THE MASK 
 
 JOHN COURNOS 
 
THE MASK 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN COURNOS 
 
 NEW XSJr YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
I I 
 
 %\ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
TO 
 ELENA KONSTANTINOVNA SOMOFP 
 
 5001 02 
 
OVERTURE: 
 
 A PROMISE AND A WARNING 
 
 JOHN GOMBAROV S supreme frailty, if frailty it can be 
 called in a world as frail as ours, was his habit of dis 
 coursing upon life his life. This weakness, common 
 enough in old men and philosophers to be overlooked 
 by a none too tolerant world, might indeed have been 
 tedious not to say grotesque in any other young man 
 than Gombarov, upon whom the habit sat like a gal 
 lant garment, made by a prince of tailors so much so 
 that the two or three intimate friends to whom, from 
 time to time, he unbosomed himself, far from frowning 
 upon him, encouraged him. 
 
 Who, if not this same Gombarov, should discourse 
 upon life? Let every man to his trade. He had lived 
 life, had steeped himself in life, and the blend of his 
 woes and joys produced a brew ironic and piquant 
 rather an insipid or bitter. And in recounting his tragi 
 comic experiences, he spoke quietly and evenly, and used 
 neither the violent gesture of the tragic actor nor the 
 forced guffaw of the comedian; you felt rather the 
 oracular manner of a man who accepted everything 
 and was astonished at nothing. 
 
 } "A man s life," observed Gombarov in one of his re 
 flective moods, "is on the surface a series of isolated 
 pictures, yet in some mysterious way connected or 
 grouped into a harmonious if not always a perfect pat 
 tern. And this invisible continuous design, which runs 
 through a man s life like a motif through a musical cpm- 
 
 vii 
 
viii OVERTURE 
 
 position, is called character by some men, destiny by 
 others which after all depends whether you regard life 
 as the sport of nature or the puppet play of the gods." 
 
 But Gombarov reached this conclusion later, much 
 later, than the events about to be recorded here, events 
 or to use his own word, pictures in which he had 
 been more or less the central figure. 
 
 "That is to say," he went on in his parabolic way, 
 in keeping with his Eastern origin, "that circumstance, 
 however potent in influencing men s lives, plays in the 
 case of really strong, or, if you will, fated characters 
 only a secondary part, say equal to that which the grind 
 stone plays in sharpening a steel axe. And by strong 
 I refer by no means to men of action, but to individuals 
 whose latent power of endurance and resistance is great 
 er than any force of aggression falling to its lot to strive 
 with, and the most formidable onslaught may affect its 
 possessor only happily if at all." 
 
 There was proof of the blindness, and therefore of 
 the inexorableness of this power, in that Gombarov 
 stumbled upon his discovery much later, when he had left 
 all the events which led up to it, sent to try him, quite 
 behind him, like so many mile-stones. He had at this 
 time paid in thirty years of his debt to creditor Time, 
 leaving an unknown balance which, with experience thus 
 gained, he hoped to make better use of. 
 
 Nevertheless, he deemed the experiences which had so 
 far fallen to his lot peculiarly his own, in that his per 
 sonality had attracted them like a magnet and rejected 
 others a process, to his way of thinking, automatic and 
 subconscious. 
 
 He made himself clear on this point. Many of his 
 adventures seemed hardly picturesque or joyous at the 
 time they took place. On the contrary, some of them 
 
OVERTURE ix 
 
 seemed very confused, unnecessary and almost too pain 
 ful. They became pictures, orderly old-masterly com 
 positions only much later, in the looking back on them, 
 when they lost their sting for him, and the pain of 
 them was gone, when the artist in him apprehended the 
 man in divine detachment. When the confusion of the 
 present had ceased to be, and he looked back on all with 
 a serene onlooker s eye it became clear to him that 
 whatever the unknown future might reveal, his unplanned 
 and apparently chaotic past was as consequent and as 
 logical as the game of an expert chess player, who had 
 planned all his moves ahead and made many sacrifices 
 and seeming mistakes to secure the position he wanted. 
 There was, of course, the pain of doubt, unlooked-for 
 moves by a wily adversary, temporary regrets at hav 
 ing moved a pawn to the wrong square or at having 
 moved a knight backward instead of forward. 
 
 And, in this series of pictures of life looked back upon, 
 Gombarov saw each picture complete in itself, yet all 
 of them together formed the parts of a larger and 
 grander composition, which gave rise to a mood, akin 
 to the one in which he had many a time stood before a 
 wall decoration by Veronese or Titian, as, eyeing a 
 small detail of the panel, he had said to himself : "Here 
 is a piece of colour so beautiful that I should be happy 
 in possessing but a few square inches of it, framed, and 
 hung on my wall." In such a mood he liked to think 
 of a man s life not as a play or a novel but as a collec 
 tion of short stories conceived by a single mind and 
 dominated by a single personality, which in some latent 
 unobvious way is the sole hero of them all. 
 
 That was one mood. In another more ecstatic mo 
 ment all the parts of his varied life appeared to merge 
 inevitably into a structural unity, like a Greek play. 
 
x OVERTURE 
 
 Now he could afford to laugh at the sinister comedy of 
 life, its grotesque macabre, its distorted, gargoyle-like 
 beauty, for he had acted Act One his past and while 
 acting, he had suddenly caught sight of himself, to 
 wards the end of the act, in a mirror hidden in the 
 wings ; and, having once got hold of the secret, he became 
 thereafter, as it were in an instant, yet really not in an 
 instant, a spectator of his own absurd figure, whose 
 face appeared to laugh or to sob, according to the con 
 tour in which it was revealed, as he stood there strain 
 ing his ear to catch the words of some strange, unseen 
 prompter in an unrehearsed play. And, having caught 
 with all this a sense of inevitable fatality which attends 
 upon those born to incur the steady displeasure of the 
 gods, he felt that now he could go on with the tragi 
 comic play with keen interest, even amusement, that 
 indeed to some degree he could assist, if need be sup 
 plant, the demoniac prompter. 
 
 There was still another mood, in which he thought of 
 his past as of a once dark cavern, lit up in the begin 
 ning as by flashes of lightning rare moments followed 
 by long lapses of deeper darkness a cavern now ever 
 accessible to him by the pressure of an unseen and mys 
 terious push-button, which, at his will arid in his own 
 chosen time, flooded the place with light; the designs 
 thus suddenly revealed upon the walls were at once 
 precise, beautiful and fantastic. He indeed had once 
 suspected them there as he groped with his fingers and 
 felt the incisions in the rough stone and wondered as 
 he groped there whether the graven figures were mon 
 sters or angels. He could not even say with any de 
 gree of surety that the figures were there in the be 
 ginning. He did not remember when he first felt their 
 presence, now it seemed to him that some unseen and 
 
OVERTURE xi 
 
 ever-present spirit had cut them into the stone during 
 his, John Gombarov s, life-time, and again that he had 
 learned to discern them only gradually with eyes which 
 grew ever sharper in the darkness and to feel them 
 with ringers which grew more and more sensitive as the 
 time went on. He had slept on a stone for pillow and 
 dreamt of angels. He had wrestled in the darkness 
 with the invisible one as Jacob had wrestled with the 
 angel, and knew that he had thrown him, though, like 
 Jacob he suffered his adversary to maim him. 
 
 Lines had come on his face early, formed less by 
 wind or storm of circumstance than by internal action, 
 volcanic as it were in character: it was as if the restless 
 ness within had forced the outer resisting shell into for 
 mations masking rather than revealing; lines of strength 
 and of pathos mixed themselves up on his face, which, 
 especially when he laughed and he laughed often 
 gave him a strange exotic look, of which he was not 
 unconscious, having often in his loneliness "made faces" 
 at himself in the mirror. This either amused or terri 
 fied him; for it was strange to see his face so absurdly 
 benign in repose, its diffuse smile all radiating as it 
 were from eyes full of pity, transformed in an instant 
 into an appearance malignant and Mephistophelian. And 
 as his face in repose had dignity he concluded that evil 
 had some indefinable connection with ugliness, and that 
 his ability to render himself thus leeringly ugly was an 
 indication that behind the god in him lurked .a satyr. He 
 was confident that had not our poor life placed so 
 many shackles on him and drained him of his physical 
 strength it would have been as easy for him to prac 
 tise Mohammedan virtues as Christian charity. Such is 
 the heart of man, which as the Russians say, is a dark 
 forest. 
 
xii OVERTURE 
 
 The spirit of the East lay dreamily upon his other 
 wise energetic, clear-cut features, and gave them, when 
 not animated, a curious sense of arrested activity. Thus 
 a white-garmented Arab, poised on his horse at stand 
 still, might have looked on beholding a mirage in a 
 desert. He was rather proud of this likeness to an 
 Arab, and though he was a Jew he had no ambition 
 of being a Rothschild, but an intense romantic longing, 
 never to be gratified, of living in caravansaries. And it 
 was perhaps this insatiate longing that in spite of his 
 Western habits and Western environment made him look 
 upon life with an Eastern eye: "Life is a caravansary, 
 men come and men go." But with this was complicated 
 the fact that his family had been domiciled on Russian 
 soil for many generations, so that a note of the restless 
 Slav nature crept into his deep grey eyes, and its sad 
 ness overlaid the Eastern fatalism like a scant veil. 
 There was a suggestion of curiosity in his long straight 
 nose slightly dipping at the point, and his lips were 
 full and sensual. Black ringlety hair fell about his head 
 and strayed to his pale forehead. Sometimes he looked 
 incredibly young for his years, sometimes much too* old. 
 
 Altogether this personality represented in its make-up 
 a clash of races, a clash of temperaments, a clash of re 
 flective and energetic forces, and having been torn up by 
 the roots from its original mould, and replanted in an 
 other place, then reshifted elsewhere having moreover 
 come ut^der the influence of the unstable, shifting arts 
 and moralities of the age, and yet kept something of the 
 nature of its ancient soul, this personality was almost 
 a physical symbol of the tenacious persistence of old 
 spirits under the pressure of an age of iron, twentieth 
 century cosmopolitanism. 
 
 But Gombarov realised this only much later, when he 
 
OVERTURE xiii 
 
 came to London, and idle but hospitable hostesses, anx 
 ious to replenish their stock of lions, invited him to after 
 noon teas. As he modestly regarded himself as only a 
 cub, he was no little astonished to what extent his fame, 
 yet to be earned, had preceded him. For he had no 
 motor car, he having just then come from a land in 
 which the possession of a motor car was the accepted 
 measure of literary success. But here in London, with 
 ten shillings to his bank account, he was held to be a 
 potential person; so that after many lean, unappreciated 
 years it pleased him to hear in this welcoming island the 
 women s pleasant voices greeting him after introduction, 
 not without stirring in him a sense of quiet irony: 
 
 "I am so fond of the Russians !" 
 
 As if he were a delicious oyster. 
 
 You almost expected to hear them say: "Let s have 
 another!" 
 
 It mattered little that he so often lapsed into long 
 silences, for he bore to them an aspect of a hawk hover 
 ing, and they sometimes glanced at him from under 
 their eye-lashes as if they expected him to make a sud 
 den swoop downwards as at the sight of prey, and to 
 provoke this eloquent flight they dropped an occasional 
 remark calculated to draw him. When people expect so 
 much of a man they are bound to be disappointed, and 
 if not disappointed it is because they will so often attrib 
 ute to the man who has thus fallen short of their ex 
 pectations a fascinating if irritating nonchalance. 
 
 But at the time our story begins John Gambarov had 
 far from begun to contemplate life with the careless 
 nonchalance of a tranquil mask, lit up at rare moments 
 by an almost imperceptible smile of irony as motionless 
 and as reposeful as Buddha s. 
 
 This mask of Gombarov s, with its subtle contours of 
 
xiv OVERTURE 
 
 repose and irony, was not created in a day. A mask, 
 it may be assumed, conceals more than it reveals. And 
 in this sense a mask is the measure of art It may 
 express a titanic struggle in an appearance of tran 
 quillity. And in the degree that its appearance is tran 
 quil to that extent has a spirit conquered life. The 
 chaos of Gombarov s existence strove toward orderli 
 ness, his torments towards peace, his pain toward beauty 
 all these shaped the mask from below into an appear 
 ance of tranquillity. 
 
 This is the story of the making of a human mask. 
 
. CONTENTS 
 
 PART I: RUSSIA THE ROOTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. VANYA S CHILDHOOD: How HE SAW IT AFTERWARD 19 
 
 II. VANYA S EDUCATION His FUTURE DECIDED BY THE 
 
 FAMILY S PAST 24 
 
 III. VANYA MEETS WITH A TRAGIC ACTRESS IN THE WOOD 34 
 
 IV. STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY ABOUT A 
 
 CURIOUS SECT, AND REVEALS His OWN CHARACTER 39 
 
 V. GRANDFATHER GOMBAROV PLANS A LEISURE VISIT 
 
 TO His SON, BUT DEPARTS IN HASTE ... 58 
 
 VI. STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S OCCUPATIONS His EQUIP 
 MENT AS A TRAGIC CHARACTER 63 
 
 VII. "A FRAIL, LONE SAPLING ON A CREST OF A HILL" . 75 
 
 VIII. VANYA WANTS A CUP OF TEA, AND is ACCUSED OF 
 
 WANTING THE MOON 78 
 
 IX. ANOTHER GOMBAROV OPENS His EYES ON THE 
 
 WORLD, AND is NAMED ABSALOM 82 
 
 X. ANOTHER PORTRAIT VANYA LEARNS THAT THERE 
 
 ARE MYSTERIES IN LIFE 84 
 
 XI. A VILLAIN MAKES HIS APPEARANCE ON THE SCENE 91 
 
 XII. MARTA S STRANGE LOVER VANYA S DREAM . . 98 
 
 XIII. VANYA S FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE DEVIL 103 
 
 XIV. CONSPIRACY CONFLAGRATION ....... 107 
 
 XV. THE GOMBAROVS DECIDE TO EMIGRATE . . . . 115 
 
 XVI. THE LEAVE-TAKING VANYA S DREAM . . . . 121 
 
 XV 
 
xvi CONTENTS 
 
 PART II: AMERICA THE TRANSPLANTING 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. A PRELUDE, IN WHICH A CERTAIN WARNING is 
 
 REPEATED 129 
 
 II. THE OLD MANTLE OF AHASUERUS DESCENDS UPON 
 
 YOUNG VANYA 140 
 
 III. THE GOMBAROVS BEGIN THEIR NEW LIFE . . . 151 
 
 IV. STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE AND 
 
 ADVENTURE 166 
 
 V. JOHN LEARNS THAT A GOOD COIN RINGS TRUE AND 
 
 THAT A GOOD CIGAR HAS A WHITE ASH . . . 187 
 
 VI. AN ENTRANCE AND AN EXIT THE CLASH OF Two 
 
 WILLS, A THIRD INTERVENING 195 
 
 VII. JOHN LEARNS OF MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT . . 208 
 
 VIII. DEEPER AND DEEPER MYSTERIES AND MORE 
 
 MYSTERIES 229 
 
 IX. A TRAGIC HERO GOES SLOWLY BUT INEVITABLY TO 
 
 His DOOM 240 
 
 X. AFTER CEDIPUS TYRANNUS OEDIPUS COLONEUS . .257 
 
 XI. THE ELEMENTS SPEAK IN THE COUNCILS OF THE GOM- 
 
 BAROV HOUSE 263 
 
 XII. JOHN "MAKES PALS WITH KOLTCHUR" AMERICAN 
 
 PLAN 284 
 
 XIII. Two LONG YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 
 
 CURIOUS ADVENTURES, MOSTLY OF THE SOUL . 291 
 
 XIV. How A TREE HELPED TO MAKE A TURNING POINT 
 
 IN THE GOMBAROVS LIVES 314 
 
 XV. THE GOMBAROVS MIGRATE FROM THEIR HOUSE ON A 
 
 HILL TO A CUL-DE-SAC IN TOWN 319 
 
PART I 
 RUSSIA THE ROOTS 
 
"And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in 
 thine hand; but save his life." 
 
THE MASK 
 
 PART I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 VATTYA S CHILDHOOD : HOW HE SAW IT AFTERWARD 
 
 THERE was first of all the little village, more a dream 
 than a memory. Looking backward, there were things 
 which outlined themselves with shrill clearness, there 
 were things which lost themselves in a confused haze. 
 There were keen moments, moods of quiet aloneness, 
 when John Gombarov, sitting in his little room in Lon 
 don, his whole being attuned to see, to hear and to feel, 
 shot arrows of vision across the seas, lands and years 
 which separated him from this little place, where he 
 spent the first ten years of his life. And all this early 
 childhood re-erected itself before him more like phan 
 tasmagoria than life. It was in the beginning a world 
 of germinating chaos a world of blind fears, of hardly 
 conscious desires, of all sorts of frail, quivering things 
 an altogether nebulous world, in which you heard some 
 thing, saw something, felt something; you grazed a 
 vague shape here, a phantom there, but there were other 
 shapes and half-shadows of shapes, unknown and half- 
 familiar, which eluded you, darted away like so many 
 blurs in a fog, and filled the thick air with their blurred 
 laughter. And he seemed to hear human voices, dis 
 jointed fragments of conversation, yet could not distin 
 guish the words. 
 
 19 
 
20 :;;: THE* MASK 
 
 In a sense, all his childhood, spent in Russian woods 
 and country, was like that. But there were oases of 
 lucidity, sun-lit spaces which stood out in harsh contrast 
 against the grey living mystery from which you just 
 emerged. And it was strange to reflect that just as it 
 was with people, only a few of the many he had met 
 stood out with sharp distinctness, so it was with the 
 birds, the flowers and the trees he had lived among. Of 
 all the birds he had heard cawing and singing he remem 
 bered only the crow and the nightingale, of all the flow 
 ers he had seen, his memory resurrected most vividly 
 the poppies and the sun-flowers fields and gardens of 
 green, studded with red and yellow like tapestry. As 
 for trees, he lived among them, with them he might 
 have been one of them yet he knew them not so much 
 as pines, as willows, as oaks, but simply as trees. He 
 was a strange child without talent for particularization 
 and with an almost over-powering tendency to abstrac 
 tion, so much so that he remembered having bent down 
 one day in the woods to pick up a live but motionless 
 iron-grey snake which he had mistaken for a piece of 
 iron, afterwards withdrawing his hand in sudden appre 
 hension. Perhaps it was that he felt life rather than 
 observed it, that he was a delicate, absorbing mechanism, 
 which, through a union of the senses, received life as a 
 single impression, as a distilled essence. And thus it 
 was that although men spoke and the birds sang and the 
 trees rustled in the wind, it all somehow seemed merged 
 for the boy into* one vast, aching silence. And he stood 
 before the vastness of this thing as before a great cliff, 
 an abyss, or the sea; with the apprehension of a young 
 chick on the edge of the water as it watches its step 
 mother-duck floating away with its ducklings, leaving 
 it behind. But this too he had begun to perceive early : 
 that he was in some way, as yet incomprehensible to him, 
 different. 
 
VANYA S CHILDHOOD 21 
 
 Childhood is the background of one s life. And in 
 this background, as in the background of a picture, many 
 things slowly lose themselves in the perspective, in 
 definably and imperceptibly lose themselves, somewhere 
 among the mellow warm tones, as in a peaceful pastoral, 
 in a dense wood, or in a wall of blue sky. In trying 
 to recall the background of his past Gombarov often 
 found himself in the attitude of a man who was straining 
 his ear intently to catch the distant notes of a pastoral 
 song which came to him but faintly, in snatches, and 
 who suffered all the pain of those lapsed intervals which 
 no exertion of his imagination could fill out. 
 
 Then there is the foreground. That is another mat 
 ter. Things and people are always clear in the fore 
 ground. All the rest is like a drop-curtain, against 
 which the people you have known are clearly outlined, 
 whether they walk, speak or smile, laugh hysterically, 
 or wring their hands tragically to heaven. And against 
 this drop-curtain, picture after picture passed before 
 Gombarov s eyes. 
 
 There was the house he was born in and lived in, a 
 half mile from the village. A large, two-story cottage, 
 with a varandah that ran round three sides of it, it stood 
 in the middle of a large grove of trees, separated on 
 three sides from the forest by a fence of wooden rails, 
 which continued its way around the fourth side that 
 bordered on the road. But the front of the house faced 
 the forest, and a path, neither broad nor narrow, led 
 to the forest through a small gate. A broader path 
 curved from the entrance round the house and broadened 
 out even more as it joined the road through the wide 
 gate. Coming out of this gate a walk of five minutes to 
 the left would have brought you to a stretch of country, 
 miles of green meadows and wide golden patches of 
 corn-fields. Turning to the right from the gate would 
 
22 THE MASK 
 
 have led you to the village. Half way up you came to 
 a crest of a hill ; below, of an early morning, you might 
 have had the good fortune to see the little village inun 
 dated by a sea of sun-mellowed mist; you saw as it 
 were floating a gabled thatched roof, with its white, 
 smoking chimney, looking altogether like the top of a 
 miniature Noah s Ark; elsewhere you saw the tall, gilt- 
 topped, sun-lit spire of the church, appearing to your 
 half -awakened eyes more a lighthouse than a church 
 spire; the tops of trees peered out as a beautiful grey 
 tracery against grey water; there were the little white 
 tombstones and jagged grey crosses jutting out on the 
 side of a hill in the distance; the mist seemed to hover 
 over them softly, as over a flock of motionless birds. 
 Slowly the mist lifted; reluctantly the earth threw off 
 her early morning robe, revealing the more precise beau 
 ties of her superb torso, gleaming with dew after her 
 bath as with small jewels, silvery in the shaded parts, 
 golden in the sun. Gradually as the mist shifted farther, 
 your eyes, shaded by a hand, journeyed in its wake, 
 scanned the great distances, and watched, fifteen versts 
 away, the disclosing of that most golden of jewels, the 
 golden cupolas of Kieff, cupola upon cupola, a cluster 
 of cupolas, arranged like a Byzantine brooch. 
 
 If you lingered a while you would have heard the 
 gradual approaching of voices behind you, you would 
 have seen other eyes intent upon that splash of gold 
 which beckoned like a flaming torch to the holy wayfarer, 
 the honest pilgrim, the Bogomolctz, who, his legs 
 swathed in rags, a bag of dry bread crusts on his back, 
 had been walking many dreary miles for days, for 
 months, to behold this sight of sights, this glory of 
 glories, holy Kieff on the Dnieper, where the heart of lit 
 tle Mother Russia molten from the hearts of dead saints 
 beat tremulously and enkindled in the beholder, the re 
 pentant sinner, an ecstasy of humility and pity, a rhythm 
 
VANYA S CHILDHOOD 23 
 
 of charity, a mood of stone-heavy burdens lifted, a feel 
 ing of purification at having washed one s blood-stained 
 hands in the white milk of holiness little mother Russia 
 would take all, little mother Russia would forgive every 
 thing ! 
 
 Day after day these little straggling processions passed 
 on the road by the Gombarov house. Vanya had often 
 stood at the gate there with Afanasya, a middle-aged 
 peasant woman, the family nurse for years, at whose 
 breast he had taken milk; and as he watched her grey 
 angular face, rigidly outlined in a bandanna kerchief, 
 a face kind in its austerity, like a drawing by Holbein, 
 he heard her spoken to by some old greybeard : 
 
 "A crust of bread, for the sake of God ! Radi Boga!" 
 And the good Afanasya would go to the house, to 
 reappear with a big quarter of a loaf of black bread, 
 which she would hand to the man with the remark : 
 
 "Here, little old man, starichok! Go on your way, 
 and don t forget to pray for me." 
 
 The pilgrim would pronounce a word of blessing and 
 go on. Other Bogomoltsi would go by. 
 "A crust of bread, babushka, radi Boga!" 
 "You are too late, starichok, I ve already given away 
 all I had." 
 
 "Never mind, babushka, thanks all the same." 
 Did young Vanya understand all that this meant ? He 
 saw and he heard, but he did not understand. No one 
 ever told him anything. And he hated all that he was 
 taught. He detested more than anything else his Ger 
 man lessons. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 VANYA S EDUCATION HIS FUTURE DECIDED BY THE 
 FAMILY S PAST 
 
 LITTLE VANYA went to the village to his tutor s house 
 to study his German lesson. It was early in the after 
 noon, the tutor Boris Lvovitch Polensky was always 
 out at this time giving lessons elsewhere, he would not 
 be back for another three hours, and he would then see 
 what Vanya had learned. 
 
 Vanya took up his German grammar, scanned his 
 exercises, and sat there moping. He was not thinking 
 of his German lessons. There were so many other things 
 to think of. Vanya was a little fantast, and even then 
 he felt all the misery of a day-dreamer assigned to the 
 exacting tasks of daily routine. What was the use of 
 German? He could not tell why, but in some way that 
 he could not understand the mere sound of it grated on 
 his ear. But there were many irrefutable reasons why 
 he must study German. His father knew German, his 
 grandfather knew German, most of his uncles, first 
 cousins and second cousins knew German, his elder 
 brother knew German. His younger brother would 
 study German. In short, it was the tradition of the 
 family to know German. It was part of the tradition 
 of a family which for generations had trained physicians, 
 though latterly some of its members had become engi 
 neers. Vanya in his childish way did not care to become 
 either a physician or an engineer if he had to study 
 German in order to become one. Not that he knew what 
 
 24 
 
VANYA S EDUCATION 25 
 
 he wanted to be. In any case, it was decreed that Vanya 
 should become a physician, and Vanya bowed to superior 
 force and studied German in a fashion. 
 
 Vanya sat there moping, musing upon a thousand 
 things . . . the beautiful woods he loved to play in ... 
 a wonderful world in which no German was spoken. 
 And at the age of eight he was already driven to intro 
 spection, a habit he developed in the hours meant to be 
 devoted to his German, a habit that was further encour 
 aged by excellent introspective material. And like all 
 introspective children he lived in a world of silent misery, 
 a world all his own, sombre and restless, which no one 
 at home, not even his mother, attempted to enter and 
 to lighten in some way. He sat in that little room for 
 hours thinking of the world he lived in and the people 
 in it. Who were these people? 
 
 There was first of all his stepfather, whose name he 
 bore. But no! he paused for a moment to think of his 
 own father, goodness knew where he was now, and 
 where he had taken away Feodor, Vanya s eldest brother. 
 He but dimly remembered one episode a scuffle in the 
 house, chairs being overturned, pictures coming down 
 from the walls, he Vanya appearing in the door 
 screaming ; he vaguely recalled the three agitated figures, 
 those of his father, his mother and that other person, 
 an instructor in the house, as he learnt later. Vanya 
 was three then, how could he possibly know? He only 
 knew that his papa had gone away and that he would 
 never, never come back again, and that he must never 
 refer to him as papa any more, he indeed was soon to 
 learn that there was a new papa in the house. And in 
 spite of his infancy some mysterious instinct in his heart 
 resisted all the efforts to impose upon it the will of 
 maturer forces. He would not call him papa, and only 
 did so in rare instances, in embarrassment and with 
 great constraint. And in an unconscious way he must 
 
26 THE MASK 
 
 have found no little strength and justification for his 
 attitude in the example of his mother, who almost in 
 variably referred to his stepfather as Gombarov, and 
 even addressed him by that name. 
 
 Five years had passed since he saw his father, and he 
 continued to think of him, although he did not remem 
 ber his face. He remembered only his medium stature, 
 his pallor and his black beard, while all efforts to recall 
 his features ended in the struggling thought beating help 
 lessly against the insurmountable wall which erected it 
 self in his mind. In the end, exhausted, he would give 
 up in despair. But there were things incidents, which 
 he remembered with great clearness. It was astonishing, 
 he reflected, that he should not remember how his father 
 looked, and yet remember some of the things his father 
 did for him. There were the sticks of chocolate he 
 used to bring him from town, and what was better he 
 had taken him to town once or twice with him and 
 bought him each time a plate of sakhamy moroz, 
 sugared frost, that is ice cream. He remembered a 
 tragic circumstance of one of these expeditions, when 
 dragged by his father through the muddy streets, he 
 lost one galosh. He also recalled with delight how his 
 father sitting with crossed knees, would stand him on the 
 tip of his swinging foot, and swinging him up and down 
 to the accompaniment of this original rhyme on his, 
 Vanya s, name: 
 
 "Vanchik, stakanchik, barabanchik, charlatanchik , 
 balvanchik, ingermanchik" that is, "Little Vanya, little 
 tumbler, little drum, little charlatan, little fool, little 
 young man," and so on indefinitely. It used to amaze 
 him to see how many such rhymed variations could be 
 got out of the diminutive of his name. And it seemed 
 strange that his father should live for him not as a 
 portrait, but as a group of associations. 
 
 It was not less strange about Vanya s elder brother, 
 
VANYA S EDUCATION 27 
 
 Feodor or Fedya, as he knew him, by whose side he 
 sometimes walked in KiefF. He remembered Fedya 
 as always dressed in his school uniform, and, running 
 to keep pace with him, he admired his regulation grey 
 overcoat with its silver buttons and his grey visored cap 
 with its impressive badge. It was useless to> try to 
 recall his brother s face, he only remembered the grey 
 and silver uniform. 
 
 But to return to his stepfather Semyon Bogdano- 
 vitch Gombarov. At that time Vanya had not quite 
 realised how this man had come into his life, and why 
 he felt constraint in his presence. Not alone constraint, 
 but fear also. But why should he fear this man who re 
 spected the unspoken truce between them, and who never 
 even beat him and who left all chastisement of Vanya 
 to his mother, which was not always the case with the 
 other children in the house? He did not fear him as a 
 child fears its stepfather, but as a child fears the dark. 
 For the dark to all children is a world by itself, and 
 all sorts of fearful, invisible beings walk about in it, 
 and all sorts of terrible things happen in it. Might not 
 one awake in the morning to find that something had 
 been stolen from the room or that something else had 
 been put in it? The coming then of this man into his 
 life was like an awakening, his first realisation of change, 
 of life itself, which was a kind of darkness, in which 
 things can be taken from you and other things left in 
 their place. What did he lose then, and what was put 
 into its place? He hardly knew. But he did not like 
 the idea the idea that certain things can be taken from 
 you, without your consent or foreknowledge. At all 
 events, from that moment the moment his father left 
 the house and his stepfather came in he began to be 
 afraid of life as of a darkness, in which some things 
 might be taken from you and other things put in their 
 place. And so it came about that he could seldom look 
 
28 THE MASK 
 
 upon the small, stocky, agile man, with his sturdy black 
 moustaches and his small but sharp wedge-like beard, 
 without a strange, almost unreasonable apprehension. 
 
 Vanya suddenly picked up his book, scanned his oral 
 exercises, those curious Gothic characters which he had 
 to translate into Russian, then the more familiar Rus 
 sian phrases, which for some reason unknown to him- 
 self he had to put into German, and recite orally to his 
 tutor. He dropped his book, picked up a plum out of 
 the small bagful that he brought with him, and slowly 
 drawing up its rich contents through a small hole made 
 in the purple-red skin, he resumed his musing. 
 
 He thought of his mother, a small sensitive-faced WCH 
 man with dark hair and deep grey eyes Vanya was 
 said to resemble her who was very active, and ap 
 peared to be everywhere about the house, so that Vanya, 
 on rare occasions, stealing a newly-baked goody out of 
 the cupboard, would go off into the woods with it to 
 escape being observed not only by his mother but also 
 by his two elder sisters, Raya and Dunya. And he re 
 minded himself at that moment that only yesterday his 
 mother had whipped him for stealing a jam tart, whicfy 
 he did not do at all and this episode created for him 
 a sense of injustice all the more keen because he had 
 not been punished on previous occasions when he was 
 really culpable and had brazened the thing out by pro 
 testing his innocence. After that he somehow realised 
 that he was a criminal and had certain rights as such; 
 he tore away from his mother in a furious rage, and 
 began to throw the chairs about the room, and when his 
 mother chased him he ran out of doors, into the woods, 
 and with tears still in his eyes he began to kill all sorts 
 of living things which happened to come his way. Then 
 he suddenly stopped short, as a regret oh, so poign 
 ant! came upon him; he turned homewards, slowly, 
 sorrowfully; there was a thing like a small mouse gnaw- 
 
VANYA S EDUCATION 29 
 
 ing, nibbling at his heart, and with each nibble he seemed 
 to move a foot. His mind was filled with dull, sluggish, 
 remorseful thoughts, as with lingering fumes after a 
 rapid blaze. He stole through the hall of the house 
 quietly and up the stairs, he peeped into the children s 
 bedroom and, seeing it empty, he climbed on his bed 
 and, burying his face in the pillow, burst into tears. 
 It was here, in that state, that Afanasya found him, 
 and putting his head on her lap caressed his hair. At 
 last, after much coaxing, he told her what he had done. 
 
 "I ve killed many living things I" 
 
 "What did you kill?" 
 
 "A beetle." 
 
 "What else?" 
 
 "A frog." 
 
 "What else?" 
 
 "A lady-bird/ 1 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 "A grasshopper." 
 
 "Anything else ?" 
 
 "A dragon-fly. . . ." 
 
 Then after a pause : 
 
 "And I cut a lizard in two." 
 
 "Well, Vanya, you are a little murderer, to kill God s 
 own creatures. But don t you know, to kill a lizard 
 brings bad luck." 
 
 At this piece of information Vanya was on the point 
 of bursting into tears again, but on suddenly seeing his 
 mother, who had entered the room unobserved, his little 
 heart closed in and hardened like a firm young bud, and 
 he blurted out defiantly : 
 
 "I don t care if it does!" 
 
 "Oh, Vanya !" exclaimed both women at the same time. 
 
 But Vanya hardened himself, and remained obdurate 
 to both women who had given him his existence, one by 
 her blood, the other by her milk. He had felt himself 
 
30 THE MASK 
 
 bound to these two in some unaccountable way, and was 
 in any event too young to have understood, even if he 
 had seen them, the words of the Arabian poet : 
 
 "Pity the mother who yieldeth up her child to another 
 woman s breast, she yieldeth up half of her inheritance. 
 
 "Blessed the child who hath partaken of the milk of 
 a fine stranger, for he beareth within him the blood of 
 two mothers." 
 
 Gradually, under the caressing hands of his mother, 
 his heart opened out again, petal-like, and a warmth be 
 gan to suffuse it gently, like the warmth of a spring 
 sun, and this warmth little by little became, as it were, a 
 tender fluid, and spread in all directions in so many rivu 
 lets, warming him from head to foot as he lay there so 
 quiet and still against his mother s heart without a word 
 or a movement, eyes closed. 
 
 Vanya suddenly opened his eyes, expecting to find his 
 mother there. Instead, his eyes fell upon his German 
 book, open where he left it open. Once more he scanned 
 the Russian phrases which he had to put into German. 
 He slowly repeated to himself : 
 
 "The cheese of the king is pretty." 
 
 Then in German : 
 
 "Der Kass von der Kaiser ist schon." 
 
 The next phrase was : 
 
 "Will they sell their hen to her father?" 
 
 He began again : 
 
 "Wollen sie verkaufen . . ." 
 
 He put the book down again, and went over to the 
 window to catch flies. He caught quite a number, tore 
 off their wings, and putting a tumbler over them watched 
 them walk wingless. Or he tipped their legs into ink 
 and watched them make a trail across the white paper 
 he had torn out of his exercise book. Then seized with 
 pity and remorse for his acts, he tried to palliate his of- 
 
VANYA S EDUCATION 31 
 
 fence by arguing to himself in its justification, quite in 
 the manner of elders: 
 
 "After all, I haven t any wings, have I ? Yet I man 
 age to get along somehow. And even if I had wings, 
 mamma or Gombarov or Afanasya or Raya or Dunya 
 or even Rivka," he thought at that moment of the nice 
 jam tarts and cherry dumplings that Rivka made, "would 
 tear them off, or I should be allowed to have them 
 only on Sunday. And anyway, I m shut in here just 
 as under a glass and I ve got to dip my pen into the ink 
 and scrawl on paper something that I don t want to 
 scrawl just as I ve made that fly do." 
 
 But somehow Vanya, quite like a good many elders, 
 felt a flaw in his reasoning, for once he ceased reason 
 ing, his pity and remorse returned. 
 
 But what was worse than the return of pity and re 
 morse was the return of his tutor, whose footsteps he 
 now heard in the hall. 
 
 The tutor, however, would have his lunch first, so 
 that Vanya had still twenty minutes left. But in spite 
 of his desperate efforts he managed to learn only nine 
 or ten sentences out of eighteen which were to be trans 
 lated into German; all the difficult ones which he failed 
 to master he underlined with a pencil. 
 
 Then came in Boris Lvovitch, a young man of thirty, 
 amiable and smart-looking, with turned-up moustaches, 
 which seemed like two sign-posts, directing your atten 
 tion upward to the formidable forehead and saying: 
 "Look what a fine high forehead I ve got." But Vanya 
 was not to be diverted by this ruse from what was his 
 tutor s real distinction for him, namely, a gold tooth, and 
 almost every time the tutor opened his mouth, Vanya 
 watched it with fascinated interest. 
 
 "Well, Vanya, have you studied your lesson?" 
 
 "Y-yes," said Vanya with some hesitation, as he 
 caught sight of a gleam of that tooth. He took up his 
 
32 THE MASK 
 
 book and began to read off the German sentences, trans 
 lating them quite easily into Russian as he went along. 
 When he came to the Russian sentences he translated 
 them with great hesitation and was prompted now and 
 then by the master. After translating what he had learnt 
 he stopped short. 
 
 "Is that all?" asked Boris Lvovitch. 
 
 "Yes . . ." replied Vanya awkwardly. 
 
 "That s strange," observed the tutor, "those transla 
 tion exercises seem to be getting shorter and shorter 
 instead of longer and longer. Let me see the book." 
 
 Poor Vanya handed the book to Boris Lvovitch, who 
 looked at it with visibly growing amazement, and Vanya, 
 watching his tutor s face, with agitated eyes, thought 
 that his master s moustaches had grown longer and his 
 forehead higher as in a rounded silver-plated dish. He 
 did not have much time to indulge in this fancy, for the 
 master, running over the previous pages and noticing 
 the same tell-tale marks, turned upon the boy, and with 
 a wide flourish of his arm struck him in the face with 
 the open palm of his hand. 
 
 Vanya s eyes were dry and he stood there without 
 stirring, and he neither cried out nor said a word, and 
 his left cheek glowed an eloquent red. There were only 
 two things which appeared to live in the room : the clock 
 and Vanya s heart or was it only one? it was as if 
 the pendulum reached out towards Vanya and pounded 
 his back with ponderous strokes. 
 
 Boris Lvovitch soon roused Vanya from his stupor. 
 
 "Vanya, I ll tell you what I ll do," he said in a tone of 
 reconciliation, "I ll come back here in a half hour, per 
 haps you will know your lesson by then/ 
 
 Indeed, by the time the master returned Vanya could 
 say in half tolerable German that the cheese of the king 
 was pretty, that the queen had fifteen shirts and one hat, 
 that the queen s daughter had seven cats and four dogs, 
 
VANYA S EDUCATION 33 
 
 that one of the cats swallowed her nightingale which 
 could sing better than the rooster, that the rooster crowed 
 at dawn, and that the clock struck twelve at noon, and 
 that the left window of the soldier s widow s cottage was 
 small and would not let the sun in, because the sun was 
 on the other side, and other edifying information usually 
 found in our textbooks for studying foreign languages, 
 The master was pleased with Vanya and gave him a 
 silver pencil, and Vanya was pleased with the pencil and 
 ran home to show it to everyone and to tell them that he 
 had got it for knowing his German lessons. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 VANYA MEETS WITH A TRAGIC ACTRESS IN THE WOOD 
 
 RIVKA, the cook of the Gombarovs, was a good soul, 
 such a good soul. 
 
 A woman of about thirty, tall and somewhat gaunt, 
 and with a face slightly pock-marked, she was not much 
 to look at, poor girl! Not at the first glance, anyway. 
 She had weak lungs. But she had a stout heart, a fine 
 heart, an oven of fire to judge by the constant gleam 
 in her eyes, a warm soft gleam that sometimes burst into 
 little flickering flames and sometimes into quick shooting 
 sparks as when in the dark iron strikes stone. But that 
 was only when she was a little angry at one thing or an 
 other for she would never tell why. Perhaps she her 
 self did not know why she was angry. Perhaps she was 
 not really angry but morose, a marked soul upon whom 
 the afflictions of the world swooped down in a flock to 
 feed out of hand like tame pigeons. And there were 
 also times when the fire of her heart blazed out on her 
 tongue, and her words came pouring out like live em 
 bers, and her long thin arms, their sleeves rolled up above 
 the elbows, moved like the agitated arms of a mari 
 onette, an individual string to every finger. After this 
 transformation the flame would die down, she would 
 become docile again, at times almost lifeless, ready as 
 it were to be put back like a marionette into a box, or 
 was it into a coffin? She was like a tragic actress, a 
 Jewess like Rachel. She put all her art into her dishes 
 and transformed the simplest dish into a work of art. 
 
 34 
 
VANYA MEETS WITH A TRAGIC ACTRESS 35 
 
 She made a most delicious cold beet-root soup, red like 
 a rich wine and covered over with a layer of thick white 
 cream, and the most delicious cherry dumplings, through 
 the fine skin of which the red-black juice oozed out as 
 from some passionate tropical fruit, and other things 
 which simply begged to be eaten as if anyone needed 
 to restrain you from eating them. 
 
 Rivka had been in the Gombarov household for years 
 and she was kept on in spite of her eccentricities, and 
 she had two in particular. One was to drop her work 
 in a sudden whim, even in the midst of preparing a din 
 ner, and to go off to Kieff for some unknown reason. 
 The other was to keep ready a jug partly filled with 
 soaked sulphur matches, for she always threatened to 
 commit suicide -by swallowing the fluid : she had done 
 this for years and so no one took the threat seriously. 
 
 Rivka had a husband, -the village cobbler Yankel, a 
 man of good heart and great piety, but of no distinc 
 tion. His boots were like other cobblers boots, each 
 boot had one sole and one heel, and a nail more or less, 
 a small matter. 
 
 A morning never to be forgotten by Vanya was a 
 morning in midsummer when he and Rivka went out into 
 the woods together. They walked a long time, such a 
 long time, until they came to a small glade full of tall 
 grass, fragrant and delicious to lie in. Vanya threw 
 himself on the grass and sprawled out on his back, while 
 Rivka went on farther; she promised to come back for 
 him. 
 
 Vanya lay there a long time and looked at the patch 
 of blue so high above his head, a patch of blue which 
 contracted or widened with every slight recurring breeze; 
 the trees around him were so tall and so straight and 
 they swayed before every gust like the taut strings of 
 a harp touched by unseen fingers, and their rustling mel 
 ody was as rhythmical and as sad and as monotonous 
 
36 THE MASK 
 
 as an old folk song. Then there were the silences be 
 tween the rustlings. They were like the silences that 
 Vanya grew to love later of the calm seas in the sun, 
 between the lappings of the outgoing tides on 
 slowly receding shores gentle intervals between ca 
 resses in which you grew sweetly oblivious or 
 thoughtful. And Vanya lay there and absorbed it all, 
 not alone with his mind but also with his heart, with. his 
 whole body, something vibrated down to the tips of his 
 fingers, something like the sap of the earth poured itself 
 down his tired little legs. He became reflective. Was 
 he alive? he asked himself, or was he a part of the earth, 
 a blade of grass? a tree? a beetle? a little white cloud 
 like the one that just made its appearance above his head? 
 
 But Vanya soon roused himself. Or rather he was 
 soon roused by something. It all came about so sud 
 denly the disappearance of the sun, the rolling of a 
 black curtain across the sky, the agitation of the trees. 
 From afar came a rumble of thunder. Vanya stood up 
 and looked around him. Where was Rivka? 
 
 "Rivka! Rivka!" he called frantically. 
 
 "Riv-v-kah! Riv-v-kah!" came the answering cry of 
 some mocking wood-demon, whose voice became a pro 
 longed moan in the wind. 
 
 Vanya was frightened and began to run. He then 
 realised that he had lost his way. In the meantime the 
 sky grew still blacker and the wind increased, so that the 
 tall trees no longer rocked gently but swung like a ship s 
 masts in a storm, or like tall thin reeds which as they 
 swung crossed and recrossed one another, and their song 
 was no longer a gentle music but a frenzied tune played 
 by a witch who had seized the harp s strings and tore at 
 them and thumped on them furiously. Vanya now ran 
 one way, now another and only stopped now and then 
 to cry: 
 
 "Rivka! Rivka!" 
 
VANYA MEETS WITH A TRAGIC ACTRESS 37 
 
 Then as he ran he came upon a larger glade and here 
 he saw a sight which for a moment held him still. 
 
 He saw Rivka emerge from the wood, running, her 
 hair all dishevelled, flying before the wind, like the tops 
 of the trees, or as it were with them. She looked very 
 much like a Fury with wriggly serpent-like hair that he 
 had once seen in the reproduction of an old Italian pic 
 ture; a Fury with gleaming eyes just unloosened from 
 a chain and herself haunted and pursued by the ele 
 ments filling the background of the picture with black 
 ness, ill-omen and strife. 
 
 But all this he thought of only later. At that moment 
 he was very much frightened, and stood still in his fear. 
 She ran past him without seeming to see him. It was 
 then that he recovered himself and ran after her, calling 
 her name: 
 
 "Rivka! Rivka!" 
 
 The storm soon passed, and as he reached the house 
 at last the sun came out, nature was docile again like 
 Rivka, who now stood quietly on the back porch peeling 
 potatoes for dinner. 
 
 This episode sunk deep into Vanya and stirred within 
 him a thought as yet unborn. That picture of Rivka 
 in the woods was to become for him more and more an 
 image of life itself, life with her changing moods, life 
 once docile now run amuck, life the tragic actress singing 
 her mad songs, life the ailing woman exercising her 
 whims upon men now once more smiling against a back 
 ground of sunlight and softly rustling trees. 
 
 It was hard to say when this thought first came into 
 his head. Perhaps it came much later; perhaps it was 
 at the time merely sleeping quietly, gasping in its half- 
 conscious travail not really a full-grown thought but 
 a thought in the process of birth. And in recalling this 
 episode in later years John Gombarov would knit his 
 eyebrows for a long while and he would seem to turn 
 
38 THE MASK 
 
 his eyes to an inward scrutiny as if he were trying to 
 ferret out a memory from one particular cell of his 
 brain. But as it was useless he would give up the en 
 igma. And his agitated face would lose its agitation 
 and it would lapse into its abstract smile as if a mask 
 of dream were being drawn down tightly over its fea 
 tures. And he would give way to a reflection : 
 
 "All life is said to be a dream, but what is more like 
 a dream than one s childhood looked back upon? Cer 
 tain things have happened, and you have a feeling that 
 they have happened in a perfect sequence, yet on waking 
 you remember some of the things, but the sequence of 
 them is gone. We live in the present, but all dream and 
 all beauty seem to be connected with the past, nearly al 
 ways with the past. Memories are like myths, and 
 where there are no memories there is no beauty. It is 
 the same with peoples as with individuals. Walking 
 past old places and living near them, they recall their 
 youth. The land of milk and honey, Athenian culture, 
 the Italian Renaissance, the Elizabethan Age every 
 thing is a dream. And only stray dream figures walk 
 among the ruins Christ, ^schylus, Michelangelo, 
 Shakespeare and then there are the ruins themselves 
 which remind us that our dream has been once a real 
 ity. For there is nothing new, there is only eternal re 
 newal. There must be ghosts at our elbows, ancient de 
 mons to whisper in our ears the one secret worth know 
 ing. . . . But I was talking about Rivka and how things 
 get mixed up in a dream. Perhaps there really was no 
 Rivka, and it was all a dream, a myth? As in a vision, 
 I see her walking among the ruins of my childhood, a 
 lonely figure smiling a little with her mad eyes, in whose 
 gleam I seem to see a striving to recall old forgotten 
 things, things perhaps of her own childhood, her child 
 hood passed under an ancient sun on the Ganges or the 
 Nile, many hundreds of years ago." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY ABOUT A CURIOUS 
 SECT, AND REVEALS HIS OWN CHARACTER 
 
 THE Gombarovs were "emancipated Jews." That is 
 to say, they not only enjoyed certain privileges of the 
 Russian law to which they were entitled by their pro 
 fessional and material standing but they had a relative 
 disregard of certain prohibitions of the Jewish law. 
 They had small religion, but the little they had was 
 practical. They circumcised all their males because they 
 presumed it was healthier, they ate Kosher meat be 
 cause the idea of "eating blood" was abhorrent to them, 
 and they did not eat pig because that animal wallowed 
 in dung. Indeed they looked upon Moses not as upon 
 a divine lawgiver but as upon a kind of sanitary inspec 
 tor, who had used the name of Jehovah in order to im 
 press upon as yet a young, credulous, malleable people 
 a morality of gregariousness and a sanitary system, the 
 observance of which entitled the observer not to a fu 
 ture life but to a long life! and again they had looked 
 upon him as upon one who, had he lived in our own day, 
 might have been the president of an ethical society, a 
 zealous eugenist, an organiser of model factories, model 
 soup kitchens, garden cities, an inventor of improved 
 drain pipes, a suppressor of tramps, hawkers and image- 
 makers artists! The Gombarovs almost completely 
 ignored the hundreds of small observances, customs and 
 ceremonies which have grown up around the Jewish re 
 ligion since the dispersion, like barnacles on an old ship. 
 
 39 
 
40 THE MASK 
 
 They did not keep separate china for meat and milk 
 dishes, and they did not have a mezuzoth * on the door 
 post to keep away the evil spirits, and they visited God s 
 house only when the fancy pleased them, as they would 
 the house of a neighbour with whom they had no par 
 ticular quarrel. They had, on the other hand, perhaps 
 unconsciously, a religion of race, that pride of survival 
 of a race which has suffered through many generations 
 and has outlived its tormentors at any rate, God has 
 kept His promise, such as it was, and has given His peo 
 ple a long life if a miserable one, and thus also the 
 idea of long life broke its own bounds and ceased being 
 in that sense a thing material and virtuous, the posses 
 sion of an individual, and became rather a mystic force, 
 a living fluid running down the spine of the race, giving 
 strength to stooped backs and to narrow chests ; in short, 
 making of this race a people whose peculiarity was that 
 their necks grew stiffer in proportion as their chests grew 
 narrower. 
 
 This subject of race gave rise to many discussions in 
 the house especially when Professor Malinov fami 
 liarly Dmitry Alekseyevitch came for dinner. Malinov 
 was a celebrated young chemist who enjoyed talking on 
 his subject with the elder Gombarov, who was making 
 some experiments at the time. But the conversations 
 nearly always drifted to other subjects. Sometimes 
 Gombarov told a story. And Vanya sometimes sat there 
 very quietly and listened. 
 
 "You often astonish me," said Malinov one day at 
 the conclusion of a scientific discussion. "Here you are, 
 a man without any training in a technical school or uni 
 versity, and here am I, a man with all the advantages 
 modern education can give and have two or three de 
 grees and two or three medals, and yet I never come to 
 you but you propound to me some original and profound 
 
 * Mezuzoth=Sacred Hebrew texts on parchment encased in zinc. 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY 41 
 
 problem in a subject in which I am presumed to be some 
 thing of an authority. If you were not a Jew you would 
 be a celebrated man in Russia. I dare say your own pe 
 culiar Oriental imagination is helpful even in chemistry. 
 As a scientist I can have no prejudice against Jews, 
 indeed as a scientist I can only have a predilection for 
 them. I sometimes wish they were amalgamated with 
 the Russians. Chemically speaking, a drop of Jewish 
 blood goes a long way. Ethically speaking, however, our 
 Russian, or shall I say our Christian imagination is su 
 perior to the Jewish, in the ratio that the quality of 
 mercy is a more imaginative quality than justice, which 
 is a purely logical quality. It was a materialist who 
 said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ; it was 
 a poet who said, Except ye be converted, and become as 
 little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven. The austere logic of the Jewish mind has in 
 vented, retribution and compensation, short life and long 
 life; you promise so little ; there is not a single mention of 
 future life in your Old Testament; as against this the 
 Christian mind has devised punishment and reward, hell 
 and heaven, but this Christian imagination reaches its 
 crescendo in offering special inducements to the sinner 
 who has repented. . . ." 
 
 "Yes, you do make a great deal of that one lost sheep," 
 interrupted Gombarov, with a touch of irony in his voice, 
 "perhaps it is for that reason that it prefers to stay 
 lost. And it s always the prodigal son who gets the 
 fatted calf. As for promises of future life, one might 
 as well become a Turk. A good Turk, as we all know, 
 is promised sixty-four beautiful young girls, a precise 
 and definite promise, but we have never been told what 
 the Christian heaven is like and how good Christians 
 enjoy themselves." 
 
 Professor Malinov seemed to enjoy Gombarov s out 
 burst. He grew paradoxical : 
 
42 THE MASK 
 
 "What I wanted to lead up to was that if you Jews 
 had a faith like ours you might enjoy your martyrdom, 
 you would have the supreme consolation of believing 
 yourselves destined for heaven and your tormentors 
 doomed to eternal punishment" 
 
 Gombarov laughed and said: 
 
 "The last part of this consolation might be denied us 
 by the repentant sinner clause. As you must know, a 
 man usually repents on "his death-bed. So that the sin 
 ner gets both, he not only enjoys his sin but there is such 
 a rejoicing in heaven over his coming into the fold that 
 he gets all the best things there, too." 
 
 "That only proves my point," said Malinov. "You 
 Jews are such a sad, solemn people that you get neither 
 the one nor the other. You are so confoundedly logical 
 and have such a keen sense of justice or shall I say 
 injustice ? that you are always resentful, always brood 
 ing about your wrongs. One can see it in your eyes, 
 which are even sadder than Russian eyes. No matter 
 how much a Jew may look unlike a Jew I can always tell 
 a Jew by his eyes." 
 
 "Goluth eyes," said Gombarov. 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "Eyes of exile. They are the sort of eyes with which 
 the first Jewish captive must have beheld Rome. It was 
 in Rome that the Jews were walled in within the first 
 ghetto and it was there that they first assumed the yellow 
 gaberdine and the cowering stoop before the Hep ! Hep ! 
 Hep! of the Roman. It was even worse in Christian 
 Rome than in pagan Rome. After all, what do you ex 
 pect? For it is truly said that every country has the 
 Jews it deserves. There is Spain. Spain was a great 
 country and the Jews were a great happy people there 
 until Ferdinand and Isabella and the Inquisition forced 
 them into exile again. By one of those strange coinci 
 dences in the same year that Abarbanel, an eighty-year 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY 43 
 
 old man, the Jewish Minister of Finance, left Spain at 
 the head of eighty thousand exiles, Columbus discovered 
 America, and oddly enough there is said to have been a 
 Jewish sailor with the expedition for there is an adage 
 among us Jews that God provides a remedy at the very 
 time that he inflicts the disease. Whether that drop of 
 Jewish blood that you speak of acts as a tonic or a taint 
 and most of you think it a taint depends upon your 
 selves. The Jews are in fact like a violin, whose tune 
 is sad or gay, saintly or diabolic, according to the player. 
 You spit at a man and expect a Thank you/ you are 
 astonished when instead of blessing you he curses you 
 usually under his breath, because with your intensive 
 justice of heaven and hell you are not content with con 
 demning him to an eternal cauldron of hot tar in after 
 life, but also insist upon giving him a foretaste of it in 
 this life. After all, concrete justice is better than ab 
 stract mercy. So do not be astonished that a Jew has 
 to instruct his boy : Remember that you are not only a 
 man, but also a Jew/ by which he means that he must 
 bear a double burden, must gird himself to win success 
 under a handicap." 
 
 "That seems only fair/ laughed Malinov, "if it was 
 not for that handicap I might be out of a job." 
 
 "Have you heard of the Hassidim ?" asked Gombarov 
 and, receiving a nod in the negative, went on : 
 
 "The Hassidim are a Jewish sect, remnants of which 
 are still scattered through Russian Poland and Galicia. 
 The remarkable thing about them is that they are not 
 only the most religious of all Jews but also the most joy 
 ous. You would call them Dionysians, and yet they are 
 quite like children, if elder people can ever be like chil 
 dren. They consider joy as a kind of duty and the man 
 who does not enjoy life as a kind of sinner. Although 
 they are very pious and spend a great deal of time in 
 prayer yet they are fine scholars and devote many hours 
 
44 THE MASK 
 
 to the study of their own peculiar theology, full of 
 strange problems and enigmas and not a few jests, some 
 of them at God s expense for they well argue that if a 
 man have a sense of humour how much more God, who 
 has made man in His own image and embodies all our 
 human virtues in divine perfection, and who, in His in 
 finite mercy, would not only forgive but even enjoy a 
 jest at His own expense, provided it were a good one. 
 With them theology is not theology but a fine art, a thing 
 complex with nuances and worth arguing out in a chain 
 of ifs and enigmas as profoundly logical as a problem 
 in Euclid or a Socratic dialogue. But they are not all 
 solemn, but are more like children playing at a game, 
 and he is most learned who* can propound most enigmas. 
 And a distinguished scholar among them, be he young 
 or old, is much honoured, and as such a person is com 
 pelled to spend much time over his old Hebrew books 
 the community looks with a lenient eye upon his foibles 
 and comparative neglect of family responsibilities, which 
 as you may guess makes a woman s lot rather hard 
 for among Hassidim I ought to tell you a man is a man 
 at fourteen, and it is the man unmarried, and therefore 
 not the father, who is likened to a murderer, as one who 
 has foregone and killed the children he might have be 
 gotten. That will give you an idea of their reductio ad 
 absurdum reasoning. At the same time it has its ad 
 vantages, in this case affirmation of life, and I may tell 
 you that not a little of their time is given up to revels, 
 to rejoicing, to wine drinking and to dancing. You have 
 spoken of the Jews as a sad people, and I have told you 
 about the Hassidim to show the capacity of the Jews 
 for joy. No one can really know the Jews who does 
 not know the Hassidim. I am the son of a Hassid my 
 self and I know." 
 
 Then Gombarov told a story: 
 
 "When I grew to manhood that is when I reached 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY 45 
 
 my fourteenth year I decided that I wanted to see some 
 thing of the world. So one day, saying nothing to any 
 one, I set out with my little bundle, which contained in 
 addition to a pair of socks and a shirt, a prayer book, a 
 commentary on the Talmud, a book on mathematics, a 
 praying shawl and phylacteries, and two crusts of bread 
 covered with dripping. I had also in a knot of my ban 
 danna handkerchief fifty copecks in small change, which 
 I extracted from my mother s meagre purse, not with 
 out some compunction, but I consoled myself by rea 
 soning out that, after all, the money saved by my absence 
 for I consumed bread without earning it would in 
 the long run more than compensate for what I had taken, 
 a munificent sum let me tell you in the eyes of such poor 
 people as my parents. 
 
 "I started out at dawn and walked nearly all day, 
 taking fields and by-roads and skirting all the near vil 
 lages, for I was known for miles around as a young 
 scholar and I did not wish to be seen. It was dark by 
 the time I got to a little village, which I did not know 
 and which did not know me. I went straight to the lit 
 tle synagogue, and a synagogue, unlike a Christian 
 church house or a synagogue of Reformed Jews, is al 
 ways open. It is indeed among such people as the Has- 
 sidim not only a house of worship but a university. The 
 part where the services were held was still dark, but 
 there was another door near the entrance, a ray of light 
 poured through the big keyhole, and I could hear voices 
 on the other side of the door. Without knocking I 
 boldly opened the door, and found myself in a large 
 dingy room, such as usually is attached to every syna 
 gogue. The furniture consisted only of two long un- 
 painted tables and benches. Books of all sizes, mostly 
 in dark brown bindings with gilt titles and decorations, 
 covered one wall. There were several bronze candle 
 sticks on one table and the candles were lit. Three 
 
46 THE MASK 
 
 tomes lay open on the table and three middle-aged Jews 
 in black velvet skull caps sat poring over them, their long 
 beards almost brushing the pages, as they swayed their 
 bodies from side to side. One of them was carrying on 
 an argument in the customary sing-song voice, which al 
 ways rose at the if and fell at the ergo/ the same as 
 the long rigidly pointed thumb of his right hand, which 
 cut a curve from the shoulder, answering the curve in 
 the voice. They hardly noticed me as I entered and 
 even after I had taken down a tome from the shelves and 
 sat down at the other end of the table. But I listened 
 rather than read, and waited patiently for the man to 
 end. No sooner did the man end his sing-song than 
 another was ready to take it up. He had already opened 
 his mouth and lifted his thumb in order to begin but I, 
 waiting for this chance, intercepted him by greeting the 
 three of them. 
 
 " Sholem aleikhem/ said I, which is our usual form 
 of greeting and means, Teace be to you. 
 
 " Aleikhem sholem, replied he who had just finished 
 speaking. 
 
 "But the man who was just about to begin was an 
 noyed at the interruption and said to me: 
 
 " Now run away, little boy, and don t interrupt your 
 elders, your mother is looking for you somewhere, she 
 has just uncovered her breast to give you suck. 
 
 "I was indeed quite small, and looked even younger 
 than my young years, but I was a sharp blade in my way 
 and had had experience with men of that type. More 
 over, I must have been rather audacious. And so I 
 turned to the man who had spoken and said to him : 
 
 " If the milk in my mother s withered breast has 
 grown as thin as the wit on your evil tongue then in 
 deed my place is neither here nor there, and I might as 
 well betake myself to a place where wisdom flows like a 
 rich milk from a healthy young mother s breast and 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY- 47 
 
 where men s tongues do not bark from their mouths like 
 chained dogs from their kennels/ 
 
 " He s quite a lamdun that is a scholar said the 
 third man, who had not yet spoken, smiling. 
 
 " Come here, young azus ponim, that is brazen face 
 - and we ll try you out on some tricks, said the man to 
 whom I addressed my remarks, but who did not seem 
 offended at all. Now tell us about the book that God 
 looked into when he created the world. 
 
 " That book was written by Satan, answered I. 
 
 " By Satan ? How came that book to be written by 
 Satan? 
 
