deve tet 2a oetspe - we ee libs 28 Ae ates he \omchye lft sertlnsie 4 Se hee 5: * daha panier arr oneia eS ein) ma! Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue DOUKSin. ies University of Illinois Library APR 9 - 1366 HAR | \gue FEB: APR 07 19 The ROAD to CALVARY The Road to Calvary BY ALEXEY TOLSTOY Translated by Mrs. R. S. Townsend “py BONI anvpd LIVERIGHT PUBLISHERS 23 New YorK Copyright, 1923 by BONI & LIVERIGHT, Inc. Printed in the United States of America I | | | “Oh, Russian Land!” | The Word of Igor’s Armament. A stranger from some Moscow side street overhung with lime trees, finding himself in Petersburg, would, in the first moments of observation, have experienced a complex feeling of mental excitement and spiritual op- pression. Wandering through the straight and foggy streets past the solemn, box-like houses with their dark windows and drowsing yard-porters at the gates, gazing long at the watery stretch of the Neva, at the blue line of bridges with their lamps lighted before dusk, at the colonnade of comfortless, joyless palaces, at the piercing height of the non-Russian cathedral of Peter and Paul, at the poor little boats flitting over the dark water and the countless barges with dry wood ranged along the stone embank- ment, and gazing into the faces of the passers-by, pale and worried, with eyes as murky as a town, the stranger, observing all this, if kindly disposed, would have muffled his head still deeper into his collar; if unkindly disposed, would. have felt a desire to strike out with all his might and shatter to fragments this cold, oppressive enchant- ment. | In the days of Peter I., even, the deacon of Trinity Church, which to this day stands by Trinity Bridge, “coming down from the belfry in the dark saw the ghost of a lean peasant woman and was greatly affrighted [1] THE ROAD TO CALVARY thereby. He said in the tavern afterwards, “Petersburg to be sure, will be empty,” for the saying of which he was seized, tortured in the secret chancellery and beater mercilessly with the knout. It was thus, no doubt, that it came to be believed that some evil lurked about Petersburg. There were eye- witnesses who claim to have seen the devil riding in a cab in a street of Vasiliev Island, and one midnight during a storm and at high water the Bronze Emperor was said to have wrenched himself from the granite rocks and torn over the stones. And a privy-councillor driving home in his carriage saw glued against the window thereof a corpse, the body of a dead civil-servant. Many such stories were current in the town. Also quite recently the poet Alexis Alexeyevitch Bezso- nov, driving one night over the arched bridge on his way to the island, caught sight of a star in the depths of the heavens through a dispersing cloud. Gazing long at the star with tears in his eyes, he reflected that the cab, the bridge, the thread of lamps and the whole of Peters- burg asleep behind him were nothing but an illusion, a spectre of delirium registered on his brain, befogged with wine, love and boredom. And it was as in a delirium, and in a hurry that Peters- burg was built. As a dream two centuries passed, Strange to all things living the city stood at the end of the earth in swamps and weeds, raving about universal glory and power. As spectres in delirium court revolu-_ tions flashed by, assassinations of emperors, triumphs and bloody executions. Frail women assumed semi-divine power; out of warm, crumpled beds the fate of peoples was resolved ; strong fellows came, of powerful build and hands black with soil, and boldly they walked up to the — throne to share the power, bed and the Byzantine luxury. [2] THE ROAD TO CALVARY The surrounding country gazed in horror at this frenzied outburst of fantasy. In fear and dejection the Russian people looked on at the ravings of the capital. The country drank and could never drink its fill of its own blood and the spirit of the Petersburg phantoms. Petersburg lived a midnight life, turbulently cold and satiated. Phosphorescent summer nights, mad and sensual, sleepless winter nights with green tables and clink of gold, music, whirling couples behind windows, furious troikas, gipsies, duels, and at daybreak a shrill icy wind, the piercing blast of a bugle, a parade of troops before the petrifying gaze of the Emperor’s protruding eyes. Thus the city lived. In the last few dozen years huge undertakings sprang up with amazing rapidity. Millions’ worth of property rose as out of air. From crystal and cement, banks were built and music-halls, skating-rinks, gorgeous drinking- houses with deafening music, reflecting mirrors, half- naked women, light and champagne. Gambling clubs were quickly opened, meeting-houses, theatres, cinemato- graphs, moonlight gardens with American attractions. Engineers and capitalists were engaged on a plan of a new city of unparalleled luxury, to be built on a desert island not far from Petersburg. In the city an epidemic of suicide was rife. The law courts were filled with crowds of hysterical women greedily listening to the bloody details of the sensational cases. All was attainable—luxury and women. Depravity permeated everything; like a contagion, it spread to the court. And to the court, to the very throne of the most un- fortunate of erors, came an illiterate peasant with wild eyes ek asculine strength, and in derision and scorn he beeal to defame Russia. [3] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Petersburg, like every other town, lived its own life, strained and worried. A central force guided its motion, but this force had nothing in common with what might have been called the spirit of the town. The force tried to create order, calmness and fitness, the spirit of the town tried to destroy the force. The spirit of destruc- tion was in everything; like a putrid poison it permeated the extensive Bourse machinations of the famous Sashka Sakelman, the dull rancour of the workman at the steel foundry, the disjointed fancies of the popular poetess sitting at five in the morning in the artistic basement of “The Red Bells’; it permeated those who should have fought against it, but, not understanding, did all to sharpen and strengthen it. It was a time when love, and good wholesome feeling, were held to be commonplace and out of date. No one loved, all thirsted; and as though poisoned, they seized on any acrid thing that would tear their vitals. Girls concealed their innocence, the married their faith- fulness. Destruction was held to be good taste, neuras- thenia a sign of refinement. This was taught by the new writers who sprang to fame in a season out of nothing. People feigned sins and vices they possessed not for fear of being thought dull. To breathe the air of the grave, to feel near one the trembling body of a woman consumed with a devilish curiosity, this was the pathos of the poetry si the last years—death and sensuality. Such was Petersburg in the year 1914. tron out with sleepless nights, drowning its despair in wine, gold, love- less love, in the insistent strains of the tango—the death hymn—it lived as if in expectancy of the terrible and fatal day. There were those who predicted it. The new and incomprehensible crept in through every crevice. [4] il “We don’t want to remember anything. We say, Enough, turn your back on the past! What is there in the past for me? Milo’s Venus? What use is she to me? You can’t eat her! She doesn’t even make the hair grow! What do I want with the stone carcass? But you must have art! art! You like to tickle your heels with the word. Look to the side of you! look before you! look under your feet! Aren’t those American boots you have on? Three cheers for American boots! A red motor-car, rubber tires,a pool of petrol,a hundred miles an hour, there you have art! It makes you want to devour space. Or a poster ten yards long with a young man on it in a top-hat as brilliant as the sun, that’s art! It’s your tailor who’s your artist, your present-day genius! I want to devour life and you offer me some sweetened water, good for the sexually impotent. . . .” A burst of laughter and applause came from the back of the narrow hall, where a crowd of undergraduates from the universities were gathered behind the chairs. The speaker, Peter Petrovitch Sapojkov, smiled with his moist mouth. He steadied the wobbling glasses on his big nose and quickly walked down the steps of the wooden ros- trum. To one side of it, at a long table lighted by two five- candled sconces, sat the members of the Philosophical Evenings Society. There was the President, Antinovsky, a professor of theology, and the lecturer of the evening, the historian Veliaminov; the philosopher Borsky, who : [5 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY had been expelled from the Theological Academy for leanings toward socialism and had in turn abandoned the socialists and been reviled by them; there was the crafty writer, Sakunin, author of some cynical and remarkable books. The Philosophical Evenings Society had this winter sustained an onslaught from pugnacious youngsters whom no one knew. They attacked venerable writers and esteemed philosophers with such audacity and said such impudently smart things that the detached old house on the Fontanka, where the meetings were held, was packed on Saturdays, the days of public meetings. It was packed this evening. When Sapojkov disap- peared in the crowd amidst spasmodic hand-clapping, there got up on the platform a little man with a knobby shaven head, a young face, yellow skin