cankers,
vociferate in a Bulgarian, old-church sing-song, vocif¬
erates in rough basses, and castrated altos, and indescrib¬
ably depraved tenors, about Lazarus and his sores,
about Alexei the Man of God, who also, thirsting after
poverty and martyrdom, did forsake his father's roof,
"knowing not whither he went. . . ."
All these people, with their eye-brows writhing above
their dark eyes, with an intuition, an instinct, as keen
as that of certain primary sea creatures, instantly sense,
surmise, the approach of a generous hand; and by now
they have already grabbed up a not unconsiderable quan¬
tity of bread-crusts, of round cracknels, and of the
moujiks' coppers, grown green from contact with their
execrable tobacco. After mass, with a chanting still more
vigorous and importunate, they spread through the sea
of the people, through the fair. The cripples, too, move
after them,—legless creatures, crawling on their bottoms
and on all fours, or lying in their eternal beds, in little
[264]
"l SAY nothing"
carts. Here is one of these little carts. In it is a little
bit of a man, about forty years of age, with his ears tied
up in a woman's kerchief; his milky-blue eyes are calm,
and he has stuck out of his old rags a thin little hand,—
violet-coloured, six-fingered. He is pulled about by a
bright-eyed little lad, with exceedingly pointed little ears,
and with fox-like down upon his head. All around him
is a multitude of the fraternity, all of them, for some
reason or other, also tied up with kerchiefs. And out
of all this fraternity one moujik with a large white face
stands out he is all broken up, all maimed; there is no
bottom to him at all, and he has on but one fusty bast
shoe. Probably, he, too, had been beaten-up some-
wheres as thoroughly as Shasha: his entire kerchief, his
ear, his neck and one shoulder are all in caked blood.
In his long bag there are pieces of raw meat, cooked bits
of mutton, bread crusts, and millet. His seat, now, is
sewn up with a bit of leather,—and twisting himself
all up, he squirms and starts off, on and on over the
mire, extending in front of him his unshod foot,
his leg half-bare, in lime-covered scabs that are
oozing with matter and pasted over with strips of
burdock.
"Look ye, ye faithful,—look and behold ye! This is
reckoned, from of old, as the disease of leprosy!" a
freckled tatterdemallion beside him is shouting in a rapid
recitave, which is right rollicking. . . .
And it is toward these people that Shasha is heading.
He lives for some two or three years more in his mill;
he celebrates three or four fairs more; he again enters
into battle with the soldier three or four times; kind-
hearted folks bring him to by throwing water out of
[265]
"l SAY nothing"
wooden tubs upon him as he lies without breath or
speech; without opening his eyes, he drags his wet head
over the ground, back and forth, and moans out pain¬
fully through his clenched teeth.
"All r-r-right, good folks! I say nothing! I al-ways
say nothing!"
Then he is brought to the mill; he lies for two weeks
over the stove, little by little getting better, and soon he
is again traipsing around the low-down inns; he brags,
he lies, he curses out everybody and everything, he
smites his breast with his fists, threatening all his foes,—
but the soldier especially. But once the Kiriki turn out
to be unfortunate,—the soldier breaks Shasha's arm with
his heel, and shatters the bridge of his nose, and knocks
out his eyes. Lo, now Shasha is both blind and a crip¬
ple. The soldier's wife abandons him; his mill, his land,
is taken by good folks for his debts. And now Shasha
is safe in harbour; now he is a fully-privileged member
of the horde of beggars that stand in the church en¬
closure during the Kiriki,—bone of its bone, flesh of its
flesh. All in tatters, with a round and thick beard, with
his head clipped so closely that it looks like a hedge-hog,
he wildly distorts his eye-brows over his empty, drawn-
over sockets, and hoarsely bawls in time with the oth¬
ers the beggars' soul-wringing canticles. The chorus
sombrely rends the air, to the best of each member's
ability, and the voices of the leader stand out resonantly,
as they bawl out every syllable;
There once lived three sisters; there were once three Marys of
Egypt,—
In three parts did they their wealth divide:
One part was set aside for the blind and the sick;
[266]
"l say nothing''
One part was set aside for prisons, for dark dungeons;
The third part was set aside for churches, for cathedrals. . . .
Shasha's harsh voice chimes in, soaring above that of
the others:
The time will come
When the earth, the sky shall be shaken;
The least stones shall crumble.
The Lord's thrones shall tumble.
The sun and the moon shall grow dim,—
And the Lord shall cause a river of fire to flow. . . .
And blending, swelling, attaining a sinister and a
triumphant force, the entire choir becomes throatily,
sonorously clamorous:
Mi-cha-el the Arch-angel,
Shall make all earthly creatures perish;
He shall blow his trumpets.
He shall say to all mankind:
Ye had your life and being.
Having your own free will;
Ye did shun church-going,—
At matins ye were sleeping.
At vespers ye were eating,—
Your paradise stands ready:
Fires never dying.
Tortures past all bearing!
1913.
[267]
DEATH
IN the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassion¬
ate! .. .
This is a tale of the death of a prophet,—peace to
his ashes!—told that the doubters may be convinced of
the need for submission to The Leader.
"We have never beheld Him, nor do we behold Him
now," say they. But the sun is not at fault in that
vision has been denied to the eyes of a bat. The heart
of man aye seeketh faith and protection. But who
would seek protection from an owl? It is better to
dream of the shadow of the phœnix, even though the
phœnix may never have existed in this world. But the
protecting shadow of the Creator exists since the start of
time.
The black-eared jackal slinks in the steps of a lion:
the lion knoweth where the prey is, and the black-eared
one findeth sustenance in the remnants of the lion's re¬
past. Thus did the Hebrews follow their prophet out of
the land of Egypt. Through the favour of Cod did he
fulfill the mighty deed he had set out to do.
In his infancy he had experienced the delight of
slumber, of awakening, of endearment. The daughter of
the king had rocked him in her arms, dark and rounded,
smooth as a snake, but as warm as fruit in the sun.
Joyously and intently did her dark eyes gaze upon him,
[268]
DEATH
as they shone above him; and impulsively did she kiss
him, pressing him to her cold breasts; she would pretend
to strangle him, as is the wont of all maidens. When re¬
calling the like, many a one exclaims within his heart:
"Why was I not a youth then!" But there is a time
fbr all things.
The Pharaoh did bestow upon him a ring with a seal
of authority, and did clothe him in the garments of a
courtier. When the freshness of the morning is sup¬
planted by the warmth of the sun; when, in the market¬
place, the fennel is sprinkled to draw the scent of the
purchaser; when there is a smell of burning peat floating
from the chimneys, and a smell of fog from the direc¬
tion of the great river, upon which towering white sails
slowly float by, two abreast, the while a thin-bearded
buffalo, as dove-coloured and rough-skinned as a swine,
dully contemplates them, as he arises from the slime
near the bank,—at such a time the prophet, con¬
scious of his powers and alertness, did ride about in his
chariot, overlooking the labours in the fields, and had
the right to lash the lazy ones over the head with his
scourge, to yell at them until he became red in the face,
so that he might afterwards, in the sweet consciousness
of a duty fulfilled, repose in the light shade of the palms,
upon a dry dike among the canals.
Having attained manhood, he spent ten years in wed¬
lock. He shared his couch with a woman rich and well¬
born; he took his pleasure of her in the night,—in the
daytime his pleasure lay in his orders and his cares, in
drink and food, in the buoyancy of his body, that liked
equally well both the dry sultriness of an inner court,
emanating from its heated slabs of stone, and the cool
[269]
DEATH
breath of a breeze throughout the house, blowing from
the river and from the blossoming gardens of its island.
He took pride in his children, in his household, in the
respect shown to him of all men. And he was happy,
even as many others are. But an unseen hand was mak¬
ing taut the bow of his life; it was testing the bow-string
and the wood, preparing to loose the arrows of truth.
And ten years more did he pass in the striving of his
mind and his heart, in the silent acquirement of the
wisdom of Egypt; for the wall is preceded by the foun¬
dation, and speech, by thought. And he hath said of
the heathen priests: "Ye men of folly! Slaves, tor¬
mented by heat, may be forgiven for raising their arms
toward the sun, and supplicating it as God. But the
sun is not God. None may behold God. He is beyond
our comprehension. He may only be sensed. There is
but one God. He hath no offspring." Whereupon the
Pharaoh was possessed by a fury, even as the gour, the
wild-ass, is overtaken by his madness. "Who is he that
dares to live and to believe without my sanction?" he
exclaimed. "He hath no precious rings upon his fingers,
nor is there a necklace about his neck. He is but my
slave. Therefore shall I set up a persecution of him
and of all his tribe. I shall flash like the lightning, I
shall deafen like thunder." But the prophet gathered
his strength together, even as a man that standeth before
the steep ascent of a hill, and went upon his way, fear¬
less and assured.