 " It happened in this way. In the beginning there 
 were only God and Satan. God was good and wise and 
 Satan was evil and subtle and hid his evil by his subtlety. 
 Satan was eloquent and knew how to use words, so he 
 wrote a book full of subtlety, a book containing a plan 
 of the world, and showed it to God. God read the book 
 and thought it very beautiful, but He objected to cer 
 tain passages, which He thought were immoral, and so 
 He expurgated them and suggested other changes which 
 Satan agreed to quite readily. For Satan knew well 
 the evil masked by his beautiful words. Then God 
 created the world. And He must have recognised that 
 there was something wrong with it on the very first 
 day . . . 
 
 " God can do no wrong, interrupted one of my listen 
 ers. 
 
 " I am coming to that. . . . For it is said in our 
 Torah that "God saw the light, that it was good: and 
 God divided the light from the darkness." You will 
 note that God thinks the light good, and that nothing is 
 said about the darkness except that it was divided from 
 the light, even as evil is divided from good. Again, 
 Satan flattered God when he suggested that God make 
 man in His own image, but when God made Adam and 
 
48 THE MASK 
 
 gave him Eve and put them both in the Garden of Eden, 
 Satan sent a serpent to tempt them to eat the fruit of 
 the tree of good and evil. You must mark this: Why 
 did Satan choose this tree and not the tree of life? And 
 why did God Himself bar their way afterward to the 
 tree of life? It is very clear: Both God and Satan 
 thought that Adam was now half like themselves, and 
 that if he ate of the tree of life, he would be as power 
 ful as one or the other, according to whether the good 
 or the evil prevailed. God saw that, for His own sake, 
 it was good for man to contend with evil, and Satan 
 saw that it profited him that man should contend with 
 good, for Satan s joy is not in evil itself but in the tempt 
 ing of man away from good, and a deep-dyed sinner is 
 like a sheep already in the fold. It is always the stray 
 sheep that interests either God or Satan. Neither God 
 nor Satan could do anything with anyone who had eter 
 nal life. And that is why there is eternal contention 
 between light and darkness, good and evil, and man is 
 torn between God and Satan/ 
 
 This started a whole chain of argument, and I shall 
 not go into the details of it, but go on with my story. 
 After the argument I went in with them to the evening 
 service, and at the end of it one of my new acquaintances 
 asked me if I knew anyone in the village, and receiving 
 a negative answer he invited me to his house for dinner 
 and to a night s lodging. Indeed/ he added, you can 
 not do better than remain in our village, there is always 
 room for a lamdunf 
 
 "And in this manner I went from village to village, 
 from small town to small town, living on my wits, and 
 being asked to stay everywhere for the rest of my days, 
 so much is a scholar honoured among my people. But 
 my supreme adventure happened in a little Hassidic 
 community not far from Plotsk. You will think I 
 dreamt it so incredible will it sound to you. 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY 49 
 
 "One early afternoon I arrived with my little bundle 
 at a little village, and as usual I was making my way 
 toward the synagogue. I was already within sight of 
 the building, which I recognised because of the small 
 groups of the capoted Jews who stood talking and ges 
 ticulating at the door. I had not yet got there when 
 a middle-aged woman, rather short and stout, a shawl 
 over her head, a kind of rope-girdle across her smock 
 to bear false witness to a waist-line, and looking alto 
 gether like a sack of potatoes rather than a human being, 
 limped over toward me and, to my astonishment, fell 
 upon my neck, with the words : 
 
 " Oh Mott l, my long-lost Mott l, so you have come 
 back to me ! 
 
 "The shock was too great for me and her short thick 
 arms, more like a baby s legs in shape than a woman s 
 arms, clung round my neck and almost stifled me, but 
 at last I managed to gasp out: 
 
 " Woman, I m neither Mott l nor lost, and as I have 
 never seen you before I cannot be coming back to you/ 
 
 " Oh Mott l, oh you shameless young man/ she cried, 
 still holding on to me with all her might, don t you know 
 your own mother, Sossya, who fed you at her own 
 breast, gave you her blood, underslept herself whole 
 nights, famished herself, starved herself, that you, my 
 own pretty little finger, might . . / 
 
 " Woman/ I cut her short, she still held on grimly 
 to my coat, though she released my neck woman/ I 
 said, my name is not Mott l but Shimoyn, Shimoyn ben 
 Naphtali/ that is Semyon son of Naphtali for we 
 still use among ourselves the old Biblical patronymic 
 and my mother s name/ I went on, is not Sossya but 
 Dvossya; as for your starving yourself I may tell you 
 that if my mother, God s blessings upon her, were half 
 as stout as you, she would still be twice as big as she 
 is. Now let me go my way/ 
 
50 THE MASK 
 
 "In the meantime a crowd had gathered, word was 
 passed round that the good widow Sossya s long-lost son 
 Mott l, who had disappeared three years ago when they 
 lived in another village and the lamdun Shloimo, his 
 father blessed be his memory was yet alive, had come 
 back, and the crowd which looked upon this return as a 
 miracle from God was not to be robbed of its pleas 
 ure and excitedly murmured among themselves and 
 urged me not to be an asus ponim a brazen- face and 
 to be a dutiful son. But as I still went on arguing and 
 protesting, two young and brawny, red-cheeked Hassi- 
 dim stepped out of the crowd and jostled me by my 
 small shoulders in the direction of the widow s house, 
 the widow limping along, followed by the excited crowd. 
 I walked on timidly, having decided that it was more 
 politic for the moment to play the part of Mott l, widow 
 Sossya s long-lost son. At the door of the widow s 
 house I was met by three little brats, presumably my 
 newly-found brothers and sisters, who, on seeing their 
 mother and the strange procession, began to screech and 
 to whimper as if Noah s Deluge were upon them. 
 
 1 Oh my dear little lambkins, my sweet little birdies/ 
 she cried, trying to calm them, greet your little brother 
 Mottele. 
 
 "But upon seeing me they grew only more terrified, 
 and they set up a yell, such as you would not expect 
 to hear before Judgment Day. By this time, however, 
 I entered into the spirit of the adventure, and decided that 
 I would humour my captors until such a time as I could 
 get away. And so, taking out of my pocket a small bag 
 of raisins, with which I had luckily provided myself, I 
 gave a small handful to each. The effect was wonder 
 ful and instantaneous. They stopped at once, almost 
 in the middle of their cry, as if their throat machinery 
 had suddenly slipped a cog. The widow was delighted, 
 the crowd was profoundly impressed as if I had per- 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY 51 
 
 formed a miracle. I made a grave face and laughed in 
 wardly. In a single day I had found a mother and 
 three little brothers and sisters. How would it all end? 
 Then a terrifying thought came to me: perhaps I had 
 even a young wife living there, an aguno, for that is our 
 special name for a wife who has been deserted by her 
 husband. But immediately afterward I reflected that 
 if I had I should have heard of it earlier. In any case, 
 I decided that I would see the thing through. Besides, 
 there was nothing else to be done. 
 
 "Seeing me in acquiescent mood the crowd departed, 
 and I was left to the mercy of the widow and her little 
 brats. After a repast I was visited by a deputation of 
 three, who took me to the rabbi s house, where I was 
 questioned about the Torah and the Talmud and so dis 
 tinguished myself that I won the praise of my elders. 
 I was particularly inspired on the subject of the Sam- 
 batyon River, a river not on any map, and the peculiar 
 ity of which is that it ceases to flow on the Sabbath, 
 where for it is highly regarded by all pious Jews. 
 
 " You are a worthy son of Shloimo the lamdun said 
 the rabbi. 
 
 " A true son of Shloimo the lamdun, chimed in a 
 second Jew. 
 
 " Only Shloimo himself could have expounded the 
 subject in so worthy a manner, added a third. 
 
 "In the meantime, as I learned later, the women of 
 the village were not idle. Everywhere they were cook 
 ing and baking things for the evening feast to be held at 
 the rabbi s house to celebrate my return, all the more 
 since I was such a lamdun. 
 
 "I was used to Hassidic feasts, yet never in my life, 
 before or since then, have I witnessed such a lavish and 
 joyous feast as at the rabbi s house that night. The 
 long table under the low ceiling was spread with a be- 
 flowered orange-red tablecloth, tasselled at the corners, 
 
52 THE MASK 
 
 and all sorts of good things, mostly of a spicy sort, cov 
 ered it, for the Jews love spices. There were many 
 original dishes of which I cannot now remember the 
 names. There were several cut-glass decanters filled 
 with wine. There were three candelabra, one at each 
 end of the table and one in the middle, each containing 
 seven candles. There were two musicians, one with a 
 fiddle, the other with an accordeon, and during dinner 
 they rested their instruments upon two small kegs of 
 wine, which stood up on two boxes. The women had 
 put on their best clothes and had on spangles and beads 
 and earrings, the elder ones had bright silk kerchiefs 
 on their heads. The men and the women were mostly 
 divided into separate groups. Here there was a cackle 
 as of hens, there a droning hum as of bees. The rabbi 
 himself sat in a large arm chair at the head of the table 
 propped up on several pillows. He had his orange-col 
 oured handkerchief tied round his waist. 
 
 "The feast was begun by the rabbi pronouncing the 
 customary blessing over the wine. Then the wit and 
 entertainer of the village, a very short, almost dwarf- 
 like man, but very broad across the shoulders, with a big 
 ruddy face and a still redder nose, the bulb of which at 
 tracted the candlelight, and with a long besom-like beard 
 which reached almost to his navel, stood up and chanted 
 a mock prayer, a parody of a well-known Jewish prayer, 
 every line of which begins with an If and ends with 
 the phrase : even that were enough/ 
 
 " Oh Lord, our God, if Thou hadst done no more 
 than bring us back our long-lost Mottele, son of Shloimo 
 the lamdun, if Thou hadst done no more than that, even 
 that were enough! 
 
 "As the evening went on and they drank more wine, 
 they became more and more hilarious. Then the fiddle 
 began to play, a half -sad, half-joyous dance tune, and 
 the women and the girls, lifting their skirts slightly in 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY 53 
 
 front with both their hands, began to- dance. Then the 
 old bearded men and the rabbi himself and the young 
 boys got up from the table and, forming little groups, 
 put one hand on each other s shoulder, and lifting up the 
 other went round and round, stamping their feet and 
 singing. The wit was a wonderful little man. Some 
 times he would be joined in some simple little tune like : 
 
 Oi, oi, Yidele, 
 Oi, oi, Yidele, 
 Tam-tam-tam-tam, 
 Tam-di-di-tam-tam. . . . 
 
 sometimes, in the midst of an awed circle, he would sing 
 a strange song without words. I remember one particu 
 larly, in which he did not seem like a man at all, but like 
 a demon. His red face was redder than ever, every line 
 in it was intoxicated, distorted with demoniac joy, his 
 eyes had an extraordinary gleam, he half lifted one arm 
 and one leg of his squat figure, and pursed up his lips 
 into a kind of a circle, out of which issued sounds as of 
 the wind blowing, the wind rising and dying down, the 
 wind moaning in despair and the wind crying with joy, 
 and it was all the more wonderful because all these 
 sounds were organised into a dance melody, which he 
 danced by turning his figure slowly from side to side in a 
 semi-circle, now uplifting one arm and one leg now the 
 other. 
 
 "At intervals the music and the songs would cease and 
 the crowd would return to the table to eat and to drink 
 and to make jests. I was the victim of quite a number 
 of these, one of which might have proved embarrassing 
 to me if I were not half-intoxicated myself. The subject 
 of my return was being discussed jovially, when one 
 longbeard remarked : 
 
 If you waited until Messiah came this ironical 
 expression has crept into our speech because we still 
 
54 THE MASK 
 
 expect our own true Messiah and we don t expect him 
 very soon if you waited until Messiah came , repeated 
 the speaker, you would not find another such asus ponitn 
 as our Mottele, only our Mottele could have denied his 
 own mother, if he were not such a lamdun . . . 
 
 " You blasphemer, I said quick as a shot, you ve just 
 called Messiah an azus ponini/ 
 
 "Everyone laughed, but my triumph was short, for my 
 accuser went on : 
 
 But it was no use your denying, Mottele, for I was 
 present at your circumcision, and I know that you have 
 a peculiarity . . . 
 
 "A shout of laughter went up. Someone cried : 
 
 " Undress him ! Let us see ! 
 
 "The women were quickly bundled out of the room. 
 I could hear their chuckles on the other side of the door. 
 Several strong hands seized me. My resistance was 
 useless. I was undressed and examined. My peculiarity 
 was a common one, and they made much of it; in any 
 case, they did not need much convincing that I was the 
 real Mott l. Then, having finished the examination, they 
 quite suddenly began to sing and to dance and whirled me 
 along with them just as I was. When they had exhausted 
 themselves they resumed their places at the table and as 
 I was getting into my clothes again I could hear someone 
 saying : 
 
 Tt is true, Mottele has a peculiarity, but my daughter 
 Serele has also* one, you needn t ask me what it is ... * 
 That sounds like a match/ said the rabbi. 
 
 " I should be very proud to give my daughter to such 
 a lamdun as Mott l. She is the most beautiful girl in 
 our village/ 
 
 " Bring Serele in, someone shouted. 
 
 "The door was then opened and the women rushed in 
 laughing. Serele was quickly singled out and I was 
 introduced to her as her intended husband. The room 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY 55 
 
 was in an uproar. She was an extremely pretty girl with 
 cheeks like apples and with wonderful black hair; she was 
 worth marrying for her hair alone. But as, with em 
 barrassment, I was contemplating her cheeks and her 
 hair, the horrible thought quite suddenly struck me : her 
 beautiful hair would be cut off after marriage and it 
 would be replaced with a wig, for such is the custom 
 among this people. As my sudden consternation revealed 
 itself for a moment on my face, my intended father-in- 
 law turned to me and asked : 
 
 " What is the matter? Is the bride too beautiful? 
 " Only don t forget, Mottele, to put your right foot 
 on her left one when you are under the canopy, if you 
 want to be master of your own house/ whispered the 
 widow Sossya, my newly-found mother, in my ear. 
 
 "We were both congratulated. Of course, the matter 
 was considered settled. But I shall not linger on with 
 the story. It was three o clock in the morning when 
 widow Sossya took me home and put me to bed with the 
 three little brats on top of the oven ; she herself lay down 
 at the foot of it. I lay there perhaps for an hour, think 
 ing. When I heard the widow snore I knew it was time 
 to get to work. I climbed down very cautiously and, 
 with my heart breathless, managed to step over her 
 without disturbing her. I found my little bundle, and 
 opened the window with some difficulty. No sooner I 
 was on the ground than the window fell down with a 
 slam. I ran as fast as I could. Presently I thought 
 I heard cries behind me, and I ran still faster. I passed 
 a desolate house on the road. Someone seemed to stick 
 his head out of a window and cried to me : 
 
 Mottele, come and have some pancakes with me. 
 "I was frightened, and I still seemed to hear cries 
 behind me. I then came to a river and plunged in and 
 swam across. Only then I breathed a sigh of relief. 
 And that is the whole story." 
 
56 THE MASK 
 
 There was a moment of silence when Gombarov fin 
 ished. 
 
 "A most incredible adventure," observed Malinov, "if 
 I did not know the sort of man you are I should not 
 believe it. I am grateful to you for telling it to me, 
 especially since you have revealed to me the Jews 
 capacity for joy, and have proved your point. I think 
 that was your object." 
 
 "Yes," said Gombarov, "and yet it is quite true that 
 the Jew is sad, but his sadness arises from his very capac 
 ity for joy, from the suppression of his joy. The Jew 
 is a sensualist, if you will, and his idealism proceeds 
 from his suppressed sensuality. And he is a materialist 
 also, if you like, because it is so easy and pleasant merely 
 to live and have the good things of life yes, why not? 
 and yet he has never sacrificed his ideas to his material 
 ism. Indeed, he has become a Christ in denying Christ, 
 for how much easier would his lot be, at any rate in 
 Russia, if he were only willing to give up his idea." 
 
 "You speak in paradoxes," said Malinov. 
 
 "All life is a paradox. You as a chemist understand 
 what the transmutation of physical objects is. There 
 is also transmutation in the so-called spiritual world. 
 We Jews are forced to transmute our joy into wailing 
 and lamentations, which you hear in our everyday songs 
 and in our prayers and chants in the synagogues, and 
 we do this unwillingly, even unconsciously, for we love 
 life and joy. A land of milk and honey still remains 
 the Jews ideal But you, on the other hand, castigate 
 yourselves deliberately, you make self-denial and repent 
 ance ends in themselves. The blunt sensuality of Solo 
 mon s love Song so annoys you that you read into it 
 a prophetic tribute to the Christian Church, and actually 
 you may be said to transmute the sad view you take of 
 life into a sensual image. But to this day all good Jews 
 permit themselves one day of unrestrained rejoicing 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV TELLS A STORY 57 
 
 the Feast of Purim and there is even a legend among 
 us that when all feasts and fasts shall have passed away 
 this one day will remain. But Purim will be here 
 in a few days, and if you like I will take you to the syna 
 gogue and show you bearded Jews dancing around with 
 scrolls in their hands and little boys dancing among them 
 in hats of tin-foil and waving all sorts of banners in their 
 hands." 
 
 "Thank you," said Malinov, "I shall be glad to see the 
 gay sight. As it is, I am indebted to you for an in 
 structive afternoon." 
 
 Vanya, who sat there all the time, listening, was even 
 more grateful. The adventure especially fascinated him, 
 and it somehow made him feel more kindly towards his 
 stepfather. And he was glad to hear about Purim, 
 for he loved its gaiety and the delicious Purim cakes. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 GRANDFATHER GOMBAROV PLANS A LEISURE VISIT TO HIS 
 SON, BUT DEPARTS IN HASTE 
 
 PURIM CAKES, which were three-cornered pastries made 
 of a thin dough filled \vith ground poppy seed saturated 
 in honey, were Vanya s especial joy, looked forward to 
 with childish anticipation. They were good in them 
 selves, for they were made by Rivka, but doubtless they 
 were made even more palatable for Vanya by his imag 
 ination dwelling on their legendary significance, it be 
 ing supposed that Haman, the Jews enemy, had worn a 
 three-cornered hat. It pleased him even then to reject the 
 more rational explanation of it being a "poppy seed 
 pouch," for such was the meaning if you took the Jewish 
 name for it "Hamantasche" apart: "ha" being He 
 brew for "the," "man" for poppy seed, and "tasche" be 
 ing German for pouch. 
 
 Gombarov s old father arrived some days before the 
 festival. He had come to spend a month, but spent only 
 three days. He would not have stayed that long had not 
 the Sabbath intervened, for no pious Jew permits himself 
 to travel on the Sabbath. His piety was so thorough that 
 he regarded carrying his bandanna handkerchief about 
 as work and, after the manner of all pious Jews, he 
 wrapped it around his waist as part of his apparel. 
 
 He was a small man of about seventy, with a face 
 intense for its long lines of piety, as in the famous Por 
 trait of an Old Man painted by Diirer. His long black 
 capote, which reached the ground, longer in front be- 
 
 58 
 
GRANDFATHER GOMBAROV PLANS A VISIT 59 
 
 cause of the crouch-like stoop of his back, seemed a fit 
 background for the long grey face leaning forward with 
 its long thin grey beard and the traditional long side 
 locks, which emerged from under the black velvet skull 
 cap at the temples and accentuated the pious glitter of 
 his long narrow eyes, these alone hinting at the violence 
 of the last flickers of ecstasy in a body long since dead. 
 He had been a pious Jew so long and he had prayed so 
 long that his swaying forward and back or from side to 
 side had become mechanical, so that now he went on 
 swaying even when his lips were silent ; and Vanya looked 
 at him with a furtive curiosity and with that astonish 
 ment with which he might have looked upon a violin 
 player who made all the necessary movements with his 
 bow across his instrument yet produced no sound. Once 
 or twice the old man glancing up and catching Vanya s 
 look called the boy to him. 
 
 "How much do you know of the Torah ?" 
 
 Vanya told him. He was up to the book of Joshua. 
 
 "How old are you?" 
 
 "Eight years," replied Vanya. 
 
 "You know too little. At your age I had begun the 
 Talmud. You are a Shegets." 
 
 Vanya was hurt and not a little perplexed. Here was 
 this old man calling him a Shegets that is a Gentile 
 boy while the Gentile boys in the village sometimes 
 called him a Jew and "Christ-killer." What was he, 
 then ? 
 
 But whether or not Vanya was perplexed at his identi 
 ty, no such dilemma troubled the old man. He was a Jew 
 and he regarded the whole Gombarov household as a 
 pestiferous nest of Gentiles. He had brought with him 
 his whole paraphernalia of piety his praying shawl, his 
 phylacteries, which he wound round his forehead and his 
 wrists and the leather straps of which left ribbon-like 
 stains across his arms, his books, which he knew almost 
 
60 THE MASK 
 
 by heart he referred to the words in them as "ducats," 
 he was storing them up for his future life. Had he 
 brought them all that distance from his native village 
 merely to contaminate them in an ungodly house? He 
 saw that from the very first, when he put his foot on the 
 threshold and looked in vain for the mesuzoth on the 
 doorpost which he desired to touch. He was at once led 
 to his bedroom, where on the clean white wall hung a 
 picture, the subject of which was that abomination of all 
 abominations a pretty girl, with her long hair hanging 
 loosely about her disrobed shoulders, and with lascivious 
 eyes; he trembled upon seeing it and in a rage a pious 
 old man s rage he pulled it down from the wall and 
 flung it out of the window on the grass, where Rivka 
 found it later. On the walls of his own house he had a 
 picture of Moses Montefiore, an old engraving oi the 
 other more famous Moses splitting the Red Sea, a repro 
 duction of the wailing wall of Jerusalem to which he 
 had always longed to make a pilgrimage, and other pic 
 tures of like character. 
 
 There were other things which displeased him in his 
 son s house. He was suspicious of the china and kept 
 on asking whether this was a milk plate or that a meat 
 plate. It was the first time he had seen his son s wife and 
 he thought of her as of a "strange woman." He heard 
 her singing Russian songs in the house. And she did not 
 pay him enough honour. How could his son, a scholar, 
 marry such a woman? 
 
 It had now become quite clear why the old man stayed 
 three days instead of a month, a short space that might 
 have been even shorter were it not that Sabbath inter 
 vened. It cannot be said that the Gombarovs exerted any 
 pressure upon him to prolong his stay. Indeed Vanya s 
 mother threatened to take a holiday if the old man stayed 
 much longer and sang her little songs with greater ardour 
 than usual. There were whisperings in the kitchen and 
 
GRANDFATHER GOMBAROV PLANS A VISIT 61 
 
 plottings in the corners of the house and altogether the 
 house was filled with an atmosphere of strain as if the 
 old man himself were not eager to go ! And on the third 
 day the old man went, to count ducats of holiness in his 
 own pious nest. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. 
 
 Then another thing occurred on the afternoon which 
 preceded Purim Eve. 
 
 Vanya, in a wrangling mood, was standing in the door 
 of the drawing room brandishing a stick and defying 
 Raya and Dunya to pass through. Gombarov, on hear 
 ing the sound of the clash of sticks, glanced in through 
 another door, and departed again with an amused smile. 
 He naively admired the prowess of the boy keeping off 
 his two elder sisters, Raya being twelve and Dunya ten. 
 He had been a boy himself. The wrangling went on for 
 some time and Vanya still held his ground. Raya, soon 
 tired of the futile struggle, ran before one of Vanya s 
 hard thrusts, and left the room by another door. But 
 Dunya, whom Vanya resembled in features, was not 
 unlike Vanya in temperament, and was determined to go 
 through that door and no other. Several desperate 
 lunges were made on both sides; then Dunya, with a 
 sudden quick thrust, caught Vanya off his guard and 
 delivered a stroke which caught Vanya across the left 
 eye. Vanya gave a scream and dropped his stick. There 
 was a large blue spot under his eye. Dunya ran away 
 and hid herself. 
 
 Gombarov, who interfered little in household matters, 
 only laughed at the incident, and Vanya and his mother 
 appointed themselves a court of judgment upon Dunya. 
 It was decided upon Vanya s suggestion to deprive 
 Dunya of her share of Purim cakes, the delicious odour 
 of which came in even at that moment from the pantry. 
 
 Vanya appointed himself to watch that the harsh 
 decree should be carried out. No district attorney or 
 police official, or prison warden appointed to execute the 
 
62 THE MASK 
 
 law, could have kept a more vigilant eye than Vanya his 
 right one the left one being under a bandage this eye 
 followed Dunya everywhere, it looked through keyholes, 
 through the chinks of doors, once it caught Dunya in the 
 pantry just in time to make her hand on its way to a 
 Purim cake pause midway, again it detected a surrepti 
 tious cake held by Rivka under her apron and frustrated 
 Rivka s effort to smuggle it to Dunya. Vanya was re 
 lentless, like the law itself. Not that Vanya s heart did 
 not ache for Dunya, but his no less aching eye and his 
 pride and his stubbornness saw only weakness in sur 
 render, while his brain reasoned that a law was made to 
 be fulfilled. 
 
 And so Purim went by without Dunya having any 
 Purim cake. Vanya ate the last one himself, conquering 
 the struggling desire to give it to Dunya. But he no 
 sooner finished eating it than a feeling of repentance, 
 keen and horrible, came upon him. He saw Dunya cry 
 ing in the corner. 
 
 Vanya went up to his room. Something clutched him 
 in his throat and large tears ran down his cheeks. He 
 felt their salt taste on his tongue. 
 
 Pity entered his heart and his heart s steel melted 
 before it as before a fierce furnace blaze. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 STEPFATHER GOMBAROV s OCCUPATIONS HIS EQUIPMENT 
 
 AS A TRAGIC CHARACTER 
 
 PEOPLE usually are annoyed with a man who has no 
 definite occupation, and they are equally annoyed when 
 they meet such people in books. They like a man who 
 has a regular occupation and regular hours, unless he be 
 a duke or a railway magnate, and have other people work 
 for him. John Gombarov, in his later years, once lent 
 a celebrated Russian novel to an English friend who 
 returned it with the remark, which contained as much 
 disappointment as admiration : "A finely written book, 
 DUt the people in it do 1 not appear to work. They seem 
 to go in and out when they please. Now in an English 
 novel, say by Arnold Bennett, everybody works/ Gom- 
 )arov smiled grimly at the thought that it never occur 
 red to his friend that these people did nothing but work. 
 This man was a Socialist who had a wife and two chil 
 dren to feed, and it is likely that he regarded the book 
 as a strain on his sense of scientific reality and as an 
 insult to his hard, clear-cut intelligence. 
 
 But the matter has still another aspect. John Gom 
 barov himself had one of those peculiar experiences in 
 real life which illuminate a subject as with a flash of 
 lightning. It was during the great war and he was in a 
 rain on his way to an English country-town. Opposite 
 trim, in his carriage, sat a man in khaki, a sufficiently 
 ubiquitous spectacle in those days to excite no curiosity 
 or comment. But this man was extraordinary somehow 
 
 63 
 
64 THE MASK 
 
 in the fact that his head was rather large for the narrow 
 torse and shoulders on which it rested and that it topped 
 the khaki garment rather awkwardly, as if one did not 
 belong to the other. Gombarov stealthily watched the 
 soldier s face and concluded that with its luminous eyes 
 it was too dark, too curious and too intelligent to be 
 suppressed by a uniform; indeed, the uniform gave it 
 only a certain distinction of contrast. 
 
 "After all," he reflected, "nothing defines so clearly 
 the distinction between a gentleman and a waiter as a 
 dress suit, it is an excellent device for detecting waiters 
 among gentlemen." At the same time, he observed that 
 the soldier watched him also. He was not astonished 
 when the soldier offered him a cigarette and entered into 
 conversation with him. And he was not even astonished 
 when the conversation took a turn uncommon between 
 strangers. The man in khaki, ignoring the weather, the 
 landscape and the war, and all other tedious topics with 
 which a man strikes up a chance acquaintance, began 
 almost at once by describing Gombarov s own character 
 to him; and he did it with a skill and knowledge which 
 might have astonished a man even other than Gombarov, 
 who at that time had grown accustomed to the idea that 
 life was as fantastic as any artistic creation. And yet 
 one slight circumstance astonished even him. It was at 
 the moment of their parting, when it suddenly occurred 
 to Gombarov to ask his acquaintance what his occupation 
 was. "I am almost ashamed to tell you," replied the sol 
 dier, "I am a ladies tailor of Barnstaple, North 
 Devon." 
 
 "After all," pondered Gombarov upon the incident 
 later, "why shouldn t a measurer of women s backs be as 
 well a measurer of men s faces : perhaps in my acquaint 
 ance s case, he does this last better than the first. Who 
 knows, he may be even an incipient novelist. We have 
 heard of drapers clerks turning novelists, why not ladies 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S OCCUPATIONS 65 
 
 tailors? How is a nation of shopkeepers to get its novel 
 ists if not from its shops? At any rate, my train ac 
 quaintance had the decency not to give me any shop talk. 
 That is where my friend to whom I lent that fine Russian 
 novel makes his profoundest mistake. He imagines the 
 book would have contented him if he knew that the men 
 in it had regular occupations. He wholly ignores the fact 
 that men are more interesting when they have no occupa 
 tions, or have left them, or have irregular ones, or are 
 reactions from the occupations they do have. How can 
 high tragedy have her fling with her eyes on the clocks? 
 Sordidness may produce pathos, seldom tragedy. Tragedy 
 must have a certain freedom, her limbs must be free to 
 walk, she cannot be bothered by time or space, and she 
 pauses only when she has reached the ultimate the in 
 evitable her doom. But how can men doomed before 
 they move be tragic characters? all the more since a 
 tragic character is only tragic by virtue of his striving 
 with circumstances, by the pitting of his will against the 
 will of others, against the will of life itself in short, 
 he makes his own choice, chooses his own doom. (?uch // 
 a man breaks clocks, makes his own time. His occupa 
 tion becomes only a secondary thing in his life2D 
 
 In such a manner, John Gombarov, no longer Vanya, 
 reasoned about things, and a careful listener would have 
 quickly seen that{ms thought did not ramble or digress 
 but merely widened like a river taking in all the streams " 
 and tributaries of experience on its way to the seaj And 
 it was in some such mood as this, tolerant and loving like 
 a river which has left behind the swamps and the mo 
 rasses and at last beholds the sea, that he, looking back 
 ward, tolerant and no longer despising, considered his 
 doomed stepfather and his life and all his occupations 
 and idiosyncrasies, which at one time disturbed not only 
 him but nearly all people who came in contact with that 
 strange man. 
 
66 THE MASK 
 
 It would be hard to say, standing on one s foot so 
 to speak, what stepfather Gombarov s occupation was. 
 He had always two or three and he always dropped one 
 to take up another. He was nearly always occupied, but 
 as he went in and out when he pleased in the manner 
 that annoyed John Gombarov s English friend the im 
 pression he gave in the village was that he did not work 
 at all. One man had seen him at such an hour of the 
 day, another at a different hour, and still another at some 
 other hour. These people came together and ignoring 
 the fact that these hours were on different days came to 
 the one and unanimous conclusion. It would have been 
 more true to conclude that Gombarov was a slave to his 
 work but was master of his own time. 
 
 The circumstances of Gombarov s entry into the family 
 as instructor have already been told. He had taught 
 Vanya s elder brother, Feodor, Hebrew and mathematics. 
 But he knew kindred languages as well, such as Syrian 
 and Arabic, which he had taught himself. When Vanya s 
 father Boris Andreyevitch Semenov left the house, 
 and Semyon Bogdanovitch Gombarov took his place, he 
 settled on his wife a sum of money, some several thous 
 and roubles, to be used for the education of his children, 
 Raya, Dunya and Vanya. Sofya Konstantinovna Gom 
 barov, in her love and trust of her second husband, trans 
 ferred to him all her possessions, which gave him an 
 opportunity to exercise his practical mechanical genius, 
 which until then had lain fallow. Practical is perhaps 
 too hard a word, Gombarov s genius was practical only to 
 a point. All this will become only too clear in good time. 
 
 Gombarov s first practical venture was poultry. That 
 seems like a simple thing, but Gombarov entered into it 
 with his whole heart and made the problem of the birth 
 of a chick as fascinating to himself as the creation of the 
 world. He studied the matter scientifically, in its every 
 aspect. He sent for every possible book on the subject 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S OCCUPATIONS 67 
 
 not only in Russia but also in Germany, he studied every 
 make of incubator and brooder, he analysed chemically 
 the egg of every individual hen of every breed, took the 
 periodical temperature of brooding hens as a doctor that 
 of a. patient, and after months of experimenting he ended 
 by inventing a new and superior incubator, which ap 
 proached nearest to the natural birth-giving and healing 
 properties of the mother hen. And Gombarov himself 
 used to say of it : "It can do everything but lay eggs." 
 But surely if a machine could be made to lay eggs Gom 
 barov was the man to make it. Even then he would have 
 to stop somewhere. That was the great trouble with 
 Gombarov. He always did stop somewhere. That is to 
 say, he always stopped when he had exhausted the prob 
 lem; then he took to something else. He did not even 
 take the trouble, as other men would have done, to sell the 
 patent of his invention to someone else, so that every 
 idea to which he gave birth was no better than a new 
 born child, which having opened its eyes just long enough 
 to see how wretched the world was had decided not to 
 give it the benefit of its life and closed its eyes again 
 forthwith. Perhaps that was the Oriental in him. A 
 celebrated motorist tells us that when he went through 
 China at eighty miles an hour not a single Chinaman 
 so much as turned his head to look. That of course was 
 rather to be expected of a people which in the long ago 
 invented gunpowder and used it in such an innocent 
 pastime as sky-rockets. It is likely that if the celebrated 
 motorist had not been going at eighty miles an hour but 
 had been lying on his back under his machine looking up 
 at the mechanism the natives might have stopped to look 
 with curiosity at a man who had come several thousand 
 miles and wanted to go still further. Now if Gombarov 
 had invented the motor car he would have taken one 
 short journey, then sent his machine to all the devils. If 
 as a boy he had so satisfactorily explained to himself the 
 
68 THE MASK 
 
 creation of the world as a concoction mixed by God and 
 the devil, as a man he still retained an interest in every 
 problem insofar as it dealt with becoming and not with 
 being. He continued to treat the practical affairs of life 
 as though he were still a Hassid and a lamdun. 
 
 It is all very well to be a Hassid and a lamdun when 
 you are dealing with the problem of the creation of the 
 world, but when you are busy creating a family and have 
 several mouths to feed, well, that is quite another matter. 
 
 To begin with, Sofya Konstantinovna had five children 
 by her first husband. One of these had died, Fedya was 
 with his father, Raya, Dunya and Vanya were with her. 
 In the five years of her life with Gombarov she gave birth 
 to four more. Two of these had died. There was 
 Katya, a little girl of three, and Ilya, a seven-months-old 
 baby. And she was a prospective mother once more. 
 That again showed Gombarov to be a true Hassid, that 
 is a begetter and not a murderer. 
 
 The capital that Sofya Konstantinovna intrusted him 
 with was not large, but like most impractical men Gom 
 barov dreamt of turning it into a huge fortune. When 
 his interest in poultry began to dwindle he bought seven 
 cows, it would be better to say six, for one had the tem 
 perament of a bull and tried to kick over the pail almost 
 every time it was milked. No one but Gombarov would 
 have bought that cow, but even if he had known its de 
 fects he would have still bought it for the mere purpose of 
 training it, for that was a problem in itself, and Gom 
 barov loved problems. "Precisely because it does not suit 
 others it suits me," he used to say when he went against 
 other people s advice. And other men returned Gom- 
 barov s compliment by coming to him for counsel and 
 doing the opposite. They really admired him in a 
 fashion. This admiration had in it something akin to 
 that of the American farmer, who, upon seeing a goat 
 butting madly into a stone wall, remarked: "Wai, I 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S OCCUPATIONS 69 
 
 admire your pluck, but goldarn your judgment!" But 
 this was not quite true of Gombarov, who was not butt 
 ing into a wall but trying to jump over it to see what 
 was on the other side. 
 
 That kind of man was Gombaror. 
 
 "You d think they were the seven wise virgins," said 
 a neighbour, who had observed the care and attention 
 that Gombarov bestowed on his seven cows. 
 
 That these were given only to seven foolish cows 
 hinted less at Gombarov s unwisdom than at that quality 
 in him which poets love to call the folly of the wise. He 
 studied the needs of those cows as he had studied earlier 
 those of the hens. Now he let them graze in one kind of a 
 pasture, now in another kind, and tested their milk after 
 ward to note the difference, he bought a new microscope 
 for the purpose and this trifle alone cost him one hundred 
 and sixty-five roubles. He had no time for anything but 
 those seven cows, and their indispositions gave him grave 
 concern. At such moments, moments of preoccupation, 
 no one dared to approach him, not even his wife. But 
 upon one occasion when he was working hard over his 
 microscope Sofya Konstantinovna entered his laboratory 
 and in a faltering voice said that everyone was out and 
 that she needed a string of onions at once. He said 
 nothing, but merely put on his hat and walked out. In a 
 little while he returned with nothing in his hand. 
 
 "Where are the onions?" asked Gombarova. 
 
 "They ll be here soon," replied Gombarov and re- 
 entered his room. 
 
 A half hour passed and Gombarova had almost given 
 up hope of the onions ever coming. Then she heard a 
 cart creak through the gate, and presently there was a 
 knock on the kitchen door. She opened the door and 
 found there Kharton, a peasant with a good-natured face. 
 
 "Barinya* I ve brought the onions." 
 
 *Lady. 
 
70 THE MASK 
 
 "Well, where are they? Be quick, the dinner is spoil 
 ing." 
 
 "Where shall I put them, barinya?" 
 
 "Put them ? Give them here, I want them at once." 
 
 "Yes, barinya, but I have a whole cart-full as ordered 
 by the master." 
 
 Gombarova looked up and to be sure there was a whole 
 cart-full of onions. She was appalled. What was she 
 to do with so many onions? But she ordered them to be 
 unloaded. 
 
 That kind of man was Gombarov. 
 
 Gombarov ordered a cream-separator from Germany, 
 and he boasted that it was the first one of its kind to be 
 used in Russia. He was in a child-like glee when it 
 arrived and he tested it at once, surrounded by his gaping 
 family. A pail of fresh milk was brought and poured 
 into the top receptacle. Then Gombarov turned the 
 handle, the wheels of the machine began to whir, and the 
 heavy cylinder within flew round with such a powerful 
 centrifugal force that the pivot on which it turned could 
 barely be seen. Then miracle of miracles : a thick white 
 fluid the cream began to flow fast out of one spout; 
 a thin, greenish fluid the skimmed milk out of 
 another. Here they had delicious sweet cream and the 
 cows had been milked only a half hour before. Vanya 
 half hid behind his mother, the speed of the machine 
 frightened him. And presently something happened 
 which justified his fears. His stepfather was rubbing 
 his hands and talking : 
 
 "Ah, those Germans are clever! We Russians are 
 always behind in this sort of thing. Just look at the 
 beauty ! No waiting, no watching, no fooling about with 
 jars and jugs, no depending on the weather, and the 
 cream is sweet not sour. Just think of the butter it will 
 make ! Rivka, bring another pail of milk !" 
 
 "There s no more milk left," said Rivka. 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S OCCUPATIONS 71 
 
 "What do you mean, there s no milk left?" exclaimed 
 Gombarov. "Here" he thrust his hand in his pocket 
 and pulled out a five-rouble note "go and buy up all the 
 milk in the village !" 
 
 In a little while there was a procession of peasants with 
 milk pails. Gombarov poured in pail after pail, large 
 drops of sweat ran down his face as with a diabolical 
 fury he turned the handle. Suddenly the machine shook 
 as with a kind of ague, in almost less than an instant the 
 cylinder, jumping up like a badly spinned top, flew with a 
 crashing noise through the window, not only shattering 
 the glass but carrying away the supports. There were 
 screams. Luckily, the heavy projectile flew in the other 
 direction, and no one was the worse for it. Even the 
 machine did not suffer. Gombarov very calmly explained 
 away the accident, which was caused by a screw he had 
 forgotten to tighten. 
 
 At the same time he bought a huge butter-churning 
 machine, which consisted of a large barrel hermetically 
 sealed at one end and turning round and round on a kind 
 of pivot leaning on either end on a support. His usual 
 procedure was to pour the milk as soon as the cows had 
 been milked into the cream separator, and immediately 
 afterwards to pour the cream into the churning machine. 
 He looked ardently at the product, which was indeed a 
 fine one. 
 
 "Russians have not seen such a butter. Wait till they 
 taste it. Once they do, I shall get orders for it from 
 everywhere. I shan t be able to supply them all." 
 
 In such a fashion Gombarov would go on talking to 
 his wife, in order to reassure her. He was planning to 
 make the fortune of the Gombarov house. Yes, he could 
 well afford to spend his small capital now, for every co 
 peck he spent would return to him a hundred-fold. 
 Vanya would be a physician, every girl in the house 
 
72 THE MASK 
 
 would have a dat. There was really nothing to worry 
 about. 
 
 "A camel might as well worry about its hump getting 
 smaller when it was almost at the end of its journey 
 and with prospects for replenishing its hump to an un 
 precedented fatness," argued Gombarov in the parable 
 fashion of his race. 
 
 "But Gombarov," ventured his wife timidly, "suppose 
 what the camel sees is only a mirage and it is still hun 
 dreds of miles away from its rich pastures." 
 
 Gombarov was angry. 
 
 "Blessed be the Lord our God for not having made me 
 a woman," he said, repeating the words of the Hebrew, 
 prayer, and strode out of the room. 
 
 The day arrived, the great day upon which he had 
 decided to take his wonderful butter to Kieff and to 
 startle the Kieffites with it. No, he would not go like 
 others, with a few miserable samples wrapped in glazed 
 paper. He would take a large barrel along in a farmer s 
 cart, and a large wooden spoon, and he would stick that 
 spoon into that bulk of fine creamy fat and say : "Here, 
 try it, it can be eaten without bread, like ice cream." 
 Then as the man ate he would watch his face. "Well, 
 have you tasted anything like it before ?" 
 
 That was the mood in which he left the house. He 
 returned home late that evening tired but furious. His 
 barrel of butter, except for a few nibbles with the spoon 
 on top, returned with him practically untouched. 
 
 He would not eat his supper. 
 
 "The swine," he fumed, "the swine wanted my butter 
 for the same price that they pay for the wretched dung 
 they call butter, stuff fit for manure. The swine couldn t 
 see any difference. Of course they couldn t since they 
 are swine. They thought my price was another third as 
 high as they paid for their swine dripping. Well, they 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S OCCUPATIONS 73 
 
 shan t have my butter now if they offer me twice as much 
 as I asked for it." 
 
 Gombarova was right then. Her husband s fortune 
 was a mirage. But she said nothing. She loved him for 
 what he was. And Vanya might be a doctor even yet. 
 
 That barrel of butter, which the Gombarov household 
 had hitherto refrained from touching, was now attacked 
 with great avidity. But Gombarov lost all interest in his 
 dairy products. 
 
 But Gombarov was not one of those men who are con 
 tent to sit still or grieve over a disappointed love. He 
 had too much energy for that and this energy sought a 
 response in some new project. His visits to town sud 
 denly grew more frequent and upon each successive visit 
 he brought a little parcel home and went immediately to 
 his workroom with it. Gombarova regarded these visits 
 with fear in her heart, but dared not ask what the parcels 
 contained. He kept his room locked, but once when he 
 left it to get something she made use of his brief absence 
 to take a rapid glance into the secret room ; she found it 
 full of glass bulbs and glass tubes, chemical appliances 
 and chemicals. She hurried out trembling. 
 
 "Sonya!" he called to her a few moments later. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked, going to him. 
 
 "You ve been in my room," said Gombarov. 
 
 How did he know? He grew more and more like a 
 wizard to her. 
 
 QVith this turn in affairs the Gombarov household be 
 came more and more like a ship without a captain or 
 rudder or goalj Gombarov was wrapped up too much 
 in his mysteries, Sofya Konstantinovna was with child 
 and with many cares, the children were let very much 
 alone. The Gombarov house was drifting. Yet mo 
 ments of realisation came to Gombarvo and his wife of 
 their responsibilities, but these moments were not always 
 harmonious. 
 
74 THE MASK 
 
 Sofya Konstantinovna w .> scolding Vanya. Gom 
 barov suddenly pulled a notebook out of his pocket and 
 wrote something in it. There was something in Gom- 
 barov s manner which made her ask : 
 
 "What are you writing?" 
 
 "I am noting down all that you are saying," replied 
 Gombarov, "to remind you of it when the proper time 
 
 comes." 
 
 That kind of man was Gombarov. And she went on 
 loving him in spite of everything. He was a wonderful 
 boy to her, and a moment after the encounter she was 
 watching him climb up the plum tree as agilely as a 
 monkey and shaking down the fruit with the vigour of a 
 young giant. All the Gombarov children were under the 
 tree picking up the plums and putting them into Rivka s 
 basket. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 M A FRAIL, LONE SAPLING ON A CREST OF A HILL" 
 
 A SENSITIVE child is like a frail young tree, a sorrowful 
 plant if not hedged in and protected by its sturdy elders. 
 Such a tree partly hidden and shaded by others gets 
 neither too much sun nor too much wind, neither dries 
 up nor breaks ; it grows up tall and slender and beautiful, 
 so that when it reaches its prime it is found fit to bear 
 the burden of its modern existence as a telegraph pole. 
 
 But Vanya was like a frail, lone sapling which stood 
 on a crest of a hill and bore all the brunt of the over-hot 
 sun and the full force of the frantic winds and blindly 
 drew all its nourishment from its own sap out of the 
 darkness, its roots feeling their way deeper and deeper in 
 to the ground, clutching as it were for a hold there with 
 its long grasping ringers, for very life. But outwardly 
 it suffered from the outer glare and from the outer 
 darkness of dark days and from the lack of a friendly 
 branch that it might touch with one of its own branches 
 and from the lack of a friendly rustle which it might 
 return with a friendly rustle of its own, and from the 
 lack of concert of tree voices rising in tumultuous prayer 
 with a mystic majesty to some young beautiful wood 
 god, slender in form a crown of leaves on his head; 
 only to fall and prostrate themselves before his father, 
 a kindly old man with a long beard and gnarled hands. 
 
 Was it not because of this sense of aloneness experi 
 enced in his childhood that Vanya in his later years could 
 not look without a strange and deep emotion, with a 
 
 75 
 
76 THE MASK 
 
 sense almost of affinity, upon a lone tree upon a crest of 
 a hill, or upon three almost lone trees against a dramatic 
 sky in Rembrandt s etching, or with a still deeper feeling 
 of sympathy that he looked even later upon those gro 
 tesque trees in the West of England, where the sea-wind, 
 hurling itself with fury against the sloping land, caused 
 the trees to bend forward from the roots which held them 
 fast and to look like frantic people running up hill as 
 from some fabulous monster? 
 
 Vanya was left very much alone. His stepfather, who 
 had not paid much attention even before, was too much 
 absorbed in his laboratory, his mother was about to have 
 another child and was worried with increasing household 
 cares, Afanasya was busy with the younger children, 
 Rivka was becoming more and more eccentric and bolted 
 for Kieff even oftener than before; it is true that Vanya 
 sometimes played with Raya and Dunya but he fought 
 with them oftener. And he still went on with his German 
 lessons and Russian reading exercises. Krilov s fables 
 delighted him and even more an occasional new book of 
 fairy tales. But he was left to himself all the rest of the 
 time and he developed the habit of brooding whether 
 in the woods, in the meadows, or in his room. No one 
 ever told him anything, either the names of the trees or 
 of the flowers, and other things remained nameless to 
 him. His greatest delight was when his mother some 
 times came to him at bed-time and told him a fairy tale 
 or sang a folksong, or that well-known lullaby by Ler- 
 montov : 
 
 Sleep my baby, sleep my darling, 
 
 Bayoushki bayou, 
 
 Quietly the moon comes peeping, 
 
 And looks down on you. 
 
 I will tell you a fairy story, 
 Sing a song to you, 
 
"A FRAIL, LONE SAPLING" 77 
 
 Close your eyes, my own glory, 
 Bayoushki bayou. 
 
 * # * # 
 
 A bold knight upon your steed, 
 A dauntless Cossack soul, 
 You ll gallop off with my godspeed. 
 Looking toward your goal. 
 
 the bitter tears in secret 
 
 1 shall weep for you, 
 
 Sleep my angel, sleep my pet, 
 Bayoushki bayou. 
 
 But of all his mother s songs he loved best of all the 
 song set to Pushkin s "Demons" : 
 
 The storm rages, a Fury released, 
 The snow drifts are whirling wild, 
 Now she howls like a beast, 
 Then she moans like a child. 
 
 (JJhere were indeed the long winter nights when he 
 lay sleepless and the snow drifts hurled themselves 
 against the window and he thought he heard the wolves 
 howl in the woods. And as he was a lonely boy it was 
 natural that the wind and the trees and the sodden sky 
 should speak to him, and he heard their voices with love 
 and fear in his heart, and their moods became his moods) 
 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 VANYA WANTS A CUP OF TEA, AND IS ACCUSED OF 
 WANTING THE MOON 
 
 VANYA S eyes, opening drowsily on a bleak autumn 
 morning, sought the window, but the rest of him lay so 
 altogether still that he might have been a mechanical 
 doll, the mechanism of which, in need of winding up, 
 was lapsing into complete inaction. And now these eyes 
 looked fixedly out of the window as if the mechanism 
 had really stopped. 
 
 Outside, Autumn, in her tawny, faded-red garments, 
 with silver strands in her distraught hair, was sweeping 
 up the ground as with a great besom and sent the leaves 
 flying with every cold gust. The wind rose, the wind 
 fell, then rose again, rustling followed on silence and 
 passed into silence, now the sweeper rested on her besom, 
 now she renewed her task with fresh vigour, causing the 
 yellow leaves to rise in an agitated flurry, to eddy round 
 and round in little aerial whirlpools, and in the end to 
 swirl away with the current to settle in little heaps some 
 where. 
 
 Perhaps in Vanya s heart 
 
 There was the same rising and falling there, the same 
 eddying flutter as of dead leaves too dead for so young 
 a heart sprouting with young grass, the same agitated 
 swirl, followed by the same settled silence as under bleak 
 skies, broken only by the cries of the crows winging 
 black against grey. 
 
 And this great outside world, like a huge bird, perched 
 
 78 
 
VANYA WANTS A CUP OF TEA 79 
 
 in his heart, was like a great weight which prevented 
 him from rising. He wanted to rise and he could not. 
 He wanted to cry out for his mother and found no voice. 
 Someone opened the door quietly and looked in, then 
 walked away. Vanya, lying under his blankets, did not 
 even look up to see who it was. Again the door opened 
 quietly and someone looked in, and again Vanya made no 
 stir to show that he was awake. 
 
 The thought of breakfast suddenly came to him, and 
 with this thought he grew more animated. Hunger crept 
 in upon him like a slow serpent, and thirst attacked him 
 more boldly, like a ravenous wolf. He wanted his morn 
 ing tea most of all. He heard footsteps in the corridor, 
 but these, passing his door, went on and died away. 
 Again he heard footsteps, passing his door, but these too 
 went on and died away. Other footsteps passed his 
 door, stirring each time hope in his heart, but none of 
 them paused, and his hope fell. And between the foot 
 steps of one person and another, thoughts came to him, 
 maddening thoughts: 
 
 What was the object of life? What was before the 
 world began? Of course, time was always and always 
 would go on whatever happened, but space ? Where did 
 the world begin and where did it end, but how could it 
 end, surely there was something beyond that, but where 
 did it stop, how could it stop ? Then there were figures 
 where did numbers end? but how could they end when 
 they did not even begin, properly speaking did not Gom- 
 barov tell him that even one could be divided indefinitely 
 and infinitesimally ? He knew what a million was, he 
 even knew that a trillion was a million million million 
 and that a decillion was the figure one with sixty ciphers 
 but what came after that and after that, what name was 
 there for a number consisting of one and a thousand 
 ciphers? His mind grew dizzy, ^battalions and battalions 
 of figures hurled themselves helplessly against a~wall in 
 
8o THE MASK 
 
 his brain, and the futile combat made his head dizzy. He 
 tried not to think, but all these problems importuned him 
 against his will, and only the recurring footsteps in the 
 corridor brought the recurring vision, each time more 
 vivid, of a cup of tea; how fine it would be if a plate of 
 steaming blintsi pancakes came with it, covered with 
 butter and cream ! But it was a cup of tea which tempted 
 him most. Sometimes his mother brought him a cup. 
 Footsteps were audible from time to time in the corridor ; 
 they were maddening, for they always passed on. At 
 last the door opened quietly, Rivka looked in. 
 
 "Vanya, it s time to get up." 
 
 "Rivka, won t you get me a cup of tea, then I ll get 
 up." 
 
 "I have other things to think of this morning, you 
 lazy-bones." 
 
 Rivka, always kindly, had never spoken to him like 
 that before. She walked out. Vanya shouted after her : 
 
 "I want a cup of tea, d you hear?" 
 
 "What does Vanya want?" he heard his mother ask 
 in the corridor. 
 
 "He wants the moon," he heard Rivka reply. 
 
 This incensed Vanya. They always said he wanted 
 the moon when he wanted nothing more than a cup of 
 tea. 
 
 "I want a cup of tea," he shouted. 
 
 His mother entered. Her manner was solemn. 
 
 "I want a cup of tea so much and Rivka won t give 
 it to me." 
 
 "Let me help you to get dressed," was all his mother 
 said, and he let her help him on with the things. 
 
 Once he was dressed, she took him by the hand, and 
 still looking very solemn led him not as he supposed she 
 would to the dining room but to the children s room, to 
 Ilya s cradle. 
 
 "Look," she said to Vanya. 
 
VANYA WANTS A CUP OF TEA 81 
 
 Vanya looked perplexed. He had never seen Ilya look 
 like that before. He lay erect in his cradle, his head 
 propped up slightly on his pillow, his eyes closed, his 
 small arms crossed on his breast, but what astonished 
 Vanya was the waxen pallor of his brother s face it 
 looked exactly the colour of the candles they used in the 
 house. 
 
 "Mamma, what is the matter with Ilyushka?" asked 
 Vanya. 
 
 "Ilyushka is dead," said his mother repressing her 
 tears. 
 
 At the word "dead" Vanya looked with curiosity at 
 the small corpse, it was not so much death that interested 
 him as the transformation brought about by death. The 
 waxy, doll-like quality of Ilya s plump face, which had 
 been only a day or two ago pink and soft and all spread 
 ing and quivering, held him fascinated, but fear and 
 pathos had no part in this fascination ; this was evident 
 from the remark which he presently addressed to his 
 mother : 
 
 "Mamma, when will the tea be ready?" 
 
 Vanya s mother did not appear to hear his question. 
 She went to her own room. No one paid any attention 
 to Vanya. 
 
 "I want my teal" Vanya shouted at the top of his 
 voice. 
 
 And though he went on crying his cry through the 
 house, no one seemed to hear him, for they were all think 
 ing of the dead. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ANOTHER GOMBAROV OPENS HIS EYES ON THE WORLD, 
 AND IS NAMED ABSALOM 
 
 WITH the approach of winter the god of events did 
 not spare the Gombarov household. 
 
 First of all, he brought a new child to Gombarova a 
 boy and this child seemed so beautiful and showed such 
 lustihood from the very moment that its eyes opened to 
 the light that Gombarov was delighted to the extent of 
 ignoring his laboratory for a whole week, and during 
 all that time he puzzled his head as to what he should 
 name his son. His first impulse was to call him Solo 
 mon, for he reasoned to himself that so handsome and so 
 strong a child must also prove to be no less wise. But 
 upon reflection it occurred to him that there were many v 
 Solomons in the world, and that of the several he had 
 known in his time not a few were ugly, narrow-chested, 
 and that one or two, grown to manhood, were even quite 
 wifeless. And it occurred to him upon further reflection 
 that what he sought was a name which before everything 
 had a certain uniqueness, a uniqueness, however, not with 
 out distinction. Gambarov knew the whole Hebrew 
 Bible including those birth registry sections with all their 
 "begats," almost by heart, but Absalom was the name 
 which kept on recurring most in his mind with a persist 
 ence that boded the inevitable. Absalom was his choice. 
 
 "There is one thing about Absalom," argued Gom 
 barov with his wife, "there is probably not another 
 Absalom in the world/ 
 
 82 
 
ANOTHER GOMBAROV OPENS HIS EYES 83 
 
 "That s just why I don t like it," replied Gombarova, 
 "and besides, it will be an awful nuisance not to be able 
 to call him anything for short. You can t always call 
 him Absolomchik, which is rather awkward for a pet 
 
 name." 
 
 But Gombarov was obdurate, and his wife, weak and 
 worn out in her confinement bed, her new darling at her 
 breast, had not the strength to continue the argument, 
 and was moreover so pleased with her husband s renewed 
 interest in matters more intimate than those connected 
 with his laboratory that in a sense she gave in willingly. 
 And Absalom became the child s name. As if realising 
 the full portent of the decision, Absalom in a few days 
 grew a black shock of hair amazing for one so young. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ANOTHER PORTRAIT VANYA LEARNS THAT THERE ARE 
 MYSTERIES IN LIFE 
 
 THE god of events sent a governess into the Gombarov 
 household about the same time. Her advent into the house 
 meant more to Vanya than to any of the other children, 
 why he himself hardly knew at the time. It was his first 
 acquaintance with the subtle, the mysterious and the in 
 definable, with that essence in life which is more of the 
 nature of a sweet frail perfume than a physical sub 
 stance, and which attracted like ta quiet unflaunting 
 flower. ^ 
 
 Nadezhda Vassilyevna Lavrova was (a fair-haired girl 
 of twenty-two, medium in stature and slender, with an 
 attractively pale face, which, clear and luminous, radiated 
 its light like a pale chaste dawn. And that was the chief 
 characteristic of her facial architecture: it was chaste 
 and linear like a Holbein drawing.J The oval outline 
 seemed to have been drawn with one firm, masterly 
 stroke, the eye-brows were two thin, infinitely delicate 
 arches, separated and as it were supported by a no less 
 delicately shaped column in the centre ; when the eye-lids 
 drooped, as they did at moments, softly, over their grey- 
 blue treasure, the eye-lashes formed answering down 
 ward arches, edged with a minute fringe, fashioned with 
 loving care; the line of the mouth was straight, but the 
 upper and the lower curves of the lips diverged gradually 
 and sufficiently near the centre to give the suggestion of a 
 slight pout and a reticent hint of sensuality. Her long 
 
 84 
 
ANOTHER PORTRAIT 85 
 
 slender hands with their slender characterful fingers 
 might have been carved out by some Renaissance sculp 
 tor like Duccio, someone who surely not only knew his 
 anatomy but was also a master of the decorative line. 
 Altogether she was a compact drawing, which revealed 
 no evasion of difficulties. 
 
 But in those days she was to Vanya not so much a fine 
 drawing that memory made her for him but an ex 
 quisite mystery. He loved being near her, he loved to do 
 things for her, a worshipful feeling awoke in him for 
 the first time and he hovered about her with a full, some 
 times bursting heart. But he remained as always re 
 served,, and he did not tell her anything as he had some 
 times meant to do ; in coming to her he lost that desire, for 
 her mere presence already took his burdens from him. 
 Even his German lessons, which he now took from her 
 and no longer from Boris Lvovitch, became easier for 
 him. 
 
 Nadezhda Vassilyevna, on her part, was very kind to 
 Vanya, as she was to everyone; indeed her excessive, 
 world-embracing kindness and its child-likeness often 
 amused the Gombarovs, especially step-father Gombarov, 
 who on two or three occasions laughed outright at her 
 naive solicitude for animals and peasants. And her solic 
 itude was really absurd. Once she suddenly looked out 
 of the window on a cold winter morning and saw the hat- 
 less Kharton carrying large logs which he intended split 
 ting for firewood. And she called to him : 
 
 "Kharton!" 
 
 Kharton dropped his log in the snow on the very spot 
 where he had paused, and entered the house. He stood 
 before Nadezhda Vassilyevna, his young rather lined 
 face mellow with good nature, his long matted sandy hair 
 falling in sickle-shaped tufts over his low forehead, while 
 thin spreading streams of perspiration trickled down 
 from it like rivulets from an overgrown forest during a 
 
86 THE MASK 
 
 thaw. His cap stuck out from under the belt of his 
 blouse. He stood at a kind of lazy attention, his large 
 horny hands hung languidly at his sides. 
 
 "Kharton, you ll catch cold not wearing your cap." 
 
 The mere thought of the cold made her shiver. 
 
 Kharton s smile broadened at Nadezhda Vassilyevna s 
 words and its beam grew warmer, like that of an after 
 noon sun. The young woman s solicitude, the warmth 
 of the room, and his shyness, caused the perspiration to 
 run down his face in profuse streams. 
 
 "Baarisknyq," he said at last, "it s nothing to us com 
 mon folk, I m used to it. And in my soldier days and 
 that s not so long ago my comrades used to roll me in 
 the snow naked, just for a lark, barishnya, right stark 
 naked, without a stitch on! And I could do it now if I 
 liked." 
 
 "Don t!" cried Nadezhda Vassilyevna, distressed, as 
 if she feared he would put his threat into practice. "But 
 come, warm yourself near the stove," she urged him, 
 "and then put your cap on when you go out. But no, 
 wait, don t go until I tell you." And she ran out of the 
 room. 
 
 The good Kharton did as he was told. Kharton was 
 not a fool, though he was very much a child, after all, 
 one must humour the gentlefolk ah, he had met them 
 before, those gentlefolk with small white hands who 
 "went among the people." One of them, a frail gentle 
 thing with a waist so thin that he thought it was "a won 
 der that a veterok (a little wind) didn t come along and 
 snap her in two, on^eTrved~"at the house of a wealthy 
 proprietor he had worked for and she used to come and 
 attend to his wife s baby sometimes, fetching it all sorts 
 of baby s foods and medicines ; the little one, which had 
 never tasted anything before but its mother s milk, died, 
 the Lord had willed it so, and may the Lord have mercy 
 on its soul it was not the young lady s fault. The 
 
ANOTHER PORTRAIT 87 
 
 same little lady used to tell him that there was no dif 
 ference between his wife and her, and that all were equal 
 before the Lord ; and one day, in a busy season, she went 
 a haying like common folk, and she hayed and hayed, 
 for hours, and didn t say that she was tired or com 
 plain once. . . . 
 