and high cheek- bones. His name was Akundin. He had made his ap- pearance there quite recently, and his success, especially among the audience at the back of the hall, was enormous. When one asked who he was and where he came from, sensible people smiled mysteriously. His name was not Akundin, in any case. He had come from abroad; it was for no idle purpose that he had appeared there. Akundin stroked his thin beard, looked round at the silenced audience, smiled and began to speak. In the third row by the middle gangway, her chin supported on her closed hand, sat a young girl, in a black cloth dress cut high at the neck. Her fine, ash-coloured hair, drawn over the ears and rolled in a large knot, was caught with a comb. Without a movement or a smile she gazed at the men sitting at the green table ; sometimes her eyes became fixed on the candles. | When Akundin, with a bang of his dry fist on the wooden rostrum, cried out, “World economics will strike [6] THE ROAD TO CALVARY the first blow of the iron fist on the dome of the Church? ‘The fight against the Church is purely a question of eco- nomics!” the girl sighed slightly and, taking her hand from her reddened chin, she put a caramel in her mouth. _ Akundin went on. | “And you are still dreaming your muddled dreams ot the Kingdom of God on earth! Here you are Snoring and seeing visions and mumbling Messiahism in your sleep. Yet for all your efforts the people are still asleep. Or do you hope they’ll wake up and speak like Balaam’s . ass? They'll wake up, to be sure, but it won’t be the sweet voices of your poets that'll wake them, nor the smoke of your incense. It will be the factory whistle that’ll wake them! The people will wake and speak, not of Messiahism, but of justice, and their voices will grate on your ears. Or do you still put faith in your rubbish and your bogs? You could go on sleeping here for an- other half a century, I believe, but don’t call it Messiah- ism. It is not coming; it is passing like a shadow over the earth! It was here in Petersburg, in this beautiful hall, that the Russian peasant was invented. Hundreds of books have been written about him, operas have been composed about him. It is like a game of shadows on a wall. I only fear that the game will end in blood- shed. ae At ate eitit the President interposed. Ate iri gave a faint smile. He took a large dirty pocket-handkerchief and with an habitual gesture, wiped his head and fore- head. From the back of the hall voices called out. “Let him speak !” “A shame to stop him!” “Tt’s disgraceful!” “Shut up, you there!” “Shut up yourself!” CFI THE ROAD TO CALVARY Akundin went on. “The Russian peasant is a peg on which to hang idea: But if these ideas are organically opposed to his instinct: to his age-long desires, to his primitive idea of justice his understanding of humanity, your ideas will fall as seed on a stone. Until the peasant is regarded as a ma with an empty stomach, with a spine bent with toil, unt you get rid of those Messianic qualities invented for hir by some gentleman or other, until then will you have tw tragically opposite poles—your excellent theories, born i dim studies, and a greedy, half bestial life. We are no really criticizing you. It would be a waste of time t examine all your mass of human fantasy. No. We sa to you, turn your ideas into reality! Don’t sit and phi losophize! Experiment! Let your experiments b desperate, but you'll prove the value of your ideas; you’ know how to live... .” The girl in the black cloth dress did not think it wort while to reflect on the speaker’s words. Their argument were, no doubt, impressive, but the important fact abou them all was—well, for instance—and she was quit convinced of this—Akundin loved no one on earth bu himself and would have felt no compunction in shootin; a man if it were necessary to prove his theories. | While she was thinking this another man approache the green table. He sat slowly down near the President Abdded to right and to left, passed his reddened hand ove his fair hair, wet from the snow, wiped his fingers on hi pocket- -handkerchief, put his hands beneath the table amt pulled himself up in his narrow black jacket. He hat a swarthy face, arched eyebrows, large grey eyes amt hair falling over his forehead like a skull-cap. It wa Alexis Alexeyevitch Bezsonov, just as he was pictured it the current number of a weekly journal. [8] Dittman Sooribetin ‘ t THE ROAD TO CALVARY The girl could see nothing now but his almost repul- sively handsome face. In a kind of terror she regarded the strange features of which she had dreamt so often in the stormy Petersburg nights. There he was bending to his neighbor’s ear; he smiled and his smile was simple, but in the line of his nostrils, -in the somewhat feminine brows, in some quiet force in his face there was treachery, conceit, and something else which she could not understand, but which excited her more than the rest. At this moment the lecturer, Veliaminov, red-faced -and bearded, with gold spectacles and tufty golden-grey hair around his large head, rose to answer Akundin. “You are as right as the avalanche crashing down the mountains. We have long been expecting the advent of _your terrible age and prophesied the triumph of your truth. It is you who control the elements, not we. We do not prop up your avalanche with our shoulders. We know that when it has rolled to the bottom, to the earth, its strength will be broken, and your higher truth, for the conquest of which you shriek with your factory hooters, will be a mass of broken fragments—chaos—amidst which man will wander stunned. Take care,” Velia- minov raised a finger as long as a pencil and looked severely through his spectacles at the audience. “In the paradise of which you dream, in the name of which you want to convert a living man into a syllogism, dressed in a hat and coat and with a rifle over his shoulder, in your terrible paradise a new revolution is preparing, more terrible perhaps than any revolution—the revolution of the Spirit——” Akundin interjected coldly from his place: “That has been foreseen.” Veliaminov stretched out his hands across the table. [9] THE ROAD TO CALVARY The candles threw a light on the bald patch on his head. He spoke of the sin into which the world had fallen and of the future terrible reckoning. In the hall people began to cough. During the interval the girl went into the refreshment- room and stood by the door, frowning and apart. Sev- eral advocates and their wives were drinking tea and talk- ing more loudly than most people. By the stove stood Chernobilin, the famous writer, eating fish and bilberries © and glancing now and then with resentful and drunken eyes at the new-comers. Two middle-aged literary women with broad ribbons round their hair were munch- ing sandwiches by the counter. Several priests stood staidly aside, not mixing with the laymen. Under the chandelier, his hands behind the tails of his long coat and balancing himself on his heels, was a greyish man with matted hair. This was Chirva, the critic, waiting for some one to come and talk to him. Veliaminov ap- peared. One of the literary women rushed up to him and grabbed his sleeve, which he carefully tried to extri-_ cate during their conversation. The other literary wo- man also stopped munching and shook off the crumbs; she bent her head and opened her eyes wide. Bezsonov — came up to her, bowing to right and to left with a humble inclination of the head. . The girl in black felt in her bones how the literary woman straightened herself in her corsets and assumed an affected air. Bezsonov said something to her with an indolent smile. She clapped her hands and laughed, roll- ing her eyes. “Horrible, dirty creature,” thought the girl and went out of the refreshment-room. Some one called to her. Pushing his way through the crowd was a dark, tired-look- ing youth in a velveteen jacket; he nodded joyfully, screw- [10] THE ROAD TO CALVARY ing up his nose with pleasure. He took her hand. His palm was clammy, on his forehead was a clammy tuft of hair and his oval watery eyes gazed at her with a watery tenderness. It was Alexander Ivanovitch Jirov. “Well, now, what are you doing here, Dasha Dmitriev- na?” he said. “Just what you are doing,” she replied, withdrawing her hand, which she put into her muff and wiped on her pocket-handkerchief. He laughed, and looking at her still more tenderly, said: “How did you like Sapojkov tonight? He spoke like a prophet. His severity of expression is irritating, but his ideas . . . At bottom, aren’t they what we all want? Only we’re afraid to say so, he isn’t. Have you seen his latest verse? Young, young, young are we all With devilishly hungry stomachs. Let us swallow the void... . Very strong and original. Don’t you feel, Daria Dmi- trievna, that the new, the new is coming witha rush? It’s our very own, bold, greedy! There’s Akundin, now. There may be too much logic about him, but he hits the nail on the head every time. Another two or three winters like this and the whole thing will crumble; it'll burst at the seams. Won't that be good!” He spoke quietly, with a soft smile. Dasha felt him trembling all over as with some horrible excitement. She did not stop to listen, but nodded to him and pushed her way to the cloakroom. The morose, medal-bedecked porter, who was dragging a bundle of coats and galoshes, paid no heed to Dasha’s proffered ticket. She had to wait long in the draught of the swinging door, where without, in the deserted vesti- bule, tall