Musk is brayed, aloes are put in the fire, that they
might give forth their perfume. A diver would never
pluck a single pearl-bearing shell, were he to fear hold¬
ing in his breath as he plunges into the sea. And when
[270]
DEATH
the time had come to lift up the heaviest stone for the
structure, to throw it up on the knee, to clasp it as firmly
as possible and to carry it, the prophet did lift it, so
strenuously that he felt a pain in his groin. And for
forty years did he carry it in the desert, ever at a strain,
ever enduring fatigue, and joyous in the consciousness
that he was working the will of God, and not of the
Pharaoh. And, having carried it to the required spot, to
the spot indicated by the Builder, he did cast down the
stone, so that it lay even and flush; and he did straighten
up, and did wipe the sweat from his face, with a trem¬
bling arm that had grown weak and was aching to the
very shoulder.
And the time came for him to die.
He had attained to a knowledge of the veritable God.
He had become convinced that it was madness to repre¬
sent Him in the form of idols made of stone, of clay, and
of metal. God had put upon him the task of delivering
the Hebrew nation out of bondage and from the tempta¬
tion of idolatry,—and he had rent asunder the silken
nets of this world, he had risen up and had conquered
in the wrestling. God had put him to the proof,—for
forty years to be a chieftain for the refractory and the
weak, to command and instruct in a desert that held
nothing but hunger and sultriness. And for forty years
he had been as mighty as a king; as tireless as a day-
labourer burthened with a multitude of children; as
needy as a shepherd; brawny and tall as a wrestler, strong
and tawny as a lion. His body, girt only about the
loins with an animal pelt, had become black from the
sun and the wind, while his feet had become rough and
callous, like those of a camel. In his old age he had
[271]
DEATH
become awesome to men, and none of them deemed
him mortal. But his hour did approach at last.
O ye who hearken! In The Book it is written:
"All are conceived in the lap of truth,—it is the parents
that make Hebrews, Christians, Fire-Worshippers out of
the children." But a sage is like a blind man : he feeleth
every stone in his path, choosing the path that is the
right one; he raiseth his face upward, yearning for the
sole source of light and warmth. He considereth life,
and he considereth death, lessening his fear before the
latter. And there have been not a few of those who have
received the chalice of the inevitable with equanimity;
there have also been those who have said: "It is even as
sweet as the chalice of life." However, it is but the fool
that yearneth for the chalice of death during life,—such
a one is loathsome to behold. But he also is a fool that
giveth no thought to the inevitable, that forgetteth
that all mortals ought to have but one Beloved, Who
possesseth clemency and demandeth submission. O
ye who hearken! Hearken attentively, as man ought
always to hearken to man; and, as ye hearken, reflect.
For, as we speak, we are but mixing the good words of
others with the passable ones of our own, dealing with
that which is foreign to none of us; and the purpose of
our speech is consolation.
In The Book it is written: "1 that am God am
nearer to man than the artery that sendeth him slumber."
God is compassionate. He knoweth what is good for us
and what is bad. He did create us mortal, yet we think
of resisting death. Vain striving! Have ye heard at
what cost 1 scander the Two-Horned attained the Land of
Darkness? And yet, he did not succeed in quaffing of
[272]
DEATH
the water of eternal life, of which he had been told; It
is to be found in the Land of Darkness. The Angel of the
Winds is not perturbed by the fact that his wings may
extinguish the lamp of some poor widow. The Messen¬
ger of Death heeds neither the prayer of a shepherd nor
the outcry of a sovereign. Bide a while: earth shall
devour the brains within our skulls, that are now filled
with projects. Death is no Mogul, and thou art no
Atabek-Abou-Bekr: thou canst not ransom thyself with
gold from Death. Therefore, seek ye consolation.
The prophet did oppose the will of God in the desert,
and heavy as his punishment for his disobedience: God
forbade him to enter the Promised Land. The prophet
did wax wroth in spirit that he was mortal, and that
death was already nigh him, for he was old. Spake he;
"1 shall do single combat with it." At noonday, passing
through the camp of the Hebrews in the mountains
of Moab, he did look, and beheld not his shadow upon the
white stones nigh him. And he was seized with a fit of
trembling from fear, and his head was confused, like that
of a man that is fever-stricken. Thereupon he did go
toward his terrt, with the steps of a wounded beast
advancing upon its adversary. And he girt a sword
about him, and did command food to be brought to him.
And he did eat much thereof, full greedily, till that he
was sated. And he did feel aches and nausea, as though
from poison, as though from the fruit plucked from the
tree of hell; and he did wax green in the face, and was
bathed in sweat, even as a woman in travail; and he did
lie down upon the ground, crying out wildly: "Behold,
1 am dying,—bare your swords and arise in my defense!"
Thus did he cry out upon the first day. On the second,
[273]
DEATH
his aches did wax greater, and he began to implore,
moaning and wrathful: "Summon a physician for me!"
But when the physician had revealed his impotence, and
the third day had come, the prophet uttered low: "Oh,
have mercy upon me! Death is unconquerable!" And
he did grow weaker, and fell into a slumber, and did sleep
through all the day, and his aches did depart from him.
And, having come to, he beheld that it was already
night and that he was alone, and again did he feel the
delight of living, and the sorrow of parting with life.
Whereupon two dark angels did enter in to him, that they
might console and prepare him.
One sat down at the head of the couch; the other, at
the feet of the prophet. "Speak!" said they. But he
kept silent and made no reply to them, for he was in deep
thought. He gazed out into the night, beyond the
raised side of the tent, sensing their presence with dread,
for truth had not yet entered within all his veins. And
it was so quiet in the tent and the desert that all the
three could hear the rustling of the hot wind as it swept
by in the darkness. And the stars were flaming
sombrely, as on all sultry nights.
"God is compassionate to all His creatures," spake the
angel who was sitting at the head of the prophet's couch.
"Yet here is a man in torment; he was dying, and is
dying now," spake the angel sitting at the prophet's
feet.
They wanted to test the prophet, but he understood
this. And he made answer, in his thoughts:
"This was not death, but an illness, a chastisement. Is
it not better to think thus? For he that hath tasted of
[274]
DEATH
death cannot speak about it. We know not what it is."
"The sun is the source of life," spake the angel sitting
at the head of the couch.
"But then, it is also as deadly as the horned viper,"
spake the angel seated opposite him.
They wanted to test the prophet, but he understood
this. And he made answer, in his thoughts:
"We do not know God's purpose. But He is benign,
and His purpose also is benign. Is it not better to think
thus? Man ought to dedicate his every moment to life,
recalling death only that he may weigh all his deeds upon
its scales, and that he may meet the inevitable hour
without fear. How would he that trades know that he is
dealing fairly with him that buys, how would he know
that he is giving him that which is his due, if there were
no scales? How would a man spend his day, if his heart
were never to be forsaken by indignation over the
thought that the sun would sink at its wonted hour, and
if he were to be possessed with the desire of preventing
it? He would be insane and futile."
"The slumber of the dead is sweet," spake the angel
sitting at the head of the couch.
"But, just now, a man has died in the camp of the
Hebrews,—happy, young, beloved," spake the angel
seated opposite him. "Just hearken: there is the rustle
of the hot wind; the stars flame sombrely; and the
hyaenas whine and whimper in their evil joy, hurriedly
digging open the grave, sniffing its stench and an¬
ticipating the devouring of his entrails. But the
sorrow of the dead man's near ones is more dreadful
than the grave itelf."
[275]
DEATH
They wanted to test the prophet, and they did suc¬
ceed in wounding his heart with the last. But, in his
thoughts, he spake to them :
"I am recalling every moment of my life; every
moment of my sweet childhood, my joyous youth, my
laborious manhood—and 1 lament them. Ye speak of the
grave,—and my hands grow chill from fear. 1 beseech
ye,—console me not, for consolation depriveth one of
courage. 1 beseech ye,—remind me not of the flesh, for
it will turn to corruption. Is it not better to think
otherwise? Even his halting place, in a vale sheltered
from the winds, where he may have passed but a day, a
man will abandon with regret; but it is his duty to go on,
if to go on be necessary. Speaking with dread of
the grave, are we not speaking in the words of the
ancients, that knew the flesh, but knew not God and the
immortality of souls? Dreadful is the majesty of the
deeds of God. Do we not mistake this dread for the
dread of death? Say ye to yourselves more often; The
hour of death is not as dreadful as we deem it. Else,
neither the universe nor man could exist.' "
"He is a sage," spake the angel sitting at the head of
the couch.
"He was refractory and arrogant," spake the angel
seated opposite the first. "He dreamed of wrestling with
God,—and now he shall be punished anew : never a mortal
shall point to his grave in the mountains of Moab. And
thereby shall his glory be diminished."
They wanted to test the prophet, but he understood, and
answered them unwaveringly:
"Goodly is the glory of those that merit gbry. But
that which has earned diminution, must be diminished.
[276]
DEATH
For even the most glorious of men would rejoice only in
the true measure of glory."
Thereupon the angels, struck by the wisdom of the
prophet, did exclaim, as they arose from their places :
"Truly, God Himself shall console thee! We can but
bow down before thee."
They were dark, and they were standing in a dark tent.
But their eyes shone, and the prophet beheld the starry
radiance of their eyes. They retreated into the night, like
shades, barely stooping at the doorway of the tent. As
for the prophet, he remained alone in the midst of the
night and the desert, lying upon the earth. And when
the sun had arisen from behind the craggy mountains, and
it grew light and hot within the tent, the prophet, feeling
a great longing to rest amid coolness, did forsake his
couch, and did bend his steps toward a vale in the moun¬
tains, seeking shade. But there was none even in the vale
by now. However, in the inmost recesses of one moun¬
tain he came upon a cavern. And behold, two captives
were hacking away with sharp picks at the entrance into
this cavern. The stones at the entrance were as white as
the snow upon mountain-tops, and were hot from the sun.