 While he was still thinking over the vagaries of the 
 gentlefolk, Nadezhda Vassilyevna returned, bearing a 
 tray which contained a glass of tea and some jam tarts. 
 Kharton bowed his thanks, and pouring his tea into a 
 saucer, held the saucer up on the five extended fingers of 
 his hand and sipped audibly. Having disposed of his 
 tea and a jam tart, Kharton, bowing, mumbled his thanks, 
 put his cap on and walked out. He was perspiring 
 fiercely. 
 
 Next day Nadezhda herself visited him and brought 
 him some quinine. Kharton, who could roll in the snow 
 stark naked, had caught his first cold. Gombarov teased 
 Nadezhda about it. 
 
 Nadezhda took upon herself the protection of Vanya 
 "her little Turk" she called him. That was because 
 when she first came to the house he wore a red fez with 
 a black tassel. With his brown skin, slightly aquiline 
 nose and black hair, Vanya indeed might have been a lit 
 tle Turk, and especially when he stood beside the pale- 
 faced, fair-haired Nadezhda, in her white clothes that 
 she loved to wear. Vanya s fez was an expensive one, 
 and when one day he returned from a stroll without it, 
 having lost it or had it stolen, he received a very severe 
 scolding from his mother, but Nadezhda took him to her 
 heart afterward and consoled him : 
 
 "Never mind the fez, Vanya, you will still remain my 
 little Turk, my own little Turk." 
 
 She tried to protect Vanya in other ways. There 
 was especially one exciting winter afternoon in the Gom 
 barov house. Vanya had just returned home, eager to 
 
88 THE MASK 
 
 tell Nadezhda about the wonderful snow-man he had 
 made. He found the house in a state of agitation. 
 Kharton and another muzhik were going out with ropes. 
 A cow was lowing agonisingly outside. Vanya ran 
 towards the window to see what the matter was. 
 Nadezhda barred his way. 
 
 "You mustn t look, Vanya." 
 
 The cow s cries did not cease. There were agitated 
 /voices outside. 
 
 "Now together," said someone. 
 
 "It s coming," said someone else. 
 
 "Another good pull will do it," said another voice, 
 which Vanya recognised as Kharton s. 
 
 Then someone swung the door wide open, and Khar- 
 ton came in, bearing in his arms something large wrapped 
 up in a blanket. He put it outside the stove and half 
 uncovered it. It was a quivering red calf. Nadezhda 
 was bending over it in an attitude of tenderness. 
 
 There was but one thing that puzzled Vanya for some 
 time. That was Nadezhda s occasional severity toward 
 him. There were moments when she seemed more aus 
 tere than she had cause to be. He had done something, 
 it was true, but that was no reason why she should put 
 him across her knees, face downward, and chastise him 
 with her hand on his naked skin. He fought and strug 
 gled with her and was astonished to find how strong she 
 was. And one day, after his chastisement, as he was 
 rearranging his clothes, he asked her : 
 
 "Why do you whip me, Nadezhda Vassilyevna?" 
 
 "Because you have been a wicked boy," she replied 
 in a tone which made him look up at her. 
 
 Child though he was, he saw shame rise in her eyes, 
 and he felt quite as suddenly a wave of shame surge up 
 to his own, and this shame was both sweet and painful. 
 Something like a faint light was struggling to break 
 
ANOTHER PORTRAIT 89 
 
 through the clouds in his brain. He realised but one 
 thing: Nadezhda Vassilyevna liked to chastise him, and 
 with this came the more astonishing realisation that he 
 enjoyed chastisement at her hands. 
 
 As if she had grasped what was struggling in the 
 boy s brain, Nadezhda Vassilyevna burst into tears, and 
 Vanya going up to her full of pity and solicitude, she 
 pressed him to her bosom, and went on crying out be 
 tween her sobs : 
 
 "Forgive me, my little Turk !" 
 
 Vanya was ready to do anything for her. 
 
 t 
 
 A few days later Nadezhda left the house, and a few 
 days after her departure two police officials, with 
 dangling sabres, called at the Gombarov house to make 
 inquiries about her. She was implicated in a plot on 
 the Governor s life, and they wanted to discover her 
 whereabouts. They questioned everyone in the house 
 rather severely and searched her room but found noth 
 ing. 
 
 Nadezhda s departure left Vanya in a secret despair, 
 for there was no one in whom he could confide. His 
 mother s many growing cares bore her as upon a strong 
 current further and further away from him. He car 
 ried his misery into the woods with him ; here the trees 
 crackled with frost, and the dry snow crunched under 
 his feet, and his heart was full of sad echoes. The sense 
 of the irrevocable bore in upon him, and for the first 
 time the thought was born in him, "I wish I were dead." 
 
 But Nadezhda remained with him in some strange 
 way. As Rivka was to become for him a physical symbol 
 of the tragic in life, so Nadezhda s white face, the more 
 as it receded into the distance, was to become for him a 
 mask of life s mystery, a tranquil if sad mask, with a 
 thousand emotions surging underneath and giving it 
 
90 THE MASK 
 
 shape; being as it were, the quintessence of an idea, a 
 clearly delineated abstraction drawn by a Humanist 
 painter and endowed with distinguished sensuousness 
 and flower-like frailty, yet suggesting a strength not to 
 be measured in terms of our worldliness. 
 But all this was much later. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 A VILLAIN MAKES HIS APPEARANCE ON THE SCENE 
 
 THE village tavern keeper Mendel had been closeted 
 with Gombarov in the laboratory and was taking his 
 leave. 
 
 Professor Malinov, who had called in at that moment 
 and cut short the consultation, stood by the window in 
 silence and with a look of amused irony watched, walk 
 ing down the pathway toward the gate, the tall, gaunt, 
 somewhat hunched figure of Mendel, angular and all 
 points, with pointed beard and pointed coat-tails, its 
 long legs making long strides and cutting long angles 
 like a huge compass ; it looked altogether like a burlesque 
 on Mephistopheles, and as it made its way rapidly down 
 the path and disappeared among the trees the last thing 
 visible was its long flapping coat-tails. 
 
 But even more ironical was the smile of Gombarov as 
 he watched Malinov watching Mendel. 
 
 "You don t approve of my friend, I see," said Gom 
 barov, as Malinov at last turned his face. 
 
 "Candidly, I don t. When I see you two together it s 
 like seeing white and black the most honest man alive 
 and the greatest blackguard." 
 
 "And yet we are both Jews." 
 
 "All I can say is that if all Jews were like you . . ." 
 began Malinov. 
 
 But Gombarov interrupted him with unconcealed 
 irony in his voice : 
 
 9i 
 
92 THE MASK 
 
 "It s a strange thing, but almost every Gentile I know 
 has a Jew or two he likes." 
 
 "Still, I must urge you to be careful. You are think 
 ing of leasing a house from this man, who has the repu 
 tation of being a thief and an incendiary. He ll not 
 only rob you but burn the house down to get the in 
 surance. As you know, he has been to America, where 
 he has learnt that beastly phrase of his All right/ which 
 I have observed he uses always in place of our own 
 Nitzchevo. But why has he come back, if not to es 
 cape justice? I don t trust that man." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose they were too clever for him over 
 there. He probably worked on too small a scale, and 
 as you may know, it s always the small thief that s 
 caught. But I suspect my wife has been talking to you. 
 Don t think I don t know my man. Only yesterday I 
 called at his place and found him, with a grin on his face, 
 having rifled a little while before the pocket of a muzhik 
 he had made drunk. I was rather amused : the three of 
 them, that is Mendel himself, his son and Mendel s very 
 old father, were sitting around the table, discussing the 
 affair. Mendel was saying: I did the job well, didn t 
 I? All right! said the son. The old man, dressed in 
 his long black capote, smiled contemptuously : You are 
 still in your swaddling/ said he, turning to Mendel, your 
 mother s milk hasn t dried yet on your lips. Now look 
 at me as true as I am a Jew, with beard and locks, 
 all by myself I have stolen seven horses in one night, 
 when I was your age. Well, that s something to boast 
 of. Now aren t you ashamed of your kindergarten 
 tales? And are you, or are you not, the son of your 
 father?" 
 
 "Detestable!" exclaimed Malinov. 
 
 "Perhaps you have changed your mind about my hon 
 esty, but as scientists we must regard all matters with 
 out prejudice. If I permitted myself a prejudice I 
 
A VILLAIN MAKES HIS APPEARANCE 93 
 
 should be even more prejudiced against the stupidity of 
 the muzhik in permitting himself repeatedly to be done 
 by the same Jew and by the same trick. You yourself 
 said the other day that stupidity is a crime, in which I 
 agreed with you." 
 
 "Yes, but there is such a thing as tipping the scales 
 the other way. I was struck by statistics I happened to 
 chance upon, which showed Jewish forgers in Russia 
 preponderantly out of proportion to their population," 
 said Malinov. 
 
 Gombarov looked at Malinov s grave face and burst 
 into a laugh, boyishly gleeful and innocent. He began 
 by making a jest : 
 
 "As we all know, figures do not lie. They show per 
 haps in this case that the Jew s aversion to the cross is 
 sufficiently great to induce him to learn how to write his 
 own name." 
 
 Then seriously: 
 
 "But really, figures do lie in spirit even when they 
 are true to the letter. You don t permit a man to own 
 or till land and expect him to produce fruit and vege 
 tables ; you are very much astonished when he only pro 
 duces a crop of forgeries ; but even in this you do all you 
 can to prevent him, for you permit only a certain per 
 cent to go to schools I dare say the forgers are not 
 of this lucky number, which usually consists of doctors 
 and professionals of all sorts. In short, you deny the 
 Jews straw to make bricks with, and are surprised and 
 indignant that the bricks he has made by the sheer wiz 
 ardry of his brain pave the way to hell! When I look 
 upon Mendel, I neither sympathise with him nor do I 
 condemn him. I regard him as I would regard a chem 
 ical product, forced into its present shape by outer forces, 
 not, however, without coming in conflict with resisting 
 forces from within, and this clash and all its torture re 
 sulting in a thing which it is true oftener resembles one 
 
94 THE MASK 
 
 of your medieval Christian gargoyles than a human 
 being." 
 
 "Admitting that there is some truth in what you say," 
 interposed Malinov, "remember you are proposing to 
 take a house from Mendel, and Mendel s reputation is 
 too unsavoury for you to risk the venture. I am speak 
 ing as a friend." 
 
 "I am different from other men, and I get along with 
 all sorts of people," replied Gombarov. "Now Mendel 
 happens to have the only vacant house in the neighbour 
 hood with a room large enough to contain the new ma 
 chinery I have ordered. Depend upon me : I can handle 
 my man if no one else can." 
 
 In spite of the protestations of his wife, his friend 
 Malinov, and his neighbours, all dubious about the proj 
 ect, ( ion il Kirov was obdurate, as always. He took over 
 Mendel s big house in the village, and in spite of its be 
 ing midwinter moved all the household effects and ma 
 chinery on sledges. Little Katya caught a light case 
 of pneumonia, the first day in the new house, which had 
 not yet thawed out, but fortunately prompt aid pulled 
 her through quickly. Things were not settled for some 
 time in the house. 
 
 New machinery went on arriving almost every day. 
 Gombarov became more and more absorbed in his new 
 project. No one in the house appeared to know what 
 the project was, though it was evident that it had to do 
 with metallurgy, for among the things to arrive were 
 crucibles, rind moulds and drills of all sizes and shapes, 
 and bars of metal. The larger pieces of machinery were 
 fixed securely with screws to slightly raised platforms on 
 the (loor, while numberless pivotal wheels ere arranged 
 along the ceiling and connected by Ion;;- leather belting 
 with the wheels on the mechanisms below. 
 
 Sometimes Gombarov was too absorbed in arranging 
 his place to appear at meals. lie and his workman could 
 
A VILLAIN MAKES HIS APPEARANCE 95 
 
 be heard hammering nearly all day ; there were short in 
 tervals of silence and an occasional whir of wheels. 
 Gombarova had a preoccupied look at luncheon, when 
 Gombarov did not appear and the hammering went on. 
 Once or twice she attempted to remind him by knocking 
 on his door. 
 
 "I am coming!" he would shout without opening the 
 door. 
 
 When he finally came the next meal was on the table. 
 He gobbled his food quickly without waiting for des 
 sert and left at once for his room, in spite of his wife s 
 entreaties. He grew more and more indifferent to house 
 hold matters, more and more abstracted in his ways, and 
 as absent-minded as that Flicycndc lUdcttcr professor 
 who, protected by his umbrella, went out in a downpour 
 of rain to water the ilowers. The peasants regarded 
 him with awe as if he were a kind of magician ; the well- 
 to-do mid. lie elasses regarded him simply as a fool with 
 a bee in his bonnet who was "chucking his money 
 away;" those in his own house beginning with (iom- 
 barova looked upon him with that sense of inarticulate 
 fear, which came of the instinctive realisation that their 
 fate was solely in the hands of this man, that their future 
 was at his disposal, and that this future was altogether 
 enigmatical. 
 
 Weeks and weeks passed. As the hammering in Gom- 
 barov s workshop ceased, the whir of wheels grew more 
 frequent, occasionally accompanied by the stentorian bu/x 
 of the drill. Sometimes one caught a glimpse of the 
 interior through the door being left open, a bellows op 
 erated by machine power could be seen fanning the fires 
 in the oven, in which hung a number of crucibles sup 
 ported on a long rod. Now and then Gombarov, per 
 spiring profusely, his sleeves rolled up, could be seen 
 bending over, throwing a new ingot into a crucible, al 
 most transparently white from the heat. Then again 
 
96 THE MASK 
 
 he was seen to take down one of the crucibles with ; 
 long pincer-like weapon and to pour the contents into 
 wedge-like iron mould prepared for the purpose. T< 
 Gombarova, passing the door, it seemed as if he wer 
 pouring out and forming their own souls. "This ingo 
 has a blemish," Gombarov was at one moment sayini 
 to his workman. Gombarova fled with fear in her hearl 
 
 It was Vanya s great joy to be sent into the worksho] 
 with a message, as he was sometimes permitted to linge 
 and to watch the molten metal being poured out an< 
 afterwards the newly-hardened alloy being filed t< 
 smoothness. Sometimes the whole process was per 
 formed out-of-doors ; at such times special earthei 
 moulds were prepared in a long box filled with blad 
 soil. 
 
 No one appeared to know the object of Gombarov 
 experiments. Gombarova had long since ceased to op 
 pose him or to question him, but there were keen mo 
 ments when her great love of him swallowed up all he: 
 fears. And as the small capital left by her first hus 
 band dwindled, the hope in her heart grew rather thai 
 diminished that Vanya would yet be a doctor. 
 
 The long weeks stretched into months. There ha< 
 become two worlds in the Gombarovs house. Gom 
 barov s workshop was one world, the Gombarov house 
 hold was another. And this last world was like a satel 
 lite of the first; it clung to it by an attraction over whicl 
 it had no control, with all its chaos it held together lik< 
 a mass of nebulae by some central force quite outside it 
 self, and gravitated along with it in a circle of helples 
 subjection. 
 
 On one side of the big double door, the wheels wen 
 on whirring, the hammers beating, the drills buzzing thei 
 stentorian monotonous song all the discords uniting t< 
 form a symphony of energy ; on the other side was a con 
 stant scurrying of many feet, a constant wrangling of re 
 
A VILLAIN MAKES HIS APPEARANCE 97 
 
 fractory young voices, the scolding by the elders, now 
 tby Gombarova, now by the servants, now old Afanasya s 
 pleading voice, now Rivka s nervous threat of withhold 
 ing the nice warm tarts she had just baked, now Marta s 
 <robust commanding voice demanding obedience. In 
 spite of this formidable concert of commands, scold 
 ings, threats and entreaties Vanya went on bawling, and 
 the other children went on mimicking him. At last, in 
 desperation, they seized Vanya by the shoulders, and in 
 spite of all his struggles they succeeded in pushing him 
 through the open door into the cold. Outside was a 
 biting frost; Vanya felt it nipping his ears and the tip of 
 his nose. He began to hammer at the door with his 
 small fists, and to shout names at his tormentors. This 
 not only annoyed them, but kept him warm. Large 
 burning tears of resentment and self-pity trickled slowly 
 in his heart. Gombarov sometimes heard Vanya s 
 knocks and cries, and marvelled at the boy s persistence. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 MARTA S STRANGE LOVER VANYA S DREAM 
 
 ONE day Spring appeared, with as yet a shy smile. 
 
 And Winter, his heart softened, relaxed his hard, 
 white bearded face, down which ran large, warm spread 
 ing tears, and his eyes grown younger laughed through 
 them at the sight of the soothing sun. 
 
 Vanya liked the thaw. The dear rivulets revealed 
 the fresh grass, as yet tender as a babe s skin. Here and 
 there skeleton bushes and young trees and clusters of 
 leafless thorns emerged from the deep snow like symbols 
 of a coming resurrection. Mountains of snow rolled 
 away as it were and released the earth from her entomb 
 ment. The fringe of long icicles, edging the eaves of 
 houses like a lace, diminished perceptibly, and its pat 
 terns grew softer, less austere. Holes opened up in the 
 hard, inert stream like eyes waking from a long sleep, 
 and the clear water blinked out of them with animation. 
 Miniature waterfalls formed themselves in the thinner 
 streams in the meadows and, following the course of 
 these streams, Vanya saw them wind between banks of 
 snow and disappear under the snow like endless thin 
 serpents entering their lairs. The little sledge bells jin 
 gled along the roads, and in their jingle there was the 
 joy and sadness of last snows. A delicious smell came 
 from the earth, in those spots where the white robe 
 slipped from her. The young man in the troika put his, 
 lips blissfully for a moment on the hair of the young girl 
 at his side where it showed under the little fur cap, 
 and breathed deeply at the same time. While the great 
 
 98 
 
MARTA S STRANGE LOVER 99 
 
 >un, smiling, put out his long radiant fingers and undid 
 he perspiring driver s sheepskin. 
 
 But in the evening, when the Sun closed his eyes and 
 [rew the dark bed-cover over his radiant limbs, there 
 vas a change. 
 
 The Wind, with a great flowing beard like a besom, 
 eant his giant arms on a black cloud and blew from the 
 lorth. The troika driver, going out in the evening for 
 
 drink of "something hot," put up his large fur collar 
 md pulled down the ear-flaps over his ears. Winter, 
 ulking, as if he repented, hardened his face again, his 
 ears froze into icicles, and the stream, like a deep furrow 
 >n his forehead, crackled as he knitted his brow. 
 
 Vanya felt wretched. He went to his room, and in 
 lis lonely misery he tore his hair. Later, finding it cold 
 n bed, went to the kitchen and climbed up on the 
 >ven. Here lay Marta, who was glad of company. She 
 >ressed Vanya to her hot body and whispered : 
 
 "I am glad you have come, golubchik; * a domovoi ** 
 i little while ago had his knee on my chest and his hand 
 MI my throat, trying to strangle me." 
 
 Vanya shivered. 
 
 "Don t be afraid, golubchik, he never comes when 
 here are two." 
 
 "Why don t you marry, then, and then he won t 
 ome?" 
 
 "Ah, you don t understand, golubchik and Marta 
 vent on to explain: "You see it s this way: it was on 
 he last Kuzma and Demian night, and I lit a candle and 
 at before a mirror, watching in it for my chosen one to 
 .ppear. In a little while I thought I heard a low knock 
 m my window, then the door opened and closed, some- 
 me seemed to slip in though I didn t see anyone, then 
 here was a slight stir of air as if someone was coming 
 
 * Darling; literally, little pigeon. 
 ** House demon. 
 
ioo THE MASK 
 
 closer, my loved one, my golubchik has come/ I was 
 thinking, and I looked all excited into the glass. . . ." 
 At this point Marta gave a little sob and could not go 
 on for a moment. 
 
 "What s the matter, Marta, what happened?" asked 
 Vanya, all agitated and afraid, but fascinated in some 
 unaccountable way and wanting to know more. 
 
 And as soon as Marta could speak, she said : 
 
 "... I saw him ... in the glass . . . looking over 
 my shoulder . . ." 
 
 "Him?" asked Vanya. "You mean . . . " and 
 stopped short. 
 
 "Yes, the by ess* He was grinning at me, as large 
 as life . . . then I fell into a faint . . . when I came to 
 there was nothing. But ever since then, he s come to 
 me some night . . . and he puts his knee on my chest 
 and his hands on my throat and tries to choke me. The 
 Lord have mercy on me, a miserable sinner." 
 
 There was a pause, and in that pause the windows rat 
 tled with the wind, and an unfastened shutter struck 
 the wall somewhere with a bang. 
 
 "Oh Lord, have mercy . . ." moaned Marta. 
 
 Vanya plucked up courage to speak : 
 
 "I say, Marta, do you believe in him the byessf 
 Papa says there is no by ess and no vyedma" ** 
 
 "Lord bless you, child, and I saw one myself the other 
 evening as I was walking alone along a dark lane she 
 was flying round up in the air on a broom-stick, and she 
 looked at me and showed her teeth . . . and so I quickly 
 crossed myself, and she disappeared all of a sudden. 
 You see they are afraid of the cross, that s why they 
 never come nigh a church spire. And now, Vanya, go 
 to sleep, darling," and she laid Vanya s head gently on 
 her high firm bosom, there where the by ess had had his 
 
 * Byes=demon. 
 ** Vyedma=witch. 
 
MARTA S STRANGE LOVER . ,101 
 
 knee, and had a feeling that Vanya s head would protect 
 her that night, not only because "her chosen one" came 
 to her only when she was alone, but also because it 
 seemed to her that biessi in general had a partiality for 
 Christians ; she had worked in many Jewish families and 
 she had yet to meet a Jew who feared the devil. And 
 she wondered how such good-hearted people as the Gom- 
 barovs did not believe in Christ, and that meant that 
 they did not fear God either. What a strange people 
 not to fear either God or devil. 
 
 Marta was right The by ess did not come to her 
 again that night. 
 
 But if he did not come to her, he came to Vanya, if 
 not the by ess himself, then at least the byess s second 
 cousin. 
 
 Vanya dreamt that he was in his own bed, and that 
 a tall thin-legged man with a rooster s head came to him 
 and sat down on the chair by the bed. He smiled at 
 Vanya out of his bright green eyes under his big red 
 comb, then rose and beckoned to Vanya to follow him. 
 Vanya felt horribly afraid but felt drawn on by a 
 strange, irresistible fascination. He rose and followed 
 his guide. He walked through corridor after corridor, 
 in the dark; he knew that his guide was ahead of him, 
 though he could not hear his footsteps, only a dim glim 
 mer of light coming from he knew not where played 
 upon his guide s red cock s comb; they turned corner 
 after corner, there seemed to be no end. But at last 
 they came to a passage where the corridor appeared to 
 stop. The guide pulled two curtains aside here, and 
 revealed a little alcove and a little door at the end of it, 
 lit up mysteriously as by a dim image lamp. Vanya 
 thought he heard voices, which as he approached the 
 door seemed in some curious way to change into a kind 
 of cackle as of hens. Then a terrible fear came upon 
 Vanya, and just as his guide was about to take him by 
 
102 THE MASK 
 
 the hand and puli him through the door he gave a violent 
 scream and woke up, sobbing. Marta s face was over 
 him, and she was drawing his face to her bosom. Marta 
 was saying tenderly: 
 
 "What s the matter, darling? Don t cry, darling. * 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 VANYA S FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE DEVIL 
 
 MANY weeks passed without any important happen- 
 ng. Gombarov went on with his experiments, Gom- 
 >arova was more than ever preoccupied with household 
 :ares and with desperate thoughts of the future, the 
 :hildren continued their wrangling. Vanya, for some 
 eason, felt dull and sluggish, his mind was full of vague, 
 :ontending thoughts, and in his unhappiness a kind of 
 : ever consumed him within like a fire which struggles 
 hrough many passages of an edifice to find its way out 
 tnd finds no egress. And he himself lived and walked 
 n a kind of restless fog, which had no end. As before, 
 10 one paid any attention to him, and there was no one 
 o tell him anything. And shut off in this way from 
 :ommunion with others life became for him a real prob- 
 em, and young as he was there were moments when he 
 ilready looked upon the world as upon a phantom world 
 )eopled by phantoms and there were the more rare mo- 
 nents when neither the world nor he appeared to exist 
 it all and everything was a dream. But these moments 
 vere a happiness to him, an escape from reality, which 
 vas like the slow groaning monotony of a Russian folk 
 long. 
 
 He also found relief in Andersen s fairy tales, 
 rilov s fables and in Rivka s jam tarts. A new book 
 vas a real event, and at this time Robinson Crusoe s 
 vorld was more real to him than the world he lived in. 
 
 103 
 
104 THE MASK 
 
 A week came crowded with events. 
 
 On a day in early summer Vanya was passing the mar 
 ket place. A large crowd, mostly peasants, were gath 
 ered there in a circle. A woman s pitiful screams came 
 from the centre and between the screams the dull sound 
 of lashing with a whip. Without knowing what was 
 happening Vanya s heart was tortured with pity, and his 
 first impulse was to run away from these agonising cries, 
 which awakened fear in him and made him tremble as 
 with ague. But that intense curiosity, which made him 
 follow the coxcombed one through the corridors of his 
 dream, now made him halt and turn his face abruptly 
 toward his fears. Who was the poor woman who was 
 crying ? Why was she crying so piteously ? How could 
 men torment others so, and look on? Perhaps it was 
 not that at all that made Vanya turn, but something else 
 which he did not yet understand. For looking back 
 upon this little episode years afterward, Vanya, no 
 longer Vanya, but John Gombarov, knitting his eyebrows 
 in his effort to recall, sometimes wondered as to whether 
 he had not mixed things up and whether this was not a 
 dream like the other dream. But whether it was a 
 dream or not a dream John Gombarov remembered that 
 he, Vanya, small and insignificant, made his way with a 
 trembling and aching heart through the crowd, which 
 was too interested in the spectacle to bother about a lit 
 tle boy nudging his elbows against their knees, and he 
 came upon this scene : Marta was in the middle, her hands 
 tied to a post. One muzhik was standing at her side 
 and lifting up her skirt from behind, while another was 
 plying the lash. with all his might across her bare but 
 tocks and legs. Later Vanya discovered that this pun 
 ishment was meted out to her for stealing something 
 from one of the muzhiks of the village. She had been 
 discharged some weeks previously by Gombarov for 
 stealing silverware. Vanya look pitifully at Marta 
 
VANYA S FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE 105 
 
 squirming and at her exposed parts, streaked red and 
 blue. He thought of the devil who troubled her and 
 wondered whether it was that they were trying to beat 
 out of her. He had heard such things were done. 
 
 That evening Vanya asked his mother : 
 
 "Were they trying to beat the devil out of Marta?" 
 
 Stepfather Gombarov overheard the question. 
 
 "No," he interposed with a laugh, "more likely it was 
 the devil in them that made them beat her." 
 
 The devil became a terrible reality to Vanya. That 
 night he cried out in his sleep, and his mother came to 
 him and comforted him and put him in her bed. 
 
 Next day Vanya happened to pass the window of cob 
 bler Ivanov s shop. Stepan Antonovitch Ivanov was sit 
 ting at the window working over a boot. Yankel s rival, 
 observing a shadow in the street, looked up. Vanya sud 
 denly and involuntarily stopped short, as he realised that 
 it was Ivanov who yesterday had used the whip on 
 Marta. So it was this man who had the devil in him! 
 Ivanov s brusque voice broke in upon Vanya s reflection : 
 
 "Move on, you little Christ-killer !" 
 
 Vanya impulsively stuck his tongue out and was about 
 to pass on, when something huge, heavy, as of iron, 
 struck his mouth and fell to the ground. It was a mili 
 tary boot, with spurs and heavily nailed heels. Vanya 
 put his hand to his mouth, the upper lip was swollen and 
 bleeding, there seemed to be a big gash under the lip. 
 Vanya, greatly alarmed and agitated, ran home. It was 
 a hot day and the sweat and the tears ran down Vanya s 
 face and mixed with the blood and made him look quite 
 wretched. There was consternation in the Gombarov 
 household at the sight of him. Gombarov examined 
 him, but owing to the swelling it was hard to tell how 
 deep the gash was. After Vanya had been attended to, 
 Gombarov took him to the police sergeant of the dis- 
 
io6 THE MASK 
 
 trict and lodged a complaint against Ivanov. The ser 
 geant, who, owing to the heat, was in his shirt sleeves, 
 put on his epauletted coat and his sabre in order to look 
 official and sent for Ivanov. In a few minutes Ivanov 
 appeared, carrying a pair of boots. He was questioned. 
 
 "It was your own boots," replied Ivanov, unwrapping 
 the parcel, as if the fact of their being the sergeant s 
 boots mitigated the offence. 
 
 The sergeant looked at the huge boots, and scratched 
 the nape of his neck; they were indeed his own. He 
 looked rather puzzled, as if this revelation of their being 
 his boots put the guilt on his shoulders. 
 
 "Nitschevo,* a fine pair of boots," drawled out the 
 sergeant at last, "but next time you must throw any 
 thing, try a lady s pair, a fashionable lady s, if possible." 
 
 Gombarov took Vanya home to await the result of the 
 injury. Luckily, the gash showed every prospect of 
 healing. 
 
 If these two petty events had a place in Vanya s life 
 they were nothing to what happened a week later, on 
 the night that Gombarov left for town to apply to the 
 authorities for a permit to start his works. That night 
 was to change radically not only Vanya s life but that 
 of the whole Gombarov household. 
 
 * Never mind! 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 CONSPIRACY CONFLAGRATION 
 
 STEPFATHER GOMBAROV left for town that evening in 
 great exultation. At last, after many months of ardu 
 ous labour, he was to start his works. What he was 
 going to manufacture was a mystery in the village. But 
 why should the village know if the Gombarov house 
 hold was kept in the dark about it? It is likely that 
 Gombarova knew, but if she did, doubtless, after her 
 husband s earlier ventures she was afraid to speak of it, 
 lest she arouse hopes doomed to fall, and fears too rack 
 ing to be borne. And when she rocked the cradle at 
 night and sang "Bayoushki bayou" it was not only to 
 lull her youngest to sleep, but also to lull into forgetful- 
 ness the hopes and fears of her heart. The past was 
 always passing like a cloud across clear skies a kind 
 of premonition calling upon her to suspect the future. 
 And to dwell thus on the past is to invert time, to look 
 upon the future as upon a tormenting memory. This 
 mood communicated itself in a measure* to the rest of 
 the household. 
 
 In the village the mystery annoyed many people, mys 
 tery being a divine attribute and therefore unbecoming 
 to a frail human. And the rumour grew among cer 
 tain people of Gombarov being Antichrist. 
 
 As for Gombarov himself, he felt altogether uncon 
 cerned about himself, or the past, present or future. He 
 now regarded his poultry experiment as child s play, 
 and his rusty cream separator as but a cast-off toy. 
 
 107 
 
io8 THE MASK 
 
 What he was doing now was quite different. Now he 
 dealt with fire, crucibles and metals, a combination full 
 of infinite and fascinating possibilities, and giving him 
 an interest in life equal to that of a god and a creator. 
 
 And somewhere, in a deep subterranean chamber, the 
 way to which led through a thousand dark corridors, 
 sat two Beings one large-limbed, with a huge beard, 
 Jehovah-like, grave; the other tall and gaunt, with 
 pointed beard, Satanic, with a stealthy leer. The two 
 faced each other over a table in the Fate Chamber, and 
 on the table were lying various charts with curious zig 
 zag marks, not unlike the thermometer charts on which 
 doctors note the progress of their patients; these were 
 charts of individual lives and they showed how near men 
 approached heaven or hell. The Satanic one was lean 
 ing his right elbow on a tall pile of these charts. The 
 Other was halding a chart in his left hand and saying: 
 
 "Now here is a man after my own heart. I mean 
 Semyon Gombarov. He s a vessel full of joy and en 
 ergy. He is altogether fearless, and nothing daunts 
 him. He is good because he knows no good and no 
 evil. He has the brain of a god and the soul of a child. 
 He perspires over his work, and yet it is all play to him. 
 He tires of one toy and gets another. But now he has 
 found a toy which he will never tire of. I am thor 
 oughly delighted with him." 
 
 "And you think you are sure of him," said the Satanic 
 one. "You must bear in mind that you have been par 
 ticularly good to him. You have given him everything : 
 health, a wife who loves him, and money to indulge his 
 whims. It is easy to be good when you have what you 
 want. It is easy to throw away toys when you have 
 grown tired of them. But now he has a toy that he 
 loves, and of which he is not likely to tire. Take that 
 away from him and see what will happen. See whether 
 
CONSPIRACY CONFLAGRATION 109 
 
 his spirits won t dampen, whether he will remain a child, 
 whether all his fine energy won t turn from its play to 
 curse you. It is true that at present the chart shows 
 that he is zig-zagging his way to heaven, but we are by 
 no means at the end of his chart. Give him into my 
 charge for a short time and see whether he doesn t fall 
 more quickly than he rose. Come, you know yourself 
 that you don t want anyone who hasn t stood the full 
 test." 
 
 "What do you propose to do?" 
 "Take his toy away from him." 
 "And how do you propose to do that?" 
 "Oh, I ve arranged all that. It was my influence, as 
 you may suspect, that has made him lease the house from 
 Mendel, who is one of my most efficient emissaries 
 with a fine record of arson on earth." 
 
 "Very well. But there is just one thing. Be care 
 ful about Vanya. I am very much interested in him." 
 "Don t you worry on that account. I am not inter 
 ested in him at least not just yet. As you know, it is 
 never too late to spoil." 
 
 The night was starless and moonless, A great dark 
 ness and stillness settled upon the earth, and this dark 
 ness, like a hugh, brooding hen, spread out her wings and 
 enfolded every house, every tree, every living thing. 
 And in this darkness the gleaming green eyes of Lucifer, 
 like those of a cat, watched one Mendel prowl cautiously 
 round the Gombarov house past midnight. There was 
 nowhere a sound or a glimmer of light. 
 
 Vanya woke with a start, and rubbed his eyes. There 
 was a terrific pounding on the outer door, and loud 
 shouting. Why was his room lit up so curiously? Why 
 were there those strange dancing shadows on the walls 
 and on the window draperies? What was that strange 
 
no THE MASK 
 
 crackling behind the large double door, connecting Van 
 ya s room with the workshop but barred and bolted on 
 the other side? Vanya looked behind him toward the 
 large double door. Little flames were shooting up from 
 the chink under the door, like a brood of young serpents 
 poking their heads for the first time out of their nest. 
 The room was hot and oppressive. The pounding and 
 the shouting continued. There was the sound of run 
 ning footfalls in the street. Quite suddenly there was a 
 stir in the house itself, there was a commotion in all the 
 rooms as in a hive suddenly awakened to find an in 
 truder within, the house was seething with agitation, 
 the cries of the children rose sharply above the confusion 
 of dim noises. 
 
 As Vanya jumped out of bed the small door swung 
 wide open and his mother ran in and seized him by his 
 hand. 
 
 "Hurry up, Vanya!" she cried desperately, dragging 
 the half sleepy Vanya along through the corridor to a 
 place where all the children but half dressed were hud 
 dled together in charge of Rivka. "Oh my God! Oh 
 my God!" 
 
 Someone had by this time hammered down the outer 
 door with an axe, and there were several hands ready 
 to receive them outside. The faces of the peasants shone 
 as yet dimly in the red haze which came and went in 
 flickers ; this haze came from the sparks which flew from 
 the chimney; it rose and died down and rose again with 
 growing volume; it was as if the whole house were gasp 
 ing and breathing hard through its mouth. But beyond 
 the radius of this red haze everything was black. This 
 blackness, too, was alive, men could be heard running in 
 it with clinking pails, and the din of voices grew and 
 grew. But this blackness did not stay black long. Even 
 as Gombarova was making her way with her children, 
 counting them again and again to see that they were all 
 
CONSPIRACY CONFLAGRATION 1 1 1 
 
 there, the light pursued them, and lit up their way for 
 them toward a friendly cottage. 
 
 "Oh my God, oh my God!" groaned Gombarova. 
 
 She no sooner saw her children secure in the cottage 
 than she ran out again, to save what she could. By 
 this time the flames tore themselves desperately from the 
 windows, lingered for a moment outside as if undecided 
 which way to turn and were then caught up by sudden 
 gusts of wind, which came God only knew where from 
 and swept the flames round the house with a wide flut 
 ter like that of a loose scarf round a woman s neck on 
 a wintry day. The air as far as could be seen was filled 
 with floating particles, a snow of another world, fan 
 tastic and unbelievable. Threads of green flame and 
 blue flame intruded upon the red, and when these ap 
 peared there were strange noises and little explosions. 
 These came from the chamber where Gombarov kept 
 his chemicals and they confirmed the faithful wiseacres 
 in their belief that Gombarov was Antichrist and a 
 worker in black magic. If anything more were needed 
 to assure them it was that terrible moment for every 
 one when, with a deafening noise, a black thing rose 
 swiftly from the flames and cutting a curve through the 
 red haze cut a deep gash in the earth at the feet of the 
 police sergeant. 
 
 The sergeant trembled at his narrow escape and swore 
 an oath; then, reconsidering, crossed himself. "Nits- 
 chevo" he remarked, looking at his fine military boots 
 with spurs, the same pair that Vanya was acquainted 
 with, and then at the wedge-like piece of steel only a few 
 inches away; he attempted to pull it up, but not all the 
 exertion of his powerful frame could budge it. "A 
 fine pair of boots," he went on mumbling to himself, 
 but the thought at the back of his mind was that not 
 even this fine pair of boots could have saved him if that 
 evil thing had come a few inches nearer. 
 
ii2 THE MASK 
 
 When Gombarova arrived she found that a few of the 
 more thoughtful neighbours had saved some of the bed 
 ding and other objects of utility and had piled them up 
 at some distance from the house. But it was useless to 
 think of saving more. The fire had spread very rap 
 idly and caught the whole house as if it were no more 
 than a shell. 
 
 The new village fire engine, drawn and worked by 
 human hands, proved useless. It was its first trial, and 
 it simply would not work. This provoked all sorts of 
 comment. 
 
 "What can you expect when you have demons against 
 you !" said one who believed Gombarov to be Antichrist. 
 
 "The little beast is costive," said a more practical per 
 son, who was examining the mechanism. 
 
 "Give her a drop of castor oil," suggested a third, 
 who always made a joke at other people s misfortunes. 
 
 There was a procession of men with pails, and each 
 time the contents of one were dashed on the flames there 
 was a slight derisive sizzle, so that one of the water car 
 riers remarked: 
 
 "You might as well spit at the thing, for all the good 
 it will do." 
 
 The fire, aided by sudden, unaccountable gusts, was 
 relentless, and clearly determined to make a thorough 
 job of it. By dawn it died down to a few spasmodic 
 outbreaks. It was dying hard, gasping. The charred, 
 broken walls began to delineate themselves more and 
 more sharply against the growing radiance spreading 
 across the sky in long white spokes, like a magic fan, 
 full of light and coolness. And as the outbreaks of 
 fire died down to flickers, that part of the house which 
 had once been Gombarov s machine shop now revealed 
 a chaos of jagged, almost shapeless junk. Wheels and 
 cog-wheels, and iron rods, and tangled wire, and shreds 
 of belting, and yards of tortured zinc, and what not, lay 
 
CONSPIRACY CONFLAGRATION 113 
 
 there scattered in hopeless confusion chaos of destruc 
 tion. Only a row of charred crucibles, large and small, 
 rested unperturbed on an inbuilt brick shelf of a wall 
 partly left standing, like a brood of birds, inured to fire, 
 perching. 
 
 Gombarova looked on this desolation and on those 
 parts which went on smouldering and thought it was all 
 a nightmare. But from time to time realisation pene 
 trated the fog in which she was immersed, like a bird 
 with a small beak of fire, and it pecked at her heart with 
 small hot stings, very small at first, but growing deeper, 
 and bolder, and more frequent. 
 
 "Oh my God, oh my God !" she moaned forsakenly. 
 
 Then she thought of her children and went back to 
 them. All except Vanya were lying on the rescued bed 
 ding and trying to sleep, but Vanya was pacing up and 
 down the small clay-paved room, and crying : 
 
 "Oh mother, what has become of you, oh mother, 
 where are you?" 
 
 On seeing his mother Vanya embraced her wildly 
 and sobbed with bitter joy. All worn out, Gombarova 
 fell upon the bed prepared on the floor for her, but she 
 could not sleep. For the little beak of fire continued to 
 peck at her heart, while under her heart a new life 
 stirred. 
 
 Early in the afternoon Gombarov arrived, with the 
 official permit in his pocket to start his works. He 
 walked from the station to the village. Many eyes, 
 mostly of bourgeois cottagers, peeped at him stealthily 
 from behind window curtains. For some reason a few 
 felt a malicious joy at the misfortune of this strange 
 man, very likely it was because they felt that his down 
 fall was in some way a justification of their own com 
 fortable respectability. In any case, they were burning 
 to know how he would take it. There were others, 
 
114 THE MASK 
 
 chiefly peasants, who, holding the man in awe and tak 
 ing no stock in the Antichrist story, sympathised with 
 him genuinely. Gombarov, who had already been ap 
 prised of his misfortune by the station master, walked 
 on oblivious of all eyes. The good Kharton, who had 
 been on the lookout for him, followed him at some dis 
 tance, and hesitated to speak. But when his master 
 reached the scene of the fire and had stood for some time 
 contemplating the result of many months labours he 
 walked up to him timidly with his hat off and remarked 
 with hesitation : 
 
 "A misfortune, master." 
 
 "Nitschevo ....," said Gombarov slowly in a voice 
 free of all emotion. 
 
 Kharton looked up in astonishment at his master, but 
 the latter did not say another word or give the slightest 
 indication of his feelings in his face. He made his way 
 through the debris, looked here and looked there, picked 
 up this and that, put everything down nonchalantly; 
 then, led by Kharton, he went to the cottage, where his 
 family awaited him. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE GOMBAROVS DECIDE TO EMIGRATE 
 
 THE Gombarovs took a small cottage on the outskirts 
 of the village. They wanted time "to think things over." 
 
 There was too much for Gombarov to do to brood 
 over things, but there were spare hours during which he 
 could be heard pacing up and down his now small room 
 according to his former habit. But the footsteps seemed 
 slower and heavier, as if the growing burden of his 
 mind poured itself in a clotted fluid through the arteries 
 of his strong body and down his legs, whose movement 
 it fettered as with a dull force which held back. 
 
 Perhaps it only seemed so to Gombarova. So many 
 things seemed to her in those days. One day passing 
 her husband s door, which was slightly open, she thought 
 she heard a sob, and glancing in stealthily she saw that 
 his face was calm and showed no outward signs of emo 
 tion. But if the thought of her husband sobbing gave 
 her pain and a desire to comfort him, this appearance of 
 calm hurt her even more, for she thought that if he was 
 calm it was because the misfortune as far as it affected 
 the family concerned him little; besides, if he had only 
 come to her for comfort she would have felt comforted 
 also. 
 
 Not that everything was lost, and they were wholly 
 penniless. A good part of the burned property was in 
 sured, and the money would be coming in before long. 
 And there was still a trifle left of the original capital. 
 But it was not that which mattered, but the three re- 
 
 "5 
 
ii6 THE MASK 
 
 corded failures, two ordained by Gombarov, the third by 
 God : was it not all the same in the end ? Once you begin 
 life like that, it goes on like that. Once Misfortune comes 
 through the door and takes a seat at your table, whether 
 you like it or not you must press her to your heart and 
 call her your friend. It s no use hinting that you are 
 tired or bored, and that you d like to see your friend 
 Luck for a change. Whether she understands you or 
 not, she ll take no hint, once she comes as a "permanent 
 guest" with all her luggage of petty annoyances that s 
 the sort of a hussy she is ! And when Luck comes along 
 looking for a nice lodging and is greeted at the door by 
 the mistress of the house, well, he can tell at once by 
 looking into her eyes that Misfortune has taken up her 
 "digs" there, and making a few polite inquiries he runs 
 from the house without so much as leaving his name or 
 address. 
 
 Gombarova tried to think when it was that she caught 
 her first glimpse of Misfortune s face. And after rack 
 ing her memory for some time she thought it might 
 have been during that scuffle some years ago just be 
 fore her first husband finally left the house, at that mo 
 ment that Vanya entered the room and the terrified look 
 on Vanya s face did not seem like his own ; and now re 
 calling that look it seemed to her as if her future stared 
 at her with that same look, and that nothing again would 
 restore its calm trust and nothing else again would make 
 it smile its open smile free from all stealth. Yet how 
 could that be? How could love and misfortune enter in 
 together? Was not love a proud castle keeping all ene 
 mies at bay? Was not love a fire which burnt up all 
 petty annoyances, withered up all fear? Did she not 
 in changing her life act with supreme courage and shake 
 everything from her for the sake of her love? No, she 
 thought, she was selfish. She had only herself in mind, 
 and her own joy and had no thought of the children. 
 
THE GOMBAROVS DECIDE TO EMIGRATE 117 
 
 And at the thought of her children it now came with a 
 full force upon her how badly she had neglected them. 
 Poor Raya, poor Dunya, poor Vanya children by her 
 first husband what had they to look forward to? And 
 not alone they but Gombarov s own children Katya 
 and Absalom, and the unborn! But no, she thought 
 again, it was not really that which worried her, for she 
 knew that if he had only come to her and said : "Sonya 
 dearest, I know how hard it is for you to bear, all this 
 misfortune, and I know there are you and the children 
 to think of, but don t think too much about it, dearest, 
 everything will be all right in the end," then nothing 
 would have mattered, and she would have borne every 
 thing gladly. Or if he had come to her and said : "Oh 
 Sonya, what has happened has made me sad, put your 
 dear hands on my head and soothe me" then she would 
 have borne everything gladly. And reflecting on her 
 doubts in this way, she thought herself selfish, after all. 
 If she really loved him, why shouldn t she endure his si 
 lence, why shouldn t she admire his strength which had 
 perhaps too much pride to ask for comfort, why shouldn t 
 she yield to him in all matters without questioning, with 
 out asking anything in return for what she gave? She 
 knew that he had some such ideas on this subject, and 
 she thought that it was possibly her mistrust, or shadow 
 of mistrust, which had shut his tenderness up with lock 
 and key. But how could she do this, she who had trained 
 in a gymnasia, and had read Pushkin and Turgenev and 
 Heine and loved the romantics? 
 
 Thus does misfortune open the gates to other mis 
 fortunes, and Gombarova bore everything with a stoical 
 patience. Luckily, there were many practical affairs to 
 be settled, and there were many consultations held be 
 tween Gombarov and his wife. And there were signs 
 of reawakened tenderness in him, which made matters 
 easier to discuss. The first conclusion to be reached was 
 
n8 THE MASK 
 
 that any new ventures could only be undertaken in a 
 new place, the farther from the present scene the bet 
 ter. This was really a concession to his wife by Gom- 
 barov, who had no sentimental prejudice associated with 
 places of misfortune. But no one was cruel enough to 
 remind him about the warnings he had received with re 
 gard to his leasing the house from Mendel. 
 
 The question was where to go. They talked over 
 many places and came to no conclusion. The great dif 
 ficulty was the children, who, it was decided, ought to 
 be near a place where their education could be attended 
 to properly. 
 
 "Why not go to America ?" one day suggested Vanya, 
 who was re-reading his "Robinson Crusoe." 
 
 That was an inspiration. Both parents had had the 
 thought for some time, and each was afraid to utter it. 
 
 "Yes, why not America?" cried Gombarov with a 
 laugh, and was astonished at the reply: 
 
 "One might do worse." 
 
 It was settled that they should go to the new land of 
 milk and honey. 
 
 But where? What city? 
 
 Again Vanya came with the suggestion. He read 
 aloud from his geography book: 
 
 "Philadelphia," the City of Brotherly Love/ is cele 
 brated for its public institutions, its hospitals, its schools, 
 its free colleges of learning." 
 
 That appealed to Gombarova, who had not given up 
 the idea of making a doctor of Vanya. After all there 
 was the medical tradition of the family to live up to. 
 She had nursed that idea so long that she could not 
 now imagine Vanya as anything else but a doctor. And 
 if their capital should ever be quite gone, "the City 
 of Brotherly Love" with its great hospitality would open 
 its many doors to them. An image arose in her mind of 
 that wonderful house which had belonged to her great, 
 
THE GOMBAROVS DECIDE TO EMIGRATE 119 
 
 great grandfather, a very pious Jew, who had lived to 
 the age of 107. This house, which was not over-large, 
 stood at the cross-roads, and it had four doors, one door 
 facing each point of the compass, so that the family 
 tradition went no hungry wayfarer should find a cold 
 doorless wall staring in his face even at a distance. The 
 old man was long gone and the old house did not long 
 survive him. How could one live always subject to 
 drafts? asked the new owner, who had it pulled down 
 and had put in its place a house with only one door 
 the tradition goes on to say that this new house soon 
 caught fire in the night, while its master was asleep, and 
 that the flames cutting off his escape to the one door, 
 he died in great agony and that nothing was left of him 
 but his charred bones. It was hard to say how much 
 truth there was in the latter part of the story, but no 
 one doubted the story of the four-door house open at 
 all hours to wayfarers from the east and the west and 
 the north and the south. She had not for a long time 
 thought of this story, which had been handed down from 
 generation to generation, but by some curious associa 
 tion of ideas in her mind the description of Philadelphia 
 read by Vanya evoked in her a clearer image of the old 
 house, no longer existent, than she had ever experi 
 enced. 
 
 The Gombarovs were credulous folk. From the first 
 to the last they were like children. That was perhaps 
 because they had lived for so long away from other peo 
 ple and saw little of their relatives. Very likely it was 
 because most people, relatives in particular, disapproved 
 of Gombarov, whom they considered as an adventurer. 
 Whatever the cause may have been, the Gombarov house 
 hold had lived for many years in almost complete isola 
 tion. Almost the only people they came in contact with 
 were the peasants, most of whom like the good Kharton 
 jvere also children. But there was this difference: the 
 
120 THE MASK 
 
 Gombarovs, because of their race and intellectual strain, 
 were not quite care-free or light-hearted, but were more 
 like the children of old parents. They had not the 
 smartness of people of their station who had lived long 
 in towns, but as the blood of townsmen and of nomads 
 was in them, an inherited restlessness hovered about them 
 and caused a confusion in their souls, of the nature of 
 which they were hardly aware. Vanya for one, young as 
 he was, had already, because of this contactless life, de 
 veloped a fear for his future. The idea that some day he 
 would have to go among people and adopt a "career" 
 a word he had heard his mother speak so often agitated 
 him unpleasantly. 
 
 But like children they all believed implicitly the words 
 in the geography book. The vision of Vanya s career 
 rose like a mirage in Gombarova s thoughts, journeying 
 thousands of miles. 
 
 And the matter was decided. They had only to wait 
 until the insurance had been collected, and Gombarova 
 was delivered of her child. 
 
 Vanya was proud of his part in the great decision. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE LEAVE-TAKING VANYA s DREAM 
 
 "FAREWELL, Russia ! Farewell, Russia !" Vanya kept 
 on saying to himself as the train trailed its way slowly 
 across that part of land which separated the last Rus 
 sian station from the first German one. Two very tall, 
 elaborately decorated gendarmes had boarded the train 
 a few minutes earlier and examined the passports of the 
 Gombarovs, who had a whole third-class compartment to 
 themselves. About a quarter of an hour later the same 
 duty was performed by two gendarmes in a different 
 kind of uniform and speaking in another tongue. And 
 between these two points Vanya kept a very sharp look 
 out for some sort of mark which would show where 
 Russia ended and Germany began. He thought there 
 would be a fence, or a series of posts or a ditch, but there 
 seemed to be nothing, only a flat, treeless field, with a 
 cottage here and there. Someone in the corridor sud 
 denly remarked : This is the frontier." Vanya looked 
 eagerly, but there was nothing ; a few sentries in German 
 uniform, marching up and down with fixed bayonets, 
 were the only evidence that they were in Germany. 
 
 "Farewell, Russia! Farewell, Russia!" Vanya went 
 on muttering. 
 
 Gombarova held the two-months-old baby in her 
 arms. She could not afford to take Rivka along, indeed 
 she could not afford any servant now. Gombarov him 
 self remained behind. He was to join them later in 
 America. The insurance affair was not quite settled, 
 
 121 
 
122 THE MASK 
 
 owing to the slowness into the inquiry about the cause 
 of the fire. There were other matters besides which re 
 quired his attention before he could start. 
 
 In Gombarov s place sat a much older docile-looking 
 man with a beard, slightly resembling Gombarov. This 
 was Gombarov s brother, lakov Bogdanovitch, anxious 
 to go to America to make his fortune, which made, he 
 would send for his family, consisting of his wife and 
 two children. lakov s journey was being paid for by 
 the more fortunate Simeon, who entrusted to him the 
 care of his family during his absence. lakov proved 
 worse than useless. His knowledge of the Talmud, 
 which might have earned him a meal and a night s lodg 
 ing in a native village, was hardly the thing to appeal 
 to a German official train guard, or hotel clerk. It is 
 true he made lively and eloquent gestures with his hands, 
 but they could not have proved more futile than if he 
 had his arms tied in a strait- jacket. He only aroused 
 amusement if not contempt in those to whom he tried 
 to make himself intelligible, and would give up the ef 
 fort by cursing the stupid goyim gentiles under his 
 breath, in good Hebrew. Gombarova also grew con 
 temptuous of him and often thought: "How could this 
 man and her husband be brothers?" Leaving her baby 
 in the charge of Raya or Dunya she would leave the 
 train compartment or the station waiting room and go 
 to make inquiries in German, which she spoke fairly 
 well. Vanya, too, proved useful, and his German stood 
 him now in good stead. Indeed, his knowledge of Ger 
 man quite astonished one fatherly looking station-mas 
 ter, who asked him how he had learnt to speak so well, 
 and patted him on the head afterwards. 
 
 A curious episode occurred at Berlin. 
 The Gombarovs, in order to save expense, travelled 
 part of the way thither in a fourth-class waggon, which 
 
THE LEAVE-TAKING VANYA S DREAM 123 
 
 is more or less like the ordinary luggage car, except 
 that there is a long bench against the wall on either side, 
 and as the windows are rather high, the passenger, if 
 he happen to be a small boy, must stand up on this bench 
 in order to look out. As this was very tiresome Vanya 
 saw little on the way and only when the train got to 
 Berlin over an elevated road did he begin to look with 
 great curiosity at what was going on outside ; many years 
 afterward he only remembered the neat window gardens 
 and the shining helmets and lances of the soldiers, but 
 the one thing he vividly remembered was a seemingly 
 slight episode, which occurred a minute or two 1 after the 
 Gombarovs were bundled out with their numerous lug 
 gage from the car on to the platform. 
 
 While Gombarova with her children stood around 
 their possessions waiting for directions, Vanya wan 
 dered away for a moment from the rest. And as he 
 walked along and looked at this and that with the curi 
 osity of a country child, a woman who wore no hat and 
 who, for some reason, appeared to Vanya to belong to 
 the station took him by the hand and saying to him some 
 thing in German which he could not understand, led him 
 to a door, then through a long corridor, paved and side- 
 panelled with marble slabs, then still holding Vanya by 
 the hand she turned a corner and walked through an 
 other corridor. Somewhat alarmed, Vanya addressed 
 her nervously in German as to where she was taking 
 him. She said something, but again Vanya could not 
 understand her. Then they turned another corner, and 
 the dream he had had on the night he had lain near Marta 
 suddenly flashed across his mind and also the thought 
 of his agitated mother looking for him on the platform. 
 So suddenly wrenching his hand from the woman s he 
 began to run frantically in the direction from which 
 he had come, but the woman made no attempt to pur 
 sue him. On the way he bumped his head against one 
 
124 THE MASK 
 
 of the corners of a turning, and there was a swelling 
 over one of his temples when he reached his mother, 
 who was indeed frantic over Vanya s disappearance and, 
 with her baby in her arms, was talking excitedly to a sta 
 tion official about it. She gave Vanya a scolding, and 
 scolded him even more upon hearing what had happened, 
 and Vanya, thoroughly subdued and frightened by his 
 experience, said not a word, nor did he cry. But the 
 memory of it remained with him, and like many other 
 things that he remembered it sometimes seemed to him 
 a dream, like the other dream or was the other a real 
 ity, no less real than this? 
 
 Yes, the Berlin episode was a reality, and Vanya 
 that is, John Gombarov many years afterwards, thought 
 of it, when he did think of it, with smiling eyes, which, 
 searching distances of time and space, saw himself a 
 funny small boy running beside the unknown, his hand 
 in hers. Who was she, and what did she want with 
 him? What would have happened if he had gone along 
 with her? He would never know. His smile remained 
 immovable for a long time like a mask s smile. 
 
 Other things happened the usual things. The green 
 of England the green he grew to love later flashed 
 by in a broad ribbon as he sat in the train, and it remained 
 in his memory, a splash of green on a painter s palette. 
 But the many other things mixed themselves up tortu 
 ously and confusedly as in a nightmare or a Futurist 
 picture. 
 
 The North Sea crossing was stormy, as was also the 
 fifteen days journey from Liverpool to Philadelphia, in 
 a boat which was to carry back cattle. The last night 
 on shipboard he had a dream : 
 
 He saw himself floating in a rough sea on a raft. 
 There were others with him, clinging desperately, swept 
 by the seas. The raft rose on each huge billow, and 
 each time it came down some one was swept overboard ; 
 
THE LEAVE-TAKING VANYA S DREAM 125 
 
 there was always one less. And at last he was alone. 
 And still the billows swept on, and the raft rose and fell 
 on them with a cradling motion. He was in sight of 
 land. When would he reach it? Would he ever reach 
 it? He was getting closer and closer. At last with a 
 sudden sweep quite near the shore, the raft rose on a 
 gathered wave, so that from the curved topmost crest 
 of it Vanya could see the stones below him, and as he 
 felt he was about to be dashed upon them he gave a loud 
 frantic cry, his heart jumped with fear, and he woke up. 
 He heard his mother ask : 
 
 "What is the matter, Vanya, darling?" 
 
 
 
PART II: AMERICA 
 To H. D. 
 
THE TRANSPLANTING 
 
 O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted ! 
 To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand. 
 
 WALT WHITMAN. 
 
PART II 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A PRELUDE, IN WHICH A CERTAIN WARNING IS REPEATED 
 
 "!T was a city of stone. Stone and brick. The 
 houses were of bright red brick, each brick marked off 
 from the other by a strip of white cement ; the pavements 
 were also of brick, indented here and there through 
 rough usage with an occasional hole where a brick had 
 been removed or broken; the streets were paved with 
 rough rounded cobble and the carts and the drays went 
 over it jolting and rattling and left in their wake a slowly 
 settling trail of stone dust. The people, too, I soon dis 
 covered, at any rate, many of them, had hearts of stone." 
 
 "Come, come, Gombarov," said Gombarov s vis-a-vis 
 over a table in an A. B.C. shop in London. "You mustn t 
 exaggerate, you mustn t let your personal prejudices run 
 away with you. It couldn t have been as bad as all 
 that. And all cities are of stone as far as that goes. 
 Can there be anything more stone than London?" 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Gombarov with a note of tol 
 erant irony in his voice, "it makes all the difference in 
 the world as to whose back came in contact with the 
 stones, yours or mine. It happened to be mine. That s 
 the sort of reception I received in the City of Brotherly 
 Love. You would say that there were extenuating cir 
 cumstances in that I first appeared in the streets in my 
 Russian costume, fresh from the Russian woods, but 
 then remember that we had first stopped over in Liver- 
 
 129 
 
&30 THE MASK 
 
 pool for three weeks waiting for our boat, and though 
 we lived there in a hotel bordering on the slums and the 
 streets were full of noisy and ragged children, yet if I 
 was sometimes chaffed I was never bodily molested. 
 But I no sooner appeared in the streets of Philadelphia 
 than a crowd of boys gathered round me and followed 
 me, and shouted after me words I did not then under 
 stand one word, above others, sounded and resounded 
 in my ears; it was the word sheeny, meaning Jew/ as 
 I discovered later. I walked on in fear and trembling. 
 I walked on faster and faster to get away from my tor 
 mentors, but they followed me. On the way I met many 
 men and women, and I thought some of them would 
 take pity on me and protect me, but they only looked at 
 me and laughed. At last I burst into tears and began 
 to run, and quite as suddenly a lot of missiles began to 
 fly about me, something hard and sharp struck my back. 
 I fell, got up again, and ran on as fast as my legs could 
 carry me. That was my first contact with humanity 
 after leaving the Russian woods, and I think I can un 
 derstand very well now how a man must feel when he has 
 fallen unaware into a jungle and suddenly finds himself 
 shied at by the monkeys with cocoanuts. And that was 
 only the beginning. So you see, I was quite right in 
 saying it was a stone city." 
 
 "Why do you say was ?" asked Gombarov s com 
 panion. "As far as I know, Philadelphia is still on; 
 the map." 
 
 "I say was/ " explained Gombarov, "because it does 
 not seem to me now, looking backward on my life there, 
 like a place, but like a nightmare, like something that 
 has happened to me and is not likely to happen again. 
 It was because it now seems like a terrible unreality, 
 and it exists for me no more than a past delirious ill 
 ness exists for me, though there is this difference : I can 
 remember much if not everything that I saw and heard 
 
A CERTAIN WARNING IS REPEATED 131 
 
 in my delirium. I know that you think I exaggerate, 
 but you must bear in mind that I came to this place of 
 stone and iron from quiet, far away woods and mead 
 ows, and my whole being was permeated with the rustle 
 of trees, with the gentle, monotonous crooning of Rus 
 sian folk songs and my eyes had been used only to sun 
 flowers and poppies and golden cornfields. Imagine to 
 yourself such a being, a child, touched with brooding 
 and with a sense of introspection thrust suddenly into 
 a place so violent in movement, so strident in sound, so 
 teeming with people and commerce as an American city; 
 if one of God s own cherubim were dropped on earth 
 suddenly, his predicament could not have been more 
 startling than that of this child. Imagine to yourself 
 further the need of this child to enter almost as suddenly 
 into the struggle for existence in circumstances so ludi 
 crously tragic only then you may have some idea of the 
 will that is at the root of human life. You will perhaps 
 say that as my conclusions about America are due to 
 my personal experience your statement about my preju 
 dice is proven. My own opinion is to the contrary. It 
 seems to me that only he can judge who approaches a 
 subject with a perfect innocence of eye, and with a mind 
 and heart as yet untainted by the environment upon 
 which he expresses judgment/ 
 
 "That is all very well," persisted Gombarov s com 
 panion, "but it doesn t explain your first statement. In 
 what way is Philadelphia or New York more a city of 
 stone than London? It seems to me, you can wear out 
 shoe leather as quickly here as in any other place." 
 