peasant-cabmen, in their wet blue coats, were fi} THE ROAD TO CALVARY gaily and impudently offering their services to the people coming out. “T’ve a fast horse, Your ’Cellency !” “Tt’s on your way, on the Peski!” Suddenly behind her Bezsonov’s voice was heard in a cold staccato: “Porter, my coat, hat and stick.” Dasha had a sensation of pins and needles running down her back. She turned her head quickly and looked straight into Bezsonov’s eyes. He met her gaze calmly and indifferently, then his eyelids quivered ; his grey eyes lighted up, yielding, and Dasha felt her heart beat fast. “Tf I am not mistaken,” he said, “we have met at your sister’s.” “We have,”’ Dasha replied boldly. She snatched her coat from the porter and hastened to the door. In the street a damp cold wind caught her dress, dashing the stinging drops against her. Dasha muffled herself to her eyes in her fur collar. Some one catching up with her whispered near her ear: “What eyes! my pretty!” Dasha walked quickly over the wet asphalt, along the purple quivering lines of electric light. From the swing- ing doors of a restaurant a sound of violins was heard playing a waltz. And Dasha, without turning round, hummed into her shaggy fur muff, “It’s not so easy, easy, easy !” [12] III Unfastening her coat in the hall, Dasha asked the maid, “Is no one at home?” The Great Mogul—it was thus the maid Lusha was nicknamed, for her bepowdered face with the high cheek- bones was very like the face of an idol—took a peep at the looking-glass, and in a thin voice replied that the mistress was not at home, but that the master was at home, and in his study, and that supper would be served in half an hour. Dasha went into the drawing-room, where she sat down by the piano, crossed her legs and embraced her knees. Her brother-in-law, Nikolai Ivanovitch, was at home, which meant that he had quarrelled with his wife; he would be feeling injured and would complain. It was only eleven now and there was nothing to do until three when she would fall asleep. Should she read? But what? Besides, she did not want to. Think? But that, if anything, would be worse for her. How comfortless ‘life was at times! Dasha sighed. She opened the piano and sitting side- ways at it, began to play something of Scriabin’s with one hand. It was hard for any one at the awkward age of nineteen, especially for a girl, and not a stupid girl, by any means, and one who, moreover, from some absurd sense of purity was so very severe with all—and these were not few—who expressed a desire to dispel a maiden’s melancholy. The year before Dasha had come from Samara to [13] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Petersburg for a course in law and had settled with her elder sister Ekaterina Dmitrievna Smokovnikov. Her husband was a well-known advocate and they lived bois- terously and in grand style. Dasha was five years younger than her sister. When Ekaterina Dmitrievna married Dasha was still a child. For the last few years the sisters had seen little of each other and now a new relationship had sprung up between them, an attitude of adoration on the part of Dasha and gentle affection on the part of Ekaterina Dmitrievna. At first Dasha imitated her sister in everything, admired her beauty, her taste, her manner with people. She was shy of her sister’s friends and in her nervousness said rude things to some. Ekaterina Dmitrievna tried to make her house a model of taste and modernity, of the kind that had not yet become popular. She did not miss a single exhibition and bought futurist pictures. On this account, during the last year, there had been stormy scenes with her husband, who liked paintings of the ideal- istic kind, while Ekaterina Dmitrievna, with all her femi- nine enthusiasm, resolved to suffer for the new art rather than be thought old-fashioned. Dasha, too, admired these strange pictures which had been hung about the drawing-room, though she thought sometimes in sorrow that the square figures with their geometrical faces and superfluous quantity of arms and legs, and the thickly laid on paint which was like a head- ache—in fact the whole of the manufacturing, cast-iron, cynical poetry which had risen against the Lord God, was rather beyond her dull imagination. Every Tuesday in the Smokovnikovs’ dining-room, a gay and noisy company was gathered to supper. There were talkative advocates, admirers of the opposite sex, and two or three journalists who carefully followed the [14] THE ROAD TO CALVARY new literary tendencies and knew well what attitude to adopt in home and foreign politics; there was the highly strung critic Chirva, who was working on one of his usual literary catastrophes. Sometimes, very early, young poets came, leaving manuscripts of their verses in the hall, in their coat pockets. Just before supper some celebrity would appear in the drawing-room, would walk slowly up to the hostess, bend over her hand and sit down with dignity in an armchair. Half way through supper one would hear some one in the hall noisily taking off his leather galoshes and a velvety voice would say “I greet you, O Great Mogul!” and then over the hostess’s chair would bend the clean-shaven face of the resigned stage-lover. “Katusha,”’ he would say every time, “from today I’ve sworn not to drink any more. Really I have.” For Dasha the most important person at these suppers was her sister. Dasha was angry with those who were not sufficiently attentive to the dear, kind, simple-hearted Ekaterina Dmitrievna and was jealous of those who were too attentive, casting angry glances at the culprits. By degrees she grew accustomed to the crowds, so confusing to the inexperienced. Advocates’ assistants she now despised; besides their rough morning-coats, lilac neckties and partings in the middle of the hair, there was nothing else in them. The resigned stage-lover she hated. He had no right to call her sister Katie, or the Great Mogul, Great Mogul, nor had he any right what- ever, when he finished a glass of vodka, to wink a pro- truding eye at Dasha and to say “I drink to the blossom- ing almond!” Every time this happened Dasha choked with rage. Her cheeks were certainly rosy and do what she would she could not get rid of the almond-blossom [15] THE ROAD TO CALVARY color. But at table Dasha’s face felt as red as a beetroot. In the summer Dasha did not go to her father’s in hot, dusty Samara, but gladly agreed to stay by the sea with her sister in Sestroretska. The same people were there that one saw in the winter, only one met them more often, went boating with them, ate ices in the pine woods, listened to music in the evenings and supped noisily on the verandas of the boarding-houses beneath the stars. Ekaterina Dmitrievna ordered Dasha a white embroi- dered dress, a pink gauze hat, trimmed with a black ribbon, and a broad silk sash to be tied in a large bow at the back, and suddenly, as though his eyes were only just opened, Kulichok, her brother-in-law’s assistant, fell in love with Dasha. But he belonged to the “despised.’’ Dasha was furious. She took him for a walk in the woods and without giv- ing him an opportunity to say a word in self-defence (he was merely able to wipe his brow with his pocket-hand- kerchief, rolled into a ball) she told him that she was not a bourgeois and would not allow herself to be re- garded as a “female,” that she was annoyed and insulted, and considered him disgusting, and that she would that very day complain to her brother-in-law. And complain to her brother-in-law she did that very evening. Nikolai Ivanovitch let her finish to the end while he stroked his thin beard and gazed in wonder at Dasha’s almond-blossom cheeks, grown a deeper shade with in- dignation, at her furiously agitated hat, at the whole of Dasha’s slim white figure; then he sat down on the sand by the water and began to laugh. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes, saying, “Go away, Daria, go away, or I’ll die!’ Dasha went, comprehending nothing, confused and dis- turbed. Kulichok now dared not look at her; he grew [16 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY thin and retired. Dasha’s honour was saved. But the whole incident unexpectedly aroused in her dormant feel- ings. Broken was that subtle calmness; it seemed as though into the whole of Dasha’s body, from her head to her heels, there had entered another being, suffocating, illusive, formless and disgusting. Dasha felt this being in her very bones; she was tormented by it as by some- thing unclean: she wanted to wash off this invisible web, to be again fresh, cool and light-hearted. She now played tennis for hours at a time, bathed twice a day, rose early in the morning, when large dew- drops were still shining on the leaves and vapour rose from the purple sea, as smooth as a mirror, and the wet tables were being placed on the deserted veranda, and the wet gravel paths were being swept. But, when heated by the sun, or at night in her soft bed the other being revived from all these repressions ; carefully it found its way to her heart and squeezed it with its warm paw. It could not be shaken off, nor, like the blood from Blue Beard’s key, could it be washed off. All their friends, and most of all her sister, found that Dasha had improved this summer, in fact that she was growing prettier every day. One day Ekaterina Dmitrievna, going into her sister’s room, said, ‘““What’s going to happen to us next?” “What do you mean, Katia?’ Dasha, in her chemise, was sitting on the bed, twisting her ash-coloured hair into a large knot. “You're getting too pretty. It’s quite frightening to think what you’ll do next.” Dasha with her severe ‘‘thick-dashed” eyes looked at her sister and turned away. Her cheeks and ears went a bright red. [17] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “Katia, I wish you wouldn’t talk like that; I don’t like it.” Ekaterina Dmitrievna sat down on the bed, put her cheek against Dasha’s bare back and, laughing, kissed her between the shoulder blades. “What a horned monster we are; not like a frog or a hedgehog or a wildcat.” And her sister began to laugh just as Nikolai Ivano- vitch had done. They did not care to understand what had happened to Dasha, or it seemed to them just as it should be and quite natural. One day an Englishman appeared on the crowded tennis-court. He was thin, clean-shaven, had a protrud- ing chin and childlike eyes. He was so immaculately dressed that certain of Ekaterina Dmitrievna’s younger followers grew quite depressed. He asked Dasha for a game and played like a machine. It seemed to Dasha the whole time they were playing that he did not look at her once, but stared past her. She lost and suggested an- other game. For greater freedom she rolled up the sleeves of her white blouse. A lock of hair came down from beneath her piqué cap; she did not stop to tidy it. Returning the ball with a strong drive by the net he thought : “Here is a clever Russian girl with an inexplicable grace in her every movement and a flush on her cheek.” The Englishman won this time, too. He bowed to Dasha and, putting on his blazer—he was quite unfeeling— lighted a fragrant cigarette, and sitting down near by, asked for a glass of lemonade. Playing a third set with a distinguished schoolboy, He was sitting at the little table, nursing his foot, in a silk sock; his hat was pushed to the back of his head, and without moving, he was gazing at the sea. [18 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY At night, lying in bed, Dasha recalled all this. She could see herself rushing about the lawn with flushed _ face and hair coming down and she cried for very shame, from a feeling of self-pity and from some other cause that was stronger than herself. From that day Dasha left off playing tennis. Once her sister said to her, “Dasha, Mr. Bales asks after you every day. Why don’t you play now?” Dasha opened her mouth wide—she was so startled. Then she said angrily that she had no wish to listen to _ “Gdle gossip,” that she did not know a Mr. Bales and had no wish to know him, and that, anyhow, it was just like his impudence to think that she did not play at “the stupid game” because of him. Dasha refused to have any din- ner. She took some bread and gooseberries and went into the woods, and there, amidst the sweet-smelling, warm resinous pines, wandering among the tall red trunks with their rustling tops, she decided that it was useless any longer to hide the truth; she was in love with the Englishman, was miserable and did not want to live. Thus, raising its head little by little, this second being grew up in Dasha. The presence was revolting at first; it was like something unclean, unwholesome, or like decay. Then she grew accustomed to the dual position as, when ‘the summer had gone by, she would get used to cold winds, cold water, tightening herself in her corsets and to putting on a cloth dress. Her “monstrous” love for the Englishman lasted for two weeks. Dasha. hated herself and was furious with the man. On several occasions she saw him playing tennis, lazily but well; at other times she saw him run- ning races on the sands, or supping with Russian sailors, and in her despair she thought that he was the most fascinating man in the world. [19 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY And then she saw him about with a tall thin girl dressed in white flannel. She was English and his fiancée ~ —and then they went away. Dasha did not sleep the whole of that night. She loathed and hated herself and by morning resolved that this would be the last mis- take she would make in her life. With this she grew calmer and then wondered how | quickly and easily the whole incident had passed. But not everything had passed. Dasha felt how the second being seemed to be merged in her, dissolved in her—to disappear. She had grown different—fresh and light- hearted as of old, but more tender and gentle and in- comprehensible; her skin even seemed to be finer; she scarcely knew her face in the glass; her eyes in particu- lar were different—those wonderful eyes; if you looked into them, your head began to swim. In the middle of August the Smokovnikovs and Dasha — returned to Petersburg to their large flat on the Znamen- — ska. Again there were the Tuesday at-homes, picture — exhibitions, stormy first nights in the theatres, sensational law cases, buying of pictures, hunting for antiques, — night excursions to the gipsies in Samarkand. Again | there appeared the resigned stage-lover, who had lost — twenty-three pounds in weight during his mineral-water — treatment, and, added to all these thrilling pleasures, there were vague, disturbing and joyous rumours that some change was in preparation. Dasha now had little time to think or to feel. In the © morning there were lectures; in the afternoon shopping with her sister and in the evening theatres, suppers, — people—not a moment to be alone. On one of the Tuesday at-homes, after supper, when they were all drinking liqueurs, Alexis Alexeyevitch Bez- sonov came into the drawing-room. Catching sight of — [ 20 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY him in the doorway, Ekaterina Dmitrievna flushed a deep red. General conversation ceased. Bezsonov sat down on the couch and Ekaterina Dmitrievna handed him a cup of coffee. He was joined by two connoisseurs of literature—two advocates—but with a strange long glance at the hostess, Bezsonov unexpectedly announced that in general there was no art, that all we had was charlatanism, the fakir’s trick of making a monkey climb to heaven up a rope. “The trick in itself is harmless; in art it is subtle, devilish deception. You’ve come to hear poetry. What does that mean, now? Some family man of thirty-five will suddenly get up and pretend that there is something in him that others haven’t got—something not human— and he’ll tell you in rhyme how he wants to corrupt a girl and you'll think it very exalted. I hate it. There’s no poetry in it. Everything has long been dead, art as well as people. Russia has fallen and a flock of crows are feasting on her body. All who write poetry will go to hell.” He spoke quietly, in a deep voice. Two bright red spots appeared on his pale, sullen face. His soft collar was crumpled; his coat was covered with ash; the coffee in the cup he was holding was trickling on to the carpet. The literary connoisseurs were ready to argue, but Bezsonov paid no attention to them; with bedimmed eyes he was watching Ekaterina Dmitrievna. He rose and went over to her, and Dasha heard him say, “I can’t stand people. Can I go?’ Timidly she asked him to read something. He shook his head and in taking leave, held her hand so long that Ekaterina Dmitrievna went red all over. When he had gone a discussion arose. The men all agreed that “there are limits,” and “you can’t so openly [21] THE ROAD TO CALVARY despise our society.” Chirva, the critic, went from one to another saying that “he was dead drunk.” The ladies | concluded that “whether Bezsonov was drunk or merely in one of his moods, was no matter; he was a most ex- citing person and they would have them all know it.” At dinner the next day, Dasha announced that Bez- sonov seemed to her one of those rare “real” personal- ities, whose experiences, passions, sins, tastes, as a re- flection of light, were reflected in the lives of all the people surrounding Ekaterina Dmitrievna, who live by them alone. “I can understand, Katia, how you can lose your head over such a man.” | Nikolai Ivanovitch objected. “You are influenced, Dasha, by the fact of his being a celebrity.” Ekaterina Dmitrievna was silent. Bezsonov did not come again to the Smokovnikovs. There was a rumour that he was fre- quently behind the scenes with the actress, Charodeieva. Kulichok and his friends went to see this actress and © were disappointed. She was as thin as a bone; nothing of her but lace petticoats. One day Dasha met Bezsonov at an exhibition. He was standing by the window indifferently turning over | the leaves of the catalogue and in front of him, as though standing before a wax image, were two sturdy girl stu- dents gazing at him with petrified smiles. Dasha walked past quickly and in the next room she sat down on a chair. Her legs suddenly gave way beneath her and she felt miserable without knowing why. After this she bought Bezsonov’s photograph and put it on her table. His poems—there were three little white volumes—at first had the effect of poison on her. She went about for days distraught, as though she had be- — come a participant in some evil, mysterious rite. But rereading them again and again she began to enjoy the [ 22] THE ROAD TO CALVARY unwholesome feverish sensations; some one seemed to whisper to her to forget, to slacken, to trample on some precious thing, to long for something which never was. It was on account of Bezsonov that she took to going to the meetings of the Philosophical Evenings Society. He used to come late and rarely spoke, but each time, Dasha returned home in a state of excitement and was glad if she found visitors