And the black hair of the copper-faced captives, as well
as the cloths about their loins, were wet with perspira¬
tion. But two fresh fruits, two apples, were lying upon
a stone near the cavern, while in the cavern itself it was
dark and cool. And the labourers, lowering their picks,,
spake, saying:
"We greet thee, lord and chieftain, in the name of God,
the Merciful, the Compassionate. Lo, we have finished
our labour."
And the prophet asked them:
[277]
DEATH
"Who are ye, and what were ye doing?"
To which they did answer:
"We were preparing a treasure-chamber for the king.
Enter, look about thee, and rest from thy journey and the
heat. Refresh thy lips with the fruits, and tell us which
is the sweeter and riper one."
And, having entered the cavern, the prophet did sit down
upon a stone couch nigh one of its walls, and did feel
the shade and the coolness. And, having bitten of the
first fruit, he spake:
"Verily, this is life itself : 1 am drinking water from a
spring, 1 scent the pleasant odours of the flowers of the
fields, and 1 feel the taste of aspen honey. 1 am vigor¬
ous, and 1 am strong."
And, having bitten of the second, he exclaimed:
"Verily, there is nothing to compare with this: 1 am
drinking the wines of paradise, sealed with a seal of
musk, blended with the water of a well-spring that
quencheth the thirst of those who draw nigh to The
Eternal. 1 scent the fragrance of a celestial garden, and
feel the taste of the honey of its flowers,—nor hath this
honey any bitter tang. And lo, a blessed drowsiness
befogs my head. Awake me not, O ye captives, till that
my time be fulfilled."
And the captives,—they were angels, the captives of
God,—quietly went on, as his speech died away:
"Till that the sun," uttered the first, reading the Sura,
the Canticle, of the Great Tidings—"till that the sun be
bent, till that the stars rain down from the sky, and the
mountains remove from their place, and the she-camels be
abandoned, and the seas do boil up. . . ."
"1 am S'in," uttered the second, reading the Sura for
[278]
DEATH
the Departing. "Glory be to Him that reigneth over all
the universe! Ye all shall return to Him! . .
And, hearing their whispers, but without catching
their words, the prophet did lie down upon the couch, and
did repose in the sleep of death, knowing not thereof.
And the angels did wall up the entrance to the sepulchral
cavern, and did depart to the Master Who had sent them.
And the prophet was joined to his people, having had
his fill of days, and without perceiving the end thereof.
Never a man, even to this day, has yet contemplated his
tomb in the mountains of Moab. But his wisdom is im¬
printed in the memory of all peoples, and is recorded in
Heaven in Ghilliun, the Book Eternal.
The Sheikh Saadi,—may his name be blessed!—the
Sheikh Saadi,—^many of his pearls have we strung side
by side with our own, upon the string of a good style!—
hath told us of a man who had tasted the bliss of draw¬
ing nigh The Beloved. This man had been lost in con¬
templation; but when he had come back to the every¬
day world, he was asked with a kindly mockery: "But
where are the flowers from the garden of your reverie?"
And the man made answer; "1 desired to bring back
the whole skirt of my coat full of roses for my friends;
but, when 1 had drawn nigh the rose-bush, 1 was so in¬
toxicated by its fragrance that 1 did release it out of my
hands."
Let him that can connect the story of the poet with
our own.
Peace and joy be the portion of all that dwell upon
this earth!
¡911.
[279]
THE GENTLEMAN FROM
SAN FRANCISCO
Alas, alas that great city Babylon,
that mighty city!
THE APOCALYPSE
The gentleman from San Francisco—neither at
Naples nor at Capri had any one remembered his
name—was going to the Old World for two whole
years, with wife and daughter, solely for the sake of
pleasure.
He was firmly convinced that he was fully entitled to
rest, to pleasure, to prolonged and comfortable travel, and
to not a little else besides. For such a conviction he had
his reasons,—that, in the first place, he was rich, and, in
the second, that he was only now beginning to live, de¬
spite his eight and fifty years. Until now he had not
lived, but had merely existed,—not at all badly, it is true,
but, never the less, putting all his hopes on the future.
He had laboured with never a pause for rest,—the coolies,
whom he had imported by whole thousands, well knew
what this meant!—and finally he saw that much had al¬
ready been accomplished, that he had almost come abreast
of those whom he had at one time set out to emulate, and
he decided to enjoy breathing space. It was a custom
among the class of people to which he belonged to com¬
mence their enjoyment of life with a journey to Europe,
to India, to Egypt, He, too, proposed to do the same.
[280]
THE GENTLEMAN
Of course he desired, first of all, to reward himself for
his years of toil; however, he rejoiced on account of his
wife and daughter as well. His wife had never been dis¬
tinguished for any special sensitiveness to new impres¬
sions,—but then, all elderly American women are fervid
cravellers. As for his daughter,—a girl no longer in her
first youth, and somewhat sickly,—travel was a down¬
right necessity for her : to say nothing of the benefit to her
health, were there no fortuitous encounters during travels?
It is while travelling that one may at times sit at table
with a milliardaire, or scrutinize frescoes by his side.
The itinerary worked out by the gentleman from San
Francisco was an extensive one. In December and Jan¬
uary he hoped to enjoy the sun of Southern Italy, the
monuments of antiquity, the tarantella, the serenades of
strolling singers, and that which men of his age relish
with the utmost finesse: the love of little, youthful Nea-
politaines, even though it be given not entirely without
ulterior motives; he contemplated spending the Carnival
in Nice, in Monte Carlo, whither the very pick of society
gravitates at that time,—that very society upon which
all the benefits of civilization depend: not merely the
cut of tuxedos, but, as well, the stability of thrones, and
the declaration of wars, and the prosperity of hotels,—
Monte Carlo, where some give themselves up with pas¬
sion to automobile and sail races; others to roulette; a
third group to that which it is the custom to call flirting;
a fourth, to trap-shooting, in which the pigeons, released
from their cotes, soar up most gracefully above emerald-
green swards, against the background of a sea that is the
colour of forget-me-nots,—only, in the same minute, to
strike against the ground as little, crumpled clods of white.
[281]
THE GENTLEMAN
. . . The beginning of March he wanted to devote to
Florence; about the time of the Passion of Our Lord to
arrive at Rome, in order to hear the Miserere there; his
plans also embraced Venice, and Paris, and bull-fighting
in Seville, and sea-bathing in the British Islands, and
Athens, and Constantinople, and Palestine, and Egypt,
and even Japan,—of course, be it understood, already on
the return trip. . . . And everything went very well at
first.
It was the end of November; almost as far as Gibraltar
it was necessary to navigate now through an icy murk,
now amidst a blizzard of wet snow; but the ship sailed in
all safety and even without rolling; the passengers the
steamer was carrying proved to be many, and all of
them people of note; the ship—the famous Atlantida—re¬
sembled the most expensive of European hotels, with all
conveniences: an all-night bar, Turkish baths, a news¬
paper of its own,—and life upon it flowed in accordance
with a most complicated system of regulations; people got
up early, to the sounds of bugles, stridently resounding
through the corridors at that dark hour when day was so
slowly and inimically dawning over the grayish-green
desert of waters, ponderously turbulent in the mist.
Putting on their flannel pyjamas, the passengers drank
coffee, chocolate, cocoa; then they got into marble baths,
did their exercises, inducing an appetite and a sense of
well-being, performed their toilet for the day, and went to
breakfast. Until eleven one was supposed to promenade
the decks vigorously, inhaling the fresh coolness of the
ocean, or to play at shuffle-board and other games for the
sake of arousing the appetite anew, and, at eleven, to seek
sustenance in bouillon and sandwiches; having refreshed
[282]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
themselves, the passengers perused their newspaper with
gusto and calmly awaited lunch, a meal still more nour¬
ishing and varied than the breakfast. The next two
hours were sacred to repose,—the decks were then en¬
cumbered with chaises longues, upon which the travellers
reclined, covered up with plaids, contemplating the cloud-
flecked sky and the foaming hummocks flashing by over
the side, or else pleasantly dozing off; at five o'clock, re¬
freshed and put in good spirits, they were drenched with
strong fragrant tea, served with cookies; at seven they
were apprized by bugle signals of a dinner of nine
courses. . . . And thereupon the gentleman from San
Francisco, in an access of animal spirits, would hurry to
his resplendent cabine de luxe, to dress.