 "Your question is a reasonable one, and I am prepared 
 to answer it," rejoined Gombarov. "Your last statement 
 is indeed an excellent hook to hang my answer on, for 
 though it is true that you can wear out shoe leather in 
 London as quickly as in New York, yet I am foolish 
 enough to maintain that shoe leather is not such an 
 
132 THE MASK 
 
 intrinsic part of our being that we cannot afford to part 
 with it from time to time, as long as our more sensitive 
 parts are not affected. The real trouble with New York 
 is not that it wears out our shoe leather but that it tends 
 to make our sensitive skins tougher than any shoe leather 
 and not less impregnable against all finer feelings than 
 against stone. Men become like limpets, shutting them 
 selves out equally from danger and light." 
 
 "I am beginning to understand what you are driving 
 at," interrupted Gombarov s friend. "You are appar 
 ently trying to make a distinction between stone and 
 stone, and I am curious enough to know what that dis 
 tinction is." 
 
 "I was coming to that," said Gombarov quietly. "In 
 the first place, I use the word stone both literally and 
 figuratively. London stone is Portland stone. It belongs 
 to England as marble belonged to Greece. It is at one 
 with the soil, the atmosphere, the character of the people. 
 And being part of a oneness the London stones do not 
 cry out at you. All things blendes in a tone painting. 
 It took an American painter, Whistler, to discover that. 
 Again you see the value of the innocent alien eye. But 
 the native painter, the Dionysian Englishman Turner, 
 must react from the grey and beautiful mystery; and the 
 world of revelry so completely shut off within himself 
 bursts out irresistibly on canvas in great splashes of 
 primal yellows and orgies of fire, like suns in the making. 
 But if Portland stone belongs to London, London has a 
 way of making everything alien her own, be it man or 
 marble. It is as if all of London were plunged in some 
 curious chemical solution, which, if it did not harden 
 men, humanised as by some magic the stones. Strictly 
 speaking, there are no Londoners, yet everyone who 
 comes to London and stays here any length of time be 
 comes a Londoner, though he may have come from the 
 other end of the earth. London with all its character 
 
A CERTAIN WARNING IS REPEATED 133 
 
 is strangely impersonal, like the sea itself. No place 
 is more beloved of the exile. But to go on with my com 
 parison. There are few sharp edges here, the streets 
 are mostly rounded at the crossings, giving the place a 
 sense of continuity, vehicles are not forced to turn 
 with sharp jerks. The lights of London suggests a 
 vast steady radiance like the aura of a planet, the rum 
 ble of London hints at a mood steady and impressive 
 like a silence so that even a silence-loving literary worker 
 may have a room near the Strand and work in perfect 
 obliviousness of the world around him; again he may live 
 five minutes walk from Piccadilly yet have that strange 
 sense of being a thousand miles from the metropolis of 
 the world. But in New York you have the so-called 
 great white way and the sense of its cutting across the 
 city a canal of light, which breaks at Forty-Second 
 street like a torrent over a dam; at irregular intervals 
 an overhead train shoots like a noisy gigantic shuttle 
 across a loom that has suddenly gone out of order, and 
 generally speaking the noises are sudden, sharp, screechy, 
 acting upon your thoughts like a wicked child with new 
 trumpet and drum; the buildings themselves reach up 
 ward huge, uneven, jagged teeth, eager after the 
 manner of Babel to bite into heaven, yet never so far 
 away from it. Not that all this has not a certain beauty, 
 vulgar and diabolic, like an animated rasp-voiced chan- 
 sonnette, acting forwardly, flaunting her jewels and her 
 vulgar charms at every new-comer, who learns quickly 
 to know all her whims and wishes and every nook and 
 part of her until she has nothing more to reveal, and a 
 man, unless he revolt against her persistent demands on 
 his body, .soul and purse, becomes in the end a debauchee 
 from sheer habit. I have just mentioned the purse, for 
 the purse is important if one would enjoy this harlot 
 among cities, whose great lyric is 
 
134 THE MASK 
 
 " f lf you haven t any money, 
 You needn t come around . . . . 
 
 But London tries men, makes men woo her, and reveals 
 only gradually her seductions to those deserving of her, 
 and has not yet found a lover to whom she has completely 
 surrendered herself. After all, she has permitted 
 Whistler no more than to kiss her hand. No one has as 
 yet painted a picture or written a book worthy of her. 
 As for money, tis trash. I know a young man with 
 little more than genius to his account, to whom all doors 
 are open, he could go among peeresses if he liked and if 
 it weren t such a waste of time. That absurd contrivance 
 Seeing New York or Seeing Philadelphia, a motor 
 car designed to carry several dozen passengers who are 
 aptly named rubber necks/ is impossible here; there is 
 no seeing London. If you stay here a year and keep 
 your wits about you you will begin to be cognisant of the 
 gradually unfolding charms of this most wonderful crea 
 ture, and only then when you have gone away from her 
 for a spell will you learn how completely she has capti 
 vated you, and thereafter wherever fortune take you the 
 call of London remains in your heart like the voice of 
 some terrorless sea, of enchanting mystery, of a benign 
 sphinx, whose fingers reach out to you in moments of 
 distress and, running through your hair, soothe your 
 feverish exile thoughts as by magic, though as yet you 
 have not seen her face." 
 
 "I am an Englishman," interrupted once more Gom- 
 barov s companion, "yet frankly, I do not see why you 
 are so infatuated with London. To my way of thinking, 
 with all due respect to you, if cities are to be compared 
 to women, I should compare London to a flabby, amor 
 phous female, sluttish in dress and habit, foggy in her 
 complexion, one of her eyes blackened, stodgy in her con 
 versation, sloppy in her sentimentality, a depraved 
 
A CERTAIN WARNING IS REPEATED 135 
 
 creature half reeling her way home from the pub to feed 
 her half starved brats on milk tainted with detestable 
 bitter. As for me, I prefer Italy or Paris." 
 
 Gombarov laughed at this extravagant outburst of his 
 friend, but quickly readjusting his face into a thoughtful, 
 almost motionless mask, he went on dreamily as if not 
 he spoke but a spirit, a spirit which had taken lodgment 
 in his body as in a kind of shell : 
 
 "You are the traditional Englishman with the Italian 
 sun in your heart. And as you are an artist, it is well 
 that you should contain this sun within yourself. It is 
 the Englishman s creative impulse. It is this sun trying 
 to burst the bounds of the body, coming in clash with the 
 outer fog and the rain which raineth every day/ that has 
 made your Shakespeare, who has laid most of his plots 
 in Italy, though he had never been there. It is the same 
 sun that has made your Turner, your Browning, your 
 Byron, your Shelley and your Rossetti. Italy is the Eng 
 lishman s spiritual home. And that is the fine thing 
 about London, the supreme test of her creative love, for 
 which she has sacrificed herself. For she has made her 
 self unlovely to the Englishman that he might create; 
 she has turned his eyes, as it were, against herself, like 
 those cruel Neapolitans who pierce the eyes of their 
 canaries that they may sing the more beautifully. But 
 she is not really like that. She is cruel to herself, for the 
 Englishman s eye turns inwardly, he is dazzled by his 
 own sun, so that when he turns his eyes away from it 
 again toward London, London seems to him like a 
 wretched blur. And here is the strange contradiction: 
 she offers a home to the alien, yet the artistic English 
 man feels himself an alien here and never stops yearning 
 for Rome or for Greece. True, there is Paris, but I 
 somehow can t associate the Englishman with Paris, but 
 with more remote times and places. What would Blake 
 -do without his Jerusalem, Browning without his Florence 
 
136 THE MASK 
 
 and Swinburne without his Athens? And yet Paris is 
 adorable, and to him whom she loves she is both model 
 for his art and mistress for his manhood. She is indeed 
 Goya s Maya/ Maya veiled and Maya unveiled; veiled 
 and very beautiful to the public, and to the stranger; 
 naked and more beautiful to the French artist, for who 
 but a Frenchman, with his clear vision, his mellifluous 
 speech, his elegant manners, his unwavering passion, his 
 genius for love or shall we say love making ? can hope 
 to win the favours of this most beautiful and exclusive 
 of all courtesans, to the hem of whose dress self-exiled 
 Americans, with all the Parisian affectations and with 
 none of the Parisian genius, cling in desperate and for 
 lorn hope. If they have money she takes it, without so 
 much as a thank you ; if they are women she will sell 
 them some of the secrets of her boudoir, which she ex 
 poses seductively in the shops; if they are painters she 
 will admit them to the galleries in her apartments stacked 
 with works of art presented to her by favoured admir 
 ers, though certain doors remain discreetly closed ; if they 
 are literary men, she will give them, with infinite pains 
 on their part for speech is not the universal art that 
 painting, music or sculpture is crumbs of ideas soaked 
 plentifully in black coffee, wine or absinthe; they learn 
 bad French and their English suffers ; there grows up in 
 their poisoned and benighted souls a contempt for Lon 
 don, which is the rod and the staff of all who write 
 English." 
 
 "It seems to me there is much truth in what you say, 
 Gombarov, and I am rather amused that you should put 
 the matter in such clear sensual images, and if I did not 
 know you better I should call you a downright sensual 
 ist. But there is a strange idealism in your sensuality." 
 
 "The two are inseparable," observed Gombarov. "All 
 true idealism proceeds from sensuality and seeks its ex 
 pression in refined sensuality. In religious men and 
 
A CERTAIN WARNING IS REPEATED 
 
 artists this sensuality strives ever toward chastity. The 
 monk in his small clean cell performing a genuflexion 
 before a small image of the Immaculate Virgin, flanked 
 by two large candles, is one form of this expression. 
 Botticelli, drawing in Trimavera his pregnant women 
 in chaste outlines against a background of dream, is 
 another. Again you find chastity running to sensuality, 
 otherwise how can you explain Christianity accepting 
 Solomon s Song as a tribute to itself? And yet, in 
 spite of this poem s sensuality, its outlines are chaste and 
 austere ; every expression is an image, clear, hard, hewn 
 out, edged and rounded, there is no cosmic froth in it, 
 no atmosphere, which is an abominable modern inven 
 tion, rather does every image give out its own radiance 
 and colour like a precious stone. And the curious thing 
 is that the greater the love, the more does it tend toward 
 abstraction, the more precise becomes the image in which 
 it is expressed. And in the measure that I love London 
 I see her more and more clearly as the chastely outlined 
 queen, silver-girdled by the Thames, of the kingdom of 
 creative chaos, beside whom Paris is an obviously beau 
 tiful woman, and New York a parvenu and a harlot 
 ambitious to become courtesan through indiscriminate 
 patronage of art." 
 
 Gombarov stopped speaking and went on looking 
 dreamily into the distance. Then his friend suddenly 
 recalled him to himself: 
 
 "You began by speaking of Philadelphia and your ex 
 perience there. What sort of woman is Philadelphia?" 
 
 Gombarov knit his eye-brows and made a wry face, 
 but did not respond at once. He appeared to be in a 
 difficulty, his mind seemed to be wrestling to get a hold 
 on a clear image. 
 
 "You have given me a poser," he said at last slowly. 
 "You see it s this way. Philadelphia has not the mystery 
 of London, nor the charm of Paris, nor the blatant har- 
 
138 THE MASK 
 
 lotry of New York, nor the begrimed industry of Liver 
 pool, yet she is not without some mystery, without some 
 charm, some harlotry, some grime. But now I have it! 
 I should say she was a dowdy housewife, who might be 
 charming and respectable if she did not so neglect her 
 self. She has a beautiful girdle in the Delaware, but it 
 is frippery at the edges, unbordered by trees or embank 
 ments. She has a gem of priceless value in the several 
 art collections stacked in private houses and she could 
 display this gem if she would provide a setting for it, 
 that is a gallery, yet she tarries because of the expense 
 of this trifle. Her own servants rob her, wherefore she 
 has been called the most corrupt city of the world. She 
 spends much of her time chattering over thimble-sized 
 tea-cups and in trying to keep a decayed family tree in 
 bloom instead of looking to her young saplings. She 
 has built with lamentable slowness and at a preposterous 
 cost an ugly town hall and has placed on top of its five- 
 hundred feet tower a statue of William Penn with his 
 hands hanging down at his sides. If this statue could 
 only come to life it would wring its hands to heaven, 
 and receiving no response to its prayer it would turn on 
 its pedestal, spit to all four sides upon the town and hurl 
 itself below in its despair. The fact is, the town was 
 unfortunate at its birth, for the architect who planned it 
 cut the streets in checker-board fashion, and it has con 
 tinued to expand on the same square lines. Nothing can 
 present a more dismal sight than West Philadelphia as 
 you look down on it from the overhead railway on 
 Market street. You see thousands upon thousands of 
 little stone houses all alike, placed in endless rows, sep 
 arated only by long straight and narrow streets and 
 little square back-yards, giving the place an aspect of a 
 huge, artificial honeyless bee-hive, all so deadening to 
 young imaginations and impressing upon young brains 
 not those interesting convolutions which make London 
 

 A CERTAIN WARNING IS REPEATED 139 
 
 like a great fascinating throbbing brain but a dull square 
 pattern in which each cell is like the cell of a mausoleum, 
 containing its urn of dead ashes." 
 
 "I notice it hasn t deadened your imagination," said 
 Gombarov s friend. 
 
 "No, very likely it has enriched mine," said Gombarov, 
 ignoring the insinuating irony in his companion s voice. 
 "But that is because the experience came after my boy 
 hood years in the Russian woods, and the contrast made 
 America seems like a hell to me. Once you recognise your 
 environment as hell, you can use that hell s fire to set 
 your imagination aflame. Hell is always imagination. 
 It was only this clash between the inner and the outer 
 world which saved me. And in this clash the wood god 
 triumphed over Pluto." 
 
 "The manageress is beginning to look at us," inter 
 posed Gombarov s friend. "That means we are occupy 
 ing valuable space." 
 
 "Don t speak of it," exclaimed Gombarov. "It re 
 minds me too much of New York. I am afraid London 
 is becoming Americanised." 
 
 "Well, come, let us go to my studio, where you can 
 tell me more about that extraordinary place, called Am 
 erica." 
 
 "Right-o!" said Gombarov, rising from his place. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE OLD MANTLE OF AHASUERUS DESCENDS UPON 
 YOUNG VANYA 
 
 , AFTER Vanya s first encounter with humanity in the 
 streets of Philadelphia described many years afterwarc 
 to his English friend, who accepted the narrative as ar 
 exaggerated and prejudiced statement of an unhappy 
 personal experience Vanya s mother, to his great joy 
 decided to buy him a suit, which she did with not a fevi 
 qualms, for Gombarov was away, her ready capital small 
 the family large, and the need for economy pressing. 
 
 The new suit was an event in Vanya s life. He wa! 
 proud of it, and particularly of its many pockets; eacl: 
 separate pocket gave him as much pleasure as though i 
 were a nest which contained a bird s egg. He felt im 
 portant as he strutted up and down the room, his hand: 
 in his trousers pockets, as he had seen his stepfather do 
 Very likely, he realised, as yet vaguely, that pockets im 
 plied possessions, therefore power, therefore a shielc 
 against such annoyance as the simple, pocketless gar 
 ment had subjected him to the day before. Something 
 urged him to put this as yet subconscious idea to the test 
 He wanted to parade his new garment in the street. At 
 he was going through the door his mother admonishec 
 him: 
 
 "See that you don t soil your suit/ 
 
 The street was alive with children, who played in pain 
 or in groups or scampered in divers directions. Vanyc 
 had not far to go before he came upon a group of boys 
 
 140 
 
THE OLD MANTLE OF AHASUERUS 141 
 
 some of whom he recognised as his persecutors of yes 
 terday. And in spite of his new suit they knew Vanya 
 almost at the same instant. They left their play and 
 surrounded him. One of them walked up to Vanya, felt 
 Vanya s new suit with his fingers and said something to 
 his fellows, whereat they laughed derisively. Another 
 walked up to Vanya, and felt his suit as the other did, 
 only that he pinched Vanya through his jacket at the 
 same time. They began to exchange remarks and to 
 laugh. Vanya stood there paralysed, his heart beating, 
 perspiration running down his forehead. Something 
 clutched at his throat, tears almost welled in his eyes, 
 but he somehow with a desperate effort held them back. 
 Then one of the boys pointed to his hat and another to 
 his shoes, at which the rest set up a derisive shout and 
 held their sides with laughter as they turned on their 
 heels. Vanya then realised that they were laughing at his 
 Russian hat and shoes and that his American pockets 
 were not enough, since he could hide neither his head nor 
 his feet in them. He started to run, but one of the boys 
 caught him by his arm, another snatched his hat, and 
 when he tried to seize it the boy tossed it to another boy, 
 who in his turn tossed it to another, and this manoeuvre 
 kept Vanya running frantically from boy to boy in the 
 vain effort to get his hat. 
 
 Some of the passers-by stopped to look in evident 
 enjoyment of the "game.." They had been boys them 
 selves once, and one or two looked as if they were rather 
 ashamed that they were too old to join in. Indeed they 
 rather resented an old Jew with a long beard when 
 he attempted to interfere, and they joined the boys when 
 they gave the usual cry accorded to bearded Jews : 
 
 "B-z-z-z-z-z!" 
 
 This was followed by a guffaw as one of the boys 
 darting nimbly past the Jew gave a sharp tug at his 
 beard and ran. 
 
 
142 THE MASK 
 
 Vanya, alarmed at this bold procedure and afraid of 
 possible hurt, made off as fast as his feet could carry 
 him, leaving his hat as booty in the hands of the boys. 
 
 Vanya came home crying. He related all that had 
 happened and was reprimanded for losing his hat. 
 
 "Something of the sort is always happening to you/ 
 said his mother, recalling to him his previous loss of 
 the fez. 
 
 "They would have taken away my shoes too," re 
 torted Vanya, "if they weren t fastened so tightly on my 
 feet. And now I shan t go out of the house until I get 
 a new hat and new shoes." 
 
 Nothing would move Vanya from this decision. His 
 mother was reluctant; there was nothing left to do but 
 to get the hat and shoes. She did this that same evening. 
 
 Now Vanya felt thoroughly Americanised. Now he 
 felt the boys in the street would respect him. There was 
 happiness for him that he looked like others, all the more 
 since that appeared to be the best means for safety. 
 
 Next morning Vanya once more set out proudly, sure 
 that his new guise would prevent his being molested and 
 yet trembling at the thought of his last two encounters. 
 He walked quite far without being stopped by anyone, 
 though he passed a number of boys. It is true he felt 
 apprehensive whenever they looked at him, for it seemed 
 to him that they looked at him rather doubtfully, where 
 at he increased his pace. Still, he rejoiced at the immu 
 nity he had enjoyed so far, and was congratulating him 
 self on his good fortune at the very moment that he was 
 entering the Italian neighbourhood. As Vanya did not 
 know an Italian from a Hottentot, the different appear 
 ance of the people interested him, and as he walked, his 
 hands in his side-pockets, his shoulders hunched, he 
 looked curiously at the women carrying bundles of wood 
 on their heads without the aid of their hands and at the 
 strange fruits displayed in the windows. Soon he came 
 
THE OLD MANTLE OF AHASUERUS 143 
 
 (Upon two hatless, barefoot boys, who, crouching on the 
 I pavement, were playing a game with small round stones. 
 Vanya had never seen a game of marbles before and so 
 he passed by lingeringly. On their part the two Italian 
 urchins seemed all of a sudden sharply aware of Vanya s 
 presence, for one of them jumped up, seized Vanya by 
 the arm, and said something which Vanya did not under 
 stand but which was undoubtedly a demand of some 
 sort. Vanya shook his head and said tremblingly : 
 
 "I no understand/ 
 
 "Shell out !" repeated the boy, pointing now to a mar 
 ble, now to Vanya s pockets. 
 
 Vanya suddenly understood the nature of the boy s 
 demand. 
 
 "I no have," replied Vanya. 
 
 It was quite clear that the boy was not satisfied with 
 the answer, for as he still held on to Vanya he proceeded 
 to feel Vanya s pockets with his free hand. Disappointed 
 in his search, he was about to let Vanya go, but recon 
 sidered, and, thrusting his face forward toward Vanya s, 
 said something full of menace. 
 
 Vanya s heart sank. He feared the boy would snatch 
 his new hat. A desperate courage was born in Vanya at 
 the thought of this possible calamity. Tears had just 
 come into his eyes, then with a sudden vigorous move 
 ment he wrenched himself from the boy s hold, and no 
 less quickly and vigorously he thrust his two open hands 
 forward and gave the boy a push ; then, without waiting 
 td see the result of his manoeuvre, ran as fast as his legs 
 could carry him, as yesterday, as the day before yester- 
 ,day. The boy, getting on his feet, for Vanya s unex 
 pected attack felled him, ran in pursuit of Vanya, in 
 which he was joined by his companion, who had been sit 
 ting on the pavement, a witness to the whole performance. 
 For some time Vanya was conscious of their being hot 
 on his heels, at one time the fist of one almost grazed one 
 
144 THE MASK 
 
 of his shoulders, but in the end he was relieved to see ? 
 them give up pursuit. He kept on running for some time, 
 in fear that they would resume it. 
 
 Vanya told no one at home about his adventure. 
 
 "Vanya," said his mother the next day, "why do you 
 sit moping in the house? Why don t you go out and 
 play? To-morrow you begin going to school." 
 
 Vanya went out reluctantly, and reconnoitred in the 
 neighbourhood for a long time before venturing farther. 
 Though the exploit of yesterday was the source of much 
 pride to him, he was far from anxious to get into any 
 more broils. He walked cautiously, with a timid heart, 
 half shrinking within himself, and keeping a sharp look 
 out for boys that he might avoid them, for he now 
 regarded all boys as his enemies. 
 
 Early next day Vanya applied at the nearest school. 
 The principal made Vanya wait a long time in her office, 
 and as he sat there fingering his cap his mood was more 
 akin to> that of a guilty prisoner awaiting trial than that 
 of a young boy waiting to enter school. He suddenly 
 realised that a few minutes would pass and that he, a ] 
 woods boy, would be thrust as by an unseen, inevitable 
 hand, over which he had no control and tp whose prowess 
 he had already been a witness, from a world of trees into 
 a world of boys, and the thought of it frightened him. 
 While he was reflecting dismally upon the unkindness of 
 this new world, the principal came in again and beckoned 
 to Vanya to follow her. 
 
 Again Vanya walked through a series of corridors, \ 
 this time by the side of a pale, austere, thin-lipped wo 
 man, and as the corridors were lined with leaded glass 
 Vanya watched with a strange, inexplicable agitation 
 the small dark blurs which stirred slightly on either side 
 of him. 
 
 At last they got to a small corridor, which culminated 
 in a cul-de-sac, Vanya s guide pausing before the penulti- 
 
THE OLD MANTLE OF AHASUERUS 145 
 
 mate door, at which Vanya s heart gave a jump. Then 
 she opened the door and Vanya followed her timidly in. 
 
 Panic seized Vanya upon seeing so many faces and 
 
 feeling all eyes fixed on him. It was as if so many 
 
 i needles had suddenly touched his skin. The principal 
 
 said a word to the school-mistress; they both laughed; 
 
 .and then the principal went out. 
 
 The school-mistress, a grey elderly woman, smiled 
 slightly at Vanya from behind her spectacles, but Vanya 
 <was too dazed to notice her smile; at that moment her 
 Iface resolved itself for him into a vacant countenance, 
 1 bereft of all features save a mouth, a long narrow slit 
 icut across the wrinkled skin as with a single stroke of a 
 sharp knife. He saw this mouth move, heard the sound 
 of words. He had a curious feeling that the words were 
 i addressed to him. He only roused himself when they 
 Lwere repeated. He knew a few words of English, which 
 he had studied in a grammar during the journey, but he 
 [could not understand her. She called for a Russian boy 
 in the class to interpret. 
 
 "Ask him his name." 
 
 The boy repeated the question in Russian. 
 
 "Ivan Borisovitch Gombarov," replied Vanya, gather 
 ing up his courage. 
 
 The school-mistress laughed, the children in the front 
 I i rows giggled. 
 
 "Well, let s see what we can do to Americanise it ; you 
 j|must become an American now, my boy. To begin with, 
 | suppose we call you John, Ivan is John, isn t it? Your 
 [j middle name is ... " and the school-mistress hesi 
 tated. 
 
 "Borisovitch," said Vanya, now John, and explained: 
 "My father s name is Boris. It means son of Boris." 
 
 "Suppose we lop off the Vitch part of the name, it 
 won t do you any good here, except to annoy busy people. 
 Let s call you John Gom . . . what is it?" 
 
146 THE MASK 
 
 "Gombarov," prompted John. 
 
 "Sounds like Gumboil," laughed the school-mistress, 
 amused at her own joke, and as she said this loud enough 
 to be overheard by the whole class there were many 
 chortles and giggles. For once she did not call the class 
 to order, for after all not to laugh at a clever thing 
 betokens a slim sense of humour, and she was glad to 
 see that her class had this virtue developed in a reason 
 able measure. 
 
 As for John, he stood there as in a trance, overcome 
 by confusion and shame, as before a tribunal or an ex 
 ecutioner, so that it might have been as easy at that 
 moment to lop off his head as the "vitch" off his name. 
 The smile on his face seemed not his, but glued on, but 
 it served its purpose, a dyke to hold the tears back. 
 
 But soon the ordeal was over, and he was given a 
 place at the bottom of the form. It did not take the 
 school-mistress long to discover that the new boy s 
 knowledge of arithmetic was far above the needs of her 
 class, which was the second primary grade, and he was 
 slightly older than the rest of the pupils, but owing to his 
 ignorance of English it was decided to keep him there. 
 
 Recess came and Vanya marched out in the line with 
 the rest into the recreation yard. Once in the yard, the 
 new boy was surrounded by a constantly changing little 
 crowd in which voices cried "Gumboil" at him; but he 
 felt greater friendship in the few voices which addressed 
 him simply as "Gomby." 
 
 Afterwards on being left more or less to himself, he 
 walked about in a lost way, and looked with longing eyes 
 toward the swings, the trapeze and the other contrivances 
 of play. He saw a boy now and then push his way 
 forward boldly and displace another boy and he envied 
 the displaced boy as much as the one who replaced him. 
 As he walked about in this half-dazed manner, wishing 
 he could take a share in the happy turmoil, he suddenly. 
 
THE OLD MANTLE OF AHASUERUS 147 
 
 came upon a pump, by the side of which- a half -rusty 
 tin cup hung on a chain and he realised that he was 
 thirsty. At that moment a boy ran by, who, divining 
 John s intention, paused for hardly more than an instant, 
 but long enough for him to put a ringer under the spicket 
 and send a small but rapid stream shooting into John s 
 face. Then he ran on and lost himself among the other 
 boys. 
 
 One of the school-mistresses, who had come out with 
 a bell to call the recess to an end, found John crying, 
 surrounded by a crowd of boys. An effort was made 
 to find the culprit, who after the way of culprits made 
 good his escape. There was nothing left for John to do 
 but to wipe his face and to resume his seat in his class. 
 He sat there quietly, with a subdued air, riveted to his 
 seat by invisible nails; dull pains, like flames, converged 
 upon his heart, which boiled and seethed with injury and 
 humiliation, and this boiling and seething found egress 
 in the eyes, their only safety valve, which shone with a 
 dulled lustre, like bright copper from behind escaping 
 steam. But suddenly his eyes brightened. Is was as if 
 that which boiled and seethed had ceased to boil and 
 seethe and that which was half-hidden and dulled by a 
 vaporous tissue were polished and cleansed and shone 
 richly with high-lights out of darkened corners. It is 
 hard to tell whence and how, but a thought came to the 
 boy. Not so much a thought as a fancy, a little white 
 bird let loose suddenly from one of the many cages of 
 memory. Without seeking to recall, he recalled at that 
 moment a fairy tale he had read a long time ago about a 
 wood wizard who turned a wandering prince into a tree ; 
 he thought how fine it would be if he could turn all these 
 boys into trees, scraggy little twisted trees, because they 
 were so wicked to him. He had already done this in 
 his imagination, and the fancy pleased and consoled him. 
 He was now a woodsman strolling through this wood 
 
148 THE MASK 
 
 with an axe, lopping off the more malicious looking of 
 the branches. He was smiling a little to himself. 
 
 "John Gombarov!" he heard his name called in the 
 midst of his adventure. "You are not listening." 
 
 It was the school-mistress, with a pointer in her hand, 
 before the blackboard, who spoke. 
 
 On hearing his name called, John roused himself. 
 Again he felt the eyes of the whole class upon him, and 
 his face flushed. 
 
 He was commanded to read the words on the black 
 board, which he did in a faltering voice but evidently 
 with greater knowledge tl^an he had been expected to 
 show, for the school-mistress prompted him only rarely 
 and had no need of calling for an interpreter. She 
 thought it an excellent performance for a foreign boy 
 only a few days in the country. On his part, because he 
 had been called to order and had to be prompted at all, 
 he felt that he had failed and resumed his seat in a crest 
 fallen mood, a mood which stayed with him until he 
 returned home. 
 
 He found all the children gathered in the kitchen, for 
 the Gombarovs had only two rooms now. The table was 
 set for lunch, and Gombarova herself was expected to 
 return almost any moment from shopping. Raya was 
 holding Sonyatchka in her arms, while Dunya was pre 
 paring the cups for cocoa. They assailed their brother 
 with questions, for they too were to be sent to school 
 within a few days. They were very much amused at his 
 new name, and Dunya took especial delight in calling out 
 now and then, oftener than the occasion required: 
 
 "Djohn!" 
 
 As for John, he went with his school books into the 
 next room and happening to pass a mirror he paused to 
 survey himself in it. He made a very grave face and 
 wondered why it was that he was so annoyed and per- 
 
150 THE MASK 
 
 to look like him. He was astonished at his success and 
 at the variations he could give his mimicry. 
 
 It was at this unlucky moment that his mother came 
 into the room. John quite suddenly saw her in the mir 
 ror overlooking his shoulder, and the goblin as if fright 
 ened vanished from his face. The boy s heart gave a 
 jump. 
 
 "So this is what you have learnt at school !" he heard 
 his mother say, and there was no heart left in him to 
 retort or to tell her of the sadness of that morning. 
 
 He timidly followed his mother into the kitchen, and 
 sat down before a bowl of soup. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GOMBAROVS BEGIN THEIR NEW LIFE 
 
 A BLEAK day, in a bleak narrow street, still more dark 
 ened and cooled by the tall buildings. Drays passing, 
 dozens of wagons waiting, newspaper presses whirring 
 noisily under your feet, steam oozing out of gratings in 
 the pavement; cries, often profane, of draymen and 
 newsboys and sausage vendors; everywhere flashes of: 
 white torn newspapers littering the street; large letters, 
 too far apart to be read quickly, sprawling high across 
 the buildings, too ugly to be defaced; still higher over 
 head wires, hundreds of them, running in all directions. 
 
 "It was chaos, ungodly chaos," said John Gombarov, 
 speaking of it many years afterward. "Man s imagina 
 tion is wonderful, if vile, to have invented it. And just 
 as the face of God reflected itself in the waters which 
 swept across the original chaos, so the hand of Satan 
 showed itself in every detail which went to the making 
 of this new chaos." 
 
 On that bleak day, in that bleak narrow street, hun 
 dreds of men and boys kept pouring in through a very 
 broad door of the central building and pouring out again 
 with large stacks of newspapers under their arms. They 
 came out shouting the name of the paper. Inside the 
 building, in a large room, lit up by garish incandescent 
 lights, a long line of boys moved squirming past a count 
 er, caged off by wire netting, through a hole in which at 
 the other end a man in shirt sleeves would hand out the 
 papers to each succeeding boy. The boys, who were of 
 
152 THE MASK 
 
 all sizes, and for the most part ragged and dirty, moved 
 forward unevenly and jostled one another rather roughly 
 and made forward and backward thrusts with their el 
 bows and feet on the least provocation, sought a provo 
 cation when there was none, and accompanied each move 
 ment and thrust with a gibe or an oath. 
 
 "Stop your shovin ," said a big bully as he turned upon 
 a small frightened boy behind him neater and cleaner 
 than the rest. "Watsemarreh* with you ? Do you think 
 because yer mother washes yer face you re de boss of 
 dis here shop?" 
 
 "I m not pushing," replied the small boy timidly, "it s 
 the boys behind me." 
 
 **"G wan go back to Jerusalem !" growled the bully 
 in drawling, ranting accents. 
 
 Those within hearing laughed at this witticism. 
 
 The small boy, who was none other than John, once 
 Vanya, shrunk within himself and said nothing. At 
 that moment he would have gladly gone to Jerusalem, or 
 Jericho, or Bagdad, anywhere out of that place, for he 
 could not imagine a more wretched world than the one 
 he was already in. 
 
 At last he got his papers and he ran out crying his 
 wares like the rest in a voice which did not sound to him 
 like his own. His slender cry seemed lost in the midst 
 of the jarring, grating noises of that unechoing street, 
 and he had not shouted loudly since the old days, barely 
 more than three months ago but which seemed as many 
 years, in the woods, where the slenderest cry that he ut 
 tered grew into a resonant din lost somewhere among 
 the trees as among the reeds of a giant organ. 
 
 Presently he stopped in another newspaper offce and 
 a few minutes later at a third and added to his stock of 
 papers. He ran up Chestnut Street, a thoroughfare erect 
 
 * "What s the matter?" 
 ** "Go on !" 
 
THE GOMBAROVS BEGIN THEIR NEW LIFE 153 
 
 and unbending with pride and virtue, in which every un 
 toward appearance, deviating however slightly from local 
 custom, provoked astonishment or amusement. And in 
 these amused and astonished glances the bold and daring 
 of the city s architect shone eloquently forth. For in a 
 street so simple, so straight, so narrow, so honestly con 
 ceived, and bound as it were in its infancy to a straight 
 plank like an Indian child, it was natural that any appear 
 ance conceived, born and nourished in other circum 
 stances less simple, less erect, less blunt, was foredoomed 
 to become in the eyes of the native like a thing that is 
 strange, or warped, or peculiar, or merely amusing, so 
 that he swelled with pride, and superiority and conde 
 scension not less at the vision of an Englishman s spats 
 than at the itinerant rug merchant s fez. 
 
 There was not alone this condescension, if not aver 
 sion, to peculiar appearances, for with it went a deeper 
 intuition of deep-souled ingrained qualities even more 
 antagonistic to the native s character. For John, though 
 he wore neither the foreign merchant s fez nor an Eng 
 lishman s spats, was yet so indelibly stamped with a 
 nature irresistibly alien, if hard to define, that his Amer 
 ican clothes, far from hiding his peculiarities, accen 
 tuated them to such a degree that had he actually been 
 the wood goblin he had mimicked so successfully in 
 the mirror his sudden appearance in Philadelphia s 
 noblest thoroughfare could not have attracted more atten 
 tion. Yet he was neither a goblin, nor a monstrosity, and 
 his features were if anything more regular and distin 
 guished than the average boy s, while his eyes at times 
 shone almost feverishly against his dark skin. There 
 was perhaps too much old-worldliness in his brown face, 
 too much wistfulness in his grey eyes, to suit the taste 
 of the complacent native, with his store of energy, hos 
 tile to sorrow. The gleam of fear in the boy s eyes, his 
 hunted look, the utter sense of remoteness which some- 
 
154 THE MASK 
 
 thing in his appearance suggested, inevitably attracted 
 the glance of many a passer-by, whose mind sheltered 
 the embryo of a thought, as yet unuttered, hardly even 
 formed : "A wretched little foreigner, but in time we shall 
 make a man of him, take from him his benighted Euro 
 pean heart and with it the look of misery on his face, 
 and put in their place a true American heart and a look 
 of contentment. We shall run him through a mangle and 
 wring Europe out of his flesh and bones like dirt out 
 of a garment." 
 
 At least that was how John Gombarov expressed him 
 self years afterward in his picturesque way to his Eng 
 lish vis-a-vis of the A. B.C. shop, who, interrupting Gom 
 barov, observed : 
 
 "Your narrative interests me intensely, but I wonder 
 whether you are not too sweeping in your generalisa 
 tions. You appear to be actuated by too great a personal 
 passion to be altogether an impartial witness. The 
 trouble with you was that you were over-sensitive as a 
 boy and your experiences happened to be unfortunate." 
 
 Gombarov laughed his ironic laugh, and replied : 
 
 "No, Will, you don t do me justice. America is quite 
 beyond all human hate or pity. She is perhaps a great 
 blind cosmic force, sometimes even for idealism, but like 
 all cosmic things she fails in particulars. She is a gen 
 eralisation, she is in fact a great energy, a Niagara Falls, 
 not as yet harnessed properly. Didn t I write a book 
 idealising her? That was of course before my last jour 
 ney there. As for being over-sensitive, it s a thing 
 which works both ways. For after all, only a sensitive 
 being is capable of receiving such concentrated impres 
 sions of the character and psychology of a country. In 
 deed, coming fresh from the Russian woods, where even 
 my own people left me alone, I was particularly impres 
 sionable to the rudeness of my new world. I was like 
 a chaste, unused phonographic disk ready to record new 
 
THE GOMBAROVS BEGIN THEIR NEW LIFE 155 
 
 voices, and if these voices sound at times rude and 
 querulous, please remember that the voices and not the 
 instrument are at fault. The Russians have a good say 
 ing: Don t blame the mirror if your face is crooked ." 
 "Go on with your story, I shan t interrupt again," 
 said Gombarov s friend, William Douglass, who, with 
 a painter s interest, watched, fascinated, the fluent mo 
 bility of the lines of his friend s face, a mask of 
 vehement sincerity. 
 
 That was John s second day as a newsboy, having 
 been initiated the day before by a boy who lived in the 
 same house with the Gombarovs. He had considered 
 himself successful on his first day, having sold no less 
 than thirty papers, his entire stock, and made a clear 
 profit of fifteen cents. Thus encouraged, he had pro 
 cured a larger stock on the following day, forty to be 
 exact, and ran up Chestnut Street, doing his best to 
 imitate the cry of the other boys. His frail, hesitant cry 
 penetrated only a few yards, but within its small radius 
 its very hesitancy and frailty were a powerful magnet 
 directing curious eyes upon the strange and timid-looking 
 lad obviously unaccustomed to his task and surroundings. 
 Nor was the boy himself insensitive to the interest he 
 aroused, and this put further fetters on his spirit. 
 
 Discouraged by the few sales he had made so far, to 
 his great joy he ran into the boy who had acted sponsor 
 for him the day before. For a moment he lost his wist- 
 fulness and his face became transformed by a broad 
 smile. 
 
 "How are you doing?" the boy asked him. 
 
 "Not very well. Sold only four copies," he replied. 
 The boy s question recalled him to himself, and he be 
 came wistful again. 
 
 "I ll tell you what to do," said the boy. "Find your 
 self a corner and work it up. You may not do very well 
 
156 THE MASK 
 
 at first, but little by little you ll work up a lot of steady 
 customers. I believe Seventh and Chestnut street is a 
 free corner. Try it there, and maybe I ll look you up 
 by and by." 
 
 John felt encouraged, and did as the boy told him. 
 He placed himself at the suggested corner, and repeated 
 one and the same cry : 
 
 "Pa-per-r-s . . . Pa-per-r-s . . . 
 
 The day was growing bleaker, the streets darkened 
 perceptibly, snow began to fall as yet sparsely. Lights 
 began to appear in the windows of the tall buildings. A 
 man with a tall pole, at the top of which was a small 
 flame, stopped to light the corner lamp. John watched 
 him and wondered how the flame came to be there. The 
 snow fell and melted, owing to the hot furnaces under the 
 pavements. John s feet began to feel wet, his hands 
 numb, from time to time he huddled himself in a door 
 way, or hopped up and down on his feet to keep warm. 
 Men ceased to notice him. The buyers were few and he 
 lost three sales because he did not have the proper change. 
 Altogether he felt miserable, his heart was filled with 
 self-pity, he wanted to cry. But he set his teeth hard, 
 clenched his numbed fists, and with a powerful effort 
 restrained himself. A courage seemed born in him of 
 desperation, and his cry, squeezed as it were no longer 
 from his throat but from his whole body, grew less 
 hesitant, grew louder and bolder. 
 
 More and more lights sprang up in the buildings and 
 in the street, and the snow growing thicker he paused 
 now and then to watch its separate particles dancing in 
 the blaze of the arc lights and the people moving like 
 shadows in the haze below. Horse-drawn tram cars ran 
 past him, packed full of people, the rear platform to the 
 very step so overweighted with them that John wondered 
 that it did not lift the fore part of the car off the tracks. 
 The street too was becoming more crowded, people were 
 
THE GOMBAROVS BEGIN THEIR NEW LIFE 157 
 
 going home to their dinners. Iron shutters and iron 
 doors were being pulled down in the shops. The snow 
 still fell, and the aic grew warmer. John suddenly be 
 came aware of steam escaping from a grating. He went 
 and stood over it. It was as if he had entered a warm 
 room. The vapours caught him, embraced him, a 
 warmth poured itself into his small body like a deli 
 cious hot drink. He felt as if he were melting and there 
 were moments when he seemed to be in a trance. A wave 
 of warmth swept upward, and he closed his eyes. A 
 moment of forgetfulness came upon him, a little moment 
 of dreaming. When he opened his eyes, he expected to 
 find himself on top of a Russian oven, Marta bending 
 over him and saying : 
 
 "What s the matter, Vanya darling; don t cry, my 
 darling." 
 
 The warmth had quite melted him, and he was crying. 
 But there was happiness for him in this flow of tears. 
 It was as if they had accumulated, as if the sheer weight 
 of them thus partly lifted from him had lightened his 
 heart. Then he roused himself once more, and pulling 
 himself together, he shouted in all his voice : 
 
 "Pa-per-r-s . . . " 
 
 As if so desperate a call could not pass without a 
 response a tall dark figure hastened toward him through 
 the haze. 
 
 "Have you got the Star?" 
 
 "Yes," said John, pulling out the paper. 
 
 "Give me change out of a dime, quick, I m in a hurry," 
 said the man. holding a coin in his hand. 
 
 John fumbled in his pocket and with some difficulty 
 counted out the change and gave it to the man, who then 
 thrust the dime into John s hand so quickly that before 
 he had time to clutch it, the coin dropped through the 
 grating. 
 
 John, acting on his first impulse, sprang from his 
 
158 THE MASK 
 
 warm shelter and dashed after the man. He ran several 
 yards, elbowing his way now and then past pedestrians, 
 who swore at him, and finally came upon a tall striding 
 figure, , which resembled his man. But when he came 
 closer he knew that this was not he. He ran on farther 
 and turned to look into the face of every tall man he 
 caught up with. He had by this time reached the next 
 crossing. This was a very busy crossing, and dark 
 figures were darting in all directions. John paused here 
 and stood looking through the snow mist, dazed by his 
 failure. This time he was roused by a voice full of 
 menace : 
 
 "Look-a-here, beat it, this is my corner." 
 
 "I m . . . I m . . . looking f-for a man . . . " 
 stammered out John. 
 
 "Lookin for a man, are you? Well, you ain t goin* 
 to find im here. All de men on dis here corner are mine, 
 see? Now get a move on!" 
 
 John moved on. Crestfallen, no longer minding the 
 wet and the cold, he slunk back to his corner. He 
 stood all huddled up over the grating, all immersed in 
 his miserable thoughts. He knew as yet no curse words, 
 and inarticulate curses ran in his whole blood and tor 
 tured him. But he cursed himself no less than the world. 
 He was a coward and a good-for-nothing. What was 
 the good of him? What was the good of the world? 
 Why was he different ? And again the thought returned 
 to him : 
 
 "I wish I were dead." 
 
 But suppose death really came to him then, as it did to 
 the little old man of the wood who was carrying a bundle 
 of faggots on his bent back and was sick of life? What 
 did the little old man in the fable say to Death when it 
 came ? The little old man said : "Help me to carry my 
 wood." That was what the little old man said to Death. 
 What would he say if Death suddenly appeared? Ah, 
 
THE GOMBAROVS BEGIN THEIR NEW LIFE 159 
 
 he knew what he would say. "Help me to sell my papers. 
 Find the lost dime for me under the grating. Pull the 
 ear of the boy who spoke harshly to me." And the 
 thought of what he would say somehow consoled him. 
 Perhaps he did not really want to die. 
 
 Immersed in his thoughts, he heard his name called : 
 
 "John, how are you doing?" 
 
 It was his friend, who looked him up as he had 
 promised. 
 
 "I ve sold twenty, and I ve got twenty left." 
 
 "Bad luck. That means you ve got your money back. 
 Well, never mind, you ll exchange your papers for new 
 ones to-morrow, and so your papers will cost you less. 
 You ought to make a handsome profit to-morrow. Let s 
 go home now." 
 
 John walked along by the side of the boy, his head 
 drooping, feeling very much like a slinking dog with his 
 tail between his legs. He did not speak for some time. 
 He was ashamed to tell the boy about the lost dime and 
 that because of it he had not even his money back. At 
 last he gathered courage and told him. 
 
 His companion said nothing for a while. He appeared 
 to be thinking. 
 
 Til tell you what I ll do," he said at last as if an 
 inspiration came to him. "I ll lend you a dime, and you 
 can pay it back to me a cent a day. Then your mother 
 needn t know, and you won t feel your loss so much. 
 What do you say?" 
 
 "All right ..." said John with hesitation, while his 
 teeth chattered. He felt very grateful to the boy and did 
 not know how to express himself. By the time they got. 
 to the house he was still wondering what to say. 
 
 When they were about to part in the hall, his com 
 panion said : 
 
 "You haven t thanked me yet." 
 
 John was confused. He realised once more how he 
 
160 THE MASK 
 
 had been neglected, and how different he felt from other 
 boys because of this neglect. He had not been taught to 
 thank, he had had so little occasion to thank, that he had 
 come too little in contact with people to thank. And 
 this boy made him feel very much abashed. 
 
 U I ... I ... thank you ..." stammered out John. 
 
 Weighed down by embarrassment and shame, which 
 settled in his heart, like a cloud, he entered the kitchen, 
 and having flung his papers aside and taken his overcoat 
 off, he joined the others round the big iron stove. 
 
 Raya and Dunya, their sleeves rolled up, their faces 
 grimacing with pain, held their outspread hands over 
 the stove, while their feet marked time noisily on the 
 bare floor. They were indeed numb with cold, having 
 just come in from the yard, where in a half-open shed 
 they had spent some time over the wash-tub rinsing out 
 the clothes. The large kettle was beginning to sing and 
 its song was good to the ear. In the next room Gombar- 
 ova was trying to get the baby to sleep, she hummed a 
 Russian lullaby, the same one that John knew so well and 
 loved : 
 
 "Sleep my baby, sleep my darling, 
 Bayonshki bayou. . . ! 
 
 The song grew lower and lower, and presently it stopped. 
 John still sat with his head propped up in his hands, in 
 an attitude of listening when his mother entered. She 
 was about to ask him about the luck he had had that day, 
 but her eye falling upon the large bundle of papers and 
 noting the boy s passive attitude, so unlike his joy of 
 yesterday, she refrained. Soon the table was set and all 
 sat round before steaming bowls of soup. Big chunks of 
 bread were handed round. 
 
 They ate ravenously, in silence, which Gombarova was 
 the first to break. 
 
THE GOMBAROVS BEGIN THEIR NEW LIFE 161 
 
 "Well, Vanya," she still called him Vanya sometimes 
 "I think you had rather a miserable time of it to 
 day ... 
 
 "Yes, I had," interrupted John, a deep flush coming in 
 a wave on his face. 
 
 "You should have come home earlier. It was so cold." 
 
 "How could I? I had all my papers. No one would 
 Ibuy. I didn t want to bring them all home with me. 
 As it is, I only sold half of them, so that I ve just got 
 imy money back but my papers will cost me less to 
 morrow, for I shall exchange those I haven t sold for 
 
 new ones." 
 
 He said all this quickly, as if anxious to get it over 
 and at the same time to console his mother with to- 
 lorrow s prospects. He saw that his mother had a wor- 
 ed look, and at that moment his pity for her swallowed 
 p his pity for himself. He had not the heart to tell her 
 Dout the lost dime. And he felt humiliation not only 
 t his loss, but at the deception he played on his mother. 
 
 Supper over, they all sat themselves round the stove. 
 
 "Vanya," said his mother, seeing his face buried in 
 is hands and his eyes looking into red embers, which 
 lowed through the grate, "what of your lessons?" 
 
 John went into the next room and returned with a 
 ook. The baby gave a waking cry as he re-entered. 
 
 "Schlemil," said his mother and went in to rock the 
 aby to sleep again. 
 
 Raya held Absalom in her arms and tried to amuse 
 im, Dunya sat mending a garment. John held the book 
 
 his hand and lifting his head high went on repeating 
 iterminably : 
 
 "George Washington is the Father of His Coun- 
 . . . George Washington is the Father of His 
 Country . . . George Washington is the Father of His 
 ountry . . . 
 
 Dunya was in a teasing mood. 
 
162 THE MASK 
 
 "If George Washington is the Father of His Country," 
 she addressed her brother, "who is the mother?" 
 
 "There isn t any mother." 
 
 "No mother? How can that be, you silly?" said 
 Dunya. "Where there is a father there must be a 
 mother." 
 
 That was logical enough, yet somehow it failed to 
 satisfy John. He pondered for a while. 
 
 "I ll tell you what," resumed Dunya, "what was the 
 name of Washington s wife?" 
 
 "Martha," replied John. 
 
 "Well then, you silly," said Dunya in conclusive tones, 
 "if George Washington is the Father of His Country, 
 then his wife, Martha, is the Mother of Her Country." 
 
 John was unsatisfied. He had been taught only that 
 there was a Father of His Country. Nothing had been 
 said to him about a mother. Besides, he hated to bei 
 bested in an argument. Suddenly a thought came to 
 him, and he brightened up. 
 
 "No," he cried in triumph, "that can t be. For if] 
 George Washington is the Father of His Country, and his 
 wife, Martha, the mother, then his brother and her 
 brother would be the uncles of their country, his sister 
 and her sister would be the aunts o>f their country, and- 
 the children of these aunts and uncles would be the 
 cousins of their country, and so on. There would be no- 
 stopping anywhere. And so you see, this country had a 
 father, but no mother. Well, who s the silly now?" 
 
 John gloated with pride at his unanswerable argu 
 ment, and looked at his sister as if he awaited but ex 
 pected no answer. And indeed all Dunya could say was : 
 
 "Ask your teacher to-morrow, and she will tell you 
 that Martha was the mother of this country." 
 
 "She wasn t." 
 
 "She was." 
 
 This wrangling might have gone on indefinitely, had 
 
THE GOMBAROVS BEGIN THEIR NEW LIFE 163 
 
 not their mother come in at that moment. John went 
 on to the next sentence. 
 
 Bed time came. Gombarova picked up the lamp from 
 the table, and everyone reluctantly left the stove and fol 
 lowed her into the next room. The room was large and 
 dismally cold, it being a corner house, exposed on two 
 sides. The slightly turned down flame of the lamp, 
 placed on the table in the middle of the room, flickered 
 gently as if caressed by timid slender gusts, causing ap 
 prehensive shadows to dance and waver in the corners 
 and occasionally to sweep agitatedly across the walls and 
 the ceiling in large frantic movements. The windows 
 were luxuriant gardens of beautiful frost-flowers, which 
 grew almost perceptibly and opened out and wafted their 
 unfragrant iciness into the room. John pressed his nose 
 against the window, and coming in contact with nettles 
 of ice, withdrew quickly. He scraped away a small circle 
 on the pane with his finger nails and looked out. The 
 snow had ceased falling. 
 
 When he turned his face again, the large room, but 
 rpoorly furnished with a few bare necessities, was in a 
 confusion. Mattresses were being drawn out of a cup- 
 
 oard and flung on the floor against the walls. The 
 
 rombarovs no longer slept in beds. 
 
 Gombarova herself slept in the most sheltered corner, 
 Sonyatchka s cradle being within reach of her hand. 
 
 When Sonyatchka cried, Gombarova, her eyes closed, 
 automatically put out her hand and rocked the cradle. 
 
 R.aya and Dunya slept together on one mattress, Katya 
 
 ind Absalom on another. John had a small mattress all 
 
 :o himself. 
 As soon as she saw all her children in their places 
 
 Sombarova blew out the light and scurried over on her 
 
 :ip-toes to her corner across the cold carpetless floor. 
 
 Sonyatchka gave a cry and the cradle began to rock. A 
 
164 THE MASK 
 
 low sleepy voice hummed a wordless lullaby. Elsewhere 
 there were faint girlish whispers. The sound of rocking 
 grew steadily lower, it seemed to lull the humming voice 
 to sleep, the whispers ceased more abruptly. All that a 
 little while ago lived, spoke and moved, now lapsed into 
 mere breathing, deep, loud, long-drawn, now and then 
 rising to hoarseness in the torturous effort to become a 
 very young snore. 
 
 Night moved through the room on her noiseless feet 
 and put her light dim fingers on weary heads. The 
 Gombarovs slept. 
 
 Only John did not sleep. All curled up with cold, he 
 lay there hardly dead, hardly alive. The cold air swept 
 across the floor and tickled his nose. The chaos of 
 his daylight life still whirled within him, gathered itself 
 as it were into a ball of flame and settled where the heart 
 was, only there was no longer any heart but a ball of 
 flame. And this ball of flame, twirling, shot sparks to 
 his brain, each spark a burning thought, a consuming 
 fear. What was the use of it all? What was the ob 
 ject of life? Why had he come into the world? Was 
 it only to suffer ? He believed in God, a large man with 
 a long flowing beard, but why was he so unkind to them, 
 the Gombarovs? He lay there, hardly moving, hardly 
 breathing, his large, wide-awake eyes fixed on the win 
 dow, on the frost-flowers, made clear and luminous by 
 the arc light outside. Why did they breathe so, these 
 others, his mother and sisters? Their hard breathing 
 alarmed him. Dunya muttered something just then, 
 Raya gave a slight moan. Why couldn t people sleep 
 quietly ? John pulled the cover over his head. The ball 
 of fire became like a stream, flowing between the head and 
 the heart. This stream grew more and more sluggish, 
 his thoughts grew more and more vague and confused, 
 and at last weariness overcame him, he was asleep. 
 
 He had hardly closed his eyes than he woke as it were 
 
THE GOMBAROVS BEGIN THEIR NEW LIFE 165 
 
 in another world. Much of what he had seen there he 
 did not remember the next day, but he did remember 
 entering a deep wood, swinging a long leafless birch, 
 lopping off. the heads of toadstools on either side of the 
 little path. At last he came upon a large mushroom, 
 and he had already lifted his birch in order to lop its 
 head off, but paused quite suddenly : the mushroom was 
 no longer a mushroom, but a small boy, very much like 
 himself. Then he dicl not remember exactly how it 
 happened he suddenly found himself running. He 
 was being pursued by many small boys without heads. 
 They were the toadstools whose heads he had lopped 
 off. Though they were headless, and therefore blind, 
 they pursued him unerringly, their arms stretched for 
 ward, fingers claw-like. At last he stumbled and fell 
 on his knees, he wanted to cry out and could not utter 
 the slightest sound. A hole seemed to open m the 
 ground before him. He gave a scream and fell head 
 long into it. 
 
 He opened his eyes, and heard his mother s voice : 
 "What is the matter, Vanya, my darling? I m here, 
 ;ny darling." 
 
 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 STEPFATHER GOMBAROV s NEW VENTURE AND ADVENTURE 
 
 ONCE Gombarova settled with her flock of young 
 ones in her new quarters on the top floor of an Ameri 
 can tenement, small and wretched even beside the serv 
 ants quarters of the houses to which she had been ac 
 customed, she began to take stock of her immediate re 
 sources, and finding that they were none too good after 
 the expenses of the journey and later readjustment, 
 began to look anxiously to her husband s arrival and 
 wrote him many anxious letters to hasten it. As the 
 days and the weeks passed, and Gombarov did not come, 
 this anxiety increased. The few letters he sent con 
 tained ardent descriptions of new plans and vague prom 
 ises about coming. 
 
 Gombarov s brother, lakov Bogdanovitch, proved 
 worse than useless. He started a small dyeing estab 
 lishment in a basement a few doors away on Gom- 
 barova s money and favoured the Gombarovs with his 
 presence at an occasional meal. 
 
 And with the coming of new troubled days Gombarova 
 felt more and more the need of unburdening herself to 
 someone. One day she told something of her troubles 
 to the woman who lived on the floor below, a large good- 
 natured soul, the wife of a tailor. 
 
 "Woe to Columbus," * she observed at the end of 
 
 * cf A klug zu Kolombussen" "Woe to Columbus" is a common 
 expression among Immigrant Jews in America, and is a sort of 
 ironic imprecation upon the discoverer of America for their tribula 
 tions in the new country. 
 
 166 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE 167 
 
 Gombarova s story, "and it s even worse here than in 
 Russia. One works from morning till night to make a 
 bare living. But I ll tell you what you can do. Why 
 don t you send out your boy to sell papers? My Harry 
 will show him." 
 
 Gombarova hesitated a long time in taking this step, 
 but at last, with many misgivings, she made up her mind 
 to it. And that was how Vanya, three months short of 
 eleven, found himself suddenly in after-school hours in 
 the streets, doing a small but manly share to support the 
 household. 
 
 Then came a long, anxious interval of weeks, during 
 which Gombarova did not receive a word from her hus 
 band. This gave her much worry, and she was wor 
 ried beside about Katya, who was taken ill just then. 
 Katya was taken to the hospital, and Gombarova was 
 permitted to see her on visiting days. During this time 
 Gombarova had had many frantic moments. But one 
 day a cablegram arrived from Gombarov, and she opened 
 it with a trembling heart. It contained but one word: 
 
 "Free." 
 
 She did not know what to make of it. A partial ex 
 planation came about two weeks later, in a short note: 
 
 "Have been just released from prison. Will be with 
 you again in a few days." 
 
 That very day she brought Katya back from the hos 
 pital. Katya was still very weak and a little yellow 
 the doctors said she had a mild form of jaundice, which! 
 was rather a rare illness, and so they were glad to 
 have her. For the first time in weeks Gombarova was 
 overwhelmingly happy. Indeed, it took but little to give 
 her joy. She was more like a trembling young virgin 
 awaiting her lover than a mother of several children. 
 And in those few days she bore her burdens as if they 
 were no heavier than a necklace of pearls. 
 
 Gombarov arrived toward the end of May. It was 
 
168 THE MASK 
 
 a sweltering day, almost like mid-summer, and he strode 
 into the room attired in a linen suit, carrying a ponder 
 ously large leather bag which contained his personal 
 luggage. He had not written on what ship he was com 
 ing, so that his entrance at the very moment that the 
 Gombarovs were seated round the table at lunch took 
 them all by surprise. After a protracted embrace of his 
 wife, he embraced every one of the children separately, 
 then in twos and in threes, gripping them so tightly that 
 they cried with delight and pain. Gombarova gave 
 John s chair to her husband, and gave John a box to sit 
 on, there being no more chairs than there was need for 
 in the Gombarov household. Gombarov talked as he 
 ate. 
 
 "This is a barbarous place," was almost the first thing 
 he said. "I no sooner passed the officials and got out 
 of the immigrant station than I was attacked by a lot of 
 young hooligans. I don t know what they imagined I 
 was, perhaps a wild man from Africa. They made a 
 noise and shouted all sorts of sounds at me, they surely 
 couldn t have been words." 
 
 "Did they say B-zzzz ?" prompted Vanya. 
 
 "Yes, that was one of the things." 
 
 "That was at your beard," said Vanya, rather proud 
 of his knowledge, "and did they say Sheeny ?" 
 
 "Yes, that s it, how clever you are, Vanya. What 
 does Sheeny mean?" 
 
 "That means Jew," answered Vanya, pleased at this 
 proof afforded his mother of his own experience. 
 
 "So this is the free America, this is the City of Broth 
 erly Love. We ve run away from Sodom to come to ; 
 Gomorrah. Well, I m glad you ve told me what thesd 
 noises mean, Vanya, for I put my bag down for a mo 
 ment and ran after one of those brats; he ran fast, but 
 I ran faster. I caught him by his coat, then took hold 
 of one of his donkey ears, and led him back to where my 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE 169 
 
 bag was. He struggled hard, but I managed to put him 
 across my bended knee and gave him a drubbing that the 
 young rascal won t forget soon. The other boys stood 
 at some distance and jeered, but I went about my busi 
 ness. I wanted to give them a good reason for their 
 jeering, and I did. I don t let anyone get the best of 
 
 me." 
 
 Vanya was especially delighted with the experience 
 related by Gombarov, and it gave him great joy to visu 
 alise the scene again and again. He felt that to some 
 extent his stepfather had avenged his own persecution, 
 from which he was not altogether free even now. Gom- 
 barova, on the other hand, looked worried, and at the 
 end of her husband s narrative suggested quietly: 
 
 "I think, my dear, you d better trim your beard a lit 
 tle, and get yourself a new suit." 
 
 She was far more eager to hear his own story, the 
 story of the past few months, of his life in Russia, the 
 reason of his going to prison, and other things of im 
 portance. After Raya, Dunya and Vanya had left for 
 school, and she had tidied up the rooms, she broached 
 the subject. He told her briefly of his experiences since 
 his parting with her. 
 