there. Her pride was quies- cent. Tonight she had to play Scriabin in solitude. Like little balls of ice the notes fall on the heart, in the depths of a bottomless lake; falling they disturb the water and sink, and the water flows in and recedes, and in the burning darkness, the heart beats loudly and fast, and it seems that soon, now, this very moment, some im- possible thing must happen. Dasha let her hands fall on her knees and raised her head. In the soft light cast by the orange lamp-shade there stared at her from the walls purple, swollen, grin- ning faces with bulging eyes, looking like the ghosts of protoplasmic chaos greedily stuck in the garden of the Lord God on the first day of creation. “Yes, my dear ladies, things are bad with us,” Dasha said. Then she played a scale, quietly shut the lid of the piano; from a little Japanese box standing on a small table by a couch, she took a cigarette, which she lighted, but it made her cough, so she crumpled it up on the _ash-tray. “Nikolai Ivanovitch, what time is it?” Dasha called, loudly enough to be heard through four rooms. Some- thing fell over in the study, but there was no reply. The Great Mogul appeared and taking a peep in the looking- glass, announced that supper was ready. At the table she sat near a vase of fading flowers; [23] THE ROAD TO CALVARY she pulled them to pieces and put the petals on the table- cloth. The Mogul served tea, cold meat and an omelette. Nikolai Ivanovitch appeared at last. He wore a new suit of blue clothes, but no collar. His hair was unkempt and on his beard, which was crushed on one side, there hung a piece of fluff from the sofa cushions. Nikolai Ivanovitch nodded sullenly to Dasha, sat down at the end of the table, pulled the omelette dish over to himself and began to eat greedily. Having finished, he leaned his elbow on the edge of the table, rested his cheek on his large, hairy fist, and fixing his eyes vacantly on the heap of torn petals, he said in a low, almost unnatural voice: “Last night your sister was unfaithful to me.” [ 24 ] IV Her own sister, Katia, had committed some incompre- hensible, dark, terrible deed. Last night her head had lain on the pillow, averted from all things living dear and affectionate, and now her body was crushed and hidden. Shuddering, this is how she visualized what Nikolai Ivanovitch had called unfaithfulness. And _added to all, Katia was not at home, as though she no lenger existed on earth. For the first few moments Dasha was stunned and her eyes grew dim. Without a movement she sat ex- -pecting to hear Nikolai Ivanovitch burst out screaming or sobbing. But he did not add a word after his an- “nouncement ; he kept toying with a fork-rest lying on the ‘table. Dasha dared not look him in the face. After a long silence, he moved his chair back with a clatter and went into his study. ‘“He’ll shoot himself,” Dasha thought. But this, too, did not happen. In a momentary feeling of acute pity she recalled how his large, hairy arm rested on the table, but then he faded from her vision and Dasha kept on repeating to herself: “What is to be done? What is to be done?” There was -a ringing sound in her brain; everything, everything was shattered and mutilated. From behind the heavy curtains the Great Mogul ap- _ peared with atray. Dasha looked into her powdered face and suddenly realized that there was no Great Mogul now, nor would there ever be. ‘Tears came into her eyes. She clenched her teeth and rushed into the draw- _ ing-room. [25] THE ROAD TO CALVARY There, every little thing had been placed and every picture had been hung by Katia’s loving hand. But Katia’s soul had gone out of the room and everything in it was barren and desolate. Dasha sat down on the sofa. By degrees her gaze grew fixed on a recently acquired picture, which was hanging on the wall above the piano. For the first time she saw and understood its meaning. It represented a naked woman, of a blear-red colour, like raw skin. The mouth was on one side; instead of a nose there was a triangular hole; the head was square with a piece of real stuff stuck on it; the legs and knees were in jointed sections; in the hand she held a flower. The other details were horrible. Most horrible of all was the corner in which she sat, bow-legged—a dull, brown- coloured spot—such spots, no doubt, as there are in hell. The picture was called “Love,” but Katia used to call it “The Modern Venus.” “T see now why Katia was so delighted with the aban- doned woman. She is like that herself now, with a flower in some corner.” Dasha lay face downwards on the cushion, digging her teeth into it to prevent herself from screaming. She burst into tears. After a time, Nikolai Ivanovitch came into the room. He stood with his legs apart, snapped his cigarette-lighter viciously and blew out a cloud of smoke. Then he walked over to the piano and began to strum on it with one finger, unexpectedly strumming out the tune of “Chaffinch.” He banged down the lid of the piano and said, “It was to be expected.” Dasha repeated the words to herself several times to comprehend their meaning. A loud ring was heard in the hall. Nikolai Ivanovitch raised his hand to stroke his beard, but with a smothered exclamation of “Q-o-o!”? he dropped it and walked quickly out of the [ 26 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY room into his study. Along the passage came the sound of the Great Mogul’s footsteps, like horse-hoofs, Dasha sprang up from the sofa with bedimmed eyes and fast-beating heart and rushed out into the hall. There stood Ekaterina Dmitrievna with her nose screwed up, clumsily trying to untie the mauve bow of her hood with reddened, cold fingers. She offered her cheek to Dasha, but receiving no kiss, she threw off her hood with a shake of the head and with her grey eyes looked intently at her sister. “Has anything happened here? Have you quarrelled?”’ she asked in a deep, low voice, always so charmingly sweet. Dasha’s gaze was fixed on Nikolai Ivanovitch’s leather galoshes, about which they used to say at home that they walked of themselves ; they now stood like a couple of orphans. Dasha’s chin quivered. “It’s nothing. Nothing has happened.” Ekaterina Dmitrievna slowly unfastened the large buttons of her squirrel coat, which she threw off, re- _vealing her bare shoulders. She looked so warm and soft and tired. Bending down to undo her gaiters, she said: ‘““We couldn’t find a motor at first and I got my feet wet!” Dasha, still staring at Nikolai Ivanovitch’s galoshes, ‘asked coldly, ““Where have you been, Katia?’ “At some literary supper, my dear, but I don’t know in whose honour it was given, upon my word. ‘The usual thing. And I’m dead tired and sleepy.” She went into the dining-room, where she threw her leather handbag on to the table and, wiping her nose, asked, ““Who’s been tearing the flowers? And where’s Nikolai Ivanovitch ?” Dasha was nonplussed. No matter from what angle she regarded her sister, she did not seem a whit like the [27] THE ROAD TO CALVARY abandoned woman in the picture. She did not seem strange to her; on the contrary, she was so particularly dear and sweet tonight that she wanted to caress her all over. But gathering all her courage and digging her nails into the tablecloth at the exact spot where Nik- olai Ivanovitch had eaten his omelette, she said: ‘Katia? “What is it, my dear?” “T know everything.” “What do you know? What has happened, in God’s name ?”’ | | Ekaterina Dmitrievna sat down by the table, her knees touching Dasha’s legs, and looked her curiously up and down. “Nikolai Ivanovitch has told me all.” She did not see her sister’s face, did not know what was passing within her. After a silence which seemed so long that one must die of it, Ekaterina Dmitrievna said angrily: “What shocking thing has Nikolai Ivanovitch been saying about me?’ “You know, Katia.” ha don't.’ The words fell from her like an icicle. Dasha threw herself at her feet. ) “Then it’s not true? Katia, my dear, beautiful sister, it isn’t true, is it?’ And she began to shower kisses on Katia’s warm, scented hands with the tiny blue veins running along them like rivulets. “Of course, it’s not true,’ Ekaterina Dmitrievna re- plied, closing her eyes wearily. ‘You're going to cry now and your eyes will be red tomorrow and your nose swollen.” | She lifted Dasha and ra a long time pressed her [28 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY lips against her hair. “I’m so stupid,” Dasha mumbled into her breast. But at this moment, from behind the study door, Nikolai Ivanovitch’s voice said loudly and deliberately : “She is lying.” The sisters turned round quickly, but the door was shut. “Go to bed, my child,” Ekaterina Dmitrievna said. “V’ll go and clear up the situation. A pleasant job, when I can barely stand.” She led Dasha to her room and made the sign of the cross over her, then she returned to the dining-room, snatched up her handbag, rearranged the combs in her hair and with her finger knocked softly on the study door. “Open the door, Nikolai.” There was a sinister silence, then a snort and a turn of the key. Ekaterina Dmitrievna entered to see her husband’s broad back moving towards the table, near which he sat down on a leather armchair, rested his elbows on the arms of it, and taking up an ivory paper- knife, he savagely passed it along the back of a book (a novel by Wassermann entitled “A Man of Forty’’). All this was done as though Ekaterina Dmitrievna ‘were not in the room. She sat down on the couch, pulled her skirt over her