In the evening the tiers of the Atlantida gaped through
the dusk as though they were fiery, countless eyes, and a
great multitude of servants worked with especial feverish-
ness in the kitchens, sculleries, and wine vaults. The
ocean, heaving on the other side of the walls, was awe¬
some; but none gave it a thought, firmly believing it un¬
der the sway of the captain,—a red-haired man of mon¬
strous bulk and ponderousness, always seeming sleepy,
resembling, in his uniform frock-coat, with its golden
chevrons, an enormous idol ; it was only very rarely that
he left his mysterious quarters to appear in public. A
siren on the forecastle howled every minute in hellish
sullenness and whined in frenzied malice, but not many of
the diners heard the siren,—it was drowned by the strains
of a splendid stringed orchestra, playing exquisitely and
ceaselessly in the two-tiered hall, decorated with marble,
its floors covered with velvet rugs; festively flooded with
the lights of crystal lustres and gilded girandoles, filled
[283]
THE GENTLEMAN
to overflowing with diamond-bedecked ladies in décoletté
and men in tuxedos, graceful waiters and deferent maîtres
d'hôtel,—among whom one, who took orders for wines ex¬
clusively, even walked about with a chain around his
neck, like a lord mayor. A tuxedo and perfect linen made
the gentleman from San Francisco appear very much
younger. Spare, not tall, clumsily but strongly built,
groomed until he shone and moderately animated, he
sat in the aureate-pearly refulgence of this palatial room,
at a table with a bottle of amber Johannesberg, with count¬
less goblets, small and large, of the thinnest glass, with a
curly bouquet of curly hyacinths. There was something
of the Mongol about his yellowish face with clipped sil¬
very moustache; his large teeth gleamed with gold fillings;
his stalwart, bald head glistened like old ivory. Rich,
yet in keeping with her years, was the dress of his wife,—
a big woman, expansive and calm; elaborate, yet light
and diaphanous, with an innocent frankness, was that of
his daughter,—tall, slender, with magnificent hair, ex¬
quisitely dressed, with breath aromatic from violet ca¬
chous and with the tenderest of tiny, rosy pimples about
her lips and between her shoulder blades, just the least
bit powdered. . . . The dinner lasted for two whole hours,
while after dinner there was dancing in the ball room,
during which the men,—the gentleman from San Fran¬
cisco among their number, of course,—with their feet
cocked up, determined, upon the basis of the latest po¬
litical and stock-exchange news, the destinies of nations,
smoking Habana cigars and drinking liqueurs until they
were crimson in the face, seated in the bar, where the
waiters were negroes in red jackets, the whites of their
eyes resembling hard boiled eggs with the shell off. The
[284]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
ocean, with a dull roar, was moiling in black mountains
on the other side of the wall; the snow-gale whistled
mightily through the sodden rigging; the whole steamer
quivered as it mastered both the gale and the mountains,
sundering to either side, as though with a plough, their
shifting masses, that again and again boiled up and reared
high, with tails of foam; the siren, stifled by the fog, was
moaning with a deathly anguish; the lookouts up in their
crow's-nest froze from the cold and grew dazed from
straining their attention beyond their strength. Like to
the grim and sultry depths of the infernal regions, like to
their ultimate, their ninth circle, was the womb of the
steamer, below the water line,—that womb where dully
gurgled the gigantic furnaces, devouring with their in¬
candescent maws mountains of hard coal, cast into them
by men stripped to the waist, purple from the flames, and
with smarting, filthy sweat pouring over them; whereas
here, in the bar, men threw their legs over the arms of
their chairs with never a care, sipping cognac and liqueurs,
and were wafted among clouds of spicy smoke as they
indulged in well-turned conversation; in the ball room
everything was radiant with light and warmth and joy;
the dancing couples were now awhirl in waltzes, now
twisting in the tango,—and the music insistently, in some
delectably-shameless melancholy, was suppliant always of
the one, always of the same thing. . . . There was an am¬
bassador among this brilliant throng,—a lean, modest
little old man; there was a great man of riches,—clean¬
shaven, lanky, of indeterminate years, and with the ap¬
pearance of a prelate, in his dress-coat of an old-fashioned
cut; there was a well-known Spanish writer; there was a
world-celebrated beauty, already just the very least trifle
[285]
THE GENTLEMAN
faded and of an unenviable morality; there was an ex¬
quisite couple in love with each other, whom all watched
with curiosity and whose happiness was unconcealed: he
danced only with her; sang—and with great ability—only
to her accompaniment; and everything they did was car¬
ried out so charmingly, that the captain was the only one
who knew that this pair was hired by Lloyd's to play at
love for a good figure, and that they had been sailing for
a long time, now on one ship, now on another.
At Gibraltar everybody was gladdened by the sun,—
it seemed to be early spring; a new passenger, whose per¬
son aroused the general interest, made his appearance on
board the Atlantida,—he was the hereditary prince of
a certain Asiatic kingdom, travelling incognito; a little
man who somehow seemed to be all made of wood, even
though he was alert in his movements ; broad of face, with
narrow eyes, in gold-rimmed spectacles; a trifle unpleasant
through the fact that his skin showed through his coarse
black moustache like that of a cadaver; on the whole,
however, he was charming, unpretentious, and modest.
On the Mediterranean Sea there was a whiff of winter
again; the billows ran high, and were as multi-coloured as
the tail of a peacock; they had snowy-white crests, lashed
up—although the sun was sparkling brightly and the sky
was perfectly clear—by a tramontana, a chill northern
wind from beyond the mountains, that was joyously and
madly rushing to meet the ship. . . . Then, on the second
day, the sky began to pale, the horizon became covered
with mist, land was nearing; Ischia, Capri appeared;
through the binoculars Naples—lumps of sugar strewn at
the foot of some dove-coloured mass—could be seen;
while over it and this dove-coloured thing were visible
[286]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
the ridges of distant mountains, vaguely glimmering with
the dead whiteness of snows. There was a great number
of people on deck; many of the ladies and gentlemen had
already put on short, light fur coats, with the fur outside;
Chinese boys, never contradictory and never speaking
above a whisper, bow-legged striplings with pitch-black
queues reaching to their heels and with eye-lashes as long
and thick as those of young girls, were already dragging,
little by little, sundry plaids, canes, and portmanteaux
and grips of alligator hide toward the companion-ways.
. . . The daughter of the gentleman from San Francisco
was standing beside the prince, who had been, through a
fortuitous circumstance, presented to her yesterday eve¬
ning, and she pretended to be looking intently into the
distance, in a direction he was pointing out to her, tell¬
ing, explaining something or other to her, hurriedly and
quietly. On account of his height he seemed a boy by
contrast with others,—he was queer and not at all pre¬
possessing of person, with his spectacles, his derby, his
English great coat, while his scanty moustache looked
just as if it were of horse-hair, and the swarthy, thin skin
seemed to be drawn tightly over his face, and somehow
had the appearance of being lacquered,—but the young
girl was listening to him, without understanding, in her
agitation, what he was saying; her heart was thumping
from an incomprehensible rapture before his presence
and from pride that he was speaking with her, and not
some other; everything about him that was different from
others,—his lean hands, his clear skin, under which flowed
the ancient blood of kings, even his altogether unpreten¬
tious, yet somehow distinctively neat, European dress,—
everything held a secret, inexplicable charm, evoked a
[287]
THE GENTLEMAN
feeling of amorousness. As for the gentleman from San
Francisco himself,—he, in a high silk hat, in gray spats
over patent-leather shoes, kept on glancing at the famous
beauty, who was standing beside him,—a tall blonde of
striking figure, her eyes were painted in the latest Parisian
fashion; she was holding a diminutive, hunched-up,
mangy lap dog on a silver chain and was chattering to it
without cease. And the daughter, in some vague em¬
barrassment, tried not to notice her father.
Like all Americans of means, he was very generous on
his travels, and, like all of them, believed in the full
sincerity and good-will of those who brought him food
and drink with such solicitude, who served him from
morn till night, forestalling his least wish; of those who
guarded his cleanliness and rest, lugged his things around,
summoned porters for him, delivered his trunks to hotels.
Thus had it been everywhere, thus had it been on the ship,
and thus was it to be in Naples as well. Naples grew,
and drew nearer; the musicians, the brass of their instru¬
ments flashing, had already clustered upon the deck, and
suddenly deafened everybody with the triumphant strains
of a march; the gigantic captain, in his full dress uniform,
appeared upon his stage, and, like a condescending hea¬
then god, waved his hand amiably to the passengers,—
and to the gentleman from San Francisco it seemed that
it was for him alone that the march so beloved by proud
America was thundering, that it was he whom the cap¬
tain was felicitating upon a safe arrival. And every other
passenger felt similarly about himself—or herself. And
when the Atlantida did finally enter the harbour, had
heaved to at the wharf with her many-tiered mass, black
with people, and the gang-planks clattered down,—what
[288]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
a multitude of porters and their helpers in caps with gold
braid, what a multitude of different commissionaires,
whistling gamins, and strapping ragamuffins with packets
of coloured postal cards in their hands, made a rush to¬
ward the gentleman from San Francisco, with offers of
their services! And he smiled, with a kindly contemptu-
ousness, at these ragamuffins, as he went toward the auto¬
mobile of precisely that hotel where there was a possibil¬
ity of the prince's stopping as well, and drawled through
his teeth, now in English, now in Italian:
"Go away!* Via!"
Life at Naples at once assumed its wonted, ordered
current: in the early morning, breakfast in the sombre
dining room with its damp draught from windows open¬
ing on some sort of a stony little garden; the sky was
usually overcast, holding out but little promise, and there
was the usual crowd of guides at the door of the vesti¬
bule; then came the first smiles of a warm, rosy sun;
there was, from the high hanging balcony, a view of
Vesuvius, enveloped to its foot by radiant morning*
mists, and of silver-and-pearl eddies on the surface of the
Bay, and of the delicate contour of Capri against the hori¬
zon ; one could see tiny burros, harnessed in twos to little
carts, running down below over the quay, sticky with mire,
and detachments of diminutive soldiers, marching off to
somewhere or other to lively and exhilarating music.