 His first thought after his family s departure had been 
 to settle the insurance affair, and once the money was in 
 his pocket to rejoin his dear ones. But owing to the 
 suspicious circumstances attendant upon the fire, the mat 
 ter dragged along for weeks, and as he, Gombarov, was 
 not a man to sit still with his hands folded, not if he 
 tried, he bethought himself of something to do in the 
 meantime. It occurred to him : why shouldn t he carry on 
 his incidental experimental work before resuscitating his 
 original project in America? He would show to him 
 self and to others that no conflagration could consume his 
 ardour, no deluge could drown his enthusiasm. After 
 
170 THE MASK 
 
 all, that fire was an accident, it was not likely to happen 
 again. He bore no hatred toward Mendel, who, like a 
 pearl or alloy, was a chemical accident. Perhaps the 
 fire was even a good thing in its way, for after the first 
 mood of listlessness into which it plunged him, after the 
 first slight stoop it gave his back as he walked ground- 
 gazing, a great rage seized him, waking all his energy, 
 rousing his will and determination ; he straightened him 
 self, stood erect, there was neither sky nor ground for 
 him, neither God nor devil, only himself and his creative 
 ,fire within him. He would clear the old ruins, and 
 build better in their place. 
 
 He rented half of a peasant s cottage in a village where 
 he was not known; the other half was occupied by its 
 owner, an old peasant woman. His share of the place 
 consisted of a single, none too large room, with low ceil 
 ing, clay floor, white-washed walls, large brick oven on 
 which you could sleep, and two small deep windows. 
 He fitted up this room as a small laboratory, and took 
 up his work where he had left off. 
 
 The villagers did not know what to make of the man, 
 who so strangely shut himself in, and for whom mys 
 terious small parcels kept on arriving almost every day. 
 All sorts of rumours began to spread about him, and he 
 became the talk of that and the neighbouring villages. 
 One person passed the cottage at midnight, and hap 
 pening to glance at the window saw an astonishing blue 
 shooting flame, which made him cross himself three 
 times; another person passed the house on another night, 
 and glancing toward the window saw a purple flame 
 falling apart in star-like sparks; he didn t stop to cross 
 himself but ran on in the dark, pursued, it seemed to him, 
 by the echoing footfalls of the cloven hoof; a third, 
 bolder than the rest, actuated by a most fearful curios 
 ity, almost not his own, ventured as far as the window 
 there was a fierce fire in the oven, and Gombarov, who 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE 171 
 
 stood with his back to the window, appeared to be work 
 ing something with one foot, the fire gaining or losing 
 !in fierceness in the degree that the foot increased or 
 slackened its action; from time to time he paused to 
 throw small square-looking objects into strange-look 
 ing pots suspended on a metal bar over the curiously 
 coloured fire. At one moment he took one of the pots 
 and poured its contents into another, fire poured in "just 
 like water" at that instant Gombarov turned his per 
 spiring face, looking fierce, tortured with the heat, lit 
 up by the coloured flames, furrowed by sharp lines as 
 cending as it were upward, eye-brows turned up at the 
 outer corners in short, the whole image gave the peeper 
 the impression that he saw the devil in person. The 
 peeper was so frightened by the apparition that he did 
 not stop to look further, but fled precipitately, and only 
 stopped to cross himself when he was safe in his own 
 house. 
 
 1 Before long the report spread that Gombarov prac 
 tised black magic, that he was Antichrist. Gombarov 
 himself was oblivious of the excitement he caused. The 
 landlady was appealed to, but as he appeared very human 
 and very kind to her, and had besides paid her hand 
 somely for a quarter in advance, she did not see what 
 she could do. Of course, he might be a bit of a 
 znakhar * in a benevolent way, that is a man who knew 
 something and made use of his knowledge for good and 
 not for bad. And she held to her opinion so strongly 
 that the village became divided into two camps : there 
 were those who believed Gombarov to be an evil sor 
 cerer and Antichrist, and those who, seeing his face by 
 daylight and being witness to his reasonable ways, scouted 
 the conclusions of the midnight prowlers and were con 
 vinced that he was a man of great learning. This con 
 viction was strengthened by the fact that latterly he had 
 * Wizard. 
 
172 THE MASK 
 
 called in his landlady once or twice to assist him in small 
 operations which required a second hand. Surely, they 
 thought, if he was the evil one, he would keep his af 
 fairs more dark. But the others held to their own and 
 argued that the wiles of Satan were so great that they 
 were not above simulating frankness and even kindness, 
 in order the better to hide evil deeds. 
 
 This conflict about Gombarov might have gone on 
 indefinitely, had not a new arrival from St. Petersburg 
 upset the calculation of both camps and threw them into 
 a new turmoil. This arrival was Arkhip Petrovitch, a 
 native of the village who served as house porter for a 
 retired general in Peter* and had received a few days 
 leave to see his mother. Owing to his life in Peter, 
 Arkhip was regarded highly, even with awe, by the vil 
 lagers, and as his opinion was held to be of value, he 
 was not long in hearing both sides about Gombarov. 
 When they came to the point in the narrative about 
 mysterious parcels, the curious blue and purple flames 
 and the pots of liquid fire Arkhip s face suddenly bright 
 ened up, a gleam of intelligence leapt to his eyes, he ] 
 smiled the smile of one who was superior to his fellows 
 and twirled his moustaches in a way that left no doubt 
 that he had a clue to the mystery. He showed his good 
 training, gained at the point of the general s boot, by 
 not interrupting, but he kept up his tantalising smile and 
 twirled his moustaches with gingerly assurance. When 
 the speaker concluded, Arkhip made an impressive face, 
 but withheld his pronouncement for some moments. He 
 appeared to enjoy the looks of anticipation he had pro 
 voked in the villagers faces and prolonged the suspense 
 in order to heighten the effect of the thunderbolt he was 
 about to throw. 
 
 Well, well," he drawled at last, "you are a lot of 
 country bumpkins; you can t see further than your nose; 
 
 * Short for St. Petersburg. 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE 173 
 
 may the Lord have mercy on your souls ! Not that it s 
 for me to judge you, seeing as you haven t lived in Peter, 
 and haven t seen the things as I have seen. Why, 
 brother, such things do happen as would make your hair 
 stand on end, and it s a wise man as would be able to 
 tell the difference between himself and a porcupine. Of 
 course, how should you know? The potatoes have got 
 to be hoed, the corn has got to be threshed, the hay 
 mowed. These things has got to be done, and you are 
 here to do it. If everybody was to go to Peter what 
 would become of our matushka * Russia. And so mind 
 you, I m not blaming you, for not seeing through this 
 Jew fellow. They are a sleek lot, these Jews. And it s 
 all clear as daylight to me, what he is and what s he 
 come down here for to work on the quiet. I haven t 
 been all these years in Peter for nothing, and it s rather 
 lucky for you I ve come when I did. Let me tell you 
 then, you ve got a dangerous man among you, and you 
 don t know it. The idea of taking this Jew for a sor 
 cerer ! That would make my master, the general, laugh. 
 Well, I ll tell you what he s up to. He s one of those 
 Nihilist fellows, and he s making bombs to blow up some 
 one or other, you can t tell, maybe some governor, some 
 general, maybe the batiishka** Tsar himself." 
 
 Then Arkhip paused and watched the faces of his lis 
 teners to see what effect his own bomb had on them. 
 He twirled his moustaches more vigorously than ever, 
 twisting them upward into sharp points. His hearers 
 were indeed startled, and it was clear that their hitherto 
 divided opinions melted and merged credulously before 
 the fierce assurance of the newcomer. They raised a tu 
 mult of indignation, and Arkhip, who had watched his 
 master, the general, to some good purpose, lifted his 
 hand for silence, whereat the villagers became quiet. 
 
 * Little mother. 
 ** Little father. 
 
174 THE MASK 
 
 "Now don t make a fuss about it," began Arkhip, 
 "these Nihilists are very slippery fellows, especially when 
 they are Jews. Once they smell a rat they are the very 
 devil for slipping through your fingers. You d think 
 they had an invisible cap and go off in the air somewhere. 
 Now you see them, now you don t. Leave it to me. 
 Don t let on you know anything. We ll catch him like 
 a rat in a trap. Silence, not a word as the general 
 says." 
 
 On the following day a cordon of police surrounded 
 Gombarov s *place. Answering the knock, Gombarov 
 opened the door, and found himself confronted by a 
 sergeant with dangling sabre, flanked on either side by 
 a soldier with fixed bayonet. Being slightly near 
 sighted, dazzled by the light, Gombarov with screwed up 
 eyes leant forward toward the sergeant. He looked puz 
 zled rather than afraid. 
 
 "We have come to search your place," said the ser 
 geant. 
 
 "Ah, I see, someone has been carrying tales about 
 me," remarked Gombarov. 
 
 Gombarov himself was searched first of all, and all 
 the letters and the papers in his pockets seized. Then 
 they began to search among his books, Gombarov help 
 ing. In a very adroit way he managed to slip a little 
 paper-covered book into his pocket. It was entitled 
 "The Iron Age," and Gombarov had received it in an 
 swer to an advertisement which described it as a book 
 dealing with certain technical matters but which when 
 it came turned out to be a revolutionary pamphlet. 
 
 They found nothing. That is, they found no incrimi 
 nating books or papers, nor bombs. But the chemicals 
 looked suspicious, like most things one doesn t know any 
 thing about. 
 
 "You d better come along with us," said the sergeant 
 to Gombarov at the end of the search. 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE 175 
 
 To Gombarov s protest, the sergeant replied : 
 
 "I m sorry, but that s our orders. I have a warrant 
 for your arrest." 
 
 And he drew out of his pocket an official paper with 
 a red seal. 
 
 The sergeant locked the door and gave orders for the 
 room not to be disturbed. Gombarov marched down the 
 village street between six soldiers with fixed bayonets. 
 He walked calmly, addressing a remark now and then to 
 the sergeant, who replied politely. Again evil, tri 
 umphant in men s hearts, looked out of multiple eyes, 
 with satisfaction and malice. But good, mystified, 
 turned away in pity, and closing its eyes, prayed on bent 
 ! knees before the dimly lit-up image. For Gombarov had 
 been kind to some of them in their need, had cured their 
 babies for them with mysterious medicines. Arkhip and 
 his comrades, watching the gleaming bayonets disap 
 pear, station-wards, over the crest of the hill, turned their 
 footsteps toward the public house, splitting the clear, 
 sun-lit air with uproarious guffaws. 
 
 Once in his cell, Gombarov thought of the little book 
 in his pocket and of the best way he could dispose of it. 
 He examined his cell. He decided it was too risky to 
 toss the book through the barred window into the court 
 yard. There was a flue high up in the wall, and he could 
 just manage to reach its grating by standing up on the 
 cot. First of all, he tore the pamphlet into tiny bits, 
 then having made sure by putting his ear to the door that 
 there was no guard within hearing he stood up on the 
 cot and by stretching out his arm to the uttermost he 
 just managed to reach the grating. Through infinite 
 patience and no little physical exertion, he rid himself 
 of his contraband, scrap by scrap, rolled into little tubes 
 to get them through the very small openings. The whole 
 operation took about twenty minutes, and at the end of 
 it he felt easier. 
 
176 THE MASK 
 
 He had no sooner finished his arduous task than he 
 heard footsteps in the corridor, the rhythmical clink of 
 spurs. They paused before his door, which opened 
 quietly. Two gendarmes entered, they asked Gombarov 
 to follow them. 
 
 Down the dimly-lit corridor he walked between th< 
 gendarmes, turning corners, and more corners, aston 
 ished at the hive-like maze of passages and cross-pas 
 sages, at the maddening continuity of doors and the mo 
 notonous interludes between doors, the gendarmes spurs 
 clinking steadily and evenly, so many clinks between 
 one door and another, clink, clink, clink, past doors in 
 terminable in number, an infinity of doors, each leading 
 into a cul-de-sac of human wretchedness as into a honey- 
 less bee-cell holding a writhing bee shut in from flowers. 
 
 Then they crossed a closed-in, tunnel-like bridge into 
 another building, and walking up a stairway found them 
 selves in an area-way, hexagonal in shape, each section 
 of which had a door. One of the gendarmes pushing 
 open one of the doors, they came upon a small spiral stair 
 case, leading downward and upward. One gendarme led 
 the way down, followed by Gombarov, the other went 
 behind. They had got down but part way before they 
 paused on a small landing, which led into a small but 
 very deep door suggesting the entrance to a vault. The 
 door opened noiselessly, as of itself, and Gombarov was 
 astonished to find himself in a large brilliantly lighted 
 room. This onslaught of light dazzled him, for a mo 
 ment he saw nothing. When he looked to either side of 
 him the gendarmes were no longer there, they had de 
 parted silently. All at once he became aware of a pres 
 ence, rather large and official, and on hearing this pres 
 ence call his name, he walked in its direction, groping 
 through the light. The official s shape, shining at its sum 
 mit, loomed before Gombarov s dazzled near-sighted eyes 
 like a mountain in a sun-drenched mist. Gombarov 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE 177 
 
 laughed to himself as he realised the childish obviousness 
 of all these preliminaries, and he was determined that 
 he would neither be confused nor unnerved. He was an 
 experienced bird in his own way, and they weren t going 
 ito put any salt on his tail. Not if he could help it. He 
 1 braced himself, walked erect toward the official, and be 
 trayed not the least sign of fear. 
 
 "Be seated, please," said the official, who appeared to 
 be an important personage, if one were to judge from 
 ihis imperious manners and numerous decorations. 
 
 But Gombarov did not flinch. Not for an instant. 
 He sat down with a dignified ease, which must have 
 astonished the general, for Gombarov had made up his 
 imind that this official was nothing short of a general. He 
 sat down and waited, not like a man about to be cross- 
 examined, but like one who awaited an explanation. 
 
 The official asked the usual questions: his full name, 
 when and where was he born, what was his father s oc 
 cupation, on what date did he marry, how many chil 
 dren had he, what made him take up chemistry, and all 
 the rest of the official rigmarole. 
 
 Gombarov suddenly became aware of another pres 
 ence, a younger man, taking down his answers, which 
 were simple and direct and uttered without hesitation. 
 It was when they came to more recent events that the 
 official s manner became sharp and scrutinising. 
 
 "What I don t understand is, why you are here and 
 your family is in America," he said sharply. 
 
 "That s very simple," replied Gombarov, "I was wait 
 ing for my insurance money." 
 
 "You Jews are always waiting for your insurance 
 money." 
 
 "Your Excellency," observed Gombarov quite boldly, 
 "surely a man can t be a mercenary and a revolutionary 
 at the same time. I may be one or the other, but I can t 
 be both. Miserliness and recklessness are not brothers." 
 
178 THE MASK 
 
 "Never mind that," said the official. "What I want to 
 know is, did you get your money?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "About two months ago." 
 
 "M-mmm . . . two months ago . . . why didn t you 
 clear out then ?" 
 
 "I had begun some experiments, and as I was on the 
 point of making a discovery, I thought I had better go 
 on with them." 
 
 "What is your discovery?" 
 
 "It has to do with metals." 
 
 "M-mm . . . metals . . ." There was irony in the of 
 ficial s voice. He seemed lost in thought for a minute 
 or two. He leant forward toward Gombarov, and said 
 almost persuasively : 
 
 "Now, you tell us who your accomplices are and we will 
 let you off scot free, provided you go to America at once. 
 This is worth taking into consideration, I assure you." 
 
 "I am not a criminal, and therefore have no accom 
 plices," said Gombarov in a hard voice, on the verge of 
 anger. 
 
 "You d better think it over," said the official, "we ll 
 get at the truth in any case." 
 
 "I am not afraid of the truth," shouted Gombarov al 
 most into the official s face. 
 
 The official pressed a button at the side of his desk. 
 There was a clink of spurs outside the door. The door 
 opened silently. Two gendarmes entered. They were 
 not the same who had conducted him before. One walk 
 ing in front, the other bringing up the rear, Gombarov 
 keeping in step between them found himself at last in 
 his cell. 
 
 The news of Gombarov s arrest caused excitement in 
 the whole province. The newspapers printed accounts of 
 it and of the circumstances of the whole case, which they 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE 179 
 
 regarded as extremely suspicious. They dwelt espe 
 cially upon his life in the village and the feeling of un 
 rest he had created among the peasants. What they did 
 not dwell upon was the nature of this unrest. Alto 
 gether he was regarded as a very important capture. 
 The case was even reported in the metropolitan news 
 papers, gaining in glamour with every mile that it went 
 beyond its own immediate scene. 
 
 The trial opened, with the court room crowded with 
 men from many provinces, some of them quite distant, 
 so eager were they to see "the little Polish Jew" about 
 whom such strange reports circulated. Carriage after 
 carriage stopped at the approach to the court house, un 
 loading its occupants, men in epaulettes and gold braid, 
 and women in Parisian gowns. 
 
 Gombarov was calm, dignified, fearless. He had noth 
 ing to fear but injustice. His alert mind was a blade 
 of Sheffield steel, a sharp active rapier, which first of 
 all, with a few agile thrusts, ripped away the gold braid, 
 the epaulettes, the imperious voices, and all the official 
 tinsel of his adversaries; with an effort of his will he 
 stripped them, reduced them to minds, naked, without 
 extraneous defence, and he pitted his mind against theirs. 
 He was David, they were Goliath. He refused all coun 
 sel, he would make his own defence. What had he to 
 be afraid of, after all? Why, there were two or three 
 "bench-warmers" he had known and measured swords 
 with in his early days in the synagogue, and any one 
 of them, measuring mind against mind, could put a gen 
 eral into his pocket, gold braid and all. Standing in the 
 prisoner s docket, his mind arrogantly advanced to meet 
 theirs. Firm on his feet, the muscles of his legs strained 
 to tension, his shoulders sturdily erect, his plentiful 
 black hair bristling, his defiant eyes shot out as from a 
 sling luminous gleams of challenge. 
 
 The prosecution saw the challenge, wanted to break 
 
i8o THE MASK 
 
 him, made an effort to break him. The impudent little 
 Jew. They fired all sorts of questions at him with great 
 rapidity, they took turns in trying to confuse him, to put 
 him out of countenance by veiled insults, to reduce his 
 fearless mind to a quivering atom of dull fear in the be 
 wildering chaos of their own brilliance. He parried 
 the poisoned arrows, he fired his defiant answers clearly 
 and quickly, he sometimes answered question with ques 
 tion in Oriental fashion, introducing now and then to 
 their confusion a parable, and he made them fume when 
 he took the edge off the question by asking in bland, col 
 lected tones : 
 
 "Will you be good enough to repeat the question ?" 
 
 The audience gazed fascinated at the devilish little 
 man, who stood there so tense and electric, emitting 
 sparks in abundance, reaching all hearts. They had 
 come, full of anticipation, to see him flayed, to see him 
 stripped of the proverbial pound of flesh, taken from 
 his very heart, if a Jew can have a heart so large, but 
 there he was, very much whole and sound, his mind erect 
 like a wall between his heart and those who would flay 
 it. Indeed, there were keen moments when it seemed 
 to all that he was the flayer and they the flayed, he the 
 judge and they the judged. 
 
 "Molodtchina a clever chap !" whispered one grand 
 dame to her gold-adorned escort. She was studying the 
 face of the little Polish Jew through a lorgnette. 
 
 Others were pleased because they had a personal 
 grudge against one or more of the prosecuting officials 
 and would have a topic of conversation for some days 
 to come. 
 
 Gombarov had reduced his case to one of chemicals. 
 Were his chemicals of the sort used in the making of ex 
 plosives? Yes, some of them were. But others were 
 not. The pro cur eur- general picked up a small bottle 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE 181 
 
 containing a dull silvery fluid from a table upon which 
 was an exhibit of Gombarov s chemicals. 
 
 "What s this?" he asked Gombarov. 
 
 "That? It took me months to prepare that. I can 
 not tell you without giving away a secret that others 
 would take advantage of." 
 
 "But it is important that we should know." 
 
 "You have your own experts," retorted Gombarov. 
 
 An expert, on being called, admitted that he had made 
 an examination of the liquid, but that the nature of cer 
 tain of its properties had wholly eluded him. This state 
 ment coming from a government expert caused a com 
 motion in the court room. Gombarov stood there, ap 
 parently indifferent to it all. He concealed the satis 
 faction he felt. 
 
 The procureur-general turned to Gombarov. 
 
 "Never fear, we will get at the truth." 
 
 That awoke Gombarov from his momentary callous 
 ness. Something from the deepest depths of him gath 
 ered to his face in a fierce cloud, torturous for an instant 
 round the temples, then moving, relentless, very fierce, 
 breaking in a storm, sudden, unlooked-for; his sturdy 
 frame shook, his voice, not his own, was a lightning, 
 shrill and electric and very fierce; it withered the room 
 into a fierce silence, all were very silent and still, only 
 their spines felt a faint tremor vibrating downwards, 
 magnetically; his shrill, fierce cry vibrated down their 
 spines like the cry of Sarah Bernhardt in Tosca. 
 
 "I am not afraid of the truth. I have pursued truth 
 | all my life!" cried Gombarov shrilly and fiercely. 
 
 The fashionable audience forgot that they had come 
 to laugh at a little Polish Jew, that they had come to see 
 him flayed, flayed pitilessly. Pitiless and shrill was his 
 cry, and it flayed them pitilessly. They had come ribald 
 and expectant to see a Jew devil, a Shylock, a variation 
 on Shylock. And he flouted them pitilessly. But they 
 
182 THE MASK 
 
 enjoyed their flouting, because they thought they were 
 seeing a play, Sarah Bernhardt in Tosca. They ap 
 plauded. It was as if some spirit outside themselves, 
 entering their bodies at that moment, moved their hands 
 to applaud, though he had flouted them pitilessly. An 
 official rapped for silence, and reprimanded Gombarov 
 for his outburst. The case was continued. Witnesses 
 were called. Professor Malinov spoke of Gombarov s 
 scientific genius. 
 
 Gombarov was acquitted. Many came forward to 
 congratulate him, among them the formidable official, the 
 first to cross-examine him in gaol. He slipped a card 
 into Gombarov s hand and whispered: "At your serv 
 ice." He slipped it nonchalantly into his pocket. Later, 
 in a leisure moment, he came upon it, but was not aston 
 ished to read the name of General Lenitsky, a celebrated 
 official, very clever, very much feared, a price on his 
 head. 
 
 Gombarov returned to the village five days later. He 
 found many letters and telegrams waiting* for him). 
 Among these were four or five invitations to dinner from 
 baronesses and generals wives. He also found a dele 
 gation of peasants lodged at the inn, waiting for him 
 to appear. They were all crippled, or maimed or blind, 
 and on the day of his return, he opened the door in re 
 sponse to a knock, and he found them waiting for him, 
 a dozen of them or so. They came to be healed by him. 
 One wanted a leg straightened, that he might walk with 
 out a crutch; another, who went off into terrible fits of 
 coughing, wanted his asthma cured; a third, with cata 
 racts in his eyes, wanted his sight restored so that he 
 might see the black and green of the earth and the blue 
 of the skies; a fourth had his sight, but owing to a curva 
 ture of spine and curious malformation of the neck could 
 only see the ground he walked on and the food on his 
 plate and the little children who looked up at him curi- 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE 183 
 
 ously and the small domestic animals and the fowl which 
 fluttered their wings helplessly as they ran from him in 
 alarm; eloquently and pitifully he cried to Gombarov 
 that he was tired and weary of looking always, always 
 upon the greyness of the earth and the tomb-stones of 
 dead men and upon crawling things, the worm and the 
 snake, and oh how he wanted to see the great stretching 
 horizon and the sun at midday and tree tops in the wind 
 and the rainbow after the storm and all the soaring things 
 up on high, the crow, the hawk and the eagle. He was 
 like a man who walked for ever and ever in a low- 
 roofed cellar, through the open door of which crept in 
 a gleam of the sun, and the shadow of some one walk 
 ing past, and the cry of a bird, always the lights and 
 the shadows and the reflection of things, never a sight 
 of the things themselves. Eloquently and pitifully he 
 cried to Gombarov to heal him. He had fifty roubles in 
 the knot of his handkerchief, he would give it to him 
 gladly, and if that was not enough he would sell his 
 house, he would give him everything, everything, if he 
 would only heal him, if he would only straighten him, 
 make him see with ease that which he now saw with 
 such effort. Eloquently and pitifully he pleaded to him. 
 A fifth man was about to speak, a man who had seemed 
 powerful once but was now eaten away by some wast 
 ing disease. Having recovered from his astonishment 
 and grasped the situation, Gombarov raised an inter 
 posing hand and said : 
 
 "I am sorry, rebyata* I wish I could help you. I am 
 afraid someone has been lying to you. I am not a 
 healer." 
 
 The unhappy ones were incredulous, they pleaded with 
 him, but at last departed. Gombarov stood in the door 
 way a long time and watched the strange company, 
 mostly on crutches, limping away slowly and dejec- 
 
 * Children. 
 
184 THE MASK 
 
 tedly, murmuring their disappointment among them 
 selves. He wanted to laugh. No, not at their mis 
 fortunes. But at that credulity which first made a devil 
 of him, and now, after his triumph, a Christ. He went 
 back to his room and laughed at this turn in affairs. If 
 he were a charlatan he could have made a lot of money. 
 That adventure was not the last, for still they came, the 
 credulous, from more and more distant parts, the blind, 
 the crippled, the unhappy. Pitifully they cried to him, 
 and sometimes eloquently. And always they limped 
 away, that strange company of unfortunates, slowly and 
 dejectedly. Only when some poor mother of the neigh 
 bourhood came, bringing her babe suffering with colic, 
 she found Gombarov ever ready to respond with advice 
 and medicine. 
 
 This excitement attendant upon Gombarov after his 
 trial had not wholly subsided when he took his depar 
 ture for America. And to the last moment detectives 
 prowled in the neighbourhood, for he was still under 
 the surveillance of the police. Indeed, there were two 
 or three officials who had helped to conduct the trial 
 who were hard persuaded to believe that a man could 
 arouse sufficient suspicion to be arrested and yet be in 
 nocent. 
 
 Gombarova laughed and cried as she listened to her 
 husband s narrative. She was proud of him, and trem 
 bled at his danger. She clung to him at the thought 
 of it, as though he had not yet escaped it. And cleaving 
 to him a long time, she at last released her hold of him. 
 And she sat near him a long time, delighted with the 
 mere looking at him. Then to break the long silence 
 she asked him in a casual way : 
 
 "What do you intend doing now ?" 
 
 As if he had expected her question, he put his hand 
 into his pocket and drew something out, wrapped in tis- 
 
STEPFATHER GOMBAROV S NEW VENTURE 185 
 
 sue paper, which he unfolded, and revealed a piece of 
 
 yellow metal, cylindrical in shape, rough and greyish 
 
 about its roundness, polished and golden at its ends. He 
 
 i put one end to his mouth, and blew his breath on it, then 
 
 : rubbed his handkerchief across it. Golden now, and 
 
 luminous like a mirror, he held it up to her. 
 
 "It s a little present I ve brought for America. It 
 looks as good as gold, doesn t it? Well, it is as good 
 as gold, and it can be made as cheap as plated silver or 
 i brass. I intend to make knives and spoons of it, the 
 fine thing about it is that it won t tarnish, and with a lit 
 tle trouble it will always look as fine as gold, so that it 
 will be even within the reach of the poor to be born 
 with a golden spoon in one s mouth. Just look at it! 
 Why, it s good enough for a wedding ring." 
 
 He was quite lost in admiration of his achievement; 
 the gleam of his eyes answered the gleam of the metal; 
 his eyes were fixed on the metal as on the eyes of a be 
 loved. 
 
 Gombarova saw the gleam of his eyes answering the 
 gleam of the metal, and her heart retreated from its glad 
 radiance into utter darkness. Her heart was a black 
 planet, gliding slowly and painfully through a mass of 
 black, unutterably black cloud, pressing upon it, slowly 
 and painfully. A black fog enveloped her; a black fog 
 was this fear of the future, in a black fog of the great un 
 known she sought her little ones, her sweet satellites. 
 
 What a sickening thing, what a blight, what a plague 
 upon life, worse than the Egyptian darkness, was this 
 black fear, this unutterable fear, dispersing the rays of 
 the sun, obliterating gladness and light, frightening away 
 hopes one has fed crumbs to as to glad white birds on 
 the window-sill of one s consciousness, frightening away, 
 scattering, setting on wing one s hopes in bird-like, flock- 
 like terror. 
 
 But Gombarov did not notice her mood. He was quite 
 
186 THE MASK 
 
 lost in admiration of his achievement, the gleam of his 
 eyes answered the gleam of the metal, his eyes were fixed 
 on the metal as on the eyes of a beloved. He repeated : 
 "It s good enough for a wedding ring." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 JOHN LEARNS THAT A GOOD COIN RINGS TRUE AND THAT 
 A GOOD CIGAR HAS A WHITE ASH 
 
 THE arrival of Gombarov brought no radical change 
 n the household. Life went on as before. Gombarova 
 md Raya and Dunya toiled at home ; John, after school 
 lours, went out to sell papers. And in spite of all his 
 efforts, he remained a marked lad : boys frightened him, 
 md older men winked at each other on seeing him. But 
 here are always eccentric people in this world; there 
 ,vere some eccentric enough to treat John with exceed- 
 ng kindness. And once or twice he felt that this kind- 
 less was not for the world, but was meant for him per- 
 onally. He had customers who always sought him out, 
 md refused to buy of other boys. 
 
 "Ah, my boy, I ve been looking for you everywhere," 
 ried a nice gentleman, who had come out of the door 
 >f a neighbouring hotel, though there was a very pros- 
 >erous news-stall in the hotel itself. And he gave him 
 ive cents for a two-cent paper. He did this day after 
 lay. 
 
 And again one day, a gentleman, kindly-eyed and 
 vhite-bearded, walked on some distance after being ac- 
 osted by John, but turned back and stopped in front of 
 he boy, the very image of a kindly father. The rays 
 f his benignity fell upon John, who smiled, without 
 :nowing why. The old gentleman, regarding John for 
 ome time, at last drawled in a voice which reminded 
 me of a thaw: 
 
 187 
 
i88 THE MASK 
 
 "Sonny, what papers have you?" 
 
 Well, that was a strange question. Did the old man 
 then topple down from the sky, from his golden seat at 
 the right hand of God the kindly father; or did he come 
 on a ferry-boat, across the river, from Camden, where, 
 John had been told, there lived in huddled, ugly little 
 houses, a race of men, many of whom had never beheld 
 Chestnut Street, the magnificent? Quickly recovering 
 himself, John named the papers, five in number, in his 
 accustomed order, which merged the discordant sounds 
 and made for euphony. The old man laughed : 
 
 "Sonny, you said it as if it were all the name of one 
 paper. Now which one do you recommend?" 
 
 John scrutinised the old man and thought that he was 
 prosperous. He replied: 
 
 "It depends. Rich men usually buy the Bulletin. It s 
 a three-cent paper." 
 
 The old man chuckled. 
 
 "And what paper do the poor men buy?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, if you are poor enough, you buy the Item. I 
 sell more Items than anything else." 
 
 "Sonny, you d better give me both. You see, I m 
 both rich and poor." 
 
 The old man pulled out his purse and extracted a dime, 
 and as he took his papers he said : 
 
 "Sonny, you may keep the change." 
 
 John watched the old man go, and much to his sur 
 prise he saw him hand over the papers to another news 
 boy a little farther on. He pondered : what did the old 
 man mean by saying he was both rich and poor ? How 
 could a man be one and the other at the same time ? And 
 even while he pondered over his problem, which was to 
 have its illumination for him many years afterwards, a 
 strange boy, in tattered clothing, walked up to him, and 
 said rather nonchalantly : 
 
A GOOD COIN RINGS TRUE 189 
 
 "A funny old duffer that s just bought the paper off 
 o you, wasn t he?" 
 
 John did not reply at once to the boy s question. He 
 felt hurt at the old man being called a duffer. At last 
 he said: 
 
 "All I can say is, I wish there was more duffers like 
 that, as you call em. He gave me a dime." 
 
 "Don t take it kind of personal, kid," said the boy. "A 
 man may be a funny old duffer and still be a funny old 
 bloke. Now when we calls a man a bloke or a duffer we 
 don t mean anything by it not that some old fellows 
 ain t blokes and duffers it s just our manner of speak 
 ing. One can see you ain t been in this village long." 
 
 "No, I haven t," replied John, astonished that a boy 
 of that type should talk to him softly. 
 
 "Well, have you had good luck to-day?" asked the boy 
 half indifferently. 
 
 "Not bad." 
 
 John jingled the coins in the side pocket of his 
 breeches. 
 
 The two boys got quite chummy and were talking on 
 divers topics for some time, when suddenly the boy in 
 the tattered suit asked : 
 
 "Do you take exercises?" 
 
 "Exercises?" repeated John, for a moment puzzled. 
 
 "Yes, the monkey tricks to make you strong," and the 
 ragamuffin suited the action to the word by beginning 
 to perform strange antics with his arms and legs, work 
 ing them outwardly and inwardly, in a series of sharp 
 angles, now getting down in a sitting posture, now ris 
 ing erect, quite like a puppet on a string. 
 
 "You do dese here monkey tricks every day, and you ll 
 get strong," resumed the boy as he looked at John s 
 rather slight form. 
 
 "I am strong," said John defensively, wary at heart 
 of the boy s intentions. 
 
190 THE MASK 
 
 "I ll tell you what we ll do," suggested the boy, "1< 
 us see who can lift each other easier from the hip 
 You try first." 
 
 John put his hands on the boy s hips and lifted hii 
 from the ground, then put him down. 
 
 "Well, you re stronger than I thought," said the bo; 
 "but I can hold you up longer." 
 
 He, in his turn, put his hands on John s hips, lifte 
 him, and held him up quite a long time. Then he pi 
 him down slowly. 
 
 "You see, I m stronger. That s what comes of doin 
 monkey tricks every day. I advise you do the sam 
 But I must be going now. See you later. Ta, ta! 
 And the ragamuffin walked away slowly, his hands i 
 his pockets. 
 
 If John was astonished at the boy chumming up wit 
 him, he was even more astonished at himself being abl 
 to chum up with the boy; the feeling was one of eh 
 tion. Barely had the boy gone a few steps than Joh 
 put a hand into his pocket in order to jingle the mone 
 there, for it comforted him to know that it was a goo 
 day for him. He no sooner put his hand into his pock< 
 than a pang of distress shot through him, and his fac 
 grew pale. His money was gone. He realised at one 
 what had happened, that the boy, lifting him at the hip; 
 had managed very adroitly to slip his hands into hi 
 pockets and extract therefrom all their contents. H 
 ran after the boy, who was still walking rather leisure!} 
 and catching up with him, clutched him hard by th 
 sleeve. 
 
 "I want my money," said John, panting. 
 
 "What money?" asked the boy nonchalantly. 
 
 "The money . . . the money you t-took out of m 
 pocket when you lifted me . . ." 
 
 "Stop yer kiddin ," said the boy, assuming a surprise 
 look. "I ain t got your money." 
 
A GOOD COIN RINGS TRUE 191 
 
 "What s that?" exclaimed John, suddenly feeling the 
 boy s pocket with his free hand. "Look here, you d bet 
 ter hand it over; there comes a policeman, and I ll tell 
 him." 
 
 The boy put a hand into his pocket and drew out a 
 handful of coins. 
 
 "That s not all," said John, taking the money. "I 
 want the rest of it." 
 
 "That s all I ve got," said the boy sullenly. 
 
 "I had two dimes and a nickel that are not here," said 
 John. "You d better give them to me." 
 
 The boy thrust his hand once more into his pocket and 
 handed John the missing coins. John released his hold 
 of the boy and walked back to his corner. He trem 
 bled all over and his knees shook, but his heart was glad 
 at his narrow escape. What would they say at home if 
 he were to come back without his money? He would 
 be called a Schlemil. Yes, and worse than that, he would 
 see himself a Schlemil in his own eyes. He breathed 
 heavily at the thought of his narrow escape. And for a 
 long time he stood there lost in thought. 
 
 "Pay-per-rs !" he suddenly cried automatically, from 
 sheer habit, for he had no intention at all of raising his 
 :ry. 
 
 As if in response to his cry, a tall, automaton-like man, 
 walking with a broad, automatic stride, paused all at 
 |}nce in front of John as if his mechanism had quite sud 
 denly gone out of order. John was startled out of his 
 :houghts. 
 
 "Boy, I want a Star. And give me my change quick. 
 [ must catch a train." And at the same instant he thrust 
 i quarter into John s hand. 
 
 John gave the man his paper and quickly counted out 
 :wo dimes and four cents, and gave them to the man. 
 The man took his paper, pocketed the money, and re 
 sumed his angular stride. For some moments his bowler 
 
192 THE MASK 
 
 hat and two sharp ends of moustaches seen from behind 
 continued to bob up and down above the heads of other 
 people, until they disappeared round the corner. John 
 jingled the coins in his pocket, but this jingling had noth 
 ing to do with his thoughts, which were elsewhere. His 
 head was quite detached from the rest of his body. The 
 cry "Pay-per-rs !" came from his throat at intervals, but 
 this too had nothing to do with him. 
 
 Then, suddenly, his hand, for perhaps the twentieth 
 time, hit upon the quarter he had just received, and it 
 struck him that it might be well to get change for it, 
 in readiness for a chance customer w 7 ith a large coin. 
 And so still jingling his coins, he walked a short way 
 down the street and turned into a tobacconist s shop, a 
 small cell-like place, formerly a side entrance to the large 
 hotel of which it was a part. The tobacconist, a little 
 man with embonpoint, stood leaning against his show 
 case, his legs crossed, his thumbs in the sleeveless holes 
 of his waist-coat, a cigar in his mouth, the ash from 
 which, falling, grazed the outermost line of his middle, 
 and being a white ash it lay there an eloquent witness 
 to the quality of the cigar. 
 
 "Well, sonny, what can I do for you?" he asked, 
 beaming good-naturedly upon the boy, as he took up his 
 place behind the show-case. 
 
 John barely peeped with his eyes across the high show 
 case, and put down his quarter on the round piece of 
 rubber with projecting points for the reception of coins. 
 "Please let me have some change," he said. 
 
 The little man picked up the coin, and his face could 
 not have undergone a more drastic change if he had 
 picked up a live snake. The many little smiling lines 
 wriggled downward to make up a frown. 
 
 "My boy," he said at last, "you know you can get 
 pinched for shoving the queer."* 
 
 * Shoving the queer: passing counterfeit money. 
 
A GOOD COIN RINGS TRUE 193 
 
 John grew pale. 
 
 "What do you m-mean?" he asked in a faltering voice. 
 
 "Now don t act the innocent, you know it s a bad 
 quarter. " 
 
 "I really didn t know/ John defended himself. "A 
 man just gave it to me, and I gave him twenty-four cents 
 change." 
 
 "Well, all I can say is that you ve been done. Do you 
 see the difference?" the little man pulled out a quarter 
 out of his cash drawer, and flung it down on the floor. 
 "Hear how it rings! Now watch the other." And he 
 flung down the bad coin in the same way. It gave forth 
 a dull sound. Then he thought he ought to moralise 
 a little : "It s the same with men. Some men ring 
 good and true, some men are counterfeit, they look all 
 right, but are made of lead. Now look at me" John 
 thought he was made of fat and wouldn t ring at all if 
 flung down on the floor "I haven t made a dishonest 
 penny in my life. It s true, I m not rich, but I m as 
 good as anybody. In fact, a good man is like a good 
 cigar. The best cigar in the world is worth so much. 
 If you wanted to pay more you couldn t get a better 
 one. And you can always tell a good cigar by its smell 
 and its white ash." 
 
 John pondered on this for a few moments. Then he 
 asked : 
 
 "But how can you tell a good man from a bad one 
 that he won t stick his hand in your pocket or give you 
 a bad coin?" 
 
 This seemed to make the man angry. 
 
 "How can you tell ?" he exclaimed in a rasping voice, 
 "Keep your two lamps wide open, young man, and 
 you ll know quick enough. What were your two eyes 
 given you for?" 
 
 John did not know. The boy who put his hands in 
 John s pockets had also two eyes, the man who gave him 
 
194 THE MASK 
 
 the lead quarter had the same number. How did these 
 two use their eyes? Those two kept them wide open 
 in order to cheat him, John Gombarov. Did it follow 
 then that if he, John Gombarov, kept his eyes wide open 
 he could cheat some one else? 
 
 John picked up his lead quarter from the rubber disc 
 and slunk out of the shop, a whipped dog, with his tail 
 between his legs. 
 
 Of course not! he went on to the conclusion, as he 
 resumed his place on his corner he must keep his eyes 
 wide open merely to keep cheats from him, merely to keep 
 them from sticking their hands into his pockets, or giv 
 ing him lead quarters. Must he then suspect everyone? 
 Must he then keep his hand on his pocket, ring every 
 coin he received from a customer? Life was becoming 
 a great problem. 
 
 He was about to cry automatically his cry, but it died 
 in his throat, for his hand at that moment fell upon that 
 lead quarter in his pocket. What was he to do with 
 it? Was he to try to pass it on some one else? That 
 quarter represented more than half his earnings for the 
 afternoon. He was again about to cry automatically 
 his cry, but once more it died in his throat. There was 
 no cry left in him. 
 
 He absently watched the people go by, and he thought : 
 If he could only turn them into coins, or into cigars! 
 Then he would ring them to see whether they were good 
 or bad, or he would take a puff at them to see whether 
 they had a white or a black ash. But then this last might 
 make him sick, for he had not yet learned to smoke, and 
 God alone knew how many cigars he might find with the 
 black ash. 
 
 The cry he was about to cry died in his throat. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 AN ENTRANCE AND AN EXIT THE CLASH OF TWO WILLS, 
 
 A THIRD INTERVENING 
 
 IT was not many weeks before stepfather Gombarov 
 installed himself in a workshop at the top of a four- 
 story house in Arch street. This building had an ad 
 vantage for him in that he could get so much horse 
 power from the machine-shop below. 
 
 Small pieces of machinery kept on arriving for him 
 from Russia, the experimental remainders from his vil 
 lage laboratory, the place of his late adventure. He had 
 begun to buy the larger pieces, as far as he could get 
 them, in Philadelphia. But there were many small 
 pieces unobtainable here, and he had to send for these to 
 Germany. His small capital began to dwindle alarm 
 ingly. 
 
 All this took weeks and weeks, looking backward you 
 counted the months. Gombarov s one great drawback 
 was his ignorance of the language. It was true that he 
 managed to read an English technical book, but every 
 day speech was beyond him. Occasionally he found his 
 German useful in dealing with American firms, but at 
 other times he was obliged to have recourse to an inter 
 preter, and as he was in his oriental, discursive way a 
 sociable man, he sometimes picked up in the Jewish com 
 munity, in which his genius found admirers, a young 
 man willing to offer his services as interpreter. But 
 strange man that he was, his acquaintance extended into 
 the most curious quarters, and the tenement in which the 
 
 i95 
 
196 THE MASK 
 
 Gombarov family dwelt was astonished by the frequent 
 visits of a German Lutheran pastor, which, however, did 
 not hinder a devout Jew, even one with side locks, from 
 crossing the Gombarov threshold. No one who knew 
 Gombarov worried about the matter, but there were some 
 who feared lest the pastor become a Jew, for the Jews 
 do not like proselytes. But there was no danger of one 
 or the other happening. It is true, Gombarov was 
 known as a sceptic, but he was a sceptic within his faith, 
 not outside of it; he acknowledged in his own way the 
 lordship of Adonai, whose face is not to be seen by a 
 mortal, and whose name Jehovah, though written, is 
 never uttered by pious Jews ; yet he took a delight when 
 the chance offered to prove his God in the wrong. For 
 he was an intellectual sceptic, not an emotional one, and 
 his God loved a jest and an argument. He held forth 
 in this vein before Jews only; before Gentiles he stood 
 up for God as one might for one s own beloved father, 
 who in his great love and wisdom could not make a mis 
 take or do a wrong. But he feared the German pas 
 tor s faith so little that he did not hesitate to send his 
 own eldest child, Katya, now seven, to the school at 
 tached to the Reverend Schultz s church, in order that 
 she might learn German. The little girl would come 
 home and recite her ten commandments in German, and 
 sometimes a sentence with the words, lesu Christi and 
 Heilige Gcist, which brought a smile to her father s face. 
 This evoked a vigorous remonstrance from Gombarov s 
 brother, lakov, who still kept his small dyeing estab 
 lishment a few doors away. One day when lakov spoke 
 with greater warmth than usual, Gombarov seized the 
 child by the sleeve, and asked lakov : 
 
 "Didn t you once dye that blouse blue ?" 
 
 lakov looked rather guilty. 
 
 "Well, you know you did," went on Gombarov. "And 
 it s almost grey again. One more wash and it will be 
 
AN ENTRANCE AND AN EXIT 197 
 
 as it was before. That shows that the original dye is 
 stronger than the one put on. You ought to know our 
 Gombarov blood. Anything that touches us can only 
 touch us like your miserable dyes. I want my little girl 
 to know German, and when all is said and done, that 
 is the only thing that will stick to her or you don t 
 know the Gombarovs." 
 
 At that moment there was a knock. Pastor Schultz 
 came in. lakov went out. Pastor Schultz stayed 
 nearly two hours and talked science with his host over 
 tall tumblers of Russian tea with lemon. He promised 
 to go with Gombarov next day to help him buy parts of 
 mechanism, to be his English interpreter. 
 
 A few days later Gombarov s faith in the Gombarov 
 blood was somewhat shaken by the appearance of a 
 stranger on the threshold, a big brawny man of about 
 twenty-eight, healthily ruddy in complexion, very clean 
 shaven except for a full-grown moustache, big-shoul 
 dered, big-fisted, sturdy-legged, yet constructed alto 
 gether rather loosely, like one who got his muscle not 
 by Swedish drill or college games but by heavy outdoor 
 work. The slight bagginess of his garments added to, 
 rather than detracted from, the sense of his graceful, 
 animal-like strength. When Gombarova opened the 
 door to him her first impulse was to tell him in her broken 
 English that he had found the wrong door, but her sec 
 ond thought upon hearing him pronounce Gombarov s 
 name was that he was another one of those Russian 
 spies, who from time to time still pestered Gombarov, 
 even at such a distance from the place of his last Rus 
 sian adventure. But much to the surprise of all he 
 turned out to be Gombarov s own brother, Israel, or 
 Sroolik as he was known at home, from which he ran 
 away as a boy and went to America to see life and to 
 make his fortune. 
 
 Everyone was overjoyed at seeing him, outwardly be- 
 
198 THE MASK 
 
 cause he was a kinsman, but deep down because of the 
 sense of adventure he brought to all. 
 
 "Mr. Gombarov, do 1 sit down and have supper with 
 us," said Gombarova, "the girls are getting it ready." 
 
 "Gladly," replied the newly-found kinsman. "But 
 really Mrs. Gombarov, I must tell you that for practical 
 purposes I ve changed rny name. I am no longer Israel 
 Bogdanovitch Gombarov, but simply Sam Carney. I 
 know it must appear funny to you, but I had to do i*t." 
 
 And over the supper table he told his story in a few 
 words. 
 
 He came to America at seventeen. He had a few 
 dollars left and knew a little mechanics. But as he did 
 not know the language the last was of no good to him. 
 He invested a part of his small fund in a pedlar s pack, 
 and walked about with it in the streets of New York. 
 He managed to make a bare living, earning more insults 
 than pennies. He went to night school and learnt a lit 
 tle English. In the street he learnt that it was an evil 
 thing to be a Jew, in America as elsewhere. He learnt 
 yet another thing. To be a Jew was not so much to 
 have a religion as an occupation. The Jews who were 
 agriculturists in ancient Judea were one race. The mod 
 ern Jews who were bankers, tradesmen and pedlars were 
 another. This new race was for the most part a prod 
 uct of suggestion. Unconsciously, through a thousand 
 and one hints, it has tried to live up to the Gentiles idea 
 of it. The Jew in life had become an actor, playing the 
 role of the stage Jew. And as one could commonly tell 
 a blacksmith, a farmer, a professional actor, a clerk, an 
 artist, a navvy, a detective, a crook, so one might also 
 tell a Jew by his occupation of "Jewishness" which his 
 neighbours have forced upon him. 
 
 At least, that was how life appeared to him, Sroolik, 
 as he walked the streets of New York, a dark, curly- 
 haired lad with his pedlar s pack. He knew what it was 
 
AN ENTRANCE AND AN EXIT 199 
 
 to be a Jew pedlar, the object of ridicule and reviling. 
 He knew well that sense of shrinking within oneself 
 under these unprovoked assaults, that sense of rage and 
 seething hidden under his smiling mask; and one day 
 he felt the presence of a newly born desire, as yet no 
 larger than a small seed, of getting the better of his 
 tormentors by craft and guile. And quite of itself, from 
 that dark unknown place, whence all thoughts come, 
 came the thought, insinuating and seductive: these peo 
 ple, who laughed at him and bought from him at the 
 same time, clearly expected to be cheated. Why not 
 cheat them then and satisfy them? And he began to 
 understand that life was a game. 
 
 Afterward it occurred to him that if life were indeed a 
 game, he would play it more subtly. Instead of getting 
 into a so-called Jewish skin, especially prepared for Jews 
 by Gentiles, he made up his mind one day, after much 
 thought and not a few qualms, that it was by far the 
 better plan to get into one of the skins prepared by Gen 
 tiles for themselves. The process of shedding his own 
 Jewish skin and getting into a Gentile one was not easy; 
 he knew it would need all his effort, patience and en 
 durance, but he knew it could be done. The certainty 
 of it gave him courage. A simple accident confirmed 
 his judgment. 
 
 It was March I7th St. Patrick s Day and as he 
 stood with his wares in one of New York s thorough 
 fares, a gang of hoodlums, each with a green clover in 
 the lapel of his coat, passed him by with a derisive guf 
 faw. He felt his face grow pale, at the same time a 
 protective smile lurked round his lips and eyes and strove 
 to unbend the blank rigidity of his face, which refused 
 to unbend. The hoodlums passed on. Behind the hood 
 lums came a tall well-built man, dressed like other men 
 except for a large sombrero hat. His face was brown 
 and full of active lines. There was a green clover in 
 
200 THE MASK 
 
 the lapel of his coat He glanced at Sroolik and was 
 about to pass on, but changed his mind and paused in 
 front of the boy. Sroolik s heart jumped. "Look 
 here, my boy," he said, planting Jiimself hard on his out 
 spread feet and eyeing Sroolik with a steady deliberate 
 gaze, "I don t want to buy anything, but I like your face, 
 and so I m going to give a piece of good advice, gratis. 
 Now don t mind me, kid, if I m a bit fresh in my way 
 of speaking. You see, I m a circus cowboy and bronco 
 busting is more in my line. Now, you wouldn t take 
 me for one of God s own chosen people, would you? 
 Well, I am. But one day I got tired of it. Thought 
 I d do a bit of my own choosing. So, one day I got so 
 mad that I flung my pedlar s pack, one like you ve got 
 now, at the face of a human monkey who dared to throw 
 a bouquet of insults at yours truly; there was a scrim 
 mage, result : he got two black eyes and I got seven days. 
 When I got out I didn t go back to my pedlar s job, 
 b cause I was tired of lis ning to words that weren t 
 music to my ear. Since then I ve been everything under 
 the sun from a saloon bouncer to a bronco buster. And 
 the moon has no cause to be jealous, either, for I ve 
 been a moonshiner in my day. Gave it up b cause it was 
 a dangerous business, you always had to have your eyes 
 skinned for U.S.A. cops. Now I m with a Wild West 
 show, always on the road. Now if I was your age again, 
 I could do anything I liked. I could become a Cos 
 sack, a Zulu, or a Bashi-bazook, and I warrant you I d 
 do as well as any of those species we ve got in our show 
 now. For all that, I m a Jew, though none of my pals 
 know it, and it s a long time since I ve said my Shcma 
 Israel* Between you and me and those collar-buttons 
 you ve got there, I don t believe God s ever crossed this 
 side of the pond. It s true our spondulix says In God 
 
 * The famous Hebrew prayer : "Hear O Israel, the Lord our 
 God, He is One." 
 
AN ENTRANCE AND AN EXIT 201 
 
 we trust/ but I m inclined to think that s a mistake 
 in spelling. They ve somehow left the T out. And so 
 my boy, I say to you : Chuck , it ! Get your hair cut ! 
 Straighten your face out ! Go to Brooklyn Bridge, push 
 that tray of shoe strings and collar buttons over the edge, 
 and don t stop to watch the ripples. Then go to the 
 highest building in the city, put five fingers to your nose, 
 and turn east, west, north and south, like a weather 
 cock in a cyclone. Then say Damn! three times, and 
 go to some quiet spot and turn a somersault. Then go 
 to a Turkish bath, and steam yourself until you ve 
 steamed out all your pedlar s sins and kinks out of your 
 system. Then rig yourself out all new from head to 
 foot so that you won t know yourself, and be neither 
 Jew nor Gentile but just a man. If you must say Shcma 
 Israel, say it on the q. t. all to yourself. If there is a 
 God He ll hear you, if there isn t, it don t make any dif 
 ference. In this world, my boy, one mustn t mind be 
 ing a sheep in wolf s clothing. So just chuck this, chuck 
 it, I say. D you understand me?" 
 
 He looked at Sroolik and saw that he did, whereupon 
 he grasped the boy s right hand, pressed it tightly, with a 
 "Good luck to you!" and passed on. 
 
 Sroolik unfolded his fist : there was a crumpled five- 
 dollar note lying in his hand. He stood there as in a 
 trance, and the derisive world went by deriding and 
 touched him not. He looked up at a prospective buyer 
 with the astonishment of one wakened from a dream. 
 
 Next day he went again with his wares, and the day 
 after, and the day after, but his heart was no longer in 
 it, something troubled him within; it was as if the 
 stranger had put a new soul into his body, and this new 
 soul had not yet wholly ejected the other soul, his old 
 one. 
 
 Who was the stranger? Was he just a man with a 
 good heart, or was he a devil come to seduce him from 
 
THE MASK 
 
 as he a messenger of God come to him 
 ^ers were wont to come to men in bibli- 
 an guise, even in that of a bronco-buster? 
 the humour of it, at his own credulity, 
 mattered it? Whether the stranger was a 
 i, or a messenger of God, it was all the same 
 And it was all the same to him whether he had 
 .n him the seed of a fine fruit, or a drop of sub- 
 , he could not crush it and he could not help 
 ,oey. 
 
 erhaps he dreamt it all? But no, there was the 
 ampled five-dollar note in his pocket, which he looked 
 t again and again. Was the note then counterfeit? 
 No, it was quite good. An acquaintance of his had of 
 fered to borrow it. 
 
 But he was discontented with his own hesitation, with 
 his tardiness to obey a voice so urgent and imperative. 
 
 "At last I gave in," went on Sroolik in a broken Yid 
 dish, "I made up my mind to shed my old skin and graft 
 on a new one. I took the greatest pains to study the 
 language of the people. I gave up my pedlar s job, 
 and tried my hand at everything. I ve worked as a mill 
 hand, as a carpenter s assistant, as a blacksmith s assist 
 ant, as a farm hand; I ve been a tramp and have trav 
 elled through the states hanging on to freight cars, I 
 have harvested in Kansas and picked oranges in Califor 
 nia; I ve worked at coke ovens near Pittsburg and laid 
 rails in Texas my last job was as foreman of a railway 
 gang mostly Dagoes and Niggers; not one of them sus 
 pected I was a Jew ; if anyone asked me my religion I d 
 tell them I was a Baptist. And so you see I m right in 
 saying that being a Jew is a matter of occupation. Look 
 at what tramping, the most un-Jewish of all occupa 
 tions, has done to me. It s completely un-Jewed me. 
 And there is brother Baruch in Texas. You know what 
 Baruch was like. Baruch is doing book-keeping for a 
 
AN ENTRANCE AND AN EXIT 203 
 
 living, and philosophy on the side for his pleasure. 
 Baruch spends all his spare time studying Kant, Spinoza, 
 Hume, Spencer, and all the rest of the intellectual 
 bunch; he knows Latin and Greek as well as he knows 
 Hebrew, and German and French as well as he knows 
 American. But to look at him, if you had three guesses, 
 you might take him as easily for an Italian as for an 
 Irishman or a Frenchman. Well, you ll see for your 
 self, for Baruch is thinking of coming East again. It 
 was he who told me that you were here. The folks at 
 home wrote to him." 
 
 "Well, Sroolik," said Gombarov with a laugh, "you ve 
 developed an interesting theory, and what is more, as 
 far as you are concerned, you ve certainly put it into 
 practice. In fact, you d send your father to his grave 
 if he saw you." 
 
 "By the way, how is the old governor?" broke in 
 Sroolik, alias Sam Carney. "Is he still counting the 
 three-dollar bills he s putting away in the Almighty s cash 
 box?" 
 
 "Yes, I dare say he s piling up a fortune for himself 
 in the other world. He will be one of its multi-mil 
 lionaires." 
 
 "After all," observed Sroolik, "there s not much dif 
 ference between him and the nun a Russian chap had 
 told me about in the course of my travels. She was a 
 very pious nun, who spent almost all her time in prayer, 
 and she refused to eat anything for days at a time. Her 
 sister nuns got so alarmed about her that at the end of 
 many days they used to place before her a large tray of 
 the most delicious things such as roast pheasant, new 
 potatoes in butter, macaroni au gratin, young asparagus 
 dipped in cream, pancakes also dipped in cream an 
 omelette of a dozen canary eggs, a dish of imported 
 fruits, a glass of port, and other such things, calculated 
 to tickle the ordinary mortal s nostrils with their de- 
 
204 THE MASK 
 
 licious smell and to seduce the most virtuous palate. 
 But this nun simply refused to take anything, and to all 
 temptations offered by her worried sisters she had but 
 one answer: Tm going to eat in the other world/ 
 What can you do with people like that?" 
 
 Everyone laughed. Only lakov was indignant, 
 lakov, like all good Jews, prayed three times a day, and 
 followed each prayer with a meal. In the intervals he 
 dyed faded garments, which, much to his patrons dis- 5 
 gust, usually resented being sent to the wash. 
 
 It was decided to instal Sroolik in the attic taken by 
 Gombarov on his arrival from Russia. Gombarov found 
 his brother useful in arranging his machine-shop, and 
 also as interpreter. 
 
 Sroolik had a good-natured contempt for his broth 
 er s ideas, which he considered visionary. Indeed he 
 thought his brother was wasting good money on a lot 
 of junk. This opinion was shared by the clerks in the 
 machine firms where Gombarov did his purchasing, and 
 more than once when Gombarov had his back turned 
 Sroolik was not above exchanging a wink with them. 
 Frankly, they thought him a "crank." 
 
 Sroolik was on his good behaviour for three weeks. 
 Then one day, while Gombarov was out, he came home 
 quite drunk. Gombarova was quite alarmed, all the 
 more since he demanded money. 
 
 Such a thing had never happened in the Gombarov 
 household before, on either side of the family. Not 
 within the memory of anyone. To have a jolly time on 
 festal days and nights, at home or at the house of a 
 friend, was one thing : wine would flow and there would 
 be singing, the flute and the fiddle would urge the dancers 
 on, ribald stories would be told and laughter would 
 sound, every-day proprieties would be thrust out of 
 doors to knock and to knock, unheard by any ear, until 
 joy had had her fling! But to have a man come home 
 
AN ENTRANCE AND AN EXIT 205 
 
 on a workaday, deliberately drunk on foul whiskey at 
 a public house, while the midday sun was yet in the 
 sky, come home sodden and morose, spitting out pro 
 fanities, his attitude full of menace well, that was quite 
 another thing. As far as Gombarova could gather from 
 his thick, confused speech he wanted money. He 
 thought his brother was wasting good money on useless 
 junk, and he, Sroolik, alias Sam Carney, could put some 
 of it to better use: the world, in fact, owed him a liv 
 ing, and he might as well collect it from his brother, 
 before all the money was gone. In short, he wanted 
 money. He thought she must have some about. 
 
 Never before had Gombarova faced such a situation. 
 Some of her little ones clinging to her skirts in frantic 
 fear, she did everything she could to calm him, but see 
 ing that this had no effect she threatened to call a po 
 liceman. To her great joy, Gombarov came home at 
 this awkward moment. 
 
 Upon seeing his brother, Sroolik slunk out of the 
 door. For some minutes his loud, drunken footfalls 
 could be heard on the stairs as he made his way to his 
 attic, where he flung himself on his bed. 
 
 "I ve never seen a Jew drunk in that way before," 
 said Gombarov. "He thinks there is no God in Amer 
 ica, and so he can do as he likes. That s his idea of 
 being free. But where there is no responsibility there 
 is no freedom. My pious father, for all his habits and 
 ridiculous side locks, is a much more free man, for in 
 spite of all his political bondage he dares to be himself. 
 Sroolik wants to be like others. He has taken some of 
 their virtues, but also all their vices. For such is the 
 nature of things : you can t have one without the other. 
 And it s always easier to take the vices." 
 
 "Woe to Columbus," said Gombarova. 
 
 Towards evening, after he had sobered down, Sroolik 
 tied up his little bundle of personal belongings and 
 
 
206 THE MASK 
 
 walked out of the house, once more Sam Carney. Many 
 days and weeks passed and no one saw anything of him. 
 
 Gombarov missed his brother s services, especially in 
 his role as interpreter. And before long there came a 
 day when he wanted to make inquiries at the offices of 
 a firm about a new piece of mechanism and had need of 
 some one to speak for him, and no one was available 
 that day among his friends. In the last resort, he 
 thought of John. He would take John to speak for 
 him. He communicated this desire to his wife, who 
 in turn communicated it to John. 
 
 John demurred and said he would not go. He had his 
 lessons to study. But in his heart he knew that was not 
 the reason, and that his unwillingness to go was due to 
 his fear of men, even apart from his limited knowledge 
 of their language; he was still a wood goblin, uncon 
 sciously more familiar with the soft rustle of trees than 
 with the harsh twang of men; he knew that if he went 
 with his step-father, he would stammer and stutter and 
 make himself uncommonly ridiculous. 
 
 "Ask Dunya to go," he pleaded with his mother. 
 
 She knew the wrath of her husband, and so she argued 
 with John, who felt something in himself growing harder 
 every moment, and his mother s speech was like a gentle 
 saw which in sawing had struck an insurmountable ob 
 struction, the very heart of a small log. His stepfather 
 who was waiting in the next room, came to the open door 
 at that moment and stood listening. His face was pale 
 with anger. He was like a sharp steel axe lifted, wait 
 ing to strike at the stubborn obstruction. He happened 
 to be holding at that moment a hundred-dollar note in 
 his hand which he had just drawn from the bank for a 
 new purchase, and in his rage he was on the point of 
 tearing it in two. Gombarova threw herself at him, 
 to prevent him. 
 