legs, put her handkerchief into her handbag, which she shut with a snap. At the sound the tuft of hair on the top of Nikolai Ivanovitch’s head trembled. “There is one thing I don’t understand,” she said. “You are free to think what you choose, but please don’t initiate Dasha into your moods.” _ At this he turned quickly in his chair and stretching out his neck and beard, said, barely moving his lips: [ 29] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “You have the impertinence to call this my mood?” “T don’t understand you.” “Hm! You don’t understand! You understand well enough how to behave like a woman of the streets!” At these words Ekaterina Dmitrievna opened her lips slightly. She looked at her husband’s purple, perspiring face, distorted with rage, and said quietly: “Since when did you learn to speak to me disrespect- fully °’- “T humbly beg your pardon, but I can’t talk in any other way. I want to know the details.” “What details?” “Don’t lie to me, to my face.” “Oh, it’s about that, is it?” From exhaustion Ekate- rina Dmitrievna rolled her large eyes. “The other day I said some absurd thing or other to you. . . . I had for- gotten all about it.” “With whom did it happen?” “T don’t know.” “For the second time, don’t lie to me.” “I’m not lying. There’s no fun in lying to you. I did say something; I’d say anything when I’m angry, but I’d forgotten all about it.” | Though Nikolai Ivanovitch’s face was stony at these words, his heart leapt with joy. “Thank God! She was lying about herself.” He was now safe to believe nothing, to ease his mind. He got up from his chair, walked up and down the room, then stopped in the middle of the carpet, and flourishing the ivory paper-knife in the air, he began a tirade about the decline of the family, loose morals, and now forgotten sacred duties of women, wives, mothers of children and husbands’ helpmates. He re- proached Ekaterina Dmitrievna with lack of spiritual [ 30 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY interests, with wanton spending of money, which he earned with his blood (“not the blood, but the wagging of the tongue,” thought Ekaterina Dmitrievna), nay, more than blood, with the whole of his nervous energy. He reproached her with her careless way of choosing her friends, with disorder in the house, with her passion for “that idiot” the Great Mogul and with “those dis- gusting pictures in your bourgeois drawing-room, that make me sick.” Nikolai Ivanovitch completely unburdened himself. It was four o’clock in the morning. When her husband had ceased, Ekaterina Dmitrievna said: “There is nothing more loathsome than a fat, hysterical man.” She rose and went into her bedroom. Nikolai Ivanovitch was not even hurt by these words. He undressed slowly and hung his clothes on the back of a chair; then he wound his watch and crept into his _ clean bed, made for him on the couch since yesterday. _ “We live badly. We must alter our way of life. It’s not well, not well,’ he thought and then opened a book to calm his nerves for the coming sleep, but instantly put it down and listened. All was still in the house. Then he heard some one blow her nose. At the sound his heart beat fast. “She is crying,” he thought. “I suppose I said too much.” And when he recalled the scene and how Katia had sat and listened to him, he grew immeasurably sorry for her. _ He raised himself on his elbow about to get out of bed, but a dreadful weariness crept over his body as though from many days’ exhaustion. His head dropped on the pillow and he fell fast asleep. Alone in her neat room, Dasha took the combs out of her hair and shook her head so that all the pins flew [31] THE ROAD TO CALVARY out at once. She scattered her clothes over the chairs, jumped into her white bed and tucked the clothes right up to her chin. She half closed her eyes. “How nice!” she thought, “there’s nothing to worry about now; I can sleep.” She could see a hobgoblin face from out of the corner of her eye. She curled up and embraced the pillow. A sweet sleep was about to descend on her, when suddenly she could hear Katia’s voice saying quite distinctly, “Of course, it’s not true!’ Dasha opened her eyes. “I never breathed a word to Katia. I only asked her if it were true or not, but she replied as if she knew what I was referring to.” The consciousness “Katia has deceived me” cut through her like a knife. Then recalling all the details of their conversation, she was convinced that she had been deceived. She was very upset. Katia had been untrue to her husband, but de- ceiving, sinning, lying had made her even more fasci- nating. The blind only would fail to see that new curious, weary gentleness about her. And her lies are enough to make one mad or to fall in love with her. But she is a sinner! “Oh, God, I can’t understand it!” z: Dasha was confused and excited. She drank some water, lighted the lamp and put it out again, and until | morning she tossed about in bed, feeling that she could not blame Katia, nor could she understand what she had done. Ekaterina Dmitrievna, too, could not sleep that night. She was lying on her back, helpless, her arms stretched out on the silk counterpane, and without wiping her tears, she wept copiously. Things were not well with her ; she felt confused and unclean and could do nothing to alter it. She would never be like Dasha—spirited and severe. She wept, too, because Nikolai Ivanovitch had called her a woman of the streets and her drawing- [ 32 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY room bourgeois. And she wept still more bitterly when she remembered how last night Alexis Alexeyevitch Bezsonov had taken her in a fast-driven cab to some hotel outside the town, and there, without knowing or loving her, without feeling in any way near and dear to her, he had shamelessly and leisurely possessed himself of her, as though she had been a dummy, one of those pink dummies exhibited in the window of Madame Du- clet’s Parisian hat shop on the Morskaya. [ 33 J V In a newly built house on the Vasiliev Island, on the — fifth floor, in a flat belonging to Ivan Ilyitch Teliegin, an engineer, were the premises of the so-called Central Station for Combating the Commonplace. Teliegin had taken the flat for a year, at the end of a lease, at a cheap rent. He had reserved one room for himself, and the others, furnished with iron bedsteads, pine tables and chairs, he had let to other lively bachelors. These had been found for him by his friend and school chum, Peter Petrovitch Sapojkov. They included Alexander Ivanovitch Jirov, a law student; Antoshka Arnoldov, a journalist; Valet, an art- ist, and a young girl, Elisaveta Kievna by name, who had not yet found a vocation in life to suit her taste. The lodgers rose late, at the hour when Teliegin usu- ally came home for luncheon, and each would leisurely begin the daily round. Arnold Arnoldov would take a tram to the Nevsky to a certain café where he picked up news and wrote his “copy,” Valet would usually proceed to work on his own portrait, while Sapojkov would lock himself in to work, that is, to pace the room with ex- clamations, being the preparations for his speeches and articles on the new art. Jirov would go in to Elisaveta — Kievna to discuss the problems of life in a soft, purring voice. Jirov wrote verses, but was too conceited to let any one see them. Elisaveta Kievna considered him a genius. i Besides conversing with Jirov and the other lodgers, [ 34 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Elisaveta Kievna knitted squares in different coloured wools, which were not intended for any special purpose, and sang Little Russian songs, out of tune and in a deep, powerful voice, or she dressed her hair in some wonderful way, or, tired of singing and dressing her hair, she would let it loose down her back and lie down on her bed with a book, which she devoured until her head ached. | Elisaveta Kievna was a tall, good-looking girl with rosy cheeks and short-sighted eyes that seemed almost as if they had been pencilled. She dressed so badly that even Teliegin’s lodgers remonstrated. When a new person came to the house, she would in- vite him to her room and a conversation would begin, reaching to such heights and abysses as to make the head go round. Had not her interlocutor a strong desire to commit some crime? she would ask. Could he not for the mere sensation of the thing, kill her, Elisaveta Kievna? Had he not that feeling of “self-provocation,” a quality she held all remarkable people possessed? Teliegin’s lodgers even fixed a list of these questions on her door, which gratified her and caused her to laugh a great deal. She was a girl dissatisfied with everything, who expected “revolutions” to happen and “terrible events” that would make life so interesting that one would live with every part of one’s being and not go about bored with one’s hair down one’s back. Teliegin was greatly amused by his lodgers, whom he thought worthy people, but cranks, and for lack of time he entered little into their diversions. At any rate, he was quite satisfied even when they borrowed small sums of money from him (he had not much himself) or paid for their rooms by verses, portraits, or simply by a heart-to-heart talk. [ 35 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY One day, at Christmas, Peter Petrovitch Sapojkov gathered the lodgers together and said to them: “Comrades, the time has come to act. There are many of us, but we are scattered. Until now we have acted separately and timidly. We must now