Next came the procession to the waiting automobile and
the slow progress through populous, narrow, and damp
corridors of streets, between tail, many-windowed houses;
the inspection of lifelessly-clean museums, evenly and
1 English in the original. The same applies to the other
phrases in this story marked with asterisks. Tram.
[289]
THE GENTLEMAN
pleasantly, yet bleakly, lit, seemingly illuminated by
snow; or of cool churches, smelling of wax, which every¬
where and always contain the same things: a majestic
portal, screened by a heavy curtain of leather, and in¬
side,—silence, empty vastness, unobtrusive little flames
of a seven-branched candle-stick glowing redly in the dis¬
tant depths, on an altar bedecked with laces; a solitary
old woman among the dark wooden pews; slippery tomb¬
stones underfoot; and somebody's Descent from the Cross,
—inevitably a celebrated one. At one o'clock there was
luncheon upon the mountain of San Martino, where, to¬
ward noon, gathered not a few people of the very first
quality, and where the daughter of the gentleman from
San Francisco had once almost fainted away for joy, be¬
cause she thought she saw the prince sitting in the hall,
although she already knew through the newspapers that
he had left for a temporary stay at Rome. At five came
tea at the hotel, in the showy salon, so cosy with its rugs
and flaming fireplaces; and after that it was already time
to get ready for dinner,—and once more came the mighty,
compelling reverberation of the gong through all the
stories; once more the processions in Indian file of ladies
in décoletté, rustling in their silks upon the staircases
and reflected in all the mirrors ; once more the palatial din¬
ing room, widely and hospitably opened, and the red
jackets of the musicians upon their platform, and the
black cluster of waiters about the maître d'hôtel, who,
with a skill out of the ordinary, was ladling some sort
of a thick, roseate soup into plates. . . . The dinners, as
everywhere else, were the crowning glory of each day; the
guests dressed for them as for a rout, and these dinners
were so abundant in edibles, and wines, and mineral
[290]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
waters, and sweets, and fruits, that toward eleven o'clock
at night the chambermaids were distributing through all
the corridors rubber bags with hot water to warm sundry
stomachs.
However, the December of that year proved to be not
altogether a successful one for Naples; the porters grew
confused when one talked with them of the weather, and
merely shrugged their shoulders guiltily, muttering that
they could not recall such another year,—although it was
not the first year that they had been forced to mutter
this, and to urge in extenuation that "something terrible
is happening everywhere"; there were unheard of storms
and torrents of rain on the Riviera; there was snow in
Athens; Etna was also all snowed over and was aglow
of nights; tourists were fleeing from Palermo in all direc¬
tions, escaping from the cold. The morning sun de¬
ceived the Neapolitans every day that winter: toward
noon the sky became gray and a fine rain began falling,
but growing heavier and colder all the time; at such
times the palms near the entrance of the hotel glistened as
though they were of tin, the town seemed especially dirty
and cramped, the museums exceedingly alike; the cigar
stumps of the corpulent cabmen, whose rubber-coats
flapped in the wind like wings, seemed to have an insuf¬
ferable stench, while the energetic snapping of their whips
over their scrawny-necked nags was patently false; the
footgear of the signori sweeping the rails of the tramways
seemed horrible; the women, splashing through the mud,
their black-haired heads bared to the rain, appeared
hideously short-legged; as for the dampness, and the
stench of putrid fish from the sea foaming at the quay,—
they were a matter of course. The gentleman and the
[291]
THE GENTLEMAN
lady from San Francisco began quarreling in the morning;
their daughter either walked about pale, with a headache,
or, coming to life again, went into raptures over every¬
thing, and was, at such times both charming and beauti¬
ful: beautiful were those tender and complex emotions
which had been awakened within her by meeting that
homely man through whose veins flowed uncommon
blood; for, after all is said and done, perhaps it is of no
real importance just what it is, precisely, that awakens a
maiden's soul,—whether it be money, or fame, or illus¬
trious ancestry. . . .
Everybody affirmed that things were entirely different
in Sorrento, in Capri,—there it was both warmer and
sunnier, and the lemons were in blossom, and the customs
were more honest, and the wine was more natural. And
so the family from San Francisco determined to set out
with all its trunks to Capri, and, after seeing it all, after
treading the stones where the palace of Tiberius had once
stood, after visiting the faery-like caverns of the Azure
Grotto, and hearing the bag-pipers of Abruzzi, who for a
whole month preceding Christmas wander over the island
and sing the praises of the Virgin Mary, they meant to
settle in Sorrento.
On the day of departure,—a most memorable one for
the family from San Francisco!—there was no sun from
the early morning. A heavy fog hid Vesuvius to the very
base; this gray fog spread low over the leaden heaving of
the sea that was lost to the eye at a distance of a half a
mile. Capri was entirely invisible,—as though there had
never been such a thing in the world. And the little
steamer that set out for it was so tossed from side to side
that the family from San Francisco was laid prostrate
[292]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
upon the divans in the sorry general cabin of this tub,
their feet wrapped up in plaids, and their eyes closed from
nausea. Mrs. suffered,—so she thought,—more than
anybody ; she was overcome by sea-sickness several times ;
it seemed to her that she was dying, whereas the steward¬
ess, who always ran up to her with a small basin,—she had
been, for many years, day in and day out, rolling on these
waves, in freezing weather and in torrid, and yet was still
tireless and kind to everybody,—merely laughed. Miss
was dreadfully pale and held a slice of lemon be¬
tween her teeth; now she could not have been cheered
even by the hope of a chance encounter with the prince
at Sorrento, where he intended to be about Christmas.
Mr., who was lying on his back, in roomy over¬
coat and large cap, never unlocked his jaws all the way
over; his face had grown darker and his moustache whiter,
and his head ached dreadfully: during the last days,
thanks to the bad weather, he had been drinking too heav¬
ily of evenings, and had too much admired the "living
pictures" in dives of recherché libertinage. But the rain
kept on lashing against the jarring windows, the water
from them running down on the divans; the wind, howl¬
ing, bent the masts, and at times, aided by the onslaught
of a wave, careened the little steamer entirely to one
side, and then something in the hold would roll with a
rumble. During the stops, at Castellamare, at Sorrento,
things were a trifle more bearable, but even then the rock¬
ing was fearful,—the shore, with all its cliffs, gardens,
pigin its pink and white hotels and hazy mountains
clad in curly greenery, swayed up and down as if on a
swing; boats bumped up against the sides of the ship;
1 Pino-groves. Trans.
[293]
THE GENTLEMAN
sailors and steerage passengers were yelling vehemently;
somewhere, as though it had been crushed, a baby was
wailing and smothering; a raw wind was blowing in at the
door; and, from a swaying boat with a flag of the Hotel
Royal, a lisping gamin was screaming, luring travellers:
"Kgoya-al! Hôtel Kgoya-al! . . And the gentleman
from San Francisco, feeling that he was an old man,—
which was but proper,—was already thinking with sad¬
ness and melancholy of all these Royals, Splendids, Ex¬
celsiors, and of these greedy, insignificant mannikins, reek¬
ing of garlic, that, are called Italians. Once, having
opened his eyes and raised himself from the divan, he
saw, underneath the craggy steep of the shore, a cluster of
stone hovels, mouldy through and through, stuck one on
top of another near the very edge of the water, near boats,
near all sorts of rags, tins, and brown nets,—hovels so
miserable, that, at the recollection that this was that very
Italy he had come hither to enjoy, he felt despair. . . .
Finally, at twilight, the dark mass of the island began to
draw near, seemingly bored through and through by little
red lights near its base; the wind became softer, warmer,
more fragrant; over the abating waves, as opalescent as
black oil, golden pythons flowed from the lanterns on the
wharf. . . . Then came the sudden rumble of the anchor,
and it fell with a splash into the water; the fero¬
cious yells of the boatmen, vying with one another,
floated in from all quarters,—and at once the heart grew
lighter, the lights in the general cabin shone more brightly,
a desire arose to eat, to drink, to smoke, to be stir¬
ring. ... Ten minutes later the family from San Fran¬
cisco had descended into a large boat; within fifteen
minutes it had set foot upon the stones of the wharf, and
[294]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
had then got into a bright little railway car and to its
buzzing started the ascent of the slope, amid the stakes of
the vineyards, half-crumbled stone enclosures, and wet,
gnarled orange trees, some of them under coverings of
straw,—trees with thick, glossy foliage, and aglimmer
with the orange 'fruits; all these objects were sliding
downward, past the open windows of the little car, to¬
ward the base of the mountain. . . . Sweetly smells the
earth of Italy after rain, and her every island has its own,
its especial aroma!