AN ENTRANC 
 
 "For the sake of my 
 
 He desisted. He d ; 
 said he would take T 
 
 John was not haf 
 tie, all the while t<- 
 self, then offered 
 barov would hr 
 for days afte 1 
 
 Gombarov 
 but there v 
 on the bn 
 
 ing upor 
 heart. 
 
 ei r 
 
 20% 
 
 ded. 
 jing. He 
 
 waited a lit- 
 
 Je with him- 
 
 :. But Gom- 
 
 affered acutely 
 
 household tasks, 
 d with her hand 
 .er eyes, follow- 
 he womb to the 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 JOHN LEARNS OF MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 
 
 NIGHT, blessed night. Sweet is the dear, lightly 
 breathing creature, even in a stone city. Delicious the 
 crisp, dustless air in the street, clean-swept by water of 
 day chaos and day dust. Delicious the enticing smell of 
 fresh bread coming up from the open cellar of a bun- 
 shop. Fantastic the echoing sound of loud footfalls, 
 which approach you from round the corner and go on, 
 and die away somewhere. Refreshing the sight of a 
 waggon of fruit going down toward the river. Strange 
 the interludes of silence, before and after. 
 
 A tall man in black evening dress goes by ; there is an 
 air of smartness about him as he twists his small bris 
 tling moustaches and swings his cane; when he passes 
 under the gas lamp the glare catches his shining high 
 hat, sends a perpendicular gleam of light the whole length 
 of its cylindrical shape; then, after a little while, the 
 darkness swallows him; his blithe footfalls make one 
 think : "He is coming from the club, he has won a pot 
 
 of money at poker." Or else : "He has been to " 
 
 but never mind, there are some things which had bet 
 ter remain mysteries. 
 
 And from the same darkness which swallowed him 
 still another figure emerges, that of a woman, in a dark 
 dress; how slowly and how noiselessly she walks, there 
 is no sound of footfalls to herald her coming; how pale 
 her face, but faintly graven with features in the pale 
 half light, under the broad brim of her hat; how red the 
 
 208 
 
MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 209 
 
 full lips of her now upturned face, only the mouth and 
 chin in the full light; how strange to see her smile with 
 out seeing anything of her face but her pale-white chin 
 and red lips; now she lowers her head and you see noth 
 ing but a smile in the shadow; it is as if not a head 
 topped her shoulders but the very substance and essence 
 of a smile, crowned by a hat. A man approaches her 
 from the other direction, with resounding footfalls. As 
 he is about to pass her, she looks at him, still smiling, 
 and sings in an undertone. The song must be for him, 
 for he stops falteringly, and talks to her. She replies, 
 still smiling neither more nor less, just as before. He 
 shakes his head, says "Good night \" and goes on. She 
 pursues her own way. Who is she? Where is she go 
 ing? Why does she walk so silently, incessantly smil 
 ing? Her receding figure becomes the shadow of a 
 shadow, is lost in the darkness. 
 
 A small boy with papers under his arm stands within 
 the deep door of a shop, and having, drowsily, but with 
 great interest, watched all that transpired, leans back 
 once more against the jamb of the door and closes his 
 eyes in sleep. 
 
 He does not sleep long. Two large hands clutch him 
 by the shoulders and shake him. A working-man s tin 
 food-receptacle rattles on one of the man s wrists. The 
 boy opens his eyes with a start. Ah, it is his mother. 
 His first thought is that he must get up, get out of his 
 soft, warm bed, and go out into the cold, into the night, 
 to sell papers. What a funny mistake! He hears the 
 man s voice: 
 
 "You ain t had enough sleep, my boy. Young uns, 
 the like of you, ought to be a bed. I am a full-sized 
 man, and a night-bird from way back, and I can t say 
 as I like it. Come, give me the Times, boy, I must be 
 going." 
 
 What a funny mistake! It amuses the boy to think 
 
210 THE MASK 
 
 that he had made such a funny mistake. The State 
 House clock strikes. He counts the strokes: 
 
 "One two three four " 
 
 It is four o clock then. And now he remembers: 
 
 An hour and a half ago, he, a thing called John, 
 brought into this world for some reason or other, was 
 sound asleep. But at two-thirty sharp, something at his 
 head rattled, with rapid, ringing hammer-strokes. It 
 was the alarm clock, a devilish thing; and he hated it, 
 and bore it malice, as if it were a person. But he knew 
 he could not do without it. He dared not disobey its 
 imperative call. He would never forget the night in 
 which he had said to himself, as he turned over on his 
 other side : "I will sleep but five minutes more." When 
 he awoke, to his unforgettable horror, he opened his eyes 
 on broad daylight : it was seven o clock ! He remembered 
 how distressed, how disconsolate he was! He thought 
 of the regular customers he had missed what would they 
 think of him? With what shame he faced his mother 
 and even Raya and Dunya. Worse than that he 
 found it even harder to face himself. He had lost his 
 world that day, and he tortured himself with his failure. 
 At school that morning he was reprimanded for inat 
 tention. 
 
 But that never happened again. 
 
 Last night he went to bed at night, and he was up at 
 two-thirty. If he wanted to he could do this even with 
 out the alarm clock. For his step-father had taught him 
 that by concentrating his mind at bedtime on the time he 
 wanted to get up, he could do so. He tried this, and 
 it worked what a nice trick! He was proud of his 
 powers. He had no longer to be waked by his mother, 
 as was the case during the first few weeks, when he 
 changed his hours of occupation from the afternoon to 
 the early hours of the morning. This change took place 
 at the end of June when the school closed for the sum- 
 
MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 211 
 
 mer vacation. But when the school opened again in 
 September, he held on to his morning hours for selling 
 papers and gave up those in the afternoon. He pre 
 ferred night to day, because there were less people about 
 in the night, and fewer boys to compete with him and to 
 annoy him. Indeed, he had begun by coming out at 
 four o clock, but gradually went out earlier and earlier. 
 Three o clock usually found him sitting on the window- 
 sill of one of the press-rooms, waiting for the presses 
 to begin to whirr over the first city editions. He was the 
 first boy out with morning papers. 
 
 That morning, as usual, he got up at two-thirty, 
 dressed himself by candle-light, and stole out of the 
 house quietly, without waking anyone. As he walked 
 out into the street he munched a sandwich prepared for 
 him by his mother. He was still sleepy, but the cool air 
 refreshed him. He walked along feverishly, at times 
 with closed eyes, bumping once or twice into a lamp 
 post. He had no thoughts. Behind him walked Sleep, 
 and held him back with heavy languid hands; in front 
 of him Someone dragged him forward with active, gaunt 
 fingers. At last he was no longer sleepy; indeed he was 
 intensely awake, and his whole body flared as with ten 
 thousand little flames. 
 
 The men in the press-room joked good-naturedly at 
 his expense while he waited, but he had not long to wait. 
 He seized his papers, and ran out into the street, and 
 went on running, until he came to a pair of swinging 
 doors of a beer saloon. Bending down, he looked un 
 der these, and found the place full of people. He pushed 
 the small, half-doors aside, and bursting in, he accosted 
 a group of men, who stood leaning against the bar, on 
 which were ranged their schooners" of beer. The men 
 were munching sandwiches, to which they had just 
 helped themselves from the "free lunch" counter. With 
 out a word, one of the men began to pull out John s 
 
212 THE MASK 
 
 papers one by one and to hand them to his companions; 
 then with a generous gesture he turned to the strangers 
 in the room and said : 
 
 "Who ll er er ave a pay -per? It s on m-me, 
 boys!" 
 
 The words oozed out of his mouth as thick as treacle. 
 
 No one responding, he fumbled with a drunken hand 
 in his pocket, and drew out a nickel. John, pocketing 
 it, gave the man a cent change, and was about to go 
 out, when the bar-tender, a good-natured German, with 
 large projecting moustaches like a tom-cat s, thrust a 
 fork into a large steaming sauce-pan, and flourished a 
 sausage, as a result of the manoeuvre. 
 
 "Here, boy," he called out, "have a dog before you 
 
 go." 
 
 "Bow-wow ! Bow-wow !" went up a chorus of voices. 
 
 "I m not hungry," said John, hesitating. 
 
 "Not hungry?" said the bar-tender in an offended 
 tone, "there s always room for a dog ." Then, seeing 
 that the boy still hesitated, he added : "Don t be afraid, 
 it s kosher." 
 
 Everyone laughed. The man who had bought the 
 papers said persuasively: 
 
 "Son-ny, that er dog came f-from Sher-rus-salem. 
 It s er a circumcised d-dog." 
 
 Another guffaw followed. 
 
 John, embarrassed, took the proffered sausage, which 
 the bar-tender fortified with two pieces of bread and a 
 dab of mustard. He nibbled at the bread before going 
 out, but once in the street, after carefully glancing round 
 to see if anyone were looking, he flung the sausage \vith 
 all his might over the roof of a small one-story shop, 
 and ran on. He really believed that these "dogs" were 
 made of dog-meat. 
 
 Then he came to another pair of small swinging doors. 
 He pushed these aside and found himself in a very long 
 
MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 213 
 
 room containing large curious-looking, green-topped 
 tables all in a row. Men in shirt-sleeves, cigars in their 
 mouths, were standing about with long slender poles in 
 their hands and took turns at driving, at the point of the 
 pole, small stone balls, the size of a peach, into little nets 
 provided at the corners of the table and at the sides. 
 John sold a number of papers here, then paused, fasci 
 nated, at one of the tables and watched the play of two 
 players, who appeared to be especially expert. Some 
 times he would come back much later and find the same 
 players still at play; they played until the day traffic 
 began to noise in the street, and did not grow weary. 
 
 John ran on again, until he came to a brilliantly lit 
 place, a "quick-lunch" cafe. This was one of those places 
 "open day and night" ; there was a legend that with each 
 new place established by the proprietor, the first thing he 
 did was to throw away the key, a ceremony duly cele 
 brated with a seven-course dinner and champagne at 
 a high-class restaurant, of course. The first thing that 
 struck John as he entered the very long room, with its 
 two long counters and the small tables between, was the 
 incessant clatter of dishes, which came from the back of 
 the room, and this terrific noise was punctuated by the 
 stalwart if sometimes inarticulate cries of the waiters, 
 cries passed down the line, as in refrain, until they reach 
 ed the man near the dumb waiter, who acted as a kind 
 of lightning-conductor, passing these cries under 
 ground, where the kitchen was busily astir, a fantastic 
 man-hive. 
 
 "Two spring-chickens, sunny side up!" That meant 
 two eggs fried on one side. 
 
 "Two soft on the brain, baked on the side!" That 
 meant two soft-boiled eggs, and a plate of beans. 
 
 "Two hogs, and a bull !" That meant two ham sand 
 wiches, and one beef. 
 
214 THE MASK 
 
 "Adam and Eve on a raft!" That meant two poached 
 eggs on toast. 
 
 "One cured leather, done to a frazzle!" That meant 
 a steak well done. 
 
 "Cornbeef and cab-bahje!" The waiter pronounced 
 cabbage as though the word were garage. 
 
 A narrow strip on the inside of the counter, and form 
 ing part of it, moved steadily in one direction, and bore 
 toward each customer the dish he had ordered, which he 
 snatched off as it passed him, without waiting for the 
 waiter, who was busily engaged in pouring out coffee. 
 The men sat hunched on high backless round seats, 
 which revolved on a pivot; they sat not as at a meal but 
 as if they were travelling on bicycles; only now and then, 
 suiting the action of their revolving seats, they turned 
 their full bodies toward their neighbours and spoke in 
 loud raucous voices, which rose above the clatter of the 
 dishes like some inverted instrument above a cacophony 
 by a Futurist composer. And all the while dishes clat 
 tered, and clattered, and clattered. 
 
 And having left behind the din of the place, John was 
 once more in the cool air, running. He traversed street 
 after street, crossing after crossing, and, having stopped 
 again to listen to the whirr of the presses as he bought 
 copies of another paper, he ran on once more as if he 
 were a little running automaton traversing street after 
 street, crossing after crossing. He turned into a straight, 
 narrow street, bordered with tall buildings and rather 
 dark, until he came to a building rather taller and darker 
 than the rest, for its walls were very solid, and its win 
 dows opaque, and its tall, ominous-looking chimney 
 belched forth thick smoke, obscuring the stars. Running 
 the whole length of it, John came to a wide gate, which 
 bore the sign : "No Admission." Disregarding this, he 
 pushed aside one of the grimy wooden doors, and entered 
 an alley. He ran the whole length of the alley, and, 
 
MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 215 
 
 turning into a small cul-de-sac, came to another door, 
 this time an iron one, which also bore the sign : "No 
 Admission." Again, disregarding this, he pushed aside 
 the iron door, and entered. He walked quickly across the 
 iron-grated floor of the dimly-lit corridor, and, pushing 
 aside one of many doors, entered the main floor of the 
 Electric Light Works, for that is what it was. The 
 floor, as in the corridor, was iron-grated, and a comfort 
 able warmth came up from below, mingled with the smell 
 of machine-oil. The place, strangely enough, was not 
 brilliantly lit ; indeed a dozen huge dynamos spun around 
 not too noisily in a kind of half-twilight; there appeared 
 to be no one about; the dynamos spun around like gigan 
 tic tops, set going perhaps by God, in a sportive mood, 
 by means of a hawser, left dangling in his hand. For 
 some moments the boy stood awed and fascinated, as he 
 gazed at the monsters, revolving so fast that they appear 
 ed almost to stand still. Then he cautiously made his 
 way between the two rows of them, across the floor 
 which he feared to slip upon, and found himself pres 
 ently before a door of what seemed from the outside to 
 be a small compartment built in within the large room. 
 "POSITIVELY No Admission" was the sign on the 
 door. On the other side he could hear voices. Disre 
 garding the sign once more, he pushed the door open, and 
 found himself in a small room. Its walls were almost 
 completely covered with switchboards, brilliantly lit up, 
 but as the lines of light were shaded on the outside, the 
 middle of the room was quite dim. Here, in the half- 
 dark, sat the dim figures of workingmen, their legs dan 
 gling. They were smoking their pipes and talking. 
 
 "Hello, Johnny," said one of the voices good-natur 
 edly, "you re late this morning." 
 
 John, handing the man a paper, began to explain how 
 the bar-tender and the drunken men had kept him back 
 by trying to induce him to eat a sausage made of the 
 
216 THE MASK 
 
 meat of a circumcised dog, and how he had outwitted 
 them by throwing the guilty sausage over the roof of a 
 house. 
 
 The quintet on the table howled with delight. 
 
 "I say, Johnny," said one of them, "won t you show 
 us you know " 
 
 "What?" asked John in a puzzled voice. 
 
 "You know " prompted the man, with a wink at his 
 companions, "you know your circumcision " 
 
 "Yes, do, Johnny," said another, "I ll give you a nickel 
 if you do," and he put his hand in his pocket and drew 
 out the coin, tossing it into the air and catching it. 
 
 "I ll tell you what we ll do," said a third seeing that 
 John hesitated, and misinterpreting this hesitation as due 
 to the insufficiency of the offer, "we ll make a collection 
 for you." And, without waiting for an answer, he 
 seized John, and in spite of the latter s struggles, exposed 
 him. 
 
 One of the men turned on a hanging light, and undoing 
 the current cord, lowered the bulb, in order to "bring 
 more light on the subject," as he remarked. 
 
 Five pair of eager eyes out of the half -dark were 
 focussed on the spot where the light fell. The men 
 laughed, nudged each other s ribs, and passed obscene 
 jokes. 
 
 The man who held the light brought it nearer and 
 neared toward John, and at last he touched him with the 
 electric bulb. It was hot, and though he was touched but 
 lightly, he cried out with pain. The bulb was withdrawn 
 quickly, the men laughed. They let him go. Five hands 
 went into pockets, five nickles went jingling into John s 
 hat. The hat had been snatched off the boy s head, and 
 now it was returned to him, with five nickels jingling 
 in it. As John made no movement toward his hat, the 
 man gathered up the five nickles and thrust them into 
 John s pocket, and pulled the hat over the boy s head. 
 
MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 217 
 
 John, without uttering a word, walked out. And in 
 deed he could not utter a word if he wanted to. Some 
 thing came over him in a flood, something molten and 
 burning, and sought egress at the throat ; something like 
 a valve went down with a snap in his throat and barred 
 all egress. He walked through the large room quickly, 
 across the iron-grated floor, not afraid of slipping, un 
 mindful of the huge dynamos which spun round like 
 gigantic tops, set going perhaps by God, in a sportive 
 mood, by means of a hawser left dangling in His hand. 
 
 But now he was once more in the cool air. The cool 
 air blew on him, the cool air refreshed him, the cool air 
 cleansed him with its coolness. He said something to 
 himself, nonsense and inarticulate words; he had this 
 habit of speaking to himself, nonsense and inarticulate 
 words. He was like a little dynamo, silent and full of 
 power and helpless ; like a little top set going by the hand 
 si God. What did God mean by it ? 
 
 The heart of him revolted, grew hard; all of a sudden 
 he began to run, he ceased being a top, he became a little 
 running automaton. 
 
 He ran and he ran, traversing street after street, cross 
 ing after crossing, and only paused when he came to the 
 door of a pie-bakery; a most delicious smell came up 
 from the basement and filled his mouth with desire. It 
 was on the ground floor, but he shook the latch, and in 
 answer a man came to the door and said : "Oh, it s you !" 
 He went off for a moment, then returned, and pushed a 
 paper bag through the partly opened door into John s 
 hand while John thrust a paper into the man s hand. 
 
 John examined the contents of the bag. There were 
 four cuts of pie in it, of four varieties, all hot. They 
 were apple and lemon and cranberry and pumpkin. As 
 he walked along slowly he started on the pumpkin. There 
 was nothing so good in the world, he thought, as eating 
 hot pies. 
 
218 THE MASK 
 
 He ate two, and thought he would take the others 
 home, but the remaining pies taunted him, and he was not 
 long in consuming a third. He resisted the temptation of 
 the fourth and put it behind a shop-shutter when he got 
 to his corner. It was here that John had watched the 
 man in the silk hat and the woman with the smile 
 and the man who addressed her and went on. It was here 
 within the deep door of a shop that he leant against the 
 jamb of the door and slept, until awakened by the work- 
 ingman who wanted a paper. 
 
 Having realised the "funny mistake" he had made in 
 thinking himself in bed, and wishing that he was, he 
 went toward the gutter; here by the curb clean water 
 flowed, for the street had just been flushed; he dipped his 
 hands and put them over his eye-lids. The coolness 
 revived him, his whole body flared as with ten thousand 
 little flames. 
 
 Then, all of a sudden, he paused, as he recalled every 
 thing his humiliation of an hour ago. It was as if the 
 ten thousand little hectic flames had rushed together and 
 shot up in a single flash toward his brain, and having 
 evoked in his brain a picture of that little room and the 
 five pair of eyes gazing at him out of the half-dark 
 and his shame also the flash spent itself, and falling 
 backward, scattered into ten times ten thousand little 
 sparks, which spread through all the red highways of his 
 body and stung him from head to foot with their annoy 
 ing little stings, as of a swarm of ants. 
 
 What did God mean by it ? What had he, a little boy, 
 done to be punished so? But perhaps his uncle Sroolik 
 was right, and there was no God in America. 
 
 Rapt in this theological problem, he suddenly realised 
 that a waggon filled with baskets of peaches was passing 
 him by, on its way toward the river. Forgetting his sor 
 rows and God, he became transformed once more into a 
 little running automaton, and having caught up with the 
 
MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 219 
 
 driver, who was perched on a high seat, he hailed him. 
 The driver drew in the reins, the waggon stopped. 
 "I ll give you a paper for a peach !" cried John to him. 
 "Let s have your hat," said the man. 
 John climbed on to the spoke of a wheel, and handed 
 the man his hat. It was returned to John full of peaches. 
 He passed a paper up to the man. 
 
 John returned to his corner and bit his teeth into a 
 peach. There was nothing so good in the world, he 
 
 tthought, as eating a juicy peach. 
 
 Of the half dozen peaches he ate three, and he thought 
 
 !he would take the others home, but the remaining peaches 
 taunted him, and he was not long in consuming a fourth. 
 
 He resisted the temptation of the remaining two, and put 
 
 ithem behind the shop-shutter to keep company with the 
 
 lonely pie. 
 
 Once more John scampered off, this time to a third 
 
 i newspaper office, just around the corner, and bought 
 
 imore papers. 
 
 By this time, the sky had lightened perceptibly, the 
 great stretching hand of Dawn advanced with outspread 
 fingers to pluck the stars like fruit from a tree and to 
 gather them up in her dazzlingly white apron. Then she 
 touched lightly the foreheads of many sleepers, who 
 awoke and put on their drab working garments ; the older 
 men dressed nonchalantly, the young men left the bed of 
 their love with a sigh, the bachelor awoke and thought : 
 "if only " but never mind what he thought : it wouldn t 
 mend matters any, if you knew. The older man and the 
 young married man and the bachelor were soon in the 
 street, on their way to their work. Now and then a young 
 girl appeared in the street, a telephone girl, a nurse, or 
 a waitress: awakened by dawn, a mother, or an alarm 
 clock. The telephone girl thought: "I must speak to 
 many." The nurse thought : "I must attend to many." 
 The waitress thought : "I must wait upon many." And 
 
220 THE MASK 
 
 each one of them thought: "if only " But never mind 
 what they thought : it wouldn t mend matters any, if you 
 knew. Was it thoughts or people which began to fill the 
 streets? The street lights, more and more pale, blinked 
 drowsily upon passing shadows shadows, or people 
 or thoughts now and then one stopped to buy a paper 
 from John. 
 
 The day became lighter and lighter. Other newsboys 
 began to appear in the streets. Waggon wheels rattled 
 over cobble, horses hoofs resounded, the trams clanked. 
 The voices of the city rose more and more clamorously, 
 but it was not yet full day. 
 
 A rather large messenger-boy of about sixteen stopped 
 to speak to John. He appeared to be in a very gay mood, 
 and winked continuously, rather naughtily. 
 
 "Guess where I ve been to?" he asked John. 
 
 "Where? How can I tell ?" 
 
 "Well, you ll never guess!" He winked an eye, and 
 nudged John s ribs with his elbow. 
 
 "If I can t guess, then tell me." 
 
 "Well, that s how it was," began the boy, "about 
 twelve-thirty a lady blew into the office, a regular peach, 
 let me tell you, her eyes like electric lights, and her 
 clothes all fluffs and ruffles; she had on an opera cloak 
 too, or an uproar cloak, as you and I would say, she 
 blew in, and says to the manager : T want a boy, and I 
 want him quick, important business! And I want him 
 for some time ! For some reason the messenger boy 
 thought it necessary to wink an eye again and to nudge 
 John s ribs. "As I was saying, she was a regular peach. 
 The manager, he brushed back his hair, and made goo- 
 goo eyes. All right/ he says, you can have a boy. Our 
 charges are fifty cents an hour. Here, Tim/ he called. 
 Little Tim ain t larger than you. The peach looks him 
 over and says soft-like : Can t I have any boy I like ? 
 The manager falls all over himself. Madam/ he says, 
 
MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 221 
 
 you can have any boy you like/ Then she looked down 
 Ihe long bench, and choosed me. And so I goes along 
 with her. She taked me to her swell apartments, and put 
 oefore me a swell feed ; they were some eats, let me tell 
 rou! Oysters on shell, cold chicken and ham and potato 
 ialad, and apple pie. And she opens up a little bottle of 
 something which sizzed, and says to me: A little can t 
 aurt you. And all the time she stands over my chair and 
 oats my head, gentle-like. Then when I gets done with 
 the feed, she looks at me a long time, and says to me: 
 My boy, do you know why I sent for you? I says 
 lothing. You see, she says, I am a little lonely since 
 my husband died, and I m afraid of the dark, it s a hard 
 ;hing for a woman to be all alone in the dark, without 
 it man. D you mind cheering me up a little? And all 
 >f a sudden she begins to cry, and her hair gets all loose. 
 Then she flings her arms around me and kisses me. And 
 [ do all she says. She keeps on kissing and kissing me 
 ill night in the dark, and won t let up. Then I looks at 
 my watch. It s half past five, missus, my time is up/ 
 She lights her light, and looks into her money bag. How 
 much do I owe you, darling? she says. T ve been here 
 nve hours, missus, and company rates are fifty cents an 
 hour. All right, she says, and here is a dollar for 
 yourself. Good night, darling, and don t tell anyone 
 where you ve been. The messenger pulled out the 
 green note to show to John, at the same time winking an 
 eye and nudging John s ribs again. "Well, I must be 
 going," and he went off whistling a tune, giving one 
 more wink over his shoulder as he left. 
 
 While the boy was telling his story, John was laughing, 
 as he was expected to do; but once the boy left, he felt 
 very sad and troubled, and a confused unrest possessed 
 him, he did not know why. His own episode at the 
 electric light works came back to him with all its shame 
 and humiliation, as also an episode of the day before,- 
 
222 THE MASK 
 
 when in the early hours a man, dressed well, but pale 
 and slightly tipsy, begged of him a nickel for a cup of 
 coffee, pleading that he had left his entire "roll" in "a 
 lady s stocking." 
 
 What did this all mean? Surely the world was evil. 
 And he was evil also. For he thought of these things, 
 and they gave him a secret pleasure. He was the mes 
 senger boy, and he was the woman whom the messenger 
 boy comforted ; he was one of the five pairs of eyes which 
 looked at him gleefully out of the half -dark, humiliat 
 ing him. He was the inflicter, and he was the sufferer. 
 But it was not till many years afterward that this became 
 clear to him. For at that time he was inarticulate, and 
 like Moses bush something in him burned with fire, and 
 was not consumed. There was this flame in him, and it 
 had no egress. This fire wished to speak, it wished to 
 burn through the crust of his petty life. But other fires 
 came, fires of pity, which overwhelmed this other fire, 
 but did not put it out. For you cannot fight fire with 
 fire. He was in misery, in despair, and he was inar 
 ticulate. 
 
 The voices of the city rose more and more clamor 
 ously, and his cry went to join the others. 
 
 "Pay-pers ! Paypers ! Pay-pers !" 
 
 He cried his cry with great vigor, and all his inarticu 
 late fire went into this cry. His body ceased to exist, he 
 had become a cry. In response to it, men stopped to buy 
 papers, but it was not that that the cry was for. Men 
 marked the word, but not the intonation, nor its despair. 
 A wood goblin might have understood it, never the iron 
 sprite of the city. 
 
 The street lights had gone out long ago. The sun rose 
 higher on the great man-hive, its rays drew men out of 
 their square cells. 
 
 John ran round the corner to see the clock: it was 
 seven-thirty. It was time to go home, run his eyes over 
 
MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 223 
 
 his lessons, and go to school. He folded the four papers 
 he had left, picked up the bag containing the cut of pie 
 and the bag containing the two peaches, and once more 
 became a little running automaton. 
 
 He ran and he ran, traversing street after street, cross 
 ing after crossing, easing his pace only at intervals 
 for his way was long, until he reached his house. He 
 burst into the kitchen and found everyone at breakfast. 
 He flung down the papers on a chair, and emptied the 
 two bags on the table. With great joy he watched Raya 
 and Dunya scramble for the pie and the two peaches. 
 He held his sides with laughter. He took out a large 
 handful of coins and handed them to his mother, who 
 counted them and said : 
 
 "You ve had a good day, John." 
 
 John flushed, but said nothing. Shame again came to 
 him in a torrent of fire. He snatched quickly at a piece 
 of buttered bread, an egg and a cup of coffee, and having 
 done with his breakfast, he seized his books, and began 
 leafing one of them very quickly. He began to recite in 
 a sing-song voice a verse of Longfellow s he had to know 
 upon that day : 
 
 Life is real, life is earnest, 
 And the grave is not its goal, 
 
 Etc., etc. 
 Then: 
 
 Lives of great men oft remind us, 
 We can make our life sublime, 
 
 Etc., etc. 
 
 John suddenly thought that he heard some one laugh at 
 him behind his back; he turned round in anger only to 
 find that he was mistaken; there was no one quite near 
 him, and every one had a straight face. He went on re 
 peating the line : 
 
 Life is real, life is earnest .... 
 
224 THE MASK 
 
 Then he snatched up another book, this time a history, 
 and went on repeating in the same sing-song voice, as 
 though he were still reciting Longfellow, something or 
 other about Bunker Hill. Then he snatched up still 
 another book, and, without changing his voice, went on 
 repeating something about the Malay Archipelago, and 
 the Suez Canal. Then he snatched up still another book, 
 and, without changing his voice, went on repeating 
 something about the alimentary canal. And Dunya, 
 overhearing him, teased him by asking how far it was 
 from the Suez Canal to the alimentary. John was about 
 to get angry, but he reconsidered as he thought of a 
 retort : 
 
 "There is no distance at all, if you happen to be on 
 the spot." 
 
 Then he slammed his books and tied them up in a 
 strap. He ceased being a reciting automaton, he became 
 a little running automaton on its way to school. 
 
 He entered his class and took his seat at the head. 
 He was Number One boy, in the Ninth Grade, having 
 "skipped," as soon as he had mastered a little English, 
 from the Second to the Fourth, and from the Fourth to 
 the Ninth, chiefly on account of his mathematics. He 
 detested almost everything else, especially grammar and 
 physiology : the first because it reminded him of his 
 earlier ordeal with German, the second because it re 
 minded him of his mother s insistence on his becoming a 
 physician. He did not yet know what he wanted to 
 become. In fact, he quite definitely did not want to 
 become anything. For he was afraid of the world, and 
 afraid of people, nothing frightened him more than the 
 thought of meeting new people. Nevertheless he had a 
 great pride, and he studied his lessons with great dili 
 gence less for the sake of knowledge than for the sake of 
 being at the head of his class. The one joy he had wass 
 
MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 225 
 
 reading in after-school hours. Every two or three days 
 he went to get a new book at the Free Library. He 
 devoured the Arabian Nights, the many-coloured fairy 
 books by Andrew Lang, and stories of adventure by 
 Verne and Dumas and Henty, and even the lurid "Rag 
 ged Tom" stories by Horatio Alger, the American boy s 
 friend. He liked stories in which there was a hero and a 
 heroine a heroine especially, whom he liked to conjure 
 up as an ethereal being of transcendent perfection. And 
 though in actual life he felt intensely shy before women, 
 these imaginary creatures were very real to him, and 
 they gave him distress and delight, evoking in his too 
 young mind both sensual and idealistic images. As 
 before, there was no one to tell him anything. He read 
 what he liked. It is true his mother mentioned Dickens 
 and Samuel Smiles: he took up "Nicholas Nickleby" 
 and some of the "Self-Help" books out of sense of 
 duty, and was consequently bored intolerably ; he tried to 
 convince himself that he was learning something and 
 enjoying himself, though he invariably dropped them 
 before he got to the middle. He no longer read Russian 
 tales, for he was urged to drop everything Russian, if 
 he was to become a good American. Nevertheless, every 
 other day his stepfather taught him Hebrew and read the 
 Bible with him; he got a strange pleasure out of the 
 sound of the old words. 
 
 That morning, as always, the school-mistress, a short, 
 podgy woman with spectacles, began the day by reading 
 a few verses from the Bible. Owing to a protest on the 
 part of the parents of the Jewish pupils, she invariably 
 read something from the Old Testament. That morning 
 she read a psalm. The words uttered in a dull and mean 
 ingless voice sornded dull and meaningless, and Vanya, 
 worn out with lack of ^ 1 eep and his night s activity, was 
 asleep before she was done, his head propped on his 
 
226 THE MASK 
 
 elbows. She put away the Bible and picked up the recita 
 tion book. 
 
 "Number One boy, please stand up !" she called out. 
 
 John slept. 
 
 "John Gombarov!" she called out. 
 
 John did not stir. The class tittered. 
 
 The school-mistress walked up to John and shook 
 him. He opened his eyes in surprise. 
 
 "I have a good mind to send you to the principal," 
 said the school-mistress. "It s the second time it has 
 happened this week. Now I want you to recite Long 
 fellow s Psalm of Life which I gave you for your lesson 
 yesterday." 
 
 John rose and began : 
 
 "Life is real, life is earnest . . . 
 He paused and repeated in a faltering voice : 
 "Life is real, life is earnest . . . 
 
 "Evidently you have some doubts about it," said the 
 school-mistress; "sit down Gombarov. Next boy!" 
 
 He sat down crestfallen. But he retrieved himself 
 later when the school-mistress asked the class to write a 
 composition on the Cat. 
 
 "How many claws has a cat?" was the hushed whisper 
 which went through the whole class. And John asked 
 the same question of the boy who sat next to him. 
 Though he had been many times scratched by a cat he 
 never stopped to count the claws tl.at scratched him. 
 His guess was the right one. Lut it was not that which 
 won him the commendation of the school-mistress, who 
 even showed his essay to the principal and to her col- 
 
MYSTERIES IN THE NIGHT 227 
 
 leagues. It was the last sentence, which John had put 
 in to fill out the too meagre composition. It was to the 
 effect that the Egyptians regarded the cat as a sacred 
 animal and made sacrifices to it as to gods. John was 
 astonished that this bit of erudition should create a sensa 
 tion, and he was shrewd enough not to give away the 
 source of his information, a book of Egyptian adventure 
 by Henty. 
 
 Then he fell into disgrace again. The boy who sat 
 next to him was to blame. This boy had the not uncom 
 mon faculty among boys of investing innocent words 
 with obscene meanings, through association. It hap 
 pened that the school-mistress, in discussing some quite 
 innocent subject before the class, happened to say some 
 quite innocent word, which however brought to the boy s 
 mind an image associated with female anatomy. He 
 grinned and put his hand to his mouth to keep from 
 laughing, and at the same instant nudged John with his 
 elbow. John understood what was in the other boy s 
 mind, and he too could not repress a giggle. The school 
 mistress s eyes blazed anger at the boys, and putting 
 down the book she held in her hand, she went over and 
 shook John by the shoulders as though he were a bag 
 of wheat. 
 
 "I want you to know, boys/ she said, facing her class, 
 "that I m no cinch." 
 
 The two guilty boys left the school together when the 
 bell rang. They were walking together behind a tall 
 school girl in short skirts. A long plait of black hair 
 hung down her back. Her legs were long and sturdy, 
 attired in black stockings. The two boys behind kept 
 pace with her. John s companion kept up a steady grin. 
 At last he turned to John and asked : 
 
 "She s a nice " He repeated the innocent word used 
 by the school-mistress that morning. 
 
 "What?" asked John. 
 
22 g THE MASK 
 
 "She s got fine legs." 
 
 John said nothing. 
 
 Such was the atmosphere in which John grew, such 
 were his days and nights. Life seemed dull and point 
 less. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DEEPER AND DEEPER MYSTERIES AND MORE MYSTERIES 
 
 "To live in an inferno day after day is to get used to 
 it. To greet morning with a sigh, and night with a curse, 
 is to lapse into a habit, which would be painless but for 
 new, rare and more terrible diversions. To walk in the 
 fetid darkness for ever and ever, without a gleam of 
 light, is to merge with it, become lost in it, steeped in 
 it; a dark fetid thing in the fetid darkness. Habit walks 
 at your side, holding your hand, habit which is a demon 
 of the fetid, sordid darkness; the darkness that is both 
 of day and night, continuous, everlasting. Men become 
 like insects in the mire, feeding on darkness and are the 
 food of darkness. Fortunate the rare few for whom the 
 dark way in which they wander is illuminated at inter 
 vals by flashes of lightning, even though these illumina 
 tions reveal horrors exceeding the darkness itself. 
 Certain things happen rare and terrible diversions, and 
 it is these that break the routine of your inferno, make 
 your inferno interesting, make you conscious that you 
 are in an inferno. And these things either kill or save." 
 
 In such a manner did John Gombarov dwell many 
 years afterward on his childhood days in Philadelphia, 
 on those terrible days and nights, which were like one 
 long darkness, save for those sudden, those bewildering 
 flashes, which came and went; they were the sharp, 
 forked lightnings, and they clove the darkness, and re 
 vealed for but an instant an inferno terrible to behold, 
 fantastic and unimaginable; then the darkness closed in 
 
 229 
 
230 ^ THE MASK 
 
 upon him, and he wandered on in the darkness, shaken by 
 the flash, the memory of the flash haunting him for days 
 and days. 
 
 Sitting many years afterward with his friend Douglass 
 in an A. B.C. shop in London, Gombarov poured out a 
 tale of one of these rare and terrible diversions in his 
 life, and strange it seemed to the sun-loving Englishman 
 to hear his friend thrice-bless so sombre a diversion, and 
 only later, as he sat musing in his own room in silence, 
 did it dawn upon him how narrowly Gombarov s life 
 was saved from being merely sordid by tragic illumina 
 tions. This is the tale that Gombarov told : 
 
 "You will remember," he began, "the boy, living in 
 our house, who first introduced me to selling papers. 
 He lived with his parents on the floor above us. There 
 were three other children in the family all younger than 
 the boy. They had come some years before from Russia, 
 driven by the pogroms. At home Zorakh was a first-class 
 men s tailor, who could make a complete garment and 
 took pride in, making it well. There, in the small Rus 
 sian town, he worked slowly and deliberately. So it was 
 quite natural that his efforts to establish himself as an 
 independent tailor in Philadelphia should prove a failure. 
 He soon found out that only speed and quantity counted 
 here, and, giving up his shop, he began to look for work. 
 Everywhere he heard the same story. They did not em 
 ploy tailors : they employed only cutters and basters and 
 sewers and button-sewers and button-hole makers and 
 pressers; a man who could make a whole garment was 
 not wanted, because it was against the idea of speed; a 
 man who could make a whole garment was likely to get 
 too much interested in his work, like an artist. At last, 
 swallowing his pride, he began to look for a job as a 
 cutter, thinking it would be the least obnoxious part in 
 the making of a machine-made garment. But he failed 
 to reckon on the law of demand and supply : there was in 
 
DEEPER AND DEEPER 231 
 
 fact a plethora of cutters, but there was a shortage of 
 button-hole makers. And so, swallowing his pride a 
 second time, Zorakh became a button-hole maker. All 
 day he sat making button-holes. Efficiency being a pas 
 sion with him, he took great pains with these button 
 holes, but as he was paid so much for so many button 
 holes the price depending upon the quality of the cloth 
 he soon found out that unless he hustled he would not 
 be able to supply his own wants, not to speak of the 
 wants of his family. He soon knew the meaning of the 
 word sweat-shop ! His only joy was when he had a 
 better class garment to do and the button-holes required 
 greater care in doing. 
 
 "Zorakh, being a sensitive, nervous man, began to see 
 button-holes everywhere; they floated before his eyes in 
 black outlines, but at night they looked at him out of 
 the darkness like green luminous malignant eyes, which 
 followed him in spite of every movement of his head to 
 escape them. But sitting all day in the fetid air of the 
 shop, bent over into a half-arch, even a worse fate over 
 took him : he began to spit blood. A doctor advised 
 open-air employment. And so Zorakh became a huck 
 ster of vegetables and fruits. Bravely, day after day, 
 he pushed his laden cart through the streets, and shouted 
 his wares. He had been at this job hardly more than a 
 week when one of those periodical raids on hucksters 
 was made by "plain-clothes men." Sometimes the pros 
 titutes were raided and were led through the streets half- 
 naked, shivering in the night; sometimes the poor huck 
 sters were rounded up and driven toward the police sta 
 tion, pushing their own carts under a sweltering sun. It 
 was pitiful to see a huge inhuman paw on the collar of 
 each, as if they could escape! and it was pitiful to hear 
 the jeers of the street boys and now and then even of 
 older men. It was both pitiful and grotesque. And only 
 the Jewish men and women stood on the pavements and 
 
332 THE MASK 
 
 in the doorways wildly gesticulating, indignantly chat 
 tering, crying their Woe to Columbus! How helpless 
 they were ! Their discomfiture gave the hoodlums great 
 joy, it was such fun to see the Jews in such a fuss! 
 
 "The commotion in the street brought us all to the 
 window. We saw what was happening, and we nearly 
 cried to see poor Zorakh in that moving confusion; he 
 pushed his cart with great effort, urged on by a big, burly 
 six-foot-four Irishman, who held up his free fist at one 
 moment in the air as though he meant to. strike, at the 
 same time giving a wink at the passers-by on the side 
 walk. I remember that my blood boiled in me. I didn t 
 know why these men were rounded up perhaps they 
 had no huckster s license but whatever the reason I felt 
 it was unjust these men were trying to make an honest 
 living. The sense of justice was even then most curious 
 ly developed in me, and it seems to me that in my indig 
 nation I could almost have thrown a stone or a rotten egg 
 at Zorakh s tormentor at that moment, regardless of con 
 sequences. I remember I looked up at my stepfather. 
 His face was pale, his features drawn, and his fists were 
 clenched. My mother held his arm, as though she feared 
 he would do something rash. She must have thought of 
 that night in Russia, when in his fury he pulled up a 
 young birch sapling from the ground and belaboured 
 with it some unwelcome visitors, who ran from the de 
 mon-like man in sheer terror of their lives. He did not 
 speak until the little procession had passed. Then he 
 said : One can understand why Moses killed the Egypt 
 
 ian/ 
 
 "Zorakh was taken with the others before a magis 
 trate, and, unable to pay his fine, his cart with its contents 
 was confiscated, and he got seven days besides to make up 
 the measure. Poor Zorakh served his seven days, then 
 went home and to bed. He was very ill, beyond hope of 
 saving. He lingered on for some weeks, and between 
 
DEEPER AND DEEPER 233 
 
 the earnings of the boy and small charities his family 
 managed to go on living. 
 
 "I remember knocking on the door one afternoon, 
 hoping to find the boy in. Serele, a little girl, opened the 
 door to me. She had a frightened look on her face. She 
 said in half-stammers : Father is looking so queer, and 
 there is no one at home. I only wish mother would come 
 in. With a fluttering heart I went into Zorakh s room. 
 He was lying on the bed with his eyes wide open, and 
 his body rose and fell with his heavy breathing. On 
 seeing me he tried to speak, and though his lips moved 
 the words would not come for some time. One of his 
 hands appeared to seek, to grope, for something. I then 
 understood, he wanted a hand. I put my warm hand on 
 his cold one, and that appeared to revive him for a 
 moment. A smile struggled to his eyes, and words to his 
 lips. I w-wish I w-wish you a hap-py He did 
 not finish his words. Something suddenly seemed to lift 
 him from his bed, shake him violently, and drop him 
 back on his pillow. Seeing him very, very still, and as 
 it were smiling just a little, I became frightened, and 
 ran out of the room, with Serele at my heels. Zorakh 
 was dead. 
 
 "Yet it was not Zorakh s death that was the terrible 
 diversion I spoke of in the beginning, but what happened 
 afterward, on the day of his burial. 
 
 "Imagine then to yourself the same sordid room; a 
 pine box containing Zorakh, supported on two chairs, is 
 in the middle of the room, the sun penetrates the drawn 
 green blinds and falls in a ghastly green glare on Zor 
 akh s pale face, softened somewhat by the gentle but 
 flickering light of the candles at the four corners. Three 
 old women, their figures bent, their heads wrapped in 
 pale bandanna shawls, their faces unseen, sit at the head 
 of the coffin like three lamenting fates, and they drone 
 and croon in a low monotone a dirge-like indistinct 
 
234 THE MASK 
 
 primitive litany, which sounds strangely as though from 
 afar, a faint murmuring from dumb inarticulate throats 
 sorrowful and endless. 
 
 "A terrible curiosity drew me to look at Zorakh. The 
 same smile that I had seen before still appeared to hover 
 in some indefinable way, appeared to suggest the harbour 
 ing of some happy momentary fancy, the passage of some 
 benevolent thought, which had become arrested at the 
 very instant the spirit had left the body. 
 
 "The widow, a tall gaunt woman, with a demented 
 look in her eyes under a bulging forehead, sat in the next 
 room and was being comforted by her neighbours. Death 
 had wrought a truce in her relations with the dead for 
 poverty is no friend of conjugal happiness and for the 
 while softened the hardness of her second nature, which, 
 as you may know, is nearly always stronger than the 
 first; she recounted again and again his manifold vir 
 tues, which would surely be considered at the Seat of 
 Judgment; she told of his brave, uncomplaining days in 
 bed; of course, he had left her ill-provided for what 
 with her three little ones that three hundred dollars of 
 lodge money wouldn t go very far ; still he must have ex 
 pressed a death-bed wish for her welfare, and the good 
 Lord, the Care-taker of widows and orphans, would 
 surely not disregard it; she believed in the death-bed 
 wish as strongly as she did in the existence of an omnipo 
 tent God and of the Evil Eye. She wondered, and 
 again she wondered, as to what his wish might have 
 been: if she only knew! if she only knew! 
 
 "I happened to sneeze at the moment. 
 
 " There ! she said, it s as true as he s sneezed ! * 
 
 "A cold sweat suddenly passed over me as I suddenly 
 realised that Zorakh s death-bed wish was for me ! And 
 
 *The sneeze is regarded as a good omen among the Jews, as it 
 must have been also among the ancient Greeks, for we find mention 
 of it in Homer s Odyssey and in Theocritus. 
 
DEEPER AND DEEPER 235 
 
 I thought: if she only knew! if she only knew! 
 
 "And what was worse, Serele was there, Serele heard 
 it also ! Suppose Serele should tell ! 
 
 "At that moment three or four of Zorakh s friends 
 were standing in the doorway, discussing the sad hap 
 pening. 
 
 " He was a good man a good man ! one of them was 
 saying. 
 
 " He was not only a good man he was also a good 
 Jew/ added an old bent man with beard and locks, whom 
 Rembrandt might have painted. He was attired in a 
 black capote and black velvet skullcap, a Jew unmis 
 takably of the old school. 
 
 " Oh yes, rabbi, but he worked on Saturdays V said 
 derisively the youngest of the group, who was a Social 
 ist and did not. believe in God. 
 
 " That s very true, young man, but we are in exile, 
 and God will forgive us much. If it is to sustain our 
 lives, He will forgive us even the eating of pork. As 
 one of our sages tells us, there are only three things He 
 won t forgive : Idol worship, murder, unchastity. 
 
 "That aroused the ire of the Socialist. 
 
 " Oh yes! he cried, the really unforgiveable sin you 
 do not mention at all. It s capitalism, and includes all 
 three. You talk of idol worship but you have men here 
 who worship the dollar; you talk of unchastity, yet these 
 men have driven more girls to the street than the Lord 
 can ever hope of saving; you talk of murder murder 
 look then at Zorakh is it not murder? I tell you it s 
 murder worse than murder because they kill you so 
 slowly. 
 
 " Perhaps it was eating pork that did it ! went on 
 the Socialist pitilessly. And what will be Zorakh s re 
 ward in the next world ? I suspect he will be put to mak 
 ing button-holes on the garments of the dear little 
 angels. 
 
236 THE MASK 
 
 "Then, while the rabbi went to attend to his duties, a 
 third speaker intervened with the ironical suggestion that 
 Pharaoh had his Moses, the capitalist of to-day his 
 Marx, that Marx indeed was an up-to-date Moses, who 
 ejected the God of Tablets of the Law, and had put in 
 his place the God of Statistics. The argument waged hot 
 and might have gone on indefinitely, had not something 
 happened just then, something terrible and grotesque, 
 something quite unlocked for. 
 
 "It was just after the coffin had been nailed down and 
 was being lifted by four men that a tall gaunt woman 
 with dishevelled hair swept past the disputants like a 
 whirlwind, almost knocking them over, and leaping 
 through the door she hurled herself upon the coffin, and 
 made it fall; it rattled violently as it struck the floor. 
 
 "It was Zorakh s wife. 
 
 "When I saw what happened a great fear possessed 
 me, for I at once understood that my terrible secret was 
 out, that Serele had told her. 
 
 "She fell upon the coffin, clutched at it as if it were 
 a living thing, hammered it hard with her bony hand, 
 and cried all the while : 
 
 " Have me in mind, my husband ! Me and not the 
 boy! Do you hear, husband? Have me in mind! I 
 am your wife, and you have children and it s me you 
 ought to think of. 
 
 "The pine box resounded hollow under the blows of 
 her hands. There was consternation among the mourn 
 ers. Two men laid their hands on her shoulders and tried 
 to drag her away, but she embraced the coffin in the 
 deathlike grip of both her arms, and sobbed, and cried 
 through her sobs : 
 
 " Your last wish must be for me me me I say 
 me I 1 
 
 "When at last they stood her upon her feet, she was 
 assailed with questions : 
 
DEEPER AND DEEPER 237 
 
 " What is the matter ? 
 
 " Why make such a scene ? 
 
 "She tried to tear herself out of the hands of those 
 who held her. Suddenly she caught sight of Serele, who 
 stood frightened in front of her. She managed to seize 
 the child by the arm. 
 
 " Tell them, Serele, what he said to the boy before he 
 died. He wished him luck d you understand, he wished 
 him luck, him a stranger, and me he forgot. He wished 
 me nothing ! nothing ! D you hear, people, he wished me 
 nothing F 
 
 "She stood there like an animal at bay. She wanted 
 to throw herself on the coffin again, to beat it with her 
 head, her hands; she wanted to tear her hair, to shriek 
 so that the dead might hear. They had great trouble in 
 leading her away, and she went on shrieking as she was 
 being led away : 
 
 " Have me in mind me! me! me! 
 
 "The coffin was borne quickly out of the house, placed 
 in an ordinary cart which waited for it, and was hurried 
 ly driven away." 
 
 Some minutes passed by before John Gombarov spoke 
 again. 
 
 "Well, that shook me up/ he said at last. "I could 
 not sleep for nights, thinking of that tragic flash. What 
 was my own darkness, my own pathos and sadness, to 
 that mad woman s sharp tragic pangs on seeing her world 
 slipping from her forever, a world which had hung on so 
 frail and perilous a thread as a death-bed wish, now 
 irrevocable ? Although it was not my fault, I felt full of 
 pity and remorse, as if deliberately I had taken from her 
 all the hope she had; gladly, gladly, I would have given 
 her wish back to her if only I could! And yet, lying 
 there of nights, sleepless, a great comfort came to me 
 from that terrible event. My troubled darkness receded 
 
238 THE MASK 
 
 and receded, became a nothingness before the fierce 
 tragic blaze, and at those moments I ceased to think of 
 myself and my troubles. And only later, much later, I 
 began to understand why this was so. The illumination 
 came to me during my first days in London, where, lonely 
 and troubled, I used to take down from my shelf a play 
 by Sophocles or Euripides, and found that it soothed me, 
 rested me, lifted something from me, absorbed my own 
 petty sorrows as light absorbs darkness, as the great sea 
 of sorrows takes to its welling bosom all the sad rivers 
 and streams. And I began to understand why the Greeks 
 dedicated their theatre-temples to sorrow, why their 
 tragic plays were as much a religious ceremony among 
 them as any other religious ceremony. How fortunate 
 was the Athenian in that he had a way of purging him 
 self of his sorrow, in losing his own sorrow in the tragic 
 doom of Medea, Agamemnon and (Edipus Tyrannus ! 
 
 "And so it was that the stranger s sorrow helped me on 
 my dark way. If it had been merely sordid it would 
 have added to my sordidness, but being so sharply tragic 
 it absorbed all sordidness. I don t mean to say that the 
 thing was as great as a Greek play. But it was in its 
 own way, a profound and tragic illumination, which at 
 the time seemed to have served a need in my life." 
 
 "All I can say," observed Douglass at the end of Gom- 
 barov s narrative and philosophic reflection thereupon, 
 "is that you were not born in the right age. The time 
 is out of joint for you. What makes me think so is a 
 play I saw the other day. It was called Barnborough 
 Sits Up or some name like that. Barnborough, you see, 
 is the usual Yorkshire industrial town, and when the cur 
 tain goes up, that is when the fourth wall is removed 
 for that accursed fourth wall is responsible for nearly 
 all modern drama you are dragged in, as it were, to 
 witness the usual family squabble in the usual Barn- 
 borough household. There is the usual bawling by the 
 - 
 
DEEPER AND DEEPER 239 
 
 usual factory girl, who lost her virtue to the usual scape 
 grace son of the usual factory owner on the usual week 
 end, which began with the usual joy-ride. The week-end, 
 as you may know, is a great institution. If it were abol 
 ished the English lawyer and the English dramatist 
 would lose their occupations. To return to the Barn- 
 borough household. There is of course a great fuss 
 made about the girl s lost virtue, and it is unanimously 
 decided by her parents and his parents and the real 
 fiancee of the guilty young man that, having robbed the 
 poor girl of her virtue, he ought to take the girl with it. 
 And so he is coerced into making a proposal to her. 
 Well, you would say that never could a girl have been 
 seduced under more auspicious circumstances. But no! 
 The dramatist gets in his great stroke of work here. 
 The girl will simply have nothing to do with the young 
 man ! She has had a jolly good time while it lasted, and 
 that was all there was to be said about the matter. 
 There is a sensible girl for you. Moral of the play: 
 There is no reason for making such a hullabaloo about 
 a factory girl s lost virtue. Well, Gombarov, I wouldn t 
 advise you to see this play if you have a sorrow that you 
 want lifted from your heart." 
 
 "It seems to me, Douglass, that the subject ought to 
 make a fine comedy, and the next best thing to a fine 
 tragedy for lifting one s sorrows is a good comedy. The 
 Greeks had Aristophanes as well as Sophocles." 
 
 That may be true," answered Douglass, "but the 
 trouble with this play is that it is neither a tragedy nor a 
 comedy, it is a sordedy." 
 
 The two friends laughed, and Douglass called for 
 liqueurs. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A TRAGIC HERO GOES SLOWLY BUT INEVITABLY TO 
 HIS DOOM 
 
 WHATEVER else one might have said of the life of the 
 Gombarov household at this time one could not in truth 
 have said that it was a sordedy to use so apt a definition 
 invented many years afterward by John Gombarov s 
 friend. It might have been had the Gombarovs been 
 usual people, but they were not: their characters were 
 sharp and decisive, clearly defined to outsiders if not to 
 themselves, and the foggy squalor of poverty did not 
 obscure them. They were poor now, almost beggars, 
 not bourgeois: had they been real beggars, their beg 
 gars rags could not have hid the tragic poise of their 
 torse, the timeless, the eternal. They formed a world 
 quite apart, a world in conflict with itself, and in a sense 
 in conflict with all the outer world, toward which they 
 presented a united front, a thing as it were of discords 
 melted down to a harmony. This outer world, taking 
 time off between their routine tasks, discussed the Gom 
 barovs, and thought them "a queer lot." What right had 
 a man, the father of so many little ones, to spend his 
 money in that way, on all that useless junk? What right 
 had Gombarova, the mother of so many little ones, to 
 countenance this expenditure? The men thought: were 
 they only in Gombarov s place! The women thought: 
 were they only in Gombarova s place. They knew what 
 they would do with the money. They would start a 
 small dry goods shop, and they would keep everything 
 
 240 
 
A TRAGIC HERO GOES TO HIS DOOM 241 
 
 in it, from a needle to a pair of open-work stockings. 
 There was always a new girl born into the world, and 
 every girl wanted both a needle and a pair of open-work 
 stockings. A pair of open-work stockings was a net to 
 catch a young man; ergo from a pair of open-work 
 stockings to a bridal trousseau was but a step. From a 
 trousseau to a layette was another step; they wished no 
 one so ill a fortune as not having little ones; little ones 
 were a blessing to you while you lived, and when you 
 died there was some one left to bless your memory, to 
 say Isgadal t/Iskadash* for you. And the dear little 
 ones God bless them! wanted clothes, and more 
 clothes ; the dear little ones had a way of growing, almost 
 from day to day, like the little wild flowers in the fields 
 God bless the little wild flowers! 
 
 There was Jacob Geltman & Co., Jacob himself begat 
 the "Co." Joe, Louis and Ben Ben really did not 
 count, he had a hankering for art, graven images attired 
 in open-work stockings had also an attraction for him 
 never, in his case, leading up to the indiscretion of a 
 trousseau ; well then there was old Geltman, the father 
 of the trio, what was this old Geltman seven years ago? 
 A mere beggar. If not a mere beggar then a mere pedlar, 
 A trifling difference, vast in its consequences. Once a 
 beggar, always a beggar; but a pedlar well, a pedlar was 
 merely the bottommost rung of Jacob s ladder. A well- 
 stocked dry goods stall was the second rung ; it was next 
 door to a fishmonger s, and Jacob had the strange and 
 almost childish naive idea that if a woman went out to 
 buy a herring she ought to buy a pair of open-work stock 
 ings also. He came to this idea by a process of pure 
 deduction. When he saw a young married woman buy 
 a herring and he knew her to be married by her calm 
 assured manner, just as he knew the unmarried one by 
 her fluttering ways well, then, when he saw a young 
 
 * The opening words of the Hebrew prayer for th dead. 
 
242 THE MASK 
 
 woman buy a herring, or two, presumably for her lord 
 and provider, he argued to himself that it behoved that 
 young woman to keep her dear one s love. The little 
 fishes done up with bread crumbs and butter and a little 
 heap of small new potatoes dipped in sauce was one 
 good way, to be sure; but that was not enough, we do 
 not live by bread alone. And he reasoned to himself : 
 if the young woman had netted her dear one with a pair 
 of open-work stockings, and in a sense also the little 
 fishes for a young man is not only a dear one but a 
 provider also then it behoved her to keep and cherish 
 his love by renewing again and again the net with which 
 she had caught him; the strongest of nets have a way of 
 wearing out. 
 
 There was another thing: an aside to be sure: there 
 is a popular legend this was before women had pockets 
 that a woman keeps her money in her stocking; well 
 then, if this was true, and if she kept it in an open-work 
 stocking there was a chance that some of it would dribble 
 through in one way or another. To be sure, there will 
 always be folk to find flaws in a man s reasoning, and to 
 say that it is far-fetched, but if you pinned one of these 
 fault-finders down, he would admit in the end, if he was 
 an honest man, that Jacob s reasoning was not any more 
 far-fetched than the reasoning of some of our profound- 
 est philosophers, who loved going round in a circle, as 
 on a merry-go-round, without getting anywhere. After 
 all, Jacob s philosophy was no hobby-horse. It led him 
 somewhere, brought practical results. And that was the 
 thing to judge by. For him the earth was still flat, not 
 round; for him the little stars shone as little twinklers, 
 not as myriads of worlds. And if you had told him that 
 So-and-So had left Philadelphia going in one direction 
 and had come back to it without retracing his steps, or 
 that a number of men had gone in a ship to discover the 
 North Pole, or that Professor Sharpeye sat up nights 
 
A TRAGIC HERO GOES TO HIS DOOM 243 
 
 with one of his eyes glued to the bottom end of a tube 
 which pointed toward one of the great constellations in 
 the starry heavens, he would have remarked in a tone of 
 utter contempt: "What a waste of time and money!" 
 in a less agreeable mood, due perhaps to indigestion 
 or a bad day s business, he would have dismissed the 
 matter even more curtly with the remark : "They are 
 simply meshugah!" which, in good Hebrew, means crazy. 
 Only at the mention of the canals of Mars he might have 
 pricked up his ears. Canals? That meant there were 
 sensible people even in other worlds. Canals meant 
 trade, traffic. Canals meant straight lines, which led 
 somewhere. Something appealed to him in straight lines. 
 He had a curious and deep antipathy to circles. He 
 liked the long straight streets of Philadelphia, down 
 which the people and traffic poured in one steady stream. 
 He liked that long interminable line of stalls. There 
 were the neighbour s bigger fish strung high on a line, 
 and on a line running parallel there dangled over his own 
 stall a row of fancy stockings and fluffy things dear to 
 a woman s heart : the whole thing was so arranged that 
 if you began by looking at the fish your eyes almost 
 inevitably ended by resting on these frail, feminine de 
 lights, a fatal hesitancy which gave the watchful Jacob a 
 chance to harangue the fair one upon the virtues of his 
 wares and the boon they would confer upon the charming 
 purchaser. 
 
 But all this was long ago. For the time came when 
 Jacob Geltman s stall grew into a shop; Jacob and his 
 sons and daughters stood behind the counters, while 
 Jacob s earlier place outside the shop was held by a pro 
 fessional "puller-in." Later this personage was dispensed 
 with as not in keeping with the growing dignity of the 
 shop, which was becoming a small department store. 
 And so the house of Geltman & Co. was established, and 
 its one constant object from now on was to add "wings" 
 
244 THE MASK 
 
 to itself, with which end in view old Geltman bought 
 from time to time another and still another of the neigh 
 bouring properties, until it might have been said of the 
 Geltman fortune that it fairly soared on its multiple 
 "wings." The Geltman house now maintained forty em 
 ployees, men, women and girls, who were paid poorly but 
 neither better nor worse than elsewhere. All in all, to 
 judge by results, old Jacob saw that the Adoriai was with 
 him, and in virtue thereof he scrupulously attended the 
 synagogue every Saturday, to thank the good Adonai for 
 all mercies, great and small. And in this respect again he 
 was neither better nor worse than his successful Chris 
 tian brother up-town who ran a Sunday School class to 
 ease his mind of its too golden burden. Ah thought 
 two Pharisees of two different religions in two different 
 parts of the town ah, what a burden gold is, what a 
 responsibility! And to save the poor from such a dire 
 fate, the managers of the various departments of the 
 Christian and the Jewish stores, up-town and down-town, 
 received a periodical notice to cut down their expenses. 
 
 But assuredly to judge by results Adonai was with 
 Geltman. What was still better the devil was not 
 against him. Perhaps Jacob s reasoning was false, and 
 neither Adonai nor the devil were with him or against 
 him. Perhaps he was "small shakes" for either, and it 
 did not matter to either whether he was rich or poor, 
 happy or unhappy, whether he lived or died. Perhaps he 
 prospered simply because he went on without hinder 
 from either. 
 