close up the ranks and strike a blow at bourgeois society. First of all we must form ourselves into an executive group and then we must. issue a proclamation. I have it here. “We are the new Columbuses! We are the ingenious in- stigators! We are the seed of the new humanity! We demand from the bloated bourgeois society that it cast away all its prejudices. Henceforth there are no vir- tues. The family, social respectability and marriage must go. We demand it. Men and women must be naked, free and happy. Sexual relationship is the inher- itance of society. Boys and girls, men and women, come out of your cramped dens, go naked and happy, and sing and dance beneath the sun of the wild beast!” Then Sapojkov said that it was necessary to issue a futurist journal under the title of “The Dish of the Gods,” the money for which would be given partly by Teliegin, and the rest—some three thousand—they must — snatch from the jaws of the bourgeoisie. This is how there came to be formed “The Central Sta-_ tion for Combating the Commonplace,” a title invented » by Teliegin, who, returning from the works, laughed till the tears came when he heard of Sapojkov’s scheme. Soon after they set to work to bring out the first number of “The Dish of the Gods.” Several rich patrons—ad- vocates—and Sashka Sakelman himself even, as though in — fear of being considered behind the times, supplied the © required three thousand. Linen note-paper was ordered with the incomprehensible heading “Centrifugue” printed — on it, then invitations were sent out to contributors and [ 36 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY a general request made for material. Valet, the artist, suggested that Sapojkov’s room, which had been turned into the editorial room, should be decorated with carica- tures. He accordingly drew on the walls twelve por- traits of himself. The question of furniture required long consideration. Elisaveta Kievna suggested that the editorial staff should lie on rugs. In the end it was de- cided to remove from the room everything but a large table, which was pasted over with golden paper ; visitors were expected to stand. With the advent of the first number “The Dish of the Gods” was the talk of the town. Some were amazed, others maintained that there was some deeper significance in it and that in the near future Pushkin would have to be consigned to the archives. Chirva, the critic, was beside himself; in ‘“The Dish of the Gods” he had been called a scoundrel. Ekaterina Dmitrievna immediately took out a subscription for a whole year and decided to invite the futurists to her Tuesday at-homes. The “Central Station” sent Peter Petrovitch to sup with the Smokovnikovs. He appeared in a dirty coat of green fustian, hired from a theatrical shop, from the play “Manon Lescaut.” Sapojkov purposely ate a great deal at supper and laughed so loudly that the sound was unpleasant to his own ears; he sought to insult Chirva, but under the influence of his “magnetic” eye, he re- frained and contented himself by being unpleasant to the hostess, saying, “Your fish had’ a very ‘soul in it.” Then he threw himself back and began to smoke, steady- ing his pince-nez on his perspiring nose. On the whole, more had been expected of him and when he had gone Ekaterina Dmitrievna said, ‘Well, what do you think? There is something clever about him, I feel sure.” [ 37 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY After the publication of the second number it was re- solved to hold at-homes called “Splendid Blasphemies.” To one of these “blasphemies” Dasha had come. The front door was opened by Jirov, who instantly busied himself taking off Dasha’s galoshes, coat, even picking a thread off her cloth dress. Dasha wondered why everything smelt of cabbage in the hall and why the corners were unswept. Slipping sideways along the cor- ridor to the room where the “blasphemy” was held, he asked Dasha, “What perfume do you use? It has an extraordinarily pleasant smell.” Then Dasha wondered at the blatancy of it all. It is true that the walls were covered with eyes, noses, hands, ignominious figures, falling sky-scrapers, in a word, all that comprised a portrait of Vasili Veniamovitch Valet, who was standing there silently with zigzags and patches drawn on his cheeks. It is true that verses were read in exaggeratedly passionate voices about motor cars glid- ing along the vaulted skies, about “spitting on the heaven- ly old syphilitic,” about young jaws which the author had cracked like nuts, about church domes and some head-splitting, incomprehensible grasshopper in an over- coat, with a Baedeker and field-glasses, who jumped out. of the window into the street. To Dasha all these ter-, rors seemed poor and too obvious. She was only at- tracted to Teliegin. During the interval he went up to Dasha and asked her with a timid smile whether she would like some tea and sandwiches. “Our tea and sausage are unusually good.” his kindly, blue eyes squinted slightly from nervousness. Dasha, to give him pleasure, got up and went into) the dining-room. There on the table, amidst dirty dishes, was a plate of sandwiches and a bent samovar. Teliegin [ 38 ] | | : | He had a sunburnt face, clean-shaven and simple, and’ THE ROAD TO CALVARY instantly collected the plates and put them on the floor in a corner of the room; he looked around for a cloth, then wiped the table with his pocket-handkerchief, poured Dasha out a cup of tea, and selected the “thinnest”’ sandwich. He did all this slowly, talking the while, as though anxious to make Dasha feel comfortable amid the mess. josh glee “Our housekeeping is in thorough disorder, but our tea and sausage are first rate, from Eliseiev’s. There were some sweets, but they are all gone,’ he compressed his lips and looked at Dasha; fear appeared in his blue eyes and then a resolve, “unless you'll allow me?” and he pulled two caramels out of his waistcoat pocket. “One wouldn’t be lost with a man like that,’’ Dasha thought, and again to give him pleasure, said: “They are my favourite caramels.” Teliegin sat down sideways opposite Dasha and fixed his gaze on the mustard-pot. His broad forehead wrinkled with the strain. He carefully pulled out his pocket-hand- kerchief and with a corner of it wiped the sides of his nose, not daring, evidently, to wipe the whole of his face. Dasha’s lips smiled involuntarily. This big, handsome man was so shy and uncertain of himself that he was teady to hide behind the mustard-pot. Somewhere—in Arzamas, she imagined—he must have a sweet little old mother, who wrote him severe letters about not letting the town laundresses lose his linen, about his “incorri- gible habit of lending money to any fool that asked for it,’ about how it was only “through modesty and dili- gence, my dear child, that you will gain the respect of people.” And he, no doubt, sighed over these letters, thinking how far off he was from perfection. Dasha felt a tenderness for him. “Where do you work?” she asked. Teliegin raised his [39 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY eyes, saw her smile and smiled, too. “He understands,” Dasha thought. “At the Obukhovsky works,” he said. “We make cyl- inders for motors and other complicated things.” “Ts your work interesting ?” “T can’t say. To my mind, all work is interesting.” “T think the workmen must like you very much.” “T’ve never thought about it, but I don’t suppose they do. Why should they? I am very severe with them. We get on capitally, for all that.” “Do tell me, did you like all that went on in the other room P” | Ivan Ilyitch’s lips spread into a broad smile; wrinkles disappeared from his forehead and he laughed aloud. “Scamps! hooligans! wonderful scamps! I’m very pleased with my lodgers, Daria Dmitrievna. You come home worried from the works and some nonsense or other is sure to greet you here. . . . It’s amusing to think of the next day.” “I hate these ‘blasphemies,’”’ Dasha said solemnly. “I think they are horrid and disgusting.” He looked her wonderingly in the eyes. “I very much © dislike them,” she reiterated. “Of course, I’m more to blame than any one,” Ivan — Ilyitch said pensively. “I encouraged them. To invite | people and make them listen to indecencies all the eve- ning, is certainly. . . . I must thank you, Daria Dmit@ | rievna, for being so File about it. I am sorry it was so unpleasant for you.” Dasha smiled, looking straight into his face. She could say anything to this man, who was almost a stranger to her, so at ease did she feel with him. | “It seems to me, Ivan Ilyitch, that you ought to kell | quite other things. I think you are quite a good sort. f [ 40 ] it 134 i] a THE ROAD TO CALVARY You are much better than you think you are, really.” Dasha’s elbow was on the table, her chin supported on her hand, her little finger touching her lips. Her eyes laughed ; they seemed to him terrifying, so disturbingly beautiful were they, grey and large and cold. Ivan Ilyitch, in great confusion, bending and unbending a tea- spoon, tried to efface himself altogether. Fortunately for him Elisaveta Kievna came into the room just then. She wore a Turkish shawl and her plaited hair was twisted over the ears into two horns. She gave Dasha a long soft hand, introduced herself and sat down. “T have heard a lot about you from Jirov,” she said. “This evening I have been studying your face. You look as if you have been spoiled, which is good.” “Would you like some cold tea, Lisa?” Teliegin hastily intervened. “No, Teliegin; you know I never take tea. Well, you are, no doubt, asking yourself what strange creature is this talking to you. I am nobody, nothing; not even a female. Stupid and unpleasant in ordinary life.” Ivan Ilyitch, standing by the table, turned away in despair. Dasha lowered her eyes. Elisaveta Kievna, ob- serving her with a smile, continued. | .