The island of Capri was damp and dark on this eve¬
ning. But now it came into life for an instant; lights
sprang up here and there, as always on the steamer's ar¬
rival. At the top of the mountain, where stood the sta¬
tion of the funicular, there was another throng of those
whose duty lay in receiving fittingly the gentleman from
San Francisco. There were other arrivals also, but they
merited no attention,—several Russians, who had taken
up their abode in Capri,—absent-minded because of their
bookish meditations, unkempt, bearded, spectacled, the
collars of their old drap overcoats turned up; and a group
of long-legged, long-necked, round-headed German youths
in Tyrolean costumes, with canvas knapsacks slung over
their shoulders,—these latter stood in need of nobody's
services, feeling themselves at home everywhere, and were
not at all generous in their expenditures. The gentleman
from San Francisco, on the other hand, who was calmly
keeping aloof from both the one group and the other, was
immediately noticed. He and his ladies were bustlingly
assisted to get out, some men running ahead of him to
show him the way: he was surrounded anew by urchins,
and by those robust Caprian wives who carry on their
[295]
THE GENTLEMAN
heads the portmanteaux and trunks of respectable travel¬
lers. The wooden pattens of these women clattered over
a piaietta, that seemed to belong to some opera, an elec¬
tric globe swaying above it in the damp wind; the rabble
of urchins burst into sharp, bird-like whistles,—and,
as though on a stage, the gentleman from San Francisco
proceeded in their midst toward some mediaeval arch,
underneath houses that had become welded into one mass,
beyond which a little echoing street,—with the tuft of a
palm above flat roofs on its left, and with blue stars in
the black sky overhead,—led slopingly to the grand en¬
trance of the hotel, glittering ahead. . . . And again it
seemed that it was in honour of the guests from San Fran¬
cisco that this damp little town of stone on a craggy little
island of the Mediterranean Sea had come to life, that
it was they who had made so happy and affable the pro¬
prietor of the hotel, that it was they only who had been
waited for by the Chinese gong, that now began wailing
the summons to dinner through all the stories of the hotel,
the instant they had set foot in the vestibule.
The proprietor, a young man of haughty elegance, who
had met them with a polite and exquisite bow, for a
minute dumbfounded the gentleman from San Francisco:
having glanced at him, the gentleman from San Francisco
suddenly recalled that just the night before, among the
rest of the confusion of images that had beset him in his
sleep, he had seen precisely this gentleman,—just like
him, down to the least detail: in the same sort of frock
with rounded skirts, and with the same pomaded and
painstakingly combed head. Startled, he was almost
taken aback; but since, from long, long before, there was
not even a mustard seed of any sort of so-called mystical
[296]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
emotions left in his soul, his astonishment was dimmed the
same instant, passing through a corridor of the hotel, he
spoke jestingly to his wife and daughter of this strange
coincidence of dream and reality. And only his daughter
glanced at him with alarm at that moment ; her heart sud¬
denly contracted from sadness, from a feeling of their
loneliness upon this foreign, dark island,—a feeling so
strong that she almost burst into tears. But still she said
nothing of her feelings to her father,—as always.
An exalted personage—Rais XVI1,—who had been visit¬
ing Capri, had just taken his departure, and the guests
from San Francisco were given the same apartments that
he had occupied. To them was assigned the handsomest
and most expert chambermaid, a Belgian, whose waist
was slenderly and firmly corseted, and who wore a little
starched cap that looked like a pronged crown; also, the
stateliest and most dignified of flunkies, a fiery-eyed Si¬
cilian, swarthy as coal; and the nimblest of bell-boys, the
short and stout Luigi,-—a fellow who was very fond of a
joke, and who had changed many places in his time. And
a minute later there was a slight tap at the door of the
room of the gentleman from San Francisco,—-the French
maitre d'hôtel had come to find out if the newly arrived
guests would dine, and, in the event of an answer in the
affirmative,—of which, however, there was no doubt,—to
inform them that the carte de jour consisted of crawfish,
roast beef, asparagus, pheasants, and so forth. The floor
was still rocking under the gentleman from San Francisco,
—so badly had the atrocious little Italian steamer tossed
him about,—but, without hurrying, with his own hands,
although somewhat clumsily from being unaccustomed to
such things, he shut a window that had banged upon the
[297]
THE GENTLEMAN
entrance of the maitre d'hôtel and had let in the odours
of the distant kitchen and of the wet flowers in the garden,
and with a leisurely precision replied that they would
dine, that their table must be placed at a distance from
the door, at the farthest end of the dining room, that they
would drink local wine and champagne,—moderately dry
and only slightly chilled. The maitre d'hôtel concurred
in every word of his, in intonations most varied, having,
however, but one significance,—that there was never a
doubt, nor could there possibly be any, about the correct¬
ness of the wishes of the gentleman from San Francisco,
and that everything would be carried out punctiliously.
In conclusion he inclined his head, and asked deferen¬
tially:
"Will that be all, sir?"
And, having received a long-drawn-out "Yes" * in an¬
swer, he added that the tarantella would be danced in the
vestibule to-day,—the dancers would be Carmella and
Giuseppe, known to all Italy, and to "the entire world of
tourists."
"I have seen her on post cards," said the gentleman
from San Francisco in a voice devoid of all expression.
"About this Giuseppe, now,—is he her husband?"
"Her cousin, sir," answered the maitre d'hôtel.
And, after a little wait, after considering something, the
gentleman from San Francisco dismissed him with a
nod.
And then he began his preparations anew, as though for
a wedding ceremony: he turned on all the electric lights,
filling all the mirrors with reflections of light and glitter,
of furniture and opened trunks; he began shaving and
[298]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
washing, ringing the bell every minute, while other im¬
patient rings from his wife's and daughter's rooms floated
through the entire corridor and interrupted his. And
Luigi, in his red apron, was rushing headlong to answer
the bell, with an ease peculiar to many stout men, the
while he made grimaces of horror that made the chamber¬
maids, running by with glazed porcelain pails in their
hands, laugh till they cried. Having knocked on the door
with his knuckles, he asked with an assumed timidity,
with a respectfulness that verged on idiocy:
"Ha sonata, signare? (Did you ring, sir?)"
And from the other side of the door came an unhurried,
grating voice, insultingly polite:
"Yes, come in. . . *
What were the thoughts, what were the emotions of the
gentleman from San Francisco on this evening, that was
of such portent to him? He felt nothing exceptional,—
for the trouble in this world is just that everything is
apparently all too simple! And even if he had sensed
within his soul that something was impending, he would,
never the less, have thought that this thing would not oc¬
cur for some time to come,—in any case, not immediately.
Besides that, like everyone who has gone through the
rocking of a ship, he wanted very much to eat, was antici¬
pating with enjoyment the first spoonful of soup, the
first mouthful of wine, and performed the usual routine
of dressing even with a certain degree of exhilaration that
left no time for reflections.
Having shaved and washed himself, having inserted
several artificial teeth properly, he, standing before a
mirror, wetted the remnants of his thick, pearly-gray
[299]
TMÊ GENtLËMAN
hair and plastered it down around his swarthy-yellow
skull, with brushes set in silver; drew a suit of cream-
coloured silk underwear over his strong old body, begin¬
ning to be full at the waist from excesses in food, and
put on silk socks and dancing slippers on his shrivelled,
splayed feet; sitting down, he put in order his black trou¬
sers, drawn high by black silk braces, as well as his
snowy-white shirt, with the bosom bulging out; put the
links through the glossy cuffs, and began the torturous
pursuit of the collar-button underneath the stiffly
starched collar. The floor was still swaying beneath him,
the tips of his fingers pained him greatly, the collar-
button at times nipped hard the flabby skin in the hollow
under his Adam's-apple, but he was persistent and finally,
his eyes glittering from the exertion, his face all livid
from the collar that was choking his throat,—a collar far
too tight,—he did contrive to accomplish his task, and sat
down in exhaustion in front of the pier glass, reflected in
it from head to foot, a reflection that was repeated in all
the other mirrors.
"Oh, this is dreadful!" he muttered, letting his strong
bald head drop, and without trying to understand, with¬
out reflecting, just what, precisely, was dreadful; then,
with an accustomed and attentive glance, he inspected his
stubby fingers, with gouty hardenings at the joints, and
his convex nails of an almond colour, repeating, with con¬
viction: "This is dreadful. . . ."
But at this point the second gong, sonorously, as in some
heathen temple, reverberated through the entire house.
And, getting up quickly from his seat, the gentleman from
San Francisco drew his collar still tighter with the necktie
and his stomach by means of the low-cut vest, put on his
[300]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
tuxedo, drew out his cuffs, scrutinized himself once more
in the mirror. . . . This Carmella, swarthy, with eyes
which she knew well how to use most effectively, resem¬
bling a mulatto woman, clad in a dress of many colours,
with the colour of orange predominant, must dance excep¬
tionally, he reflected. And, stepping briskly out of his
room and walking over the carpet to the next one,—
his wife's—he asked, loudly, if they would be ready
soon?
"In five minutes. Dad!" a girl's voice, ringing and by
now gay, responded from the other side of the door.
"Very well," said the gentleman from San Francisco.
And, leisurely, he walked down red-carpeted corridors
and staircases, descending in search of the reading room.