 But this tale concerns itself not with Jacob Geltman 
 and his sons and daughters and his growing wealth and 
 his pious habits, but with Semyon Gombarov, marked 
 for ill fortune, whose ill fortune nevertheless flared 
 against the prosperity of the other like a blossom of red 
 flame against a grey drab wall. He was godlike, and 
 so God held aloof from him; he was godlike, and so the 
 
A TRAGIC HERO GOES TO HIS DOOM 245 
 
 devil was against him. God and the devil made a pact, 
 that God should hold aloof from him, that the devil 
 should hinder him; God was so sure of him, the devil 
 was so sure of him. As for Semyon Gombarov, what 
 did he think of God and the devil? He gave thought 
 neither to the one nor to the other. Unconsciously per 
 haps, he belonged to one of the gods of the old hierarchy 
 of the gods, and just as one speaks of a man as being in 
 Christ and Christ being in him, so one could say of Gom 
 barov that he was in Vulcan and that Vulcan was in 
 him. For as John Gombarov held afterward as he 
 looked back on his fated stepfather the old gods were 
 not really dead, but they were all crucified as Christ was 
 crucified, and their spirits spread themselves among men, 
 each according to his kind, as surely as Christ s spirit 
 had flooded the souls of certain men and John Gom 
 barov added with his usual irony : "Not necessarily of 
 ministers of the gospel." Indeed, he held that there were 
 pagans and artists who were much nearer the Christ- 
 spirit than some men who donned black and fastened 
 their collars at the back instead of the front. In one or 
 two cases he had even detected emissaries of the devil 
 in this garb. 
 
 To return to John s step-father, Semyon. He was of 
 
 god Vulcan, or better of his Greek prototype, Hephaies- 
 
 tos. He was lame too in a sense, having started life 
 
 under a handicap, if not physical then material; but he 
 
 loved metals and fire, there was joy for him in the sight 
 
 ! of molten metal and in the sweat of his face ; and his 
 
 crucibles were as dear and as sacred to him as the sacri- 
 
 ! ficial urn to any pagan priest performing ancient rites. 
 
 : He gave his everything to this, his wife s and his chil- 
 
 ! dren s everything also, nothing* else mattered. Such 
 
 a man was Semyon Gombarov. 
 
 And now he was penniless. "Quite right too!" said 
 some of his neighbours in their hearts, having prophe- 
 
246 THE MASK 
 
 sied that he would squander his money, and elated at the 
 coming true of their prophecy. The truth was that he 
 had at last, after nearly two years labours and experi 
 ments, completed the installation of his work-shop, and 
 all he lacked was the capital necessary for its running. 
 Where was this capital to come from ? Gombarov spent 
 his days looking for capital, and these days stretched into 
 weeks. Men with money winked an eye at their partners 
 when Gombarov with samples of his work turned 
 towards the door to go out. What a funny man! As if 
 they had nothing better to do than help poor inventors. 
 Why, if they wanted to sink their money there were so 
 many more pleasant ways of doing it. They might do 
 it at the gaming table, or by playing the races. 
 
 He advertised in the papers, and received a number of 
 answers. Strange^looking visitors came to the house, 
 mostly of the get-rich-quick type, with small capital. 
 They had expected to find a practical, alert-looking busi 
 ness man; instead they found a fervent visionary who 
 was burning up with his own enthusiasm. All that was 
 very well in its place, but enthusiasm was a bad thing in 
 business; in business you wanted to have a cool head, a 
 head as cool as ice and as hard as ice, and there should 
 be no warmth of any kind about to melt out even a few 
 frail tears; a business place ought to be as cool as a 
 refrigerator; sentiment is dangerous; even a cool, hard 
 piece of ice may melt. Business is business, war is war, 
 life is life there is your businessman s imagination for 
 you. But suppose you were one of those ridiculous pessi 
 mists who had read Goethe and agreed with Goethe about 
 war, trade and piracy being on a par and you had come 
 to this businessman and had said to him : "Business is 
 hell, war is hell, life is hell," he would have looked you 
 up and down with a frozen glance and thought that you 
 were an anarchist, a lunatic, a dangerous person who 
 ought to be put under lock and key. At best, if he had 
 
A TRAGIC HERO GOES TO HIS DOOM 247 
 
 a kind heart and detected a look of sadness in your face, 
 he would have thought to himself : "Poor chap, he is a 
 failure, he hadn t enough stick-at-it-iveness !" But no ! 
 zealot, anarchist, fanatic, lunatic, failure, or whatever 
 you might be for once you are wrong, if you think the 
 business man has no imagination. Haven t you read 
 his advertisements, more wonderful than the literature 
 he reads, haven t you seen his marvelous dancing electric 
 signs on Broadway for which he pays thousands and 
 millions of dollars just to please your eyes? Haven t 
 you delighted in his quaint epigrams, with their real 
 literary flavour, which he repeats privately to his partner 
 on a day when business is dull? "A sucker is born every 
 minute," has now become public property, but the revised 
 version says "every thirty seconds," which of course 
 doubles one s chances of success. A more esoteric epi 
 gram is an improved version of a mot of Sheridan s 
 which in its new dress appears: "Every man ought to 
 have a dollar, it doesn t matter whose dollar it is " 
 The word in the original mot was of course "wife" in 
 stead of "dollar." The American business man s version 
 is obviously an improvement, because it is much less 
 immoral to want a man s dollar than a man s wife, "but 
 this attitude," observed John Gombarov to his London 
 friend, "is somewhat discounted by the fact that the 
 average business man in America is of the opinion that 
 his money entitled him to a virgin, not to other men s 
 leavings, and having once got hold of his virgin and 
 made her his wedded wife, she, by virtue of her sur 
 render, in her turn demands that her lord and master 
 dedicate all his time to extracting, for her sake, other 
 men s dollars, a task which not only keeps her in ample 
 funds for shopping and pleasure but also keeps him too 
 busy to think of coveting other men s wives. One is 
 quite enough in the circumstances." 
 
248 THE MASK 
 
 In some such words as these John Gombarov held 
 forth for the benefit of his English friend. 
 
 "You talk as if some American peach had chucked 
 you," observed Douglass sarcastically. 
 
 "Not one, but three, my boy," replied Gombarov, 
 good-naturedly. "Such fine girls too! Each one stipu 
 lated that she couldn t possibly marry a man without an 
 income of at least fifty dollars a week, and so in each 
 case, after considerable love s labour s lost or much pre 
 liminary sparring, as you would say I had to throw up 
 the sponge ! As they say in America : Every man has 
 his price. But it s nothing to the price of a woman. 
 However I ll tell you about it some other time. But I 
 was telling you about my stepfather." And he went on 
 with the story, which was substantially as follows: 
 
 Now if the business men resented Semyon Gombarov s 
 enthusiasm, the "sharks" welcomed it; a shark, it is 
 easy to .guess, is a human biped who lives by taking 
 advantage of others. They welcomed it, because by 
 feigning enthusiasm they could find their way to a pros 
 pective victim s heart ; for an enthusiasm on both sides is 
 like a door on one side of which is written "Pull" on the 
 other "Push," and if one pulls and another pushes, the 
 door, however heavy, opens easily. And so the sharks 
 responded to Gombarov; those who came knew some 
 thing about metallurgy, of course, and one or two came 
 persistently in the hope of catching him off his guard 
 and of wresting his secret from him. But Gombarov 
 was no fool, and he showed them just enough to excite 
 them, and did not reveal to them any actual clue as to the 
 composition of his gold-like metal. Their admiration 
 was real about the actual products : knives, spoons and 
 forks, of which he had made a dozen or so samples. 
 The sharks, seeing that nothing was to be done with the 
 man, lost their enthusiasm and stopped coming. Gom 
 barov, unwearingly, scoured the town from one end to 
 
A TRAGIC HERO GOES TO HIS DOOM 249 
 
 the other in quest of a partner. He went to see Jacob 
 Geltman, among others. 
 
 He walked along the interminable rows of counters of 
 white fluffy things, and the girl shop-assistants stopped 
 for a moment the fiendish movement of their jaws over 
 their chewing-gum, and giggled. They never did see 
 such a funny man 
 
 "Well, I never" 
 
 "I do declare" 
 
 "Why don t he get his hair cut?" 
 
 "Ain t he the limit?" 
 
 "I wonder wat dat guy wants." 
 
 Jacob Geltman, seated in a large revolving arm-chair 
 in his private office, soon knew "wot dat guy wanted!" 
 Gombarov unwrapped his samples and exposed them to 
 Jacob s astonished gaze. 
 
 "They look like gold nearly," said Jacob with gen 
 uine admiration at these table utensils which resembled 
 real gold. "Look, Ben," and he called over to his 
 youngest son, him who had a weakness for graven im 
 ages, both in stone and in flesh "what do you think of 
 this? Why, a chap may now be born literally with a 
 golden spoon in his mouth. They ll be making beds of 
 roses next, the sort you like, Ben, eh? Oh what a 
 world ! Oh what a world !" Old Jacob rubbed his palms 
 together like one dumbfounded at the idea of being born 
 in a bed of roses, with a golden spoon in one s mouth. 
 Surely, when that happened Messiah, the long-expected, 
 will have come on earth. And at the thought Jacob 
 began to hum the opening lines of a Yiddish song : 
 
 "Says the poor inan to the rich man: 
 The good day unll come when you and 1 
 Shall hobnob together 1 " 
 
 Then as if suddenly realising that the visitor had come 
 on business, he said : 
 
250 THE MASK 
 
 Til tell you what I ll do for you. If you will send me 
 a sufficient supply of your knives, spoons and forks, I 
 will give them a special display, a whole window all to 
 themselves. I may even arrange a small dining room in 
 the window, with a table covered in first-class style ; there 
 shall be table napkins and everything; there will be little 
 wax manikins around the table, and at the head of the 
 table the mother will sit I ll pick out the handsomest 
 wax figure I ve got and she ll ladle out soup to her 
 little ones with one of your golden ladles. What do 
 you say to that ?" 
 
 "Unfortunately, these are all I ve got/ said Semyon 
 Gombarov. "In fact, I ve come to you to see whether 
 I could get some capital to run my works." And Gom 
 barov proceeded to explain to him all the circumstances 
 of his position. 
 
 "Mmm . . . Mmm . . . " Old Jacob grunted, and, 
 removing his spectacles from his nose, he swung them up 
 and down in his right hand. "Mmm ..." he grunted 
 again and again, and finally turned to Ben : 
 
 "What do you think of the proposition ?" 
 
 "There s something in it. It might not be a bad 
 thing." 
 
 That settled it for Jacob. He merely asked the ques 
 tion to gain time. He had an absolute contempt for 
 Ben s judgment : after all, how can anyone with a hanker 
 ing for art and women be trusted with business matters. 
 The fact that the inventor s ideas appealed to Ben was 
 enough to settle the matter. 
 
 "You see," said Jacob in a faltering manner, "I d like 
 to help you, but I am planning another wing to my store, 
 and I need all the ready cash I ve got. A department 
 store, you see, is a great responsibility, a great responsi 
 bility. You can have no idea what a worry it is. You 
 are really to be congratulated that you have no depart 
 ment store. If you had one it would simply drive you 
 
A TRAGIC HERO GOES TO HIS DOOM 251 
 
 mad. I assure you it s a strange state of affairs : here I 
 own all this place and yet I haven t a penny of pocket 
 money. That reminds me, Ben, don t forget to leave me 
 fifteen cents for lunch before you go. And there s 
 that new wing to build. We Jews are such a poor people. 
 Look at all those rich department stores up-town. They 
 nearly all belong to Christians, and the others belong to 
 German Jews, who try to ape the Christians in every 
 possible way. But the Christians are always richer. We 
 Russian Jews are mere bagatelles beside the Christians. 
 Look at Rockefeller, look at Carnegie, look at Morgan. 
 What ten Jews put together can make up a sum as large 
 as any one of them can muster. They point to the Roths 
 childs in Europe, but just consider, I beg of you, how 
 long it took the Rothschilds to collect their wealth. They 
 are not merely rich men, they are a dynasty. I feel 
 ashamed of the Jews when I think how really poor they 
 are. It s not that they are poor, but that they are not 
 clever, for if they were clever they would be rich. The 
 Christians are clever folk. One Christian can put a 
 dozen Jews into his pocket when it comes to cleverness 
 and to making money." 
 
 "I quite agree with you," said Gombarov, who stop 
 ped for another hour to argue out the question, for Gom 
 barov had a way of hobnobbing with all sorts of people. 
 Then he wrapped up his samples and left. 
 
 "Old god Vulcan dug metals out of the heart of the 
 earth, the ancient Christ dug love out of the hearts of 
 men. Men now owned the earth and the metals of the 
 earth, and their great possessions filled their hearts, there 
 was no place for love. Vulcan and Christ and all the 
 crucified gods walked the earth, and there was no place 
 for them on the earth. It is true there were great fur 
 naces working, and there were many huge temples erect 
 ed to Christ; nevertheless, there was no true joy in men s 
 
252 THE MASK 
 
 work and there was no true love in men s hearts. All 
 the fires were sterile: the fire in the blast furnace, the 
 fire on the altar, and the fire on the hearth. Was it for 
 this that Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give it to 
 men, and suffered therefor? Was it for this that the 
 Son of God and the Son of Man gave abundantly of 
 His love to men, even all He had, until there was but a 
 single gasp left in Him, and He cried in this gasp: *O 
 God, O God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Who can 
 tell what was in His mind when Christ cried His cry? 
 Was it not that in looking down from the cross upon that 
 sea of leering faces, a feeling of utter despair came upon 
 Him and a thought in His despair: He had lived in 
 vain, He had loved in vain. Death in itself was nothing, 
 but that they were putting Him to death was not that 
 a proof of His failure? God, His Father, had not 
 granted Him sufficient love, sufficient art. The sense of 
 His failure must have overcome Him, crushed Him 
 utterly. For He was an artist who tried to make a per 
 fect statue in flesh and blood, but when in that terrible 
 instant they came to life, when in His pain and torture 
 He opened His eyes, He saw a sea of gargoyle faces. 
 And the most perfect Christian art has been of gargoyles 
 ever since, as witness the Gothic temples, though it is 
 true it has not been without its angels, happy and smiling 
 only when painted by the pagans of the Renaissance, 
 when Vulcan and Christ and all the pagan and Christian 
 gods walked hand in hand and there were no petty 
 quarrels either among gods or men." 
 
 "A bit preachy, isn t it?" said John Gombarov, show 
 ing Douglass the above passage he had lately written in 
 his notebook, inspired by the memory of his stepfather, 
 whom he had so violently hated at one time of his life. 
 His stepfather had made him suffer so, and he also made 
 his mother suffer, as well as all the little ones. His 
 
A TRAGIC HERO GOES TO HIS DOOM 253 
 
 neighbours had thought him utterly selfish, and his neg 
 lect shameful. What mysterious and unconscious process 
 of thought and emotion made him then express himself 
 so deeply and so benevolently about so unworthy a par 
 ent? Ah, but there were days he remembered, days in 
 which his stepfather appeared to him dear and radiant 
 like a stray sun ray, which fell upon one s heart without 
 seeking and warmed it with a curious impersonal 
 warmth, that was neither of love nor of hate but beyond 
 either. 
 
 There was one day that he especially remembered in 
 all that endless welter of arid days, and upon that day 
 Semyon Gombarov, after an absence of hours, blew in 
 like a buoyant breeze into the house, and scattered the 
 cloud of gloom which had been hanging almost motion 
 less over the house for days. He was like a big boy who 
 did not know what to do with himself. He lifted one 
 child after the other in his arms and cradled them back 
 and forth in the air until they were weary with delight. 
 
 For at last, at last, the son of Vulcan met a son of 
 Christ. 
 
 Semyon Gombarov met a man after his own heart. 
 This man had but little money, but he liked Gombarov 
 and his enthusiasm and trusted him. If he lost his 
 money, very well then he lost it. There are such cur 
 ious people in this world, who are sure to provoke their 
 neighbours to call them lunatics, and all because they 
 choose to spend their own money in their own way, as 
 their own whims move them and not those of their 
 neighbours. For days and days on a time these two 
 itnen were inseparable. They did not even take the 
 trouble to draw up a form of their partnership. 
 
 Gombarov sent in a large order for metals, and his 
 i partner drew up the necessary cheque. The metals were 
 to arrive on a certain morning and Gombarov went to 
 ihis machine-shop to be there to receive them. He walked 
 
254 THE MASK 
 
 along happily and buoyantly, thinking of his metals and 
 the magical fires. He would begin work that very morn 
 ing. Hope blazed in his heart a multi-coloured flame, 
 hope blazed in his heart a rainbow of fire, hope blazed in 
 his heart a Catherine-wheel, which sent out sparks in all 
 directions, a spark for his wife, a spark for his every 
 child; Gombarova s long cherished dream would come 
 true: Vanya would be a doctor yet But he, Semyon 
 Gombarov, he was the heart and the brightest colour in 
 that flame, he held up the rainbow with out-stretched 
 arms from end to end from finger-tip to finger-tip, 
 he was the vortex the immovable centre of that 
 Catherine-wheel. 
 
 He walked along dreamily, his eyes turned inwardly. 
 He walked along a world in himself, impervious to the 
 outer world. Then automatically he halted, for he sud 
 denly realized that he w r as at his place. Almost at the 
 same instant he realised that his way was barred. There 
 was a little throng gathered around the curb, along which 
 stretched a rope, barring the way. The figure of a police 
 man loomed in front of Gombarov. Gombarov was 
 near-sighted, and he bumped into the stalwart figure. 
 
 "Where are you pushin ?" said the policeman with 
 some irritation. 
 
 "My shop is upstairs," answered Gombarov. 
 
 "Oh " said the policeman, lifting the rope to let Gom 
 barov pass. "You can go up, but you won t find much 
 worth lookin at, let me tell you. There was a fire here 
 last night" 
 
 Without saying a word Gombarov entered and walked 
 up the charred and gutted stairway. There was no need 
 to use the key, for the doors had been broken in with 
 firemen s axes. Gombarov entered his workroom. The 
 policeman was right. There was nothing worth look 
 ing at. The large pieces of machinery were ruined by 
 fire and water, the small delicate mechanisms were ruined 
 
A TRAGIC HERO GOES TO HIS DOOM 255 
 
 utterly, the leather belting was for the most part almost 
 burnt to cinders, twisted wire lay in little heaps and 
 barred one s way, drops of water still kept dropping from 
 the roof, the whole room was one hopeless ruin. 
 
 As if the meaning of the whole catastrophe had sud 
 denly dawned on Gombarov his face grew white; the 
 blaze in his heart went out : he stood for a long time, 
 deprived as it were of all power to think or to move, 
 and contemplated with half-dead eyes what an ill wind 
 had wrought. Then, in a half-stupor he walked down 
 the stairs and past the policeman, without a word. The 
 policeman winked his eye at a pal and remarked : 
 
 "I reckon that little Jew ain t half so glum as he looks. 
 You bet your sweet life he ll collect his nice little pile 
 of insurance. You don t catch a Jew napping at that 
 game, no sir-ree!" 
 
 This time the policeman was wrong. Gombarov had 
 not insured his property. Earlier he had had no money 
 to pay the premium and some companies would not 
 even consider the insuring of Jew-owned properties; 
 later, when he had got his partner, he thought of the 
 matter but kept putting it off, reflecting that a day or 
 two did not matter. That was then how things stood. 
 
 About ten days afterward Semyon Gombarov received 
 a notice to remove his property, as the. owner wanted 
 to rebuild at once. And so that which had cost him 
 thousands he sold as junk. He received a hundred dol 
 lars in consideration. Everyone agreed that it was a 
 .very good price. After all, a hundred dollars was a lot 
 of money, much more, at any rate, than some of them 
 had. With that money it was not yet too late to start 
 a dry goods stall, and with any kind of luck he might 
 
 en do as well as Jacob Geltman & Co. The neigh- 
 Dours were good people and they meant well, but there 
 
 ere certain things they could hardly be expected to 
 mow. 
 
256 
 
 THE MASK 
 
 For God held aloof from him, and the Devil was 
 against him. 
 
 Alas, alas! There was no Sophoclean chorus of old 
 men to render homage to Semyon Gombarov and his 
 "woes innumerable." 
 
 But the man in the street who heard the tale from a 
 pal chuckled as if it were something funny, and re 
 marked : 
 
 "And so the old bloke is down and out!" 
 
 "Yes, Charlie, down and out is the word." 
 
 "Why, Jim, you could have got a million schooners 
 of beer for the money." 
 
 "Yes, indeedy." 
 
 "The old fool! Well, well, down and out!" 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 AFTER CEDIPUS TYRANNUS "CEDIPUS COLONEUS 
 
 AFTER CEdipus Tyrannus CEdipus Coloneus. After 
 the rapid tragic clash the more slow, more palling trag 
 edy. 
 
 Everything that had to be had come to pass, but if the 
 fates were against CEdipus they did not withhold from 
 him the boon they grant every tragic hero as his inalien 
 able right : the fulfilment of his own doom. He was no 
 miserable rat caught in his own hole, waiting to be 
 smoked out. 
 
 CEdipus had wrought his own doom, was the active 
 instrument of his own fore-ordained destruction. En 
 dued with the tragic will, his life breaking all barriers 
 and dykes poured itself out in that short hour in a rag 
 ing torrent, which dislodged and swept along every ob 
 struction. Then, when its force was spent and his own 
 hand had brought to fulfilment the gods will, he found 
 himself deprived of all that had made him an exalted 
 being and his life worth living. The great CEdipus, King 
 of Thebes, who had saved Thebes, had become a blind 
 wanderer. 
 
 Nevertheless CEdipus, a blind, dispossessed, querulous 
 old man, was still a potent force, an instrument of the 
 tragic will, and a perpetual curse to his offspring, hardly 
 less to those who loved him than to those who did not. 
 
 Even from his grave he wielded a power, greater per 
 haps than when alive, of which he was not unaware 
 having been apprised by the oracle, wherefor during 
 
 257 
 
258 THE MASK 
 
 his last pilgrimage to Athens, he begged Theseus, King 
 of Athens, not to reveal his burial place to anyone. 
 
 There are all sorts of gods and men, and all sorts of 
 kingdoms, both gods and men s. To find one s kingdom 
 impossible, untenable, is to be banished from it, set wan 
 dering like a blind beggar, in eternal darkness. 
 
 Thus also it was with Gombarov. 
 
 He had wrought his own destruction, was the instru 
 ment of his own fate. His daemonic energy was at the 
 root of his tragic will, directed by a still greater will, 
 which encompassed it as the universe encompasses the 
 world. You twirl and twirl you flatter yourself that 
 it is of your own accord; but all the time you are held 
 within the gravity of your own orbit. 
 
 The gods are dead, the oracle is dead ; but the gods still 
 live in men, godlike men; and oracular words, fore- 
 sighted words, are on the lips of wise, fore^sighted men, 
 godlike men. Could you have found one such wise, 
 oracular man, could you have put Gombarov s case be 
 fore him, could you have asked him what were Gom 
 barov s prospects of success, he would have told you, 
 would the wise, oracular man, that there was no chance 
 whatsoever for Gombarov, that he was indeed a godlike 
 man "riding for a fall." Gombarov could have told 
 you so himself. 
 
 How did the wise man know, how did Gombarov 
 know, and if Gombarov knew why did he persist in fol 
 lowing the road of his doom ? 
 
 One knew and the other knew, but neither knew abso 
 lutely. Each knew that the likelihood was there. 
 
 Had Gombarov known absolutely, it would not have 
 changed matters. To know one s doom is to go towards 
 it. Every man who is half -man, half -god, bears the 
 seed of his own doom within him, and that seed bears 
 fruit according to its own soil and the elements which 
 L work upon that soil. The great element in Gombarov s 
 
(EDIPUS TYRANNUS CEDIPUS COLONEUS 259 
 
 case, watering and sunning the seed of doom, was 
 America. 
 
 Even in the earlier days he felt the something incom 
 prehensibly hostile to him in America s atmosphere, and 
 as if he even then had had the tiniest glimmering of a 
 stealthy impending beast approaching him in a dense 
 forest, he experienced momentary hesitations during 
 which a strong desire was awakened in him to retrace 
 his steps, to return to Russia, to be among his own kind. 
 He broached the subject to Gombarov a half dozen 
 times, but what was the use of that? There were the 
 little ones to think of, always the little ones. The Gom- 
 barovs were a constellation of tragic stars, now fixed and 
 unalterable, obeying laws of gravity. There was no 
 turning back. 
 
 And when the blow came the fixed relation remained 
 unchanged, save that the bright-flaming star of Semyon, 
 then at its zenith, appeared to lose some of its lustre, as 
 if it were wrapt in a cloud of mist, and through this mist 
 his bright flame diffused itself in a kind of dead light, 
 more terrible than the other. 
 
 He sat there, in the house, during those first days, like 
 a pale dead god taken down from the cross, and with 
 Gombarova, hardly less pale, standing behind him, the 
 picture made a pieta not less impressive than the remote 
 pietas we know, painted in convention by Flemish and 
 Italian painters. 
 
 Gombarov s black hair showed for the first time spots 
 tinged a steel grey. 
 
 O the silence, wave upon wave, reverberating like a 
 ! far-spaced sea! It was almost more than Gombarova 
 could bear. If he would only lift up his voice in anger 
 and curse, yes curse anything, anybody, men, devil, 
 God, America O woe to Columbus! But that holding 
 I of breath, that unbearable silence more full of terrible 
 {imprecations than any speech. It was like looking into 
 
260 THE MASK 
 
 a dark abysmal cavern in which you thought you saw 
 the moving, many-gleaming fires, the furtive alert eyes 
 of wild beasts, silently circling. 
 
 There was too much for Gombarova to do to per 
 mit her to brood too long at a time. There were the 
 little ones to attend to, always the little ones. And they, 
 the little ones, were not untouched by this atmosphere 
 of brooding, which settled upon the house; it gave the 
 faces of the older children a dull, frightened look, as if 
 question and reproach came at the same instant, and this 
 instant lingering was caught and imprisoned, and flut 
 tered thereafter in their eyes like a newly caged bird, 
 for days and days. 
 
 They were, however, quick to follow their mother s 
 example, and to busy themselves with their customary 
 tasks. The gloom of the house went as it came, like 
 smoke; but as even smoke leaves its traces, so the ef 
 fect of the calamity was to leave an irritating if unde- 
 finable sediment, which at odd times gnawed at one s 
 spirit, corroded it with its charred particles and cinders. 
 
 The house to all appearances was the same, yet it was 
 not the same. 
 
 Besides, there was the old, ,the thereafter old Gom 
 barov in the house, no longer the young Vulcan with the 
 attributes of his patron-god; and the sight of him sit 
 ting in silent contemplation or pacing restlessly up and 
 down the room, his hands folded behind him, went to 
 one s heart like a stab, reopening a young wound, the 
 blood oozing therefrom drop by drop, causing twitchings 
 of pain as of a slow, dull toothache. 
 
 Slowly but inevitably old Gombarov came back to life, 
 and there were days when he shook himself like a shaggy 
 dog who had lain too long in his manger and took a brisk 
 walk or stopped at the house of an acquaintance, sitting 
 up with him until dawn, discussing and subtilising on 
 matters of Hebrew theology. 
 
 ; 
 
CEDIPUS TYRANNUS GEDIPUS COLONEUS 261 
 
 The emotions the sight of his stepfather aroused in 
 John were of a contradictory character, the pendulum 
 of the boy s mood swinging between pity and hate : pity 
 for his stepfather s own suffering, hate for the suffering 
 he caused others. And this mood was shared in a meas 
 ure by the elder children, Raya and Dunya, children by 
 their mother s first husband. The others were as yet 
 too young to understand. Nevertheless, they also, his 
 own young ones, had undergone certain experiences of his 
 influence, rather more subtle and therefore more dan 
 gerous than the step-children. For they were of his own 
 blood, he was the oak and they the branches, and there 
 was no sprout, no leaf on those branches, but that it had 
 his sap in it. Why, his own son, Absalom, now barely 
 six, ran from his father one day when the latter threat 
 ened him with chastisement; and as he ran he shook his 
 fist at his father and uttered cries of defiance. While 
 this was happening Gombarov bore a grave face, but 
 afterward, when he was in his own room with his wife, 
 he laughed gleefully at the recollection of the scene. 
 After all, there was joy in the reproduction of one s 
 own kind. For that matter, none of the children was 
 a garden flower, but all grew wildly and unattended. 
 They were children, destined to remain children, with 
 children s outlook on life. And like children, fated to 
 suffer, they did not know why they were brought into 
 the world, the meaning of their lives, and why it was their 
 lot to suffer and the lot of others to be happy. 
 
 The presence of old Gombarov was a mystery to them. 
 Other fathers worked all day and came home in the eve 
 ning. Their father stayed home most of his time and 
 went out when he liked. And his constant presence was 
 as the presence of a dead, dull light, a thing sunless and 
 cheerless. This light permeated and poisoned the spir 
 its of all, and there was no escape from it. Life for a 
 
262 THE MASK 
 
 time ran in a groove, and the stream of tragedy ran in 
 subterranean channels. Although this was a period of 
 inactivity, Gombarov s mere presence continued to affect 
 the fortunes of his circle. 
 
 GEdipus Tyrannus had become (Edipus Coloneus. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE ELEMENTS SPEAK IN THE COUNCILS OF THE 
 GOMBAROV HOUSE 
 
 WINTER had come again, a very cold winter after a 
 very hot summer. In the autumn the days had been 
 hot and the nights cold, and this made the Gombarovs, 
 unused, to such rapid changes, very jumpy. John con 
 tinued to sell papers, while Raya and Dunya were away 
 all day in a shop where they made artificial flowers, and 
 they came home in the evening with their fingers stained 
 with dyes and sore from the prickles of wires, which 
 served as stems for the flowers, flowers as aromaless as 
 their lives. There were evenings when they brought 
 with them a little bundle of "home work," consisting of 
 these wire stems, the petals and the hearts of flowers. 
 After supper these several parts were spread across the 
 cleared table, and every one who could helped in the 
 work. Elsewhere John sat over his own "homework" 
 which the teacher had given him that day, and this was 
 not less mechanical or less tedious than the other. 
 Nearby, close to the stove, sat old Gombarov over a 
 newspaper, and now and then, lifting his eyes from a 
 particular item, he would remark : "What a world ! 
 What a world! Ah, this America!" and he would re 
 peat the context of the item to Gombarova. 
 
 Having finished his lessons and slammed his books, 
 
 John walked over to the table, picked up an artificial 
 
 daisy and began to pluck the petals: "She loves me 
 
 . . . she loves me . . . she loves me . . ." But in 
 
 263 
 
264 THE MASK 
 
 spite of all his efforts the petal would not give way. Then 
 Dunya saw what he was doing. 
 
 "Look, mamma," she cried, "John is destroying our 
 work." 
 
 This made John angry and stubborn, and he would 
 hold on to the flower until two or three pairs of hands 
 forced him to relinquish it. 
 
 "You ought to be ashamed to yourself," his mother 
 would say, "you are quite a young man and you expect 
 to be a doctor!" 
 
 "I don t want to be a doctor," retorted the boy. 
 
 It was quite true. He had no ambition to be a doc 
 tor. He hated nothing more than his physiology les 
 sons. For the manner in which they studied their physi 
 ological charts at school was calculated to give the pupils 
 the impression that the subject was a branch of geog 
 raphy. But his mother, in spite of the loss of their 
 small fortune, could not conceive of her son being any 
 thing else than a doctor. She lived on this hope like a 
 good Christian on the hope of future life. How this 
 miracle would come to pass it was not given her to see, 
 but she was one of those rare beings who fundamentally 
 believe in miracles. This faith was a need with her, and 
 it helped to sustain her. 
 
 All the facts of life contended with this attitude. 
 John was now thirteen ; why, at his age the elder brother 
 Feodor, who stayed with his father, was an educated 
 man. John was a baby, a mere suckling, in comparison. 
 But Gombarova reflected: After all America was a free 
 country, and every one had a chance; it was a country 
 of self-made men, and even a bootblack, so she had been 
 told, might become president. As for becoming a doc 
 tor, why she had heard about two or three ordinary ped 
 dlers who had got their degrees and were full-fledged 
 "medicoes." Not that it had not occurred to her that 
 nine out of ten of these pushing young men had merely 
 
THE ELEMENTS SPEAK 265 
 
 exchanged the objects they peddled. At first it was 
 collar-buttons and shoe-laces, now it was mixtures and 
 pills. They nearly all wore Vandyke beards to look pro 
 fessional and respectable. But a beard was not enough. 
 The acquisition of a horse and trap and a wife was the 
 final stamp of professional efficiency, and it brought 
 shekels into the pocket of the practitioner. Old Gom- 
 barov again and again gave vent to his contempt for 
 them in no uncertain terms ; he thought these young men 
 with their priggish, conceited ways ridiculous in the ex 
 treme, for he judged men by what they had to say and 
 not by the cut of their beard, and he had greater delight 
 in talking to a bootmaker and a blacksmith among his 
 acquaintances than to a dozen of these triangular- 
 bearded numskulls. Only the other night he had stum 
 bled upon a small cluster of them in the back room of 
 a chemist s shop, and heard one of them tell gleefully 
 how he had prescribed an unnecessary cough mixture for 
 a woman in pregnancy. He despised the petty lawyer 
 tribe even more, he had been a litigant himself and he 
 knew the sort they were, rogues every one of them, 
 whence arose the thought in his mind : "Law and hon 
 esty are a contradiction." Nevertheless, he admired the 
 really clever rogue for the ingenuity he could put into 
 his roguery; it was purely a mental process and it fas 
 cinated him as much as the intellectual roguery of a He 
 brew theological debater. He was not above roguery of 
 a sort himself when the occasion required, and if 
 roguery be too strong a word then wiliness will be an 
 excellent substitute, and in this quality of wiliness he 
 was not far behind "the godlike Odysseus," who was 
 admired by the gods hardly less for this quality than for 
 any other. 
 
 After the failure of his project, following, so to speak, 
 a period of mourning, Semyon Gombarov, still in his 
 middle age, but now referred to by the neighbours as "der 
 
266 THE MASK 
 
 alter," that is, "the old one," began to give some atten 
 tion to the training of his children. He deliberately 
 employed the word training in preference to education, 
 for he associated the latter word with methods which 
 seemed to him quite bad and quite useless. There was 
 too much obsession with careers, not enough with char 
 acter. When Gombarova protested against his ideas and 
 urged the children s need of preparing for careers, he 
 would get intensely annoyed and retort: "It s a nice 
 world it would be if women had the run of things." He 
 procured all sorts of books on the psychology and train 
 ing of children, in three languages, Russian, German 
 and English, and read them critically, accepting what 
 pleased him, discarding what displeased him. Having 
 arrived at certain fixed ideas, his mind came to regard 
 his children as a kind of base metal, which he wanted to 
 melt down and transfuse into moulds and shapes of his 
 own making. He was in fact engaged in the task of 
 trying to change their spots. That they were his own 
 spots, deep and ineradicable, never occurred to him. He 
 took the elder children out for walks and explained to 
 them the sun, the moon and the stars, and the workings 
 of the universe. He tried to take them behind the great 
 scene, where Stage Manager Jehovah, pressing a button, 
 released the thunder ; where, pressing another button, He 
 pulled up the tides of the sea. He explained to them 
 the currents of the air, the winds, and the internal cata 
 clysms which buried Sodom and Gomorrah, Pompeii 
 and Herculaneum. 
 
 "What is the use of it all?" Gombarova once asked. 
 "What is the good of knowing why the snow falls, when 
 you are up to the knees in it and your boots have holes ?" 
 
 That remark drove Gombarov into a temper. 
 
 "That s just like a woman," he said, raising his voice. 
 "Always looking for a use in everything. Why, you are 
 
THE ELEMENTS SPEAK 267 
 
 becoming as practical as an American. I have a good 
 mind to go to Russia and try my luck there again." 
 
 The threat had its effect. Gomborova was sorry she 
 had spoken. Though she knew he had no money for 
 such a journey, she also knew that once he had made up 
 his mind to a thing he would move heaven and earth to 
 carry it out. Meekly she busied herself again with her 
 household duties. 
 
 As for Gombarov, having quickly recovered from his 
 outburst, he resumed in his natural voice, for Katya s 
 benefit, his explanation of the shape of snow crystals. 
 
 Katya sat listening; but her eyes, busier at the mo 
 ment than her ears, fixed themselves over her father s 
 shoulder on Absalom who was making faces at her. She 
 found it irksome not to be able to retaliate. 
 
 But none of the children received such marked atten 
 tion as the step-child Dunya, and only towards her he 
 displayed those little tokens of warmth, condescending 
 to the human. That was not to be wondered at, she was 
 growing up into a bonny girl, full of quick, active sym 
 pathies, and, considering her surroundings, cheery to a 
 great degree. But Raya, the eldest girl, quiet, domestic, 
 and self-effacing, was rather neglected. Her heart of 
 gold lay quietly and deeply within her ; and covered over 
 by homeliness, as gold is often covered over by the 
 homely earth, it gave out no glitter. 
 
 John was only little less neglected than Raya. It was 
 true that his stepfather taught him Hebrew. It was their 
 one point of contact. But beyond this, old Gombarov 
 was shrewd enough to see that the young sapling con 
 tained a small but stubborn knot, not to be conquered by 
 any weapon without the weapon being blunted. Apart 
 from this, between the paper selling, his school, his home 
 lessons and his Hebrew and his few hours sleep, there 
 was but little time left to John to listen to lessons on the 
 wind and the snow-crystals. But one night he learnt 
 
a68 IE MASK 
 
 much about them, and what he learnt upon that tem 
 pestuous night affected the fortunes of the whole Gom- 
 barov household. 
 
 Upon that night the alarm clock struck, as usual, at 
 two-thin | usual at two-thirty, John drowsily 
 
 opened his eyes. There was a strange feeling in his 
 head, as if the mechanism of the alarm clock were inside, 
 where the brains usually were ; but there were no brains 
 there now, only the mechanism of the clock, and it ham 
 mered on the shell of the skull from the inside, as if his 
 skull shell were of metal; that was why, when the little 
 hammer hammered, the shell that was his skull rang and 
 rang with a rapid bell-like clatter. Then the ringing 
 stopped, and with its stopping the boy s consciousness be 
 gan to return, not without lapses, and in one of these John 
 had die curious feeling that he was in his bunk in a - 
 crossing the North Sea, that he had left Russia only 
 some days ago and was on his way to America. What 
 of place would America be? It loomed K 
 a wooded mysterious mountain. There were little 
 pathways everywhere, going up, up! Peop .is he 
 
 had not seen anywhere, emerged from among die trees, 
 and taking him by die hand, they led him to their huts 
 and treated him with loving kindness. This idyllic 
 scene vanished. He was lying in his bunk, feeling very 
 sick. The winds blew with fury, die waves dashed 
 wiWly at die ship, the ship plunged and reeled, righting 
 herself each time, O why had he left Every 
 
 thing was blotted out. Again consciousness can 
 him. No, he was not in his bunk in a ship on the North 
 Sea, That was long ago, so long ag-o! For he had 
 : stretched out his hand, and it touched the alarm 
 clock. Nevertheless, he felt strangely, as if the house 
 really a ship plunging through a dark sea. And it 
 not to be wondered at, for after this last lapse a 
 
THE I.LKMKNTS SPKAK 269 
 
 clearness came, like a new floor opening, the other d 
 he had pasted ihrongh dosing as it were behind him; 
 nnd looking through this new door, the last door, he :.ud 
 clcnly realised that a terrific snow storm was raging out 
 side. The wind blew and shook the house, the shutters 
 down the street banged and rattled in rapid sneer 
 as if a desperate madman had run amuck and with white 
 frenzied hands tried to tear them from their bin- 
 something whistled weirdly through the chimney as if 
 it wanted to enter and could not; something moaned in 
 the small alley between that house and the next as if it 
 were a host of wood goblins frightened out of their tree 
 hollows; and hearing their restless moan many a lonely, 
 loveless sleeper clutched at his bed-cover and pulled it 
 more tightly over his head and ears. John remembered 
 one such night in Russia, when clinging to Marta on top 
 of the warm stove he heard her say : "I m here, don t 
 be afraid, Vanya yolubchik!" 
 
 John raised his head and stopped to listen. Well, it 
 was weather, simply not fit for a dog, as his mother 
 Would have said. But a dog was one thing, and he was 
 another. lie was a human being, a boy, that is a man, 
 and a man could always stand more than a dog. Throw 
 ing off his bed-cover with a vigorous if desperate move 
 ment, he jumped up, quickly put on his things in the dark, 
 and groped his way toward the kitchen. He lit a can 
 dle and went to the tap to wash his face over the sink. 
 A thin stream of water was running from the tap, and 
 it had been left running all night to keep the water from 
 freezing in the pipes. The water was unpleasantly cold, 
 but it braced him, and after he bad rubbed his face vig 
 orously with a towel he felt much refreshed. Then be 
 lit a small oil stove and made himself some tea, which 
 he poured into a tall tumbler and added thereto a gen 
 erous slice of lemon. He sat there quietly, sipping his 
 tea, listening to the pandemonium outside and thought 
 
270 THE MASK 
 
 there was nothing so good in the world as sipping hot 
 tea with lemon. He had just finished munching a sand 
 wich when he heard low muffled footsteps in the next 
 room, and his mother appeared in the doorway. In the 
 faint flickering candle-light she seemed a white sad- 
 faced ghost. She said in a low voice full of anxiety: 
 
 "I wonder whether you hadn t better stay in tonight." 
 
 "No, I think I had better go. What will my regular 
 customers think?" 
 
 His mother went back into the dark room and came 
 out again. 
 
 "Here, put this on." 
 
 It was a sweater. John pulled it over his head with 
 his mother s help, and put his overcoat on. Then his 
 mother went back into the dark room and returned with 
 a scarf. She wrapped it round his neck and tucked it in 
 under the collar of the overcoat. She kissed his fore 
 head and told him to take care of himself. John blew 
 out the candle and went out. He felt his way down the 
 stairs by running his hand down the banister and shiv 
 ered when he reached the ground corridor. 
 
 He seized the handle of the street door and began to 
 pull. For some moments the door would not give way. 
 Then, giving a vigorous pull with both hands, it yielded, 
 but the angry hands of the wind, seizing the handle on 
 the outside, shut the door to again, with a slam, pulling 
 John along with it, leaving him again in darkness. The 
 wind roared as it tore along, it whistled and laughed 
 maliciously at its boy captive who longed for freedom; 
 then forgetting the boy, it howled loudly and weirdly, 
 and its howling sounded like the howling of all the 
 wolves in the world, their heads lifted high crying as in 
 one throat toward the pale moon in one prolonged 
 slowly dying moan : 
 
 Ooh-h-h-h-h. . . . 
 
 But the boy standing in the darkness there was not 
 
THE ELEMENTS SPEAK 271 
 
 yet beaten. Brute strength must be fought with cun 
 ning. This time, with almost superhuman effort, he 
 opened the door again and quickly interposed his body be 
 tween the door and the jamb; pressing between the two, 
 he slowly extricated himself. The door slammed behind 
 him with a great bang. 
 
 But having won the first encounter and forced the 
 first barrier, the real battle was yet to begin. 
 
 Once outside John felt himself seized by the long, en 
 folding fingers of the wind, which, gripping him, nearly 
 knocked all his breath out of him. Then, for a moment 
 feeling himself released, he walked cautiously down the 
 steps and on to the sidewalk, which was covered over 
 with snowdrifts, as yet showing no trail of human foot 
 falls. He waded through the deep snow, lifting his feet 
 very high, and the violent gusts of wind hitting his face, 
 he had to pause to take breath. The black smokeless 
 chimneys, row upon row of them, peered out of the white- 
 topped roofs, grim and black monuments, symbolic of 
 despair, endless in monotony. The iron skeletons of 
 fire-escapes, almost wholly covered with snow and 
 icicles, made some of the houses appear like ruins, grim 
 and fantastic. Hundreds of wires stretched in all di 
 rections across the street and over the roofs, and many 
 of them having been brought down by the storm, dan 
 gled and swayed with every motion and current of the 
 air. The electric lights, which dotted the streets at 
 regular intervals, were smothered under snow, and the 
 light they gave out was depressed and dull, as of mist- 
 obscured moons. The air was a heavy purple, and this 
 purple was cut by white active curves, air currents made 
 visible by snow drifts to which they gave swooping wing. 
 John, as he plodded along, never knew where one of 
 these impetuous white birds would come from next, or 
 on which side it would catch him with its strong, wide- 
 sweeping wings. Sometimes he felt one of its sharp 
 
THE MASK 
 
 wings across an ear, sometimes its struck him as with a 
 lash across his eyes, sometimes its whole body seemed 
 to plunge headlong into the middle of his back, only to 
 .make a circle and return a moment afterwards to hit 
 him with full force upon his chest. Or was there a 
 whole flock of these white-winged, invisible-beaked birds 
 let loose upon him all at once ? 
 
 As John closed his eyes, the air now was motionless 
 beneath their hovering, now active with many-winged 
 flight before assault. When this combined assault came 
 the boy panted and reeled. Now his small body lurched 
 forward as if someone gave him a sudden prod from be 
 hind, now it tottered backwards as if someone pushed 
 him maliciously from the front. He was given no 
 respite. When the big snow-birds were tired and rest 
 ing, then swarms of small white insects came in headlong 
 flight and struck his face, burying their crystal-sharp, 
 needle-like stings into him. He closed his eyes in pain, 
 and lowering his head, he pressed his body forward and 
 walked against the wind very much like a young he- 
 goat about to butt. He feared most the street crossings, 
 for the wind was treacherous, and, as if lying in ambush 
 for him, it had a way of sweeping round the corner 
 suddenly and of tripping him up. 
 
 Two voices spoke to him. One said: "Go back, go 
 back, go back!" The other urged: "Go on, go on, go 
 on!" 
 
 i When a cold blast came he felt as if he had not a sin 
 gle stitch of clothing on him, and his very brain froze, 
 and he could not think. But for a full five minutes the 
 wind was quiet, and John felt happier. The worst, he 
 thought, was over. But he no sooner came to the next 
 crossing than a great icy fist, as of an arm drawn back to 
 the elbow then shot forward, struck him full force, and 
 he fell full face in the snow. He lay there quietly for 
 some moments, hardly knowing what had happened to 
 
THE ELEMENTS SPEAK 273 
 
 him. The snow-drifts, like carrion-birds, swept over 
 him. Something whistled, something moaned, some 
 thing laughed. He had no body, he was in a world of 
 sounds. He was a sound also; he had become a warm 
 sob, merging in the other sounds. 
 
 Then he felt warmer. As he lay there, hardly daring 
 to breathe, he felt his blood, absent before, diffuse itself 
 through his whole body, through every atom of it. Then 
 he felt a warm fluid dripping from his nose, and he 
 thought it was blood. But no, it was only his nose run 
 ning from the cold. 
 
 His consciousness returning, he suddenly grasped the 
 situation, and a terrible storm rose in his soul, a terrible 
 anger, a terrible resentment against the tempest, against 
 life, against God Himself. What right had they to treat 
 him like that? Something like a knot tightened in him, 
 something hardened in his heart, grew stubborn. Like 
 a wounded enraged wild animal he rose on his legs, and 
 clenching his teeth and gripping his small fists, he began 
 to run. That was his way of defying the storm. The 
 wind blew furiously; the snow-drifts, in great broad 
 curves, flew over and around him, brushing him with 
 their wide sharp wings; myriads of needle-stinged in 
 sects assailed his face ; strange weird sounds fell upon his 
 ears. Let the winds blow, let them whistle, let them moan 
 to their hearts content ! Nothing mattered now, he was 
 not afraid; he ran on, superhumanly cutting his way 
 through the snow and the wind. 
 
 He ran, panting, into the newspaper pressroom, and 
 planted himself near the steam radiator. He went on 
 rubbing his hands. The men standing behind the long 
 counter piled up with papers looked astonished. The 
 foreman in charge, who usually sold him the papers, 
 walked over to him. His face was serious and stern. 
 
 "What do you mean," he said, eyeing the boy, "by 
 coming out on a night like this ? Ain t you got a mother 
 
274 THE MASK 
 
 and father? Were you born on a winter night in a 
 barn ? Now answer me, you brat. I have a good mind 
 not to sell you any papers." 
 
 Then, seeing the crestfallen manner of the boy, his 
 voice softened. He took a small flask out of his pocket 
 and uncorked it. 
 
 "Here, take a swig of that, I reckon as it won t do you 
 any harm." 
 
 John took a gulp from the proffered flask, but not be 
 ing used to whiskey, it caught his throat as in a flame, 
 and he began helplessly to sputter out what he did not 
 swallow. The men looked on and laughed good-nat 
 uredly. 
 
 "Here, this will be more to your liking, Johnny," said 
 one of the men, bringing up a steaming hot cup of coffee. 
 
 "I guess if that boy goes on like that he ll die an early 
 death," said the man, returning from his kind mission. 
 
 "You d better have another guess," observed another. 
 "Take it from me, any kid that s got spunk enough to 
 go to his business on a night like this will come to some 
 thing. I am ready to bet anyone a plugged dime to a 
 bum cigar on that proposition !" 
 
 "He s a little Jew," said a third, "and Jews don t die, 
 they linger. And they go on lingering until they have 
 brought a couple dozen of kids into the world. And then 
 they go on lingering until the whole job lot of them is 
 married. Arid they go on lingering until everyone has 
 brought a little brat or two into the world. Then the 
 old geezer begins to think of kicking the bucket. He 
 goes through the performance before a large and ap 
 preciative audience, as the papers would say; before a 
 full house, in fact. I say, Johnny," the speaker called 
 to the boy. 
 
 John came nearer, and looked questioningly. 
 
 "Johnny, how many brothers and sisters have you?" 
 
THE ELEMENTS SPEAK 275 
 
 The boy screwed up his face, and appeared to think. 
 Then began to count upon his fingers. 
 
 The men looked on astonished. 
 
 "Don t you know how many brothers and sisters you ve 
 got?" asked one of them. 
 
 "Not offhand, " replied the boy, wholly oblivious of 
 the amusement he caused. 
 
 The men burst out laughing, while he who had made 
 the long speech looked at the others in triumph and said 
 with unconcealed glee: 
 
 "Well, boys, what did I tell you?" 
 
 John felt very much abashed. 
 
 But he was saved from further questioning by the 
 presses beginning to run and the men going to their 
 places. 
 
 Before long John got his papers, and out he ran, tak 
 ing his accustomed route and stopping at his accustomed 
 places. Many a scolding and many an extra nickel he 
 got that night for his venturing into the storm. The 
 man at the bakery put an extra pie into the bag. 
 
 Meanwhile the storm had begun to abate, and by day 
 light the wind was gone, leaving no traces save for the 
 curved-topped banks of snow. The sky was now as 
 clear as crystal, the cold was intense, there was a sense 
 of crackling in the crisp air. The frost took a delight 
 in pinching with his fingers the boy s nose, in nipping 
 his ears, and in tickling the bottoms of his feet with a 
 burning, irritating itch. 
 
 The day being Sunday, he did not return home until 
 after twelve o clock. Once home, his night s battle with 
 the storm began to tell, and a feeling of utter exhaus 
 tion, long repressed, came over him. He was quiet all 
 that day, and his mother anxiously attended upon him. 
 
 That night he could not sleep, for his right foot began 
 to swell, and though he made an effort to obey the alarm 
 clock when it rang he found that the least stir gave him 
 
276 THE MASK 
 
 agonising pain. He lay there with closed eyes, his mine 
 and heart full of alarm lest he should die. Now anc 
 then he moaned softly to himself, and his mother cam< 
 to him and put her warm hands on his restless forehead 
 He buried his face in her hands and he cried softly 
 Then he heard a soft voice murmuring the old familial 
 words : 
 
 "Vanya darling, don t cry." 
 
 And those quiet hands and that soft voice soothec 
 him to sleep. Dreams came to him, none of which h< 
 remembered, and he moaned in his sleep softly at wha 
 he saw, and it seemed strange to him when he awok< 
 that he should have this curious feeling of having seer 
 so much and yet that there should be nothing that h< 
 could remember. 
 
 And it was strange to him to open his eyes on day 
 light. He did not appear to know where he was at first 
 But soon he felt the presence of that right foot, whicl 
 had gone on swelling, and it all came back to him : th< 
 night of the storm and all that had happened to him tha 
 night, and fragments of his dreams clamoured to be al 
 lowed to pass the doors of memory, and not being al 
 lowed to pass, they went hurling themselves against thes< 
 doors and to torture themselves and the boy with theii 
 desperate importunities. 
 
 He could not go to school that day. But that was c 
 small matter compared with the foot itself, which die 
 not get better but worse. Gombarova grew quite 
 alarmed by mid-day, and thought of sending for a doc 
 tor, but a vision came to her of those uncouth, half- 
 raw youths, with their incipient Vandykes, their desper 
 ate pretension to manners and erudition, their profes 
 sional surface a shell far too thin to hide their colossa 
 and bursting ignorance; and for the life of her she coulc 
 not see how she could possibly trust a case as serious a* 
 John s appeared to be to such monstrous nincompoops 
 
THE ELEMENTS SPEAK 277 
 
 If Gombarova felt rather strongly on the subject and 
 rather intolerantly in the opinion of her neighbours 
 it must be remembered that she had come of a family 
 of physicians, with whom the science of medicine and 
 surgery was a tradition, its followers forming a priest 
 hood not less sacred than any other. And it occurred 
 to her that she might send her boy to the hospital, where 
 at least he had a chance of having the attention of spe 
 cialists and the care of nurses. She decided to send him 
 to the Children s Hospital. 
 
 The question was how. It was true he had been up 
 for an hour and that he could manage to hop short dis 
 tances on one foot, but the way to the tram which passed 
 the hospital was at least a quarter of a mile, and though 
 it was warmer than it had been, deep snow and sleet 
 covered the ground. 
 
 John himself settled the matter. 
 
 "I think I can manage with Dunya s help," he said. 
 
 By way of illustration he seized a stick and leaning his 
 right side upon it he hopped round and round the room, 
 performing the circuit each time with unusual rapidity. 
 
 After many demurs Gombarova at last consented. Not 
 being able to put on his shoe, she wrapped up the foot 
 very carefully to keep it dry and warm, and took pre 
 cautions for the rest of him as well. He walked out 
 of the house, and leaning on Dunya, hopped along at her 
 side. 
 
 Once in the street, John found that it was one thing 
 to make a one-foot-hop exhibition across the floor of a 
 small room, but that it was quite another thing to hop 
 across the wet and the slippery sleet-covered sidewalks, 
 even though he had a strong support in Dunya. The way 
 seemed endless, every sharp breath of air acted as a bar 
 rier, he was soon tired. They came to a crossing. The 
 sleet was deep near the curb, and the snow, no longer 
 chaste, deprived of its whiteness and graceful wind- 
 
278 THE MASK 
 
 formed contours, now lay in dark and shapeless littl 
 heaps, unrecognizable as snow, and spoken of by in 
 dignant pedestrians as mud banks. John leant very hea\ 
 ily on Dunya and eyed the wretched chaos, which ap 
 peared to him to be beyond his strength to pass. Bt 
 Dunya, asking no questions, lifted John, who was ai 
 most as large as herself, in her arms, waded boldl 
 through the sleet and the mud, and only put him dow 
 after she had borne him safely across. Then, leanin 
 once more upon her, he hopped his way a short distana 
 and paused again, all out of breath. He put down hi 
 swollen foot upon the ground for a moment and lifted i 
 again quickly, making an outcry of pain. 
 
 "Dunechka," he said, his right arm around her necl- 
 "let me rest for a moment, I am tired, I simply can t g 
 on." 
 
 Dunya, again asking no questions, lifted him in he 
 arms, and with this burden, almost as heavy as her ow 
 weight, walked on at nearly her usual pace. Both hi 
 arms clung round her neck; he felt tenderly towards he 
 at the moment, and he vowed in his heart that he woul 
 never annoy her again; he never forgot, she had en 
 deared herself to him forever. 
 
 As for Dunya, she walked on silently, and let not 
 sigh or a word to escape her to show that she was tirec 
 
 "I say, Dunechka," he said at one moment, "you d bel 
 ter put me down now, I can walk myself now." 
 
 But Dunya would not listen to him. She bore hir 
 in her arms a long distance, which appeared endless t 
 him. And she never let him know by either a sigh or 
 word how endless it appeared to her also. 
 
 She did not put him down until they came to the cross 
 ing, where they waited some time for the tram. Afte 
 what seemed like a long time it came, and, lifting Joh 
 once more in her arms, Dunya carried him into the trarr 
 
THE ELEMENTS SPEAK 279 
 
 and putting him down on the seat she sat down beside 
 him. 
 
 "I might have carried you pick-a-back," she said sud 
 denly, "it s funny I hadn t thought of it." 
 
 A genuine regret came over him because he had not 
 thought of it either. He not only might have been eas 
 ier to carry, but he would have enjoyed it. 
 
 They both thought at the same time of their days in 
 the Russian woods, days in which they played at pick-a 
 back, see-saw, hide-and-seek, blind-man s-buff, and what 
 not. 
 
 "I say," said John thoughtfully, "I wonder why when 
 boys and girls grow up they stop playing at pick-a-back. 
 It s such fun." 
 
 "You silly!" exclaimed Dunya. "Grown-ups have 
 more important work to do. Who is going to run the 
 trams? Who is going to give us lessons in history and 
 geography ? Who is going to make flowers for women s 
 hats?" 
 
 That appeared conclusive, but John was not satisfied. 
 Why couldn t people just live and play pick-a-back? 
 What was the meaning of all these things ? He feared 
 this grown-up world. All the useful things appeared so 
 useless. Only the useless things brought joy. His young 
 mind grew confused with these thoughts. 
 
 "Well, here we are," said Dunya, dispersing the cloud 
 that gathered in his brain. 
 
 Holding on to her he hopped along to the platform 
 of the car. Then she caught him up and began to carry 
 him to the hospital doorway. Even while she was carry 
 ing him the thought occurred to him that he must appear 
 before strangers, he must answer the questions of people 
 he had not met before. This thought frightened him. 
 His heart beat nervously. And he knew he would have 
 to smile whether he wanted to or not. That was one 
 thing he learnt about Americans : they wanted you to 
 
280 THE MASK 
 
 smile whether you wanted to or not. It always hurt him 
 to smile when he did not feel like smiling. It was as if 
 he wore one of those Hallow en masks, one with a 
 steady, fixed grin, while underneath the flimsy, unpleas 
 antly odorous cardboard he felt hot and uncomfortable, 
 and sad to the point of tears. And even now at the 
 thought of having to smile he wanted to cry. A cry 
 struggled on its way from the heart to the throat, then 
 lingered awhile somewhere between the throat and the 
 eyes; sorry for so frail a smile, as it were, it reconsid 
 ered and retreated back to the heart. 
 
 Luckily, John had not much time to think. Soon the 
 dispensary doctor was leaning over and examining the 
 frozen foot. Dunya did the talking. She spoke quite 
 easily, without embarrassment or hesitation. The doctor 
 sat down and wrote out a prescription, which he gave to 
 Dunya with instructions that John should lie in bed for 
 at least ten days. 
 
 "But mother asked me . . ." faltered Dunya, "that I 
 should leave him here. We can t attend to him prop 
 erly at home." 
 
 "Have we a spare bed for the boy?" asked the doc 
 tor, turning to the nurse at his side. 
 
 "There is an empty one in Ward C." 
 
 "All right," said the doctor, "we ll take care of him." 
 And before Dunya put the shawl on, the doctor patted 
 her head in a fatherly way. 
 
 Meanwhile the nurse took charge of John, and the 
 first thing she did was to undress him and give him a hot 
 bath. It was the first time that he stood naked before a 
 woman other than his mother and his whole being 
 flushed and burnt with embarrassment. The nurse, with 
 apparent unconcern, passed the sponge up and down his 
 body. Then she rubbed his body with a rough towel and 
 put him in his bed, which stood in a large room with many 
 other beds, all filled with young patients. 
 
THE ELEMENTS SPEAK 281. 
 
 He remained in the hospital two weeks, and though 
 he had strict orders to stay in bed all the time, his foot 
 had sufficiently mended by the beginning of the second 
 week to permit him to jump out of bed when the nurse 
 was out of the room, and to play with other convales 
 cents. Apart from his hunger for he was dieted most 
 of the time on bread and milk; apart from his preoccu 
 pation with his customers what would they think of 
 his absence? he did not remember afterwards, in the 
 telling of this experience, just exactly what had hap 
 pened to him there, what thoughts he had thought, what 
 fancies he had woven to relieve the intolerable monotony. 
 It was all like a fragmentary, disjointed dream, with 
 elusive glimpses of light, and involuntary penetrations 
 into darkness : a thing indeed half dream, half night 
 mare, as formless as chaos. And that was quite nat 
 ural, for in the months which had passed, his small body, 
 notwithstanding its fundamental energy, had been taxed 
 too much by the conditions of his life : over-work and 
 lack of care and play and sleep. And when one is tired 
 like that, rest seems not like rest but like dissolution, a 
 falling apart of the particles of which one is made up. 
 Nevertheless when the period of rest was coming to a 
 close, an active unrest seized the boy and he was eager 
 to be out again if only to resume his burdens. Besides, 
 the longer he stayed in bed the more he would have to 
 catch up with in his school tasks. 
 
 Meanwhile John s illness made its impression on the 
 Gombarov household. The parents held councils as to 
 the future. Semyon Gombarov bestirred himself. He 
 left early every day and some days did not return until 
 quite late in the evening. It was clear from his appear 
 ance on coming into the house that his mysterious visit 
 had been fruitless, but one evening he returned with a 
 more satisfied look on his face, which made Gombarova 
 look up at him expectantly. The explanation was soon 
 
282 THE MASK 
 
 forthcoming. He had just paid a visit to a fine old Jew, 
 who lived about seven miles out in the country, and 
 who had five sons and a daughter working in a woollen 
 mill situated there. From this Jew, Joseph Shapiro by 
 name, he learnt that there were always positions to be 
 had, if not in that mill, then in other mills situated within 
 a radius of a few miles, thereabouts. The proprietors 
 of these mills let cottages to families and employed as 
 many members of the family as were capable of work. 
 He assured Gombarov that Raya, Dunya and John would 
 have no difficulty in finding positions. 
 
 That was then the good news which Gombarov brought 
 home. After many councils had been held, it was de 
 cided that, unless something more propitious should offer 
 itself, they would remove to the country that summer, 
 where they would remain until they have had time to 
 look around. At any rate, it would serve one good pur 
 pose: it would take John off the streets and he would 
 no longer be exposed to the elements. 
 