“You are smart, well-off and pretty. You need not deny it, for you know you are. Dozens of men are in love with you. How dreadful to think that it will end in such a commonplace way. Some base man will walk you off and you will bear him children and die. How very dull!” Dasha’s lips trembled at the affront. “I do not intend to be other than commonplace,” she said, “and I fail to understand why you are so interested in my future.” [41] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Elisaveta Kievna gave a broader smile, but her eyes were sad and compassionate. “I should have warned you that I am nobody as a human being and loathsome as a woman. Very few people can stand me and those only out of pity, like Teliegin.” “What damned nonsense you are talking, Lisa,” he muttered, not raising his head. “T make no demands on you, Teliegin. Calm yourself.” And again she turned to Dasha. “Have you ever seen a storm on the Black Sea? I have lived through a storm. There was a man whom I loved and he hated me, nat- urally. When the storm began I said to him ‘Come’ and sprang into the boat. Out of spite he jumped in after me. We were carried out to the open sea. How jolly it was! damnably jolly! He sat there all green. I undressed quite naked and said to him, ‘Tie me to the MASUEM PCO L “Look here, -Lisa,” Teliegin interposed, screwing up his lips and nose, “you know it is not true. None of this happened. I know it didn’t.” Elisaveta Kievna looked at him with an incomprehen-— sible smile and suddenly began to laugh. She put her arms on the table, hid her face in them and laughed, so — that her full shoulders shook. It seemed to Dasha that the whole absurd conversation had been like a scratching upon glass. She rose and told Teliegin that she wanted to go home, if possible, without taking leave of any one. Ivan Ilyitch helped Dasha into her coat as carefully as though the coat, too, formed part of her being; he kept striking matches as he accompanied her down the dark staircase, and apologized that it was so dark, slip- pery and draughty. He walked with her as far as the [ 42 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY street corner, put her into a cab, driven by an old man and drawn by an old horse, both of whom were cov- ered with snow. For a long while he stood there, without coat or hat, watching the low sleigh with the severe maiden inside it, fade away in the yellow fog. Then slowly he walked back to the house and into the din- ing-room. By the table, just as he had left her, with her face on her arm, was Elisaveta Kievna. Teliegin scratched his chin and said with a frown: “Lisa.” She quickly, too quickly, raised her head and looked him straight in the eyes. “Lisa, I’m sorry, but why do you always say fe that make one ashamed and uncomfortable ?” “You’ve fallen in love,” Elisaveta Kievna said quietly, still looking at him with her sad, short-sighted eyes that seemed almost as if they had been pencilled. “I can see the signs. What a bore!” “It’s absolutely untrue. And I find your remarks extremely offensive.” “T’m sorry. People who’ve done wrong are beaten and told not to cry.” She rose slowly and walked out, dragging the Turkish shawl behind her on the dusty floor. Ivan Ilyitch went into his room, which he paced to _and fro for some time. Then he returned to the dining- room, poured himself out some cold tea and was about to sit down, when suddenly he recollected himself and _ gazed at the chair in horror. It was the chair on which al Daria Dimitrievna had only just been sitting. It might be absurd and sentimental, but the chair must be re- moved from that place. Teliegin shrugged his shoulders and carried the chair into his own room, where he put it in acorner. Then he took hold of his nose with the whole palm of his hand and laughed aloud. [ 43 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “What nonsense! What utter nonsense!” | To Dasha the encounter had been one among many; she had met a very nice man and that was all. She was at an age when people see nor hear well, sound being drowned by the quick rush of the blood, while the eyes, as in a mirror, can see in anything, be it a human face or a glossy leaf on a tree, only their own reflection. At such an age only deformity can strike the imagination, whereas handsome people, alluring landscapes, the hum- ble beauty of art are looked upon as the usual retinue of a queen of nineteen. It was not thus with Ivan [lyitch. Now that more than a week had gone by since Dasha’s visit, he won- dered how imperceptibly (he had not shaken hands with her at first) and simply (she had come in, sat down and placed her muff on her knees) she had come to their bare flat, this girl with the soft, rosy complexion, in her dark dress and her ash-coloured hair, dressed high on the head, and -her proud, childlike mouth. It seemed incomprehensible that he had talked to her calmly of sausages from Eliseiev’s. And he had given her the warm caramels which had lain in his pocket to eat. Brute that he was! Ivan Ilyitch had, during his life (he had recently reached his twenty-ninth year), been in love six times. The first, while he was still a realist, in Kazan, was a buxom girl—Marusia Khvoyeva, the daughter of a vet-— erinary surgeon, who for some time now fruitlessly paced the main street at four o’clock in the afternoon in her plush coat. But Marusia had had no time to waste; Ivan Ilyitch was thrown over, and without any of the intermediate stages, he transferred his affection to the star, Ada Tilly, who astonished the natives of Kazan by appearing in all the operettas, no matter to what period - [ 44 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY they belonged, in a bathing-costume. The management even announced this feature in their posters, ‘“The Fa- mous Ada Tilly with her beautiful legs.” Ivan Ilyitch was so carried away that he even went to her house with a bunch of flowers, which he had picked in the town garden. Ada Tilly gave the flowers to some shaggy dog to smell and remarked that the local food had upset her digestion, and would Ivan wants mind going to the chemist’s for her? Then, when a student in Petersburg. he was at- tracted to a medical student, a Miss Vilbushevitch, and used to meet her in the anatomy theatre, but nothing came of the affair and Miss Vilbushevitch eventually went away to a post in the Zemstvo. On one occasion Ivan Ilyitch fell in love with a shopgirl from some big establishment—Zinotchka was her name—and in his tenderness and agitation he did everything she asked him to do, but on the whole he sighed with relief when Zinotchka, together with the department of her firm, went away to Moscow. With her departure there passed away that continuous feel- ing of unfulfilled obligations. His last feeling of sentiment took place in the sum- mer of last year, in the month of June. On the op- posite side of the courtyard on which his window looked out was another window, at which every day be- fore sunset a thin, pale girl would stand, brushing her one and only dress, of a reddish colour. She would put it on afterwards and go and sit in the park. ———— It was in the park, on the Petersburg side, that Ivan Ilyitch first spoke to her and from that day, every evening they would walk together, admiring the Peters- burg sunsets and talking about things in general. The girl, Olia Komarova, worked in a notary’s of- [ 45 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY fice; she was lonely and ailing and coughed all the time. They would talk about this cough, about her illness, about how miserable it was for a person to be alone in the evenings, about her friend Kira, who fell in love with a nice man and went away to the Crimea. Their conversations were dull. Olia Komarova had so little faith in her fortune that without any restraint she would tell Ivan Ilyitch her most intimate thoughts, even saying that she looked forward to his falling in love with her and taking her away to the Crimea. Ivan Ilyitch was sorry for the girl and respected her, but he could not love her, though sometimes, after their talks, when lying on his couch in the twilight, he would think what an egoist he was, how sensual and brutal and bad. In the autumn, Olia Komarova caught a chill and fell ill with pneumonia. Ivan Ilyitch took her to a hospital and from thence to the cemetery. Before her death she asked him: . “Tf I get well, will you marry me?” “On my honour, I will,” he had replied. His feelings for Dasha had nothing in common with his former sentiments. Elisaveta Kievna had said that he had fallen in love. But you can fall in love only with an object possible of attainment; you cannot fall in love with a statue, with a cloud or with Pushkin’s poetry. You can only dream about these things. He could not be in love with Dasha because he felt — how unattainable she was. He could not even dream / about Dasha because she was a living being who drank tea, ate sausage and shook hands in a firm, hearty kind of way. For Dasha he experienced a third, peculiar feeling, which he was unable to analyze; it was the more [ 46 ] | | incomprehensible in that there was so little reason for THE ROAD TO CALVARY it—just a few moments’ conversation and a chair in