The servants he met stood aside and hugged the wall to
let him pass, but he kept on his way as though he had
never even noticed them. An old woman who was late
for dinner, already stooping, with milky hair but décolet-
tée in a light-gray gown of silk, was hurrying with all her
might, but drolly, in a hen-like manner, and he easily out¬
stripped her. Near the glass doors of the dining room,
where all the guests had already assembled, and were be¬
ginning their dinner, he stopped before a little table piled
with boxes of cigars and Egyptian cigarettes, took a large
Manila cigar, and tossed three lire upon the little table;
upon the closed veranda he glanced, in passing, through
the open window : out of the darkness he felt a breath of
the balmy air upon him, thought he saw the tip of an
ancient palm, that had flung wide across the stars its
fronds, which seemed gigantic, heard the distant, even
noise of the sea floating in to him. ... In the reading
room,—snug, quiet, and illuminated only above the tables,
[301]
JHE GENTLEMAN
some gray-haired German was standing, rustling the news¬
papers,—unkempt, resembling Ibsen, in round silver spec¬
tacles and with the astonished eyes of a madman. Hav¬
ing scrutinized him coldly, the gentleman from San Fran¬
cisco sat down in a deep leather chair in a corner near a
green-shaded lamp, put on his pince ne^, twitching his
head because his collar was choking him, and hid himself
completely behind the newspaper sheet. He rapidly ran
through the headlines of certain items, read a few lines
about the never-ceasing Balkan war, with an accustomed
gesture turned the newspaper over,—^when suddenly the
lines flared up before him with a glassy glare, his neck
became taut, his eyes bulged out, the pince nez flew off
his nose. ... He lunged forward, tried to swallow some
air,—and gasped wildly; his lower jaw sank, lighting up
his entire mouth with the reflection of the gold fillings;
his head dropped back on his shoulder and began to
sway; the bosom of his shirt bulged out like a basket,—
and his whole body, squirming, his heels catching the car¬
pet, slid downward to the floor, desperately struggling
with someone.
Had the German not been in the reading room, the per¬
sonnel of the hotel would have managed, quickly and
adroitly, to hush up this dreadful occurrence; instantly,
through back passages, seizing him by the head and feet,
they would have rushed off the gentleman from San
Francisco as far away as possible,—and never a soul
among the guests would have found out what he had been
up to. But the German had dashed out of the reading
room with a scream,—he had aroused the entire house,
the entire dining room. And many jumped up from their
meal, overturning their chairs; many, paling, ran toward
[302]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
the reading room. "What—what has happened?" was
heard in all languages,—and no one gave a sensible an¬
swer, no one comprehended anything, since even up to
now men are amazed most of all by death, and will not,
under any circumstances, believe in it. The proprietor
dashed from one guest to another, trying to detain those
who were running away and to pacify them with hasty
assurances that this was just a trifling occurrence, a
slight fainting spell of a certain gentleman from San
Francisco. . . . But no one listened to him; many had
seen the waiters and bell-boys tearing off the necktie, the
vest, and the rumpled tuxedo off this gentleman, and even,
for some reason or other, the dancing slippers off his
splayed feet, clad in black silk. But he was still strug¬
gling. He was still obdurately wrestling with death; he
absolutely refused to yield to her, who had so unex¬
pectedly and churlishly fallen upon him. His head was
swaying, he rattled hoarsely, like one with his throat cut;
Iiis eyes had rolled up, like a drunkard's. . . . When he
was hurriedly carried in and laid upon a bed in room
number forty-three,—the smallest, the poorest, the damp¬
est and the coldest, situated at the end of the bottom corri¬
dor,—his daughter ran in, with her hair down, in a little
dressing gown that had flown open, her bosom, raised up
by the corset, uncovered; then his wife, big and ponder¬
ous, already dressed for dinner,—her mouth rounded in
terror. . . . But by now he had ceased even to bob his
head.
A quarter of an hour Tater everything in the hotel had
assumed some semblance of order. But the evening was
irreparably spoiled. Some guests, returning to the dining
room, finished their dinner, but in silence, with aggrieved
[303]
THE GENTLEMAN
countenances, while the proprietor would approach now
one group, now another, shrugging his shoulders in polite
yet impotent irritation, feeling himself guilty without
guilt, assuring everybody that he understood very well
"how unpleasant all this was," and pledging his word that
he would take "all measures within his power" to reirîove
this unpleasantness. It was necessary to call off the ta¬
rantella, all unnecessary electric lights were switched off,
the majority of the guests withdrew into the bar, and it
became so quiet that one heard distinctly the ticking of
the clock in the vestibule, whose sole occupant was a par¬
rot, dully muttering something, fussing in his cage before
going to sleep, contriving to doze off at last with one claw
ludicrously stretched up to the upper perch. . . . The
gentleman from San Francisco was lying upon a cheap
iron bed, under coarse woolen blankets, upon which the
dull light of a single bulb beat down from the ceiling.
An ice-bag hung down to his moist and cold forehead.
The livid face, already dead, was gradually growing cold;
the hoarse rattling, expelled from the .open mouth, il¬
luminated by the reflection of gold, was growing fainter.
This was no longer the gentleman from San Francisco
rattling,—he no longer existed,—but some other. His
wife, his daughter, the doctor "and the servants were stand¬
ing, gazing at him dully. Suddenly, that which they
awaited and feared was consummated,—the rattling ceased
abruptly. And slowly, slowly, before the eyes of all, a
pallor flowed over the face of the man who had died, and
his features seemed to grow finer, to become irradiated,
with a beauty which had been rightfully his in the long
ago. . . .
The proprietor entered. "Già è morto," said the doc-
[304]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
tor to him in a whisper. The proprietor, his face dis¬
passionate, shrugged his shoulders. The wife, down
whose cheeks the tears were quietl}' coursing, walked up
to him and timidly said that the deceased ought now to be
carried to his own room.
"Oh, no, madam," hastily, correctly, but now without
any amiability and not in English, but in French, retorted
the proprietor, who was not at all interested now in such
trifling sums as the arrivals from San Francisco might
leave in his coffers. "That is absolutely impossible,
madam," said he, and added in explanation that he valued
the apartments occupied by them very much; that, were
he to carry out her wishes, everybody in Capri would
know it and the tourists would shun those apartments.
The young lady, who had been gazing at him strangely,
sat down on a chair, and, stuffing her mouth with a hand¬
kerchief, burst into sobs. The wife dried her tears imme¬
diately, her face flaring up. She adopted a louder tone,
making demands in her own language, and still in¬
credulous of the fact that all respect for them had been
completely lost. The proprietor, with a polite dignity,
cut her short : if madam was not pleased with the customs
of the hotel, he would not venture to detain her; and he
firmly announced that the body must be gotten away
this very day, at dawn, that the police had already been
notified, and one of the police officers would be here very
soon and would carry out all the necessary formalities.
Was it possible to secure even a common coffin in Capri,
madam asks? Regrettably, no,—it was beyond possi¬
bility, and no one would be able to make one in time. It
would be necessary to have recourse to something else. . . .
For instance,—English soda water came in large and long
[305]
THE GENTLEMAN
boxes. ... It was possible to knock the partitions out of
such a box. . . .
At night the whole hotel slept. The window in room
number forty-three was opened,—it gave out upon a
corner of the garden where, near a high stone wall with
broken glass upon its crest, a phthisic banana tree was
growing; the electric light was switched off; the key was
turned in the door, and everybody went away. The dead
man remained in the darkness,—the blue stars looked down
upon him from the sky, a cricket with a pensive insouci¬
ance began his song in the wall. ... In the dimly lit
corridor two chambermaids were seated on a window sill,
at some darning. Luigi, in slippers, entered with a pile
of clothing in his arms.
"Pronto? (All ready?)" he asked solicitously, in a
ringing whisper, indicating with his eyes the fearsome door
at the end of the corridor. And, he waved his hand airily
in that direction. . . . "Partenial" he called out in a
whisper, as though he were speeding a train, the usual
phrase used in Italian depots at the departure of trains,—
and the chambermaids, choking with silent laughter, let
their heads sink on each other's shoulder.
Thereupon, hopping softly, he ran up to the very door,
gave it the merest tap, and, inclining his head to one side,
in a low voice, asked with the utmost deference:
"Ha sonato signore?"