 Such was the decision that awaited the boy on his re 
 turn from the hospital. Curiously enough, John did not 
 show any joy at the new prospect. On the contrary, he 
 felt very unhappy; the thought of meeting new people 
 and conditions and being imprisoned all day in a fac 
 tory frightened him as he had not been frightened be 
 fore. The thought of being taken away from school 
 also disturbed him : he was Number One Boy, schooling 
 was the one competition in which he excelled, it was the 
 one thing that gave him any confidence in himself, the 
 thought that boys who were behind him now would get 
 ahead of him tortured him, * 
 
 Even the fact that on the morning of his return to the 
 street he found his corner occupied by another boy, 
 who claimed the corner as his own and threatened to 
 thrash John, who was smaller than himself, if he did not 
 leave, did not reconcile him to the new prospect, intended 
 
THE ELEMENTS SPEAK 283 
 
 for his good. John stuck to his corner tenaciously. 
 Every now and then the boy came up to him and, putting 
 a huge oily fist under John s nose, said : 
 
 "Smell this!" 
 
 The boy s fist was by no means a flower. It was an 
 ill-smelling fist in very way, and in ordinary circum 
 stances John would have recoiled from it. But that 
 morning, as it happened, he was in one of those desper 
 ate moods, when, poignantly conscious of the injustice 
 of the world, he felt that nothing mattered and, trem 
 bling all over with fear and rage, he had the impulse 
 once or twice to spring at the boy and to fasten his finger 
 nails on the boy s throat. Something held him back, 
 however, from acting rashly, but let the bully only dare 
 strike him! He held his nose close to the bully s fist 
 and did not stir. His repressed rage and fire threatened 
 to split him lik e a shell. And still he held his ground. 
 
 He had won. Whether it was that the intruder saw 
 something in the boy s attitude which boded ill to his 
 enterprise, or whether it was that he was discouraged by 
 the welcome accorded John by his old customers and 
 the material falling off in his own sales, he slunk away 
 before the morning was far advanced and did not re 
 appear again. 
 
 That was not the last of his encounters. Unaggres- 
 sive himself, he endured everything; ever reluctant to 
 attack, his defence was stubborn and adamant. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 JOHN "MAKES PALS WITH KOLTCHUR" AMERICAN PLAN 
 
 THE weeks rolled by. The Philadelphia spring, as 
 always, came and went quickly, like a visitor who merely 
 pushes her card under the door and has no intention to 
 stop for a pleasant chat. But the summer, less reluctant, 
 had sent in her luggage early, in preparation of a long, 
 stay, a too long stay. The spring flowers had already 
 withered in Independence Square, and Chestnut Street 
 with its hot-breathing cement sidewalks, a scorching sun 
 beating down on them, was a flowerless hothouse. 
 Women shoppers walked the street, their charming bare 
 arms showing through their very filmy sleeves, and they 
 held their coloured parasols over their heads to protect 
 their soft skins from the over-passionate caresses of the 
 masculine sun-god. The men walked with their coats 
 on their arms, their straw hats in their hands, mopping 
 their brows all the time with their handkerchiefs; their 
 eyes strayed enviously and often with desire to the 
 women s almost bare arms. The open trams passed by 
 slowly and lazily, and a new passenger w r ho had just 
 jumped on uttered an obscene curse in his heart because 
 all the places on the shady side were taken. Ice wagons 
 passed by, with the water dripping, and boys fought for 
 the small pieces when the ice was being unloaded. 
 
 In the Gombarov household, old Gombarov was ex 
 plaining to Katya the phenomenon of heat, revealing 
 the curious fact that Philadelphia was in the same de 
 gree of latitude as Madrid. Afterwards the whole fam- 
 
 284 
 
JOHN "MAKES PALS WITH KOLTCHUR" 285 
 
 i 
 
 ily sat down to a lunch of bread and butter, cucumbers 
 and tomatoes, drinking it all down with iced lemonade. 
 
 It was the middle of June. In another week the 
 Gombarovs would be leaving town, but John was not to 
 leave until the following week in order that he might 
 pass the exams, which took place just before the long 
 summer holiday. He was not less reluctant to go than 
 before. Even the thought of that terrible night in the 
 storm and the now suffocating days on the cement side 
 walks did not reconcile him to this new migration. His 
 one slight consolation was a set of the Britannica which 
 he had got hold of lately under circumstances not a little 
 peculiar. 
 
 For weeks and weeks one of the morning newspapers 
 had been exhibiting in its window a large glass urn full 
 of lima beans, which bore an inscription to the effect that 
 the person making the best guess of the number of beans 
 it contained would receive as his reward the set of the 
 Encyclopedia Britannica displayed in the same window. 
 The newspaper printed daily the further announcement 
 that each of the next best five hundred guessers would be 
 presented with a savings bank. It also printed a daily 
 article on the inestimable value of culture, and of the 
 culture contained in this book in particular, to every 
 man, whether he be a doctor, lawyer, school-master, 
 author, journalist, merchant, or school-boy; indeed, 
 everyone ought to get in touch with culture, which was 
 represented pictorially as a tall buxom wench wearing 
 Greek draperies and leaning over a volume of the ency 
 clopedia. But during certain hours of the day, when the 
 street was at its busiest, the real thing as one of the 
 onlookers expressed himself sat in the window and 
 jotted down notes from one of the tomes which lay open 
 on a reading desk. A crowd, made up mostly of men, 
 stood looking into the window. 
 
286 THE MASK 
 
 "Some girl! that Koltchur!" said one of the men to his 
 companion. 
 
 "Yes, she is a good-looker," replied the other. "I 
 wouldn t mind marrying er." 
 
 "She wouldn t have a four-flusher like you not on 
 your tin type!" 
 
 "I d prefer a Gibson girl myself," declared a third 
 man, who had overheard these remarks. 
 
 Just at that moment the girl turned a page, which 
 caused her long bare arm to stray from its voluminous 
 sleeve. 
 
 "As for that, she ain t got nothing on my wife, My 
 wife s got her beat to a frazzle for looks," went on the 
 last speaker, having received no response to his first 
 comment. "And if I ad her in hand I wouldn t ave her 
 messing about with books either. It s not good for the 
 queen of yer home. I guess I d get er busy on those 
 beans you see there, makin them into soup. And I guess 
 I d get er some real clothes, and a few glad rags." 
 
 "Per aps she s got some real clothes on, old top, eh?" 
 remarked the first speaker. 
 
 Everybody grinned. 
 
 "I beg your pardon. So she may have. All the same 
 I wouldn t ave her fussing about with books. Now my 
 wife ..." 
 
 "Cut that out about your wife, I ain t seen your wife," 
 put in the second speaker. 
 
 "You ain t seen my wife? Well, that s your loss, I m 
 sure." 
 
 "And what s your objection to books?" 
 
 "Bless you, I ain t got no objection to books. They 
 make as nice furniture round the house as any other. I 
 like to see them under glass, just as I like to see a pianer 
 so long as you don t tinkle too much on the ivories-." 
 
 "What you want is not a wife but a mannikin, some 
 thing to try skirts on," said the first speaker rather 
 
JOHN "MAKES PALS WITH KOLTCHUR" 287 
 
 brusquely. "It s good for a woman to have kultchur. 
 Between books and a planer, it keeps em out o mischief, 
 my boy. Take it from me." 
 
 "That s where I beg to differ from you, old man," 
 retorted the other. "It s them books as make girls leave 
 home. They get new-fangled notions into their dear 
 little heads. It s a hankering for heroes that they get, 
 not for mutts like you and me. They want a smart un 
 who ll save them from falling over from a cliff, that s 
 the sort of notions they get from books." 
 
 "Why, that s the kind of chap usually pushes them 
 
 over." 
 
 "Yes, I know that, but every girl is kind o willing to 
 take a chance. She wants her hero if she s got to go on 
 the stage to find im. Queer critters them girls. And so 
 I say : No kultchur for mine !" 
 
 Then the conversation gradually switched from this 
 serious discussion of the evil effects of "Koltchur" to the 
 beans in the window, and each one gave a guess as to the 
 number of beans in the glass jar. Then, in spite of the 
 dangers that "Koltchur" presented, the three men, ex 
 cited by the idea of getting something for nothing, filed 
 into the office to buy copies of the paper which contained 
 the necessary coupon on which each guess had to be 
 recorded. 
 
 A few doors up the street a lingerie shop window was 
 besieged by a crowd, containing not a few men, peeping 
 through the round perforations of a lowered blind; each 
 perforation bore the inscription over it: "For Women 
 Only." 
 
 John also sent in a guess as to the number of beans in 
 that glass jar. 
 
 In due time the announcement of the winner of the 
 prize was made. John was disappointed. His guess 
 fell short of a couple of hundred. A few days later a 
 smart young man called at the house and presented John 
 
288 THE MASK 
 
 with a dime savings bank as a reward for being among 
 the first five hundred guessers. John, of course, did not 
 know that every participant in the test received this 
 prize; so he felt not a little flattered when he received 
 his award and the man stayed for a chat and patted his 
 head and said to Gombarova what a smart boy her son 
 was and what a pity it was that such a clever youngster 
 should have missed getting the Encyclopedia, the posses 
 sion of which would not only ensure spiritual but finan 
 cial "returns." 
 
 "Why, as soon as I saw the boy s face," exclaimed the 
 man, "I knew at once that Koltchur was in his line. 
 Books? I am sure he eats em alive. Yes, eats em 
 alive!" 
 
 After making this remarkable declaration, which as 
 tonished John not a little and made Gombarova smile, 
 the man appeared to reflect for a few moments, and then 
 as if an idea had suddenly struck him, he began to speak 
 again. 
 
 Til tell you what I can do for your boy," he said, 
 turning to Gombarova, "you ve got such a smart boy and 
 he ought to have a set of those books. I hate to see him 
 disappointed. I have young uns myself, and I d like 
 to see them pals with Koltchur, let me tell you. When 
 they grow up I intend to present each one of them with 
 a set of these books if it takes my last red cent. Now 
 seeing that you ve got such a smart boy, I ve got a propo 
 sition to make to you. Our paper, anxious not to disap 
 point so many people, has decided to offer a limited num 
 ber of sets at cost price. A limited number of sets, mind 
 you, for those deserving of consideration. Now I have 
 seen your boy and I d like him to have a set. He ought 
 to have one, if anybody. All you ve got to do is to look 
 at him to know that he s been flirting with books. He s 
 a real smart un, he eats em alive. But he won t need to 
 get any more books when he gets this one ..." 
 
JOHN "MAKES PALS WITH KOLTCHUR" 289 
 
 At this moment he pulled out from his pocket a set 
 of dummy bindings and opening them out like an accord- 
 eon he held them up, stretching from the tip of one arm 
 to the other. Then putting down the set of Encyclo 
 pedia backs on the table, where their golden-inscribed 
 titles dazzled insinuatingly, he went on to explain : 
 
 "This book is the biggest book in the world. It con 
 tains everything. What it does not contain is not worth 
 knowing. All the best professors and pen-pushers of the 
 world have written for it." 
 
 Then he rattled off the number of pages it contained, 
 the number of articles that were in it, the number of illus 
 trations that accompanied them, the number of writers 
 that contributed to it, the number of years that it took 
 to put the new edition together, the number of miles the 
 pages would cover if spread in one direction flat on the 
 ground, and other equally bewildering facts, staggering 
 the mind. And all this, he plainly implied, was done to 
 satisfy the cultural cravings of one little boy by the name 
 of John. Before the man was done John was quite con 
 vinced that this great, voluminous and all-embracing 
 work was written for him and for no one else. 
 
 "Now, my proposition is this," said the man. "I will 
 deliver the books now, and if your boy will put a dime a 
 day into this savings-bank he can pay off in twenty-five 
 months in monthly payments of three dollars." 
 
 That was a lot of money, as desirable as the books 
 seemed. 
 
 "Come for your answer tomorrow," said Gombarova. 
 We must think it over before we go into it." 
 
 "All right," said the man, rising to go, "only mind, 
 don t delay too long. We ve got a limited number of sets 
 only, and they are going like hot cakes." 
 
 After consultation with Gombarov it was decided to 
 take the books. The truth was that in his heart Gom 
 barov welcomed the idea as much for his own sake as for 
 
290 THE MASK 
 
 John s. And so John suddenly became the nominal pos 
 sessor of a great library, which had at least one assidu 
 ous reader his stepfather. John had previously saved 
 up three dollars. This he used as an initial payment on 
 the books, but from the day the books arrived he was 
 allowed a dime a day out of his earnings to drop into the 
 savings-bank. 
 
 A week later the family left for the country to begin 
 their new life, but John stopped in town a week longer 
 to pass his exams. He slept every night on the floor of 
 the dark corridor adjoining the rooms the Gombarovs 
 had just quitted, and he got his meals from a good wo 
 man in the house with whom his mother had made an 
 arrangement. In a few days, just as he began to get 
 accustomed to this manner of living, he began to receive 
 frantic letters from home, urging him not to wait for his 
 exams, but to come at once, as his mother was much 
 alarmed on his account. 
 
 Reluctantly he acquiesced, and on the day following 
 his arrival at Shoddy Hill he was appointed a bobbin-boy 
 at the Shoddy Mills. His work consisted in gathering 
 up the discarded bobbins at the looms into a large basket, 
 which he afterwards shouldered and carried up three 
 flights of stairs to the rooms which contained the "spin 
 ning mules." He did this all day. His hours were from 
 seven in the morning to six in the evening. His wages 
 were three dollars a week, and as many insults as he 
 could stand from the Irish boys, who, coming of an 
 oppressed race, took a delight, when the chance offered 
 of oppressing others, less fortunate than themselves. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TWO LONG YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER CURIOUS 
 
 ADVENTURES, MOSTLY OF THE SOUL 
 
 ONCE more John Gombarov and his friend were sit 
 ting in Cafe Royal. At Douglass s own suggestion, 
 Gombarov was telling him of Vanya s life in the country 
 and at the mill, pausing by the way to make his custom 
 ary Gombarovian reflections on life. Throughout the 
 narrative he never ceased to refer to Vanya in the third 
 person; to an outsider he surely would have given the 
 impression that he was speaking of someone else s child 
 hood, not his own. 
 
 Gombarov no sooner began to talk than he quite 
 suddenly bent his head and begged his friend in a whisper 
 ,o do the same quickly. After a few moments had 
 elapsed Gombarov raised his head again, and once more 
 faced Douglass. 
 
 "It was Tobias Bagg who just passed us. I was afraid 
 would see us, and sit down with us. He has a way 
 of treating you to drinks, yes even to a lavish dinner, and 
 ;hen imagines that he may treat himself to one or two 
 of your ideas. I am glad you are a painter, Douglass, not 
 a writer. If you were a writer, I should be afraid to say 
 a, word to you. We are a race of thieves, and every mo 
 ment of our lives, when we are not asleep, is spent in 
 Tying to extract something from our fellows. Well, they 
 >ay there s honor among thieves. But I often wonder 
 whether there is a shred of honor among writers. A 
 )lague upon them all! But this fellow Bagg is partial- 
 
 291 
 
292 THE MASK 
 
 larly obvious. Then there is the race of modern novel 
 ists. Talk of parasites. There s Thomas Lampton s las 
 novel, The Vagrant . I haven t read the book myself 
 but everyone tells me that there s hardly a character ir 
 Cafe Royal who is not in it. The book is evidently ful 
 of rogues, yet curiously enough everyone in it feels flat 
 tered at having attracted the attention of so distinguishec 
 a personage. You would think that there would be < 
 dozen people rushing to punch the author s head ; but no 
 this is an age of advertisement, and nothing is considerec 
 so depreciatory as being ignored." 
 
 "But now/* said Gombarov, resuming his narrative 
 about Vanya, "we come to one of those gaps in life hare 
 to describe, two long years in a boy s life, in which, apar 
 from a few isolated incidents, nothing apparently hap 
 pens of any importance. It was as if, walking througl 
 a dense wood, you had come upon a tangle of bushe: 
 which barred your progress, caught you in their thorn] 
 embrace if you tried to make your way. Vanya fough 
 in it, the whole Gombarov family fought in it, the] 
 scratched themselves, wore themselves out struggling 
 nothing happened. At least, nothing seemed to happen. 
 
 "The Gombarovs," he went on Douglas had not ye 
 got over his astonishment at his friend s cool detachec 
 way of speaking of his family in the third person "Th< 
 Gombarovs soon found that they were unable to live 01 
 the small wretched earnings of Raya, Dunya and John 
 and so, after some deliberation, it was decided that Mrs 
 Gombarov herself should take a job in the factory. Thi; 
 she did cheerfully enough, and one might have seen hei 
 every morning at six-thirty, accompanied by her thre< 
 children, walking along the little stream, at the distan 
 bend of which was situated the factory. One might hav< 
 seen the same little procession wending its way home a 
 
TWO YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 293 
 
 six-thirty in the evening. At home a supper awaited 
 them, prepared by old Gombarov himself " 
 
 "My God ! My God !" broke in Douglass at this point. 
 His face expressed utter amazement. "Is it possible? 
 Is it possible? How are the mighty fallen!" 
 
 Gombarov s nonchalant face smiled a little smile, which 
 seemed to say : "That s nothing ! Be prepared for what 
 is coming." Then his face hardened again, but his heart 
 fought with it for mastery. Gombarov however did not 
 betray himself. His eyes were still, his lips were the 
 only part of him that moved, his words came measured, 
 in monotone. It was as if not a live man were speaking 
 but a statue. Quite suddenly the truth dawned upon 
 Douglass : Gombarov was speaking in that distant de 
 tached way of his own childhood and the life of the 
 Gombarovs, keeping up the fable of the third person, in 
 order to avoid the sense of intimacy, in order to be able 
 to speak of the matter at all. His plasticity was a dyke 
 which prevented a too emotional outburst, kept back the 
 tears which must have raged and seethed in his breast. 
 With this the thought came to Douglass that he beheld 
 a man who gave the lie to the prevalent idea that man 
 and artist could not be contained in one person. So 
 successfully, he thought, were the two merged in Gom 
 barov that it was hard to tell where one ended and the 
 other began. 
 
 "Vanya s stepfather had other occupations," resumed 
 Gombarov. "Among other things he constructed with 
 his own hands a new style of incubator, and began to 
 breed chickens. These he attended with the help of his 
 younger children. But the great subject which held his 
 attention was altogether a new one. This time he had 
 outlined a project for a colossal book. Its theme was to 
 be the comparative cultures of the world from ancient 
 times until ours, and was to include every aspect of the 
 theme, whether religion, politics, ethics, jurisprudence, 
 
294 THE MASK 
 
 art or literature. That was ostensibly the object of his 
 proposed book, but at the back of his mind was the idea 
 that Oriental culture was as superior to the European as 
 Jewish culture was superior to the other Oriental cul 
 tures. He had a considerable library of books in several 
 languages which he had brought over with him from 
 Russia, to which he had added not a few since his arrival. 
 He pored over these in his leisure time, and marked them 
 with profuse marginal notes. In addition to this he 
 used to read the newspapers, and when he ran across 
 some enlightening item on the life and thought of the 
 day, he would cut it out and put it away carefully among 
 his notes. There were extraordinary bits among these. 
 It might have been about a woman who had divorced her 
 husband because he made a noise eating soup, that 
 could happen only among the goyim (Gentiles) he would 
 say; it might have been some notorious case in which a 
 Jewish usurer was concerned in what way, he would 
 remark, is usury worse than the Gentile invention of 
 watered stock with its hundred per cent dividends for 
 its rascally promoters? In what way are the trust kings 
 profits any more legitimate? But it seems that usury 
 becomes legitimate when it is done on a large scale and 
 under another name. Or it might have been a new 
 case of blood accusation in Russia. What should the 
 Jews want Christian blood in their matsoth, when it isn t 
 kosher? In the midst of these perusals of the news 
 paper he would give a sudden chuckle or laugh well, 
 they say Heine did the same when on his mattress 
 grave he was writing his book on the Hohenzollerns, 
 which unfortunately never saw the light of day." 
 
 "What a man!" exclaimed Douglass, "how you must 
 all have hated him." 
 
 "Yes, that is quite true, we all hated him for not being 
 like other fathers." It was the first time that Gom- 
 barov used "we," but he quickly corrected himself. "How 
 
TWO YEARS, KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 295 
 
 they all did hate him ! I told you about the suppers he 
 used to prepare. These usually consisted of some rice 
 boiled with a bone. As, sometimes the bone was lacking, 
 the result was an almost tasteless mixture. Vanya was 
 the first to revolt. One evening when he returned home 
 from a long day s work, and the soup was placed before 
 him, rather more thin and watery than usual, he tasted 
 it, and, putting down the spoon, made a wry face. Some 
 thing struggled within him. He was afraid he would 
 burst if he did not say something. All his feelings 
 surged towards his throat. He did not care what hap 
 pened. At last he spoke: 
 
 "I am sick of this stuff! 
 
 "A quiet fell upon the table. Every one stopped eat 
 ing, in expectation of something. Gombarova was rather 
 more frightened than the rest. Vanya sat in a kind of 
 stupor, pale. Gombarov glared across the table at him, 
 with blazing eyes. Presently his words clove the storm- 
 laden atmosphere like lightning: 
 
 " If you don t like that fine dish, then don t eat it. 
 
 "Vanya pushed the plate away from him. Then he 
 rose, from his place, got as far as the door, and shouted : 
 
 " Go to hell! 
 
 "Then, slamming the door, he walked out. 
 
 "Old Gombarov was in a rage. He shall leave the 
 house, and at once ! he cried. 
 
 "In the meantime Vanya walked slowly into the cool 
 of the woods, which were near by, and began to think 
 hard. He knew what his stepfather would say, and he 
 tried to come to a decision. If it came to the worst he 
 would go back to town, sell papers once more, and sleep 
 in the old corridor as he did during the week of his 
 lonely stay before. It never occurred to him that the 
 rooms to which the corridor was attached might be let 
 by now. And he was a little afraid. Besides, his mother 
 would cry her eyes out. He was afraid for himself, and 
 
296 THE MASK 
 
 he was sorry for his mother. He did not care whether 
 he saw his stepfather again or not. He felt a thousand 
 years old and he was sick of life. He thought of other 
 children and envied them their fathers. And again, and 
 again, he asked himself the question : Why did he feel 
 so different from other children ? Was it his stepfather s 
 fault, or was the fault in himself? But whether it was 
 one or the other, it led to the same thought : he wished 
 he were dead. 
 
 "While he was in the midst of these thoughts, he heard 
 rapid footsteps coming nearer ; he knew that his mother 
 had sent for him, he knew that she would. He wanted 
 very much to be sent for, at the same time he would pre 
 tend that he did not want to come. Perhaps he was like 
 other children in this respect. He also knew that Dunya 
 would be chosen for this task. Dunya had a way about 
 her, even old Gombarov liked her better than he did his 
 own children. 
 
 "Well, Dunya came up presently. Without saying a 
 word she, first of all, wiped his tears from his eyes, with 
 her handkerchief. 
 
 " Come, come/ she said, you ve made mother cry/ 
 
 " I don t care, he replied petulantly, I hate him, and 
 I m going to run away from home/ 
 
 " We all hate him, but remember, she said, ignoring 
 his threat, you made mother cry. But two years older 
 than he, she was a little woman compared to him, and 
 had learnt that in the case of the other sex you had to 
 play on their weakness rather than their strength. She 
 knew that he was stubborn but that his heart always 
 melted at the sight of tears, a fact that other women 
 were to take advantage of in the coming years with less 
 scruple, and worse intention. 
 
 "He, on his part, was wrapt in the thought: Why 
 can t one hurt some one whom one wants to hurt, without 
 hurting another whom one does not want to hurt ? Why 
 
TWO YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 297 
 
 could not one do anything without hurting so many other 
 people? He already had seen how his stepfather s life 
 was affecting the lives of all of them. He realized no 
 less how his own action of that evening affected the peace 
 of the family. For an instant or two he felt a curious 
 satisfaction at this. After all, he was not without some 
 power. But as soon as he thought of their tears, his 
 weakness prevailed, and he clenched his teeth together 
 to keep from crying. He stopped before a young birch, 
 and clung to it. His arms around it, he stretched himself 
 into a rigid posture, remaining thus a long time. He was 
 now a young sapling, and his young heart began to 
 tighten into a knot. Dunya stood there, one hand on 
 his shoulder, the other patting his head. 
 
 Come, come/ she said coaxingly, mother is waiting 
 for you. 
 
 "Somewhat unwillingly he released his hold of the 
 tree, and began to walk slowly homewards, Dunya s arm 
 around him. Why could not people be as happy as in a 
 fairy tale? Was his stepfather the terrible ogre who 
 stood in their way? Then the insinuating thought came 
 to him : he was a little sorry for his stepfather too. 
 Why should he feel sorry for him? That was hard to 
 say, unless it was that he was so sorry for everyone, 
 and such a flood of pity welled in his heart, that it could 
 not help but take in his father also. Still, he was proud 
 and stubborn, and he would not admit to anyone in the 
 world that he was sorry. For all his pity, that knot re 
 mained, and not all the rapid waters of pity could dis 
 solve or dislodge it. Only in later years he realized that 
 it was precisely this detestable little knot that kept him 
 afloat as he was borne along on the torrent of life, and 
 enabled him to meet all the misfortunes he was yet to 
 endure. 
 
 "His mother was waiting for him somewhat away 
 from the house. Without saying a word, she snatched 
 
298 THE MASK 
 
 him by the hand, and led him into the house by the back 
 way. As the house stood on the slope of a hill, and as the 
 back of the house was at the upper end of it, Vanya 
 found himself in the children s bedroom, just over the 
 dining room. Through a hole in the floor he could hear 
 his stepfather raging in the room below. 
 
 " Things have come to a pretty pass when children no 
 longer respect their parents. There s Western culture 
 for you! 
 
 "John s stepfather had got into that comfortable frame 
 of mind when he was ready to saddle every new misfor 
 tune on the sufficiently strong back of Western culture. 
 Like every man who possessed a sense of humour, he had 
 at least one subject which was totally immune to it. His 
 resentment against small innocent Vanya had turned for 
 the while on a more formidable target. 
 
 " What can you think of a race which respects a 
 prophet who says that "parents are their children s first 
 enemies" ? 
 
 "John s ear, glued to the hole in the floor, was like the 
 open fertile ground ready to receive the seed. That last 
 remark kept turning over in the boy s young brain, and 
 not exactly in a way that would have pleased his step 
 father. His as yet inarticulate feeling struggled for ex 
 pression; could it have expressed itself at the moment it 
 would have said : Then there is someone on my side, 
 after all. Not that he had gathered the full profundity 
 of Stendhal s mot. His grievance, against them, his par 
 ents, was quite simple. He felt himself denied all those 
 needs which every child instinctively feels as his natural 
 right: nourishing food, sleep, sunlight, play, affection; 
 and when these are denied a child he is sure to turn upon 
 the nearest authors of his misfortunes. His stepfather s 
 quotation gave him a vague and yet definite pleasure. 
 The strength of this feeling lay indeed in its vagueness, 
 for nothing has such hold of us as the thoughts and feel- 
 
TWO YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 299 
 
 ings whose roots are planted to wholly reveal their 
 hold. So there was someone after all, somewhere, 
 who understood him; and he was a stranger, he 
 did not even know his name. That was the important 
 fact. Did he then hate his mother? No, he pitied her 
 as he pitied himself, as he pitied the others. She too was 
 a helpless child in his hands. Still, he was critical. Why 
 had she allowed this man to waste the funds entrusted 
 by his father and intended partly for his, Raya s and 
 Dunya s education ? To make matters worse, he saw his 
 mother, Raya and Dunya and himself all working to keep 
 his stepfather and his half-brothers and sisters alive. 
 He was not too young to know that here was a pretty 
 state of affairs ! The injustice of it held his heart as in 
 a vise. In his sulky moments he was resentful, he felt 
 that he bore his mother a grudge for marrying his 
 stepfather. 
 
 "The real wonder was that there was any feeling left 
 at all in the boy. Perhaps, apart from his too large store 
 of pity, which is love in the abstract, and transcendent 
 because it takes in all things, including relatives who 
 happen to be in physical proximity Vanya had actually 
 no real personal affection, at any rate at the time, for his 
 mother. After all, personal affection is not so much a 
 matter of blood. And the proof of this was that Vanya s 
 own father, removed at the time five thousand miles in 
 the matter of space and ten years in the matter of time, 
 aroused no emotion in Vanya, or even in his sisters, 
 except perhaps curiosity, and occasionally a mood of 
 abstract resentment. Blood may be thicker than water, 
 but the foolishness of some proverb makers is surely 
 thicker than treacle. Well, to my way of thinking, that 
 Honour thy father and mother commandment was a 
 special tribal invention devised for the protection of 
 parents from the natural wrath of their children. The 
 original State was the family, with the patriarchal father 
 
300 THE MASK 
 
 as its head. Children are quick to feel that their parents 
 have failed them, and it is natural that they should be 
 provoked to rebellion not unlike the rebellion of a people 
 against an unworthy king. At all events, Vanya was 
 miserable as a child, because justice, although he did not 
 know it, was already a passion with him, and his equally 
 passionate pity was in clash with it. At odd moments 
 he had already begun to realize that he had a battle 
 with three adversaries : the world, his family, and him 
 self. That was the great trouble with him : he loved the 
 world and he hated it, he loved his family and he hated 
 it, he loved himself and he hated himself. 
 
 "Lying there with his ear to the floor, John s heart 
 now hardened into a knot, now relaxed into a fluid 
 warmth, as if blood were slowly oozing from a piece of 
 hemp rope. A warmth filled him to the very tips of his 
 toes, as upon that night when he fell and lay in the snow, 
 and he began to sob softly, calling upon God and the 
 invisible angels to come and help him. He heard no 
 one come in, but suddenly felt some one touch his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Vanya darling, John darling, he heard his mother s 
 voice, Tve brought you something. 
 
 "Vanya did not stir. He was too sad, and overcome 
 with the sense of his struggle. Besides, he wanted to be 
 coaxed. 
 
 " Here, John darling, repeated his mother, I ve got 
 something very nice for you. 
 
 "After several refusals, during which his mother kept 
 stroking his hair, he raised his head and opened his 
 eyes. He found himself gazing at a piece of steak, 
 well smothered in onions, the sudden smell of which took 
 his palate and nostrils by storm. He felt quite hungry : 
 thus does nature reassert itself over the nobler passions. 
 Nevertheless he did not enjoy his meal as he might have 
 done. With every bite came the realization : his mother 
 
TWO YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 301 
 
 had gone out to borrow this piece of meat from a neigh 
 bour; again, he was the only one, the others had done 
 without it. His mother, quick to see his reluctance, 
 urged him to eat it quickly : 
 
 " If Gombarov knew/ she said, he would throw this 
 out of the window. 
 
 "Gombarova had to use all her tact to soothe one and 
 the other, to bring about a truce between , them. She 
 knew that her lord and master was quite capable of 
 sending Vanya away from home. She resorted to an 
 old weapon : the intervention of the new unborn . . . 
 
 Douglass was on the point of interrupting in order to 
 express his indignation against old Gombarov s careless 
 tendency to procreate children at other people s expense, 
 but subsided at a gesture on the part of the speaker, who 
 went on : 
 
 "Yes, it was not long before Gombarova had to stop 
 work. Another child was born to her a little girl, who 
 was named Margaret, an unusual name in the family, 
 in that it was a concession to the other children s demand 
 for Americanization. The father s suggestion was over 
 ruled : he wanted to name her Naomi. John was now 
 approaching his fifteenth year, he was old enough to 
 understand that every newcomer meant so much extra 
 ballast for him, Raya and Dunya to bear, an extra fetter 
 keeping them in subjection, and he was not without 
 certain bitterness against his stepfather and his mother, 
 which, however, did not prevent pleasant relations be 
 tween him and the new little one. 
 
 "John s education during those two years had been 
 almost wholly neglected. He had hardly looked into a 
 book. The Encyclopedia was a bore; he soon realized 
 that he had bought it chiefly for his stepfather s use; 
 owing to the irregularity of his payments the company 
 more than once threatened to take away the books. And 
 being too far away from the city, he was unable to make 
 
302 THE MASK 
 
 use of the free library; he looked back on his town days, 
 when he devoured Dumas and Verne, with intense regret. 
 His knowledge of English was still limited. His thoughts 
 were slow, he spoke in stammers, especially with stran 
 gers ; and one spring day, feeling ill and feverish, he made 
 the ludicrous mistake of asking for a day off because he 
 had the spring fever! 
 
 "It is true his relations with the boys had somewhat 
 improved, but this was largely due to his entering into 
 combats with them with fists. He got bested as often 
 as he bested others. He never had any joy in this, and 
 always fought unwillingly. But when it came to wres 
 tling, much to his own surprise he could handle any boy 
 his size. What gained him, however, the respect of the 
 boys was his part in the football games they played 
 during the lunch hour. They soon discovered that when 
 the ball was passed to him he was always sure to advance 
 it some distance. There was always excitement among 
 the onlookers when he was in the game. They cried : Tass 
 the ball to Simon, or Watch Simon, or Watch South 
 Street ! Both these references were, as you may guess, 
 to the fact that he was a Jew. South Street was the 
 chief street in the Philadelphia ghetto. But these names 
 no longer had the sting with which they were at first 
 invested. For the boys had a tenderness for his prowess. 
 On one occasion, when the boss was away, the working 
 men goaded him into fighting a Jewish boy. Now, that 
 was something like fun for them! To see a Gentile 
 pummeling a Jew was a natural and desirable thing; to 
 see a Jew pummeling a Gentile was both unnatural and 
 undesirable ; to see a Jew pummeling a Jew presented the 
 unusual combination of being unnatural and highly de 
 sirable. The astonishing contest lasted a full hour, and 
 would have lasted longer but for the fact that the look 
 out near the window reported the approach of the fore 
 man. The reason for the battle lasting so long was 
 
TWO YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 303 
 
 curious. After ten minutes of fierce fighting, which 
 highly delighted the crowd, both gladiators drew blood. 
 Although neither was very much hurt, and Vanya had 
 slightly the best of it, being Jews, the sight of blood was 
 fatal to both. Goaded on by the crowd, who aroused 
 their pride, they went on fighting, but only with a half 
 heart, each hitting the other perfunctory blows, each 
 showing on his face a perfunctory and unchanging smile, 
 which revealed neither hate nor anger, if anything pity 
 for one another and the sense of performing an un 
 pleasant and unnecessary duty. 
 
 "But there is a conscience in individuals if there is 
 none in a crowd, for not long afterwards an Irish boy 
 fell ill, and it soon became known in the factory that in 
 the delirium of typhus he raved most about the injustice 
 done to John. 
 
 There were many other experiences, during those two 
 years stay at Shoddy Hill, concerning which John Gom- 
 barov told Douglass. John s tribulations did not stop 
 with his battle with his stepfather s growing family, or 
 with the outer world and all its pitiless circumstances. 
 His greatest battle, only beginning, was with himself, 
 or rather with that potent part of himself which is 
 natural to every healthy boy, and which the virtuous 
 eunuchs of our civilization either regard with envy or 
 are not in a position to understand. 
 
 "How can a child," observed John Gombarov, "be 
 understood in our puritanic civilization, composed chief 
 ly of ascetics, nay-sayers, self-deniers, voluptuaries of 
 the spirit, vegetarians, Savanorolians, Christian scien 
 tists, non-conformists, raucous-voiced hymn-singers, 
 flesh-despisers, self-sacrificers, other-sacrificers, prohibi 
 tionists, joy-haters, sun-haters, live-mummy lovers, sleep- 
 aloners, bread-and-water repasters, obsessionists, abnega- 
 tors, virgin-worshippers, eye-shutters " 
 
304 THE MASK 
 
 "Enough !" laughed Douglass, "I know the list. Even 
 in a happier age than this, our Shakespeare addressed 
 himself to these through Sir Toby s mouth : Doth thou 
 think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more 
 cakes and ale ?" 
 
 "Yes, that s just it. They won t enjoy life themselves, 
 and they won t let others enjoy it. The terrible thing 
 about it is that their own peculiar mania has become an 
 obsession with them. Look at the vegetarians. They 
 get into a state where their one ambition is to eat vege 
 tables! I have seen vegetarian parents sacrifice their 
 Isaacs to the god of vegetables. It is true, you cannot 
 develop much passion on carrot stews and peasoup. 
 Anaemia is the mother of virtue, but is not a virtue in 
 itself. But I am digressing. I was beginning to tell you 
 about Vanya, and the awakening of the man in him." 
 
 Vanya s knowledge of sex, Gombarov went on to say, 
 consisted first of all of what he had learned more or 
 less perfunctorily from his Hebrew lessons of Adam s 
 sin, of Onan s sin, of the sin of Lot s daughters, of the 
 sin of Ham in looking upon the nakedness of his father; 
 secondly, he grew familiar with the logical sequence of 
 those well-known terms with which the Book is so gen 
 erously seasoned : the knowing, the conceiving, and the 
 begetting; thirdly, there was the profane talk of the 
 boys and girls which went on without cease in the fac 
 tory, things he could not help but hear; fourthly, there 
 were the writings and the drawings he saw marked up 
 on the walls of the city and the village and in the factory 
 itself; fifthly, there were his own feelings, strange to 
 him then and inexplicable, vague broodings and clear 
 imaginings, mental picturings of feminine nakedness, 
 the importunity of his shameful desire upon seeing a j 
 woman or a girl sitting cross-legged to throw himself 
 down on the carpet and to watch stealthily the contour of | 
 
 
TWO YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 305 
 
 her leg, the not less shameful allurement of a bit of ex 
 posed lace on a feminine under-garment, the intense mys 
 tery of it all aroused his curiosity to an extent that quite 
 eclipsed his shame; sixthly, he once saw . . . but it is 
 better not to tell you what he saw. Yet he was very shy, 
 and the presence of a girl or woman, not of his own 
 family, embarrassed him, and made him blush, which 
 caused his sisters to laugh at him and to tease him. 
 Sometimes they would bring in a girl of their acquaint 
 ance, whoj seeing the boy s shyness and embarrassment, 
 would act very forwardly, after the manner of women, 
 and would seat herself in seductive poses; all his feelings, 
 all his shame, would be aroused, he would blush and 
 tremble most violently; he wished he had the courage to 
 approach this girl, lay hands on her, kiss her, play games 
 with her, chase her round a tree, he wanted to hear her 
 laugh and scream, to see her skirts in a rumpus as she ran 
 from him. He felt an intense shame at his own shame, 
 for he had seen other boys act boldly and almost un 
 concernedly in similar circumstances, and he envied them. 
 He stood there flushing, not daring to approach his tor 
 mentor. His stepfather, passing through the room, sized 
 up the situation and said, laughing, to the boy: "Kiss 
 ;her!" This only all the more embarrassed him. The 
 [girl laughed at him. But, like most members of her sex, 
 [young as she was, she was resourceful. 
 
 "Come," she said, "I ll wrestle you." 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 "You are afraid," she taunted him, "you know I am 
 Lronger than you." 
 
 "You are afraid," joined in Dunya. 
 
 "I am not," asserted John, gathering courage. Til 
 [show you who is stronger." 
 
 He made a rush for the girl. His arms grimly around 
 ter waist, there was a tussle. Her arms around his 
 loulders, she fought vigorously, uttering cries of smoth- 
 
306 THE MASK 
 
 ered laughter. Determined to best her, he quite forgot 
 her sex, and he seized her where it was most convenient, 
 wherever his hands happened to fall, as if she were a 
 boy. Receiving more than she bargained for, she sud 
 denly put out her leg, and tripped him up. Falling, he 
 carried her with him, and she fell on top of him. He was 
 struggling under her, trying to extricate himself, when 
 he suddenly became conscious of her flushed face, her 
 dishevelled hair, the closeness of her body. At the same 
 moment he heard her gasp : "You are not at all nice." 
 
 His own realization and this sudden reminder left him 
 helpless. Shame and desire, as bitter as they were sweet, 
 as vague as they were definite, wrestled in him for 
 ascendancy ; he let her go. 
 
 She jumped up quickly. He watched her shaking her 
 self, he watched her arrange her clothes and her hair. 
 
 "You were unfair," he cried, rising also. "You tripped 
 me up." 
 
 "I didn t!" she exclaimed. "I m stronger than you." 
 
 He still felt ashamed and flushed, and he was aston 
 ished at how quickly she recovered her composure, and 
 at the bold and convinced tone of her denial. 
 
 When he recalled the episode in later years, and his 
 words to the girl and her reply to his words, it seemed 
 to him as if it were all some ancient and eternal refrain, 
 which began with Adam and Eve, when confronted by 
 God after the fatal apple episode, and which recurred 
 again and again in his life, as in other lives, not unlike 
 the recurring pattern on a serpent s back. 
 
 " You were unfair, and you tripped me up! there 
 you have the ripe tenor of the eternal masculine," John 
 Gombarov would say. No, I did not, I am stronger 
 than you! there s your natural soprano part in this ; 
 universal duet. Frail woman, to combat man s honesty 
 and superior strength, has invented a kind of mental 
 jiujitsu, which sometimes takes the form of tears, some- 
 
TWO YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 307 
 
 times subtlety, sometimes downright lying, but usually all 
 three combined. Who knows whether Eve had not 
 libelled the serpent, twisted the serpent s words, or per 
 haps even invented the whole tale. After all, if the ser 
 pent was as subtle as the Book says, he wouldn t have 
 been so foolish as to divulge an important diplomatic 
 secret to a woman and risk losing his head I mean his 
 feet for it, and having to creep on his belly all his 
 life." 
 
 "You are a misogynist," protested Douglass. "You 
 must admit there are good women, even ideal women." 
 
 "Now don t stand up on your hind legs," said Gom- 
 barov trying to mollify his friend. "I think I am in 
 love myself. Good women there undoubtedly are; as for 
 ideal women, they exist chiefly in men s minds. The 
 ideal woman is born in a young man s fancy, she dies 
 in an old man s dying mind. When a man seeks out an 
 object for his affection it is to attach her, and adorn her, 
 with all the charms and virtues preconceived and ex 
 istent in his mind, but rarely is man so fortunate as to 
 find a woman upon whom these will fit like a well-made 
 garment, as upon the admired Miranda : 
 
 for several virtues 
 
 Have I liked several women; never any 
 With so full soul, but some defect in her 
 Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed, 
 And put it to the foils: but you, O you, 
 So perfect and so peerless, are created, 
 Of every creature s best! 
 
 And Miranda was an invented creature of a great man s 
 last work! It is this creature living at the back of 
 every man s mind who has made more cynics in this 
 world than any other thing. But the poet, denied his de 
 sire in life, has poured himself into his plays and poems, 
 
308 THE MASK 
 
 the sculptor into his statues, the painter into his pictures. 
 If men were granted their desire there would be no art. 
 For dreams and art are always the expression of a man s 
 desire. That wall of Del Sarto s was left bare in heaven 
 because Del Sarto had had his desire on earth." 
 
 In his characteristic manner Gombarov brought the 
 subject back to John. 
 
 "For it is a curious thing," he went on, "even Jphn, 
 young though he was, sensual though he was perhaps 
 because he was young and sensual had, together with 
 his sensual imaginings, already begun to have glimmer 
 ings, as yet vague, of what you, as a painter, would call 
 the ideal woman/ In a strange way, she appeared to 
 him, by day and by night, in dream and in day dream, 
 as out of clouds of mist, clearly outlined yet indefinable, 
 pale and lovely, curiously sensual yet refined, like Nad- 
 ezhda Vassilyevna, the governess he remembered from 
 his early childhood days in that now dreamlike house 
 bordering on a fairy wood. Why should this creature 
 have appeared to him, by what process of becoming did 
 she come to rise out of the depths of his consciousness as 
 Aphrodite rose from the sea? Was she the natural 
 product of an unconscious evolving of seeds planted on 
 the fertile and impressionable soil of his being by his 
 reading of fairy princesses and of heroines of fiction, the 
 natural flower of gestating fancy? Or was she some 
 persistent hereditary memory come down through the 
 generations, choosing him to pause in, to gather herself 
 in, to concentrate her deliberate force before she should 
 have again resumed her tireless, endless journey? Or 
 was she the ultimate and flawless mask of feminine per 
 fection come to him because his sensitiveness had evoked 
 her, called her to him, commanded her to his presence in 
 order that he might find relief from his every-day life, 
 every-day troubles? Or was she come to combat that 
 
TWO YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 309 
 
 other creature, the obscene, sensual one, whose visita 
 tions were becoming more frequent and more trouble 
 some? It was hard to tell, even looking backward, by 
 what unconscionable processes, by what manner of incan 
 tation, by what cunning mystery, she came, why and 
 whence she came, and whither she went." 
 
 A strange thing happened one night He lay on his 
 mattress on the floor and could not sleep. It was a moon 
 lit night, and as the Gombarovs could not afford blinds, 
 the full moon poured in her light in a passionate flow 
 into the room. The objects in the room looked myster 
 ious; the pale-faced sleepers, Raya and Dunya and Absa 
 lom, appeared like beings of another world. John s body, 
 tired from the day s work, turned from side to side, while 
 his mind, alive with the turmoil of the day s events, felt 
 as acutely restless in all that quiet enchantment, remi 
 niscent of death, as an active darting fish in the still, clear 
 waters of a bewitched lake. That very day that he had 
 wrestled with the little minx, his sister s friend, and now 
 once more she appeared to him, as at the moment when 
 he released her, with flushed face and dishevelled hair, 
 her clothes in sweet disorder; she looked at him with a 
 reproach she did not mean, and she said to him : "You 
 ;are not at all nice." What did she mean by it? He 
 Iknew, or rather he felt, that she meant something by it. 
 Had she then guessed his thoughts ? How could he help 
 his thoughts? He knew he was evil to want to peep 
 through a key-hole, to want to see her as she looked be 
 fore retiring at night ; to want to hide behind the bushes 
 as she took a dip in the swimming pond none were so 
 evil as he in this world. But whether evil or not, his 
 thoughts took no heed of his reflections; with reckless 
 disregard of moral precepts and proprieties, they un 
 dressed her, pushed her forward, still flushing and dis 
 hevelled, at first with a shame-faced reluctance, gradually 
 
310 THE MASK 
 
 developing into a flaunting forwardness . . . For a 
 moment he gave himself up riotously to the vision .... 
 
 Surely none were so evil as he in the whole world. 
 
 He tried not to think to turn his thoughts 
 
 elsewhere. Then she, the Other, came to him, pale and 
 tranquil like the moonlight, a vision of his governess 
 Nadezhda Vassilyevna, playing with soothing fingers 
 through his hair. Nadezhda Vassilyevna was dead, he 
 knew she was dead; they had heard of her, she had died 
 of consumption among the revolutionaries in Switzer 
 land; but she had not died for him. It was her, not the 
 flaunting one, he loved. She looked at him with her old 
 quiet smile .... The oval of her face was clearly out 
 lined, as were the high curved eye-brows, her skin was 
 white, her blue-grey eyes clear, and there \vas her quiet 
 old smile. Then he saw her smile change. Something 
 alien to them had suddenly crept into her eyes. Yet this 
 something was familiar to him. Physically too the vision 
 was changing. All of a sudden he realized : she was 
 metamorphosing, merging in the other. He could not 
 understand how it happened. The vision vanished. 
 
 Half dreaming, he raised himself up with a start. 
 He rubbed his eyes and looked around the room. The 
 vision still obsessed him. He looked around at the sleep 
 ers, lying supinely and but thinly or half covered owing 
 to the warmth. Quite near by slept Dunya. The moon 
 light lay a kind of pale green-white on her bare out 
 stretched arms and upon her face. Her loose black locks 
 lay carelessly on the pillow and on her bosom. The only 
 features of her face visible were the strongly marked 
 dark eyebrows and rather more faintly the fine line of 
 her mouth, and seeing it he felt pity for her, his favour 
 ite sister, whom as yet unconsciously perhaps he loved 
 more than any being on earth. Nevertheless, in the 
 ghostly glare of that full unearthly moonlight, the spirit 
 of his strange unrest still upon him, she did not seem to 
 
TWO YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 311 
 
 him like Dunya, but like a vision of feminine beauty 
 differing only in texture and degree from his earlier 
 visions of the night. His heart beat fast as thoughts 
 came to him, urging and compelling thoughts, lashed on 
 in their turn by a most fearful curiosity. 
 
 With trembling heart, fearful of discovery, he crept 
 over to where she lay, and for some moments, leaning on 
 his elbow, looked into her face. 
 
 "Dunya," he called in a low voice, wishing to make 
 sure that she was asleep. 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 Slowly and lightly he lifted the cover from her, and 
 gazed at her avidly in the moonlight. He gazed fascin 
 ated at her whiteness and her outlines, with no other 
 desire than to gaze. He was trembling all over and his 
 heart beat fearfully, yet he could not tear himself away 
 from the vision, the exact nature of whose attraction he 
 could not explain. 
 
 Dare he light a candle, he thought to himself, if only 
 for one little moment, the better to see than by the light 
 the moon vouchsafed him? Fear of discovery made him 
 hesitate, but only for a moment; forces stronger than 
 fear were at work. He reached out for the candle and 
 matches on the window-sill, and quietly lighting the 
 candle held it over Dunya. The flame cast a ruddy 
 glare, gave life to the vision. The candle in his trembling 
 hand nickered, causing the great spot of light to 
 waver with a mysterious agitation on Dunya s white 
 body. Presently, he saw her face stir slightly, and he 
 blew out the candle ; he heard her sigh, then mutter some 
 thing; she shifted her arms, and her hands pressed her 
 bosom. Was she dreaming? .... he wondered. He 
 held his breath, and after a little while, seeing that she 
 kept still, he cautiously drew the cover over her, and 
 crept back to his mattress. Throwing himself down 
 upon it, he buried his head in the pillow, clutching at it 
 
312 THE MASK 
 
 convulsively and trying to stifle his sobs. He did not 
 know why he was sobbing. But it relieved him to cry. 
 Afterward he drew the bed-cover over his head, and 
 soon lapsed into unconsciousness . . . 
 
 Douglass was naturally astonished when Gombarov 
 told him of that episode of John s adolescence, that ex 
 traordinary, almost clairvoyant image of the awakening 
 of sex. And though he knew that Gombarov, like most 
 Russians he met, was frank, yet he had not expected 
 such an intimate revelation. Douglass was the first to 
 break the short silence that followed the recounting of 
 the incident : 
 
 "The tale you have told me might, in its essence, have 
 been taken from Greek mythology. It might be made as 
 significant as the classic tale of Cupid and Psyche. I 
 should say it would be rather a difficult thing to treat in 
 a modern novel. People nowadays do not understand 
 these things. And what they do not understand annoys 
 them, if it doesn t actually shock them." 
 
 "I for one," said Gombarov, "cannot see how the nor 
 mal excesses of human minds can be controlled except by 
 normal living. Normal mental excesses come from ab 
 normal physical suppressions. Leading narrow sup 
 pressed lives, men quarrel with the heedless prodigality 
 of nature. Life is wine, not vinegar. After all, John s 
 thought as a boy, and all his misery, rose not from mor 
 bidity, but from excess of normality. Because this 
 naturalness was suppressed by a hard, joyless, altogether 
 unreasonable civilization, to which, by reason of his 
 early bringing up in the Russian woods, he had not 
 become accustomed, his spirit revolted. There was no 
 relief, no outlet for his natural life. Something deep 
 within him sought egress, and that was the very essence 
 of life. If I ever write a novel, it won t deal with photo 
 graphic likenesses of men, but with men s innermost 
 
TWO YEARS KILLED IN ONE CHAPTER 313 
 
 feelings and thoughts. Men and women shall stand 
 exposed to the world as they are to themselves. They 
 shall parade before the reader s eyes as thoughts incar 
 nate, in all their true relation to one another. I would 
 try to present their real being, their very essence, the 
 texture of their thoughts. I would try to reduce their 
 seeming complexity to unutterable simplicity. For men 
 at bottom are simple and have common desires. Un 
 fortunately most of our novelists fall in with our civili 
 zation and, if anything, only help to entangle our lives 
 into ugly knots, instead of untying them. Let us burrow 
 our way out of our miserable darkness and not further 
 into it." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 HOW A TREE HELPED TO MAKE A TURNING POINT IN 
 THE GOMBAROVS LIVES 
 
 WITH Gombarova at home again, after giving birth to 
 Margaret and Margaret was an extra mouth to feed, if 
 as yet a little one the Gombarovs found it hard to get 
 along. It was true that Raya and Dunya, paid by piece 
 work, had slowly increased their earnings; John also 
 had had two promotions, one from bobbin boy to piecer 
 on "spinning-mule," the other to runner of "spinning- 
 mule," a formidable device of some four or five hundred 
 spindles which moved in and out on wheels the whole 
 length of the long room and transformed raw wool or 
 cotton into thread. By the first promotion he got a 
 raise of fifty cents; by the second, which was a sort of 
 coming of age, for it gave him a man s job, he got 
 another fifty cents; he was now getting four dollars a 
 week for work at which a man usually got from eight to 
 ten dollars a week. 
 
 " Suffer little children to come unto me , is the favour 
 ite writing over the door of modern industry," said John 
 Gombarov, in telling of the experience many years after 
 ward. 
 
 What was to be done? To make matters worse, the 
 employes of the Shoddy Mills were under compulsion 
 to buy their food, coal, kindling and other household 
 supplies from the company stores, a "vicious circle" de- 
 
TURNING POINT IN GOMBAROV S LIVES 315 
 
 vice, characteristic of our civilization, invented to divert 
 the moneys received by workers to their fountain-head. 
 
 Many of the employes, especially Russians, would now 
 and then save a few pennies by going to the neighbouring 
 woods at dusk to gather kindling; after a storm there 
 was some chance of picking up a broken young tree, or 
 the severed limb of an old one. Old Gombarov was very 
 fond of going out on these expeditions, and it was his 
 habit to fetch the most formidable victim he could find, 
 calling if need be upon John s help. He grew more and 
 more ambitious in this respect he had never been fond 
 of doing things by halves until one day he achieved the 
 climax with most startling consequences. 
 
 Owing to low supplies of raw wool, John was idle that 
 day. It occurred to old Gombarov that he might use 
 this fact to advantage. 
 
 "Let s go and get some wood," he said to John. 
 
 John, who did not know what to do with himself, 
 agreed willingly. 
 
 Taking a large saw and an axe, they went out. It 
 was a grey drizzly day. The air was warm, and there 
 was a hint of thunder. No one was about. The popu 
 lation was mostly at work in the mills. 
 
 They walked a little while along the narrow path, the 
 fallen leaves crunching under their feet. Then Gom 
 barov suddenly swerved aside, plunged in among the 
 bushes, John following. Gombarov walked on as if 
 towards a fixed spot. Emerging on the other side of the 
 bushes, he walked a little way farther, then quite sud 
 denly stopped. They stood before a huge tree, an old 
 poplar; John thought it was the biggest tree in the 
 wood. 
 
 "You are not going to cut that tree down, are you?" 
 asked John, in amazement. 
 
 "Why not?" asked his stepfather. "Men don t fish 
 for minnows when they can catch cod." 
 
3i6 THE MASK 
 
 To John there appeared to be something appalling in 
 the idea of cutting this tree down. It was so tall and 
 old and huge, he and his stepfather were so little. He 
 felt unwilling and afraid, but fascinated by the thought 
 as well. Apart from this, he thought : this wood prob 
 ably belonged to someone might they not get into 
 trouble for cutting such a tree down? Arid he grew 
 horribly afraid at the thought, even more than at the 
 other. 
 
 His stepfather, as if he had guessed his thoughts, 
 merely said : 
 
 "Young trees grow into old trees, it is better to bring 
 this old fellow down than a lot of young ones. It will 
 save us a lot of trouble. This chap ought to last us 
 several months." 
 
 They took no heed of the growing drizzle, threw their 
 coats off, and got to work. They were soon perspiring, 
 and took short rests. The little saw-dust heap grew and 
 grew. Yet there still was much left to saw. It was 
 hard to tell afterwards how long it took them to do the 
 job, but it surely seemed incredibly long. 
 
 When they came near the end, John thought : Now 
 the tree will surely fall. So frail appeared the hold it 
 had on the stump, and on dear life. After another five 
 minutes, John thought: another moment and it would 
 fall. And he began to prepare to run, not knowing 
 which way it would fall. But it still lived on. John s 
 heart trembled with fear and expectancy. The tree tilted 
 just slightly; at the place where the saw sundered it in 
 two, the parting grew barely wider. There was a slight 
 crackle, a slight groan, as the saw cut into the last 
 sinews, and still the tree stood, towered in its aged pride. 
 At last there came the last crackle, followed by a pro 
 longed groan; the tree shook, trembled, almost reeled, 
 like a powerful drunken man wishing to right himself, 
 to prevent himself from falling; at least it appeared so to 
 
vjrwL>vw o _ 
 
 John, who, together with his stepfather, began to make a 
 retreat, watching at the same time the slow reluctant 
 fall of the giant; there was a crash, lasting for some 
 moments, as of thunder; so loud it was, that John felt 
 glad that there was rain; if anyone heard it, they would 
 surely think it was thunder. 
 
 Stepfather Gombarov stood eyeing his work with 
 great satisfaction, untroubled by any of the qualms 
 which assailed John. 
 
 For the time being he contented himself by lopping off 
 a few of the smaller branches, to take home with them. 
 But thereafter, he would go out with John once a week, 
 and they would bring back a log with them, sometimes 
 two, which they would drop in the little narrow space 
 between their cottage and the next. 
 
 Unluckily for the Gombarovs, the Company one day 
 sent its German carpenter, a Karl Schwartz, to make 
 some long-asked-for repairs, and it was while examining 
 the exterior of the house that he stumbled upon a couple 
 of logs in that narrow alley. When no one was looking 
 he took a measure of them, and with an eye to finding 
 favour with his employers went to the woods to investi 
 gate. He beheld the remnant of the fallen tree with 
 hardly less satisfaction than Gombarov some weeks be 
 fore, if of a different nature. There was something of 
 the stage villain about Schwartz. 
 
 Two days later, while at work in the mill, Raya, Dunya 
 and John received notice that their services would no 
 longer be required at the end of the week. 
 
 They were frightened and mystified. They did not 
 know why they were being discharged. 
 
 But the mystery became clear, when young Fritz 
 Schwartz, a chip of the old block, approached John and 
 berated him for being the son of a tree thief, if not an 
 
ri 
 
 accomplice. Then John understood all at once what had 
 happened. 
 
 "Dey vas going at foist to haf your fadder pinched, 
 but dey haf changed deir minds. You re lucky, my 
 poy!" was the further information vouchsafed by Fritz. 
 
 John was dumbfounded. So they were going to arrest 
 his stepfather, but changed their minds ! He understood 
 the aspersion : they were criminals, but they were also 
 poor. There was nothing to be got out of them. It 
 wasn t worth the trouble to arrest Gombarov. 
 
 That evening John and Fritz fought outside the mill, 
 watched by a delighted crowd, and neither the blood 
 flowing from his cut cheek, nor even the blood flowing 
 freely from Fritz s nose, aroused fear or pity in him, so 
 filled was he with weariness of life and reckless despair. 
 But Dunya had somehow got wind of the affair; it was 
 she who cut her way boldly through the hostile crowd, 
 separated the combatants, and led John away home with 
 her, in the face of John s own objections and the hoots 
 of the crowd, robbed of its favourite spectacle. 
 
 What sort of evening did the Gombarovs spend, how 
 did they feel, what were their thoughts? Did they have 
 rice soup for supper, or something else? Strangely 
 enough, John Gombarov, in later years, remembered 
 nothing of what happened that evening, nor whether 
 they had rice soup or something else. He had a dim 
 recollection of dead silence . 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE GOMBAROVS MIGRATE FROM THEIR HOUSE ON A HILL 
 TO A CUL-DE-SAC IN TOWN 
 
 A WEEK later, Semyon Gombarov, gathering up his 
 goods and family, moved into town again. Altogether 
 they numbered nine. There were Gombarov and his 
 wife; then there were Raya, Dunya and John by Gom- 
 barova s first husband; and Gombarov s own children: 
 Katya and Absalom, and Sonya, and baby Margaret, in 
 the order of their birth. 
 
 Friendless and cut off from their own kin, they moved 
 like a small primitive tribe, patriarchal in character; 
 except for their dependence a state in themselves. 
 
 The heads of cattle, customary to such migrative nar 
 ratives, are out of question here. The Gombarovs had 
 none. As for the seventy-five heads of fowl, bred by 
 Gombarov, he sold them, leaving an odd fat one over 
 to make their last dinner in the old house. Their fortune 
 in money, saved for just such an emergency, consisted 
 of fifty dollars, barely enough to give one a chance to 
 look around. 
 
 They moved into a poorer section of the town, and 
 began their "new life" in a small two-story house, in a 
 cul-de-sac. 
 
 Much befell them there, in that cul-de-sac. 
 
 Many years afterward, sitting in a London cafe, 
 among friends, John Gombarov bethought himself of 
 
 319 
 
320 I titL MAbK ^MM 
 
 that little cul-de-sac in the City of Brotherly Love. They 
 were discussing cul-de-sacs. 
 
 "I wouldn t like to live in a cul-de-sac" said Ninette, 
 a sprightly French girl, showing her pretty teeth. "You 
 can t look out of the window and see the world, see 
 people pass by." 
 
 "The whole universe is a cul-de-sac" said, in his deep, 
 solemn bass voice, Julius Strogovsky, a Russian who had 
 studied philosophy for many years in a German uni 
 versity. 
 
 "And what do you think about it?" asked Gombarov, 
 turning to Douglass. 
 
 "A cul-de-sac is a blind alley, and that s all there s to 
 it," replied Douglass gruffly, for like level-headed Scots 
 men, he had a contempt for German philosophy. 
 
 John Gombarov atone refrained from giving his opin 
 ion. He lost himself in the thought of the little cul-de- 
 sac he knew so well in the City of Brotherly Love. At 
 the same time a vision rose in his mind of a little cove 
 in the north of Devon, where at high tide the oncoming 
 waves beat their arms desperately, retiring at short 
 whiles, only to return in new fierce onslaughts against 
 that wall of rock. 
 
 He was thinking: he would like some day to write a 
 large volume about that little cul-de-sac, God giving him 
 strength. 
 
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