And, squeezing his throat, thrusting out his lower jaw,
in a grating voice, slowly and sadly, he answered his own
question, as though from the other side of the door:
"Yes, come in. ..." *
And at dawn, when it had become light beyond the
[306]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
■window of room number forty-three, and a humid wind
had begun to rustle the tattered leaves of the banana tree;
when the blue sky of morning had lifted and spread out
over the Island of Capri, and the pure and clear-cut sum¬
mit of Monte Solaro had grown aureate against the sun
that was rising beyond the distant blue mountains of
Italy; when the stone masons, who were repairing the
tourists' paths on the island, had set out to work,—a long
box that had formerly been used for soda water was
brought to room number forty-three. Soon it became
very heavy, and was pressing hard against the knees of
the junior porter, who bore it off briskly on a one horse
cab over the white paved highway that was sinuously
winding to and fro over the slopes of Capri, among the
stone walls and the vineyards, ever downwards, to the
very sea. The cabby, a puny little man with reddened
eyes, in an old, wretched jacket with short sleeves and in
trodden-down shoes, was undergoing the after effects of
drink,—he had diced the whole night through in a trat¬
toria, and kept on lashing his sturdy little horse, tricked
out in the Sicilian fashion, with all sorts of little bells
livelily jingling upon the bridle with its tufts of coloured
wool, and upon the brass points of its high pad; with a
yard-long feather stuck in its cropped forelock,—a feather
that shook as the horse ran. The cabby kept silent; he
was oppressed by his shiftlessness, his vices,—by the fact
that he had, that night, lost to the last mite all those cop¬
pers with which his pockets had been filled. But the
morning was fresh; in air such as this, with the sea all
around, under the morning sky, the after effects of drink
quickly evaporate, and a man is soon restored to a care-
[307]
THE GENTLEMAN
free mood, and the cabby was furthermore consoled by
that unexpected sum, the opportunity to earn which had
been granted him by some gentleman from San Francisco,
whose lifeless head was bobbing from side to side in the
box at his back. . . . The little steamer,—a beetle lying
far down below, against the tender and vivid deep-blue
with which the Bay of Naples is so densely and highly
flooded,—was already blowing its final whistles, that re¬
verberated loudly all over the island, whose every bend,
every ridge, every stone, was as distinctly visible from
every point as if there were absolutely no such thing as
atmosphere. Near the wharf the junior porter was joined
by the senior, who was speeding with the daughter and
wife of the gentleman from San Francisco in his auto¬
mobile,—they were pale, with eyes hollow from tears and
a sleepless night. And ten minutes later the little steamer
was again chugging through the water, again running
toward Sorrento, toward Castell amare, carrying away
from Capri, for all time, the family from San Francisco.
. . . And again peace and quiet resumed their reign upon
the island.
Upon this island, two thousand years ago, had lived a
man who had become completely enmeshed in his cruel
and foul deeds, who had for some reason seized the power
over millions of people in his hands, and who, having
himself lost his head at the senselessness of this power and
from the fear of death by assassination, lurking in ambush
behind every corner, had committed cruelties beyond all
measure,—and humankind has remembered him for all
time; and those who, in their collusion, just as incom-
prehensively and, in substance, just as cruelly as he, reign
[308]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
at present in power over this world, gather from all over
the earth to gaze upon the ruins of that stone villa where
he had dwelt on one of the steepest ascents of the island.
On this splendid morning all those who had come to
Capri for just this purpose were still sleeping in the hotels,
although, toward their entrances, were already being led
little mouse-gray burros with red saddles, upon which,
after awaking and sating themselves with food, Americans
and Germans, men and women, young and old, would
again clamber up ponderously this day, and after whom
would again run the old Caprian beggar women, with
sticks in their gnarled hands,—would run over stony
paths, and always up-hill, up to the very summit of
Mount Tiberio. Set at rest by the fact that the dead
old man from San Francisco, who had likewise been plan¬
ning to go with them but instead of that had only fright¬
ened them with a memento mori, had already been shipped
off to Naples, the travellers slept on heavily, and the quiet
of the island was still undisturbed, the shops in the city
were still shut. The market place on the pia^etta alone
was carrying on traffic,—in fish and greens; and the people
there were all simple folk, among whom, without anything
to do, as always, was standing Lorenzo the boatman, fa¬
mous all over Italy,—a tall old man, a care-free rake and a
handsome fellow, who had served more than once as a
model to many artists; he had brought, and had already
sold for a song, two lobsters that he had caught that night
and which were already rustling in the apron of the cook
of that very hotel where the family from San Francisco
had passed the night, and now he could afford to stand
in calm idleness even until the evening, looking about
[309]
THE GENTLEMAN
him with a kingly bearing (a little trick of his), con¬
sciously picturesque with his tatters, clay pipe, and a
red woolen beretta drooping over one ear.
And, along the precipices of Monte Solaro, upon the
ancient Phoenician road, hewn out of the crags, down
its stone steps, two mountaineers of Abruzzi were descend¬
ing from Anacapri. One had bag-pipes under his leathern
mantle,—a large bag made from the skin of a she-goat,
with two pipes; the other had something in the nature of
wooden Pan's-reeds. They went on,—and all the land,
joyous, splendid, sun-flooded, spread out below them:
the stony humps of the island, which was lying almost in
its entirety at their feet; and that faery-like deep-blue in
which it was aswim; and the radiant morning vapours
over the sea, toward the east, under the blinding sun, that
was now beating down hotly, rising ever higher and
higher; and, still in their morning vagueness, the mistily
azure massive outlines of Italy, of her mountains near
and far, whose beauty human speech is impotent to ex¬
press. . . . Half way down the pipers slackened their
pace ; over the path, within a grotto in the craggy side of
Monte Solaro, all illumed by the sun, all bathed in its
warmth and glow, in snowy-white raiment of gypsum, and
in a royal crown, golden-rusty from inclement weathers,
stood the Mother of God, meek and gracious, her orbs
lifted up to heaven, to the eternal and happy abodes of
Her thrice-blessed Son. The pipers bared their heads,
put their reeds to their lips,—and there poured forth
their naïve and humbly-jubilant praises to the sun, to the
morning, to Her, the Immaculate Intercessor for all those
who suffer in this evil and beautiful world, and to Him
Who had been born of Her womb in a cavern at Bethle-
[310]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
hem, in a poor shepherd's shelter in the distant land
of Judaea. . . .
Meanwhile, the body of the dead old man from San
Francisco was returning to its home, to a grave on the
shores of the New World. Having gone through many
humiliations, through much human neglect, having wan¬
dered for a week from one port warehouse to another, it
had finally gotten once more on board that same famous
ship upon which but so recently, with so much deference,
he had been borne to the Old World. But now he was
already being concealed from the quick,—he was lowered
in his tarred coffin deep into the black hold. And once
more the ship was sailing on and on upon its long sea
voyage. In the night time it sailed past the Island of
Capri, and, to one watching them from the island, there
was something sad about the ship's lights, slowly disap¬
pearing over riie dark sea. But, upon the ship itself, in
its brilliant salons resplendent with lustres and marbles,
there was a crowded ball that night, as usual.
There was a ball on the second night also, and on the
third,—again in the midst of a raging snow storm, whirl¬
ing over an ocean booming like a funeral mass, and heav¬
ing in mountains trapped out in mourning by the silver
spindrift. The innumerable fiery eyes of the ship that
was retreating into the night and the snow gale were
barely visible for the snow to the Devil watching from
the crags of Gibraltar, from the stony gateway of two
worlds. The Devil was as enormous as a cliff, but the
ship was still more enormous than he; many-tiered, many-
funnelled, created by the pride of the New Man with an
ancient heart. The snow gale smote upon its rigging
and wide-throated funnels, hoary from the snow, but the
[311]
THE GENTLEMAN
ship was steadfast, firm, majestic—and awesome. Upon
its topmost deck were reared, in their solitude among the
snowy whirlwinds, those snug, dimly-lit chambers where,
plunged in a light and uneasy slumber, was its ponderous
guide who resembled a heathen idol, reigning over the en¬
tire ship. He heard the pained bowlings and the ferocious
squealings of the storm-stifled siren, but soothed himself
by the proximity of that which, in the final summing up,
was incomprehensible even to himself, that which was on
the other side of his wall : that large cabin, which had the
appearance of being armoured, and was being constantly
filled by the mysterious rumbling, quivering, and crisp
sputtering of blue flames, flaring up and exploding around
the pale-faced operator with a metal half-hoop upon his
head. In the very depths, in the under-water womb of
the Atlantida, were the thirty-thousand-pound masses of
boilers and of all sorts of other machinery—dully glitter¬
ing with steel, hissing out stream and exuding oil and
boiling water,—of that kitchen, made red hot from infernal
furnaces underneath, wherein was brewing the motion of
the ship. Forces, fearful in their concentration, were bub¬
bling, were being transmitted to its very keel, into an end¬
lessly long catacomb, into a tunnel, illuminated by elec¬
tricity, wherein slowly, with an inexorability that was
crushing to the human soul, was revolving within its
oily couch the gigantean shaft, exactly like a living mon¬
ster that had stretched itself out in this tunnel. Mean¬
while, amidship the Atlantida, its warm and luxurious
cabins, its dining halls and ball rooms, poured forth
radiance and joyousness, were humming with the voices
of a well-dressed gathering, were sweetly odorous with
fresh flowers, and the strains of the stringed orchestra
[312]
FROM SAN FRANCISCO
were their song. And again excruciatingly writhed and
at intervals came together among this throng, among this
glitter of lights, silks, diamonds and bared feminine
shoulders, the supple pair of hired lovers: the sinfully-
modest, very pretty young woman, with eye-lashes cast
down, with a chaste coiffure, and the well-built young
man, with black hair that seemed to be pasted on, with
his face pale from powder, shod in the most elegant of
patent-leather foot-gear, clad in a tight-fitting dress
coat with long tails,—an Adonis who resembled a huge
leech. And none knew that, already for a long time,
this pair had grown wearied of languishing dissem-
blingly in their blissful torment to the sounds of the
shamelessly-sad music,—nor that far, far below, at the
bottom of the black hold, stood a tarred coffin, in close
proximity to the sombre and sultry depths of the ship
that was toilsomely overpowering the darkness, the
ocean, the snow storm. . . .
1915.
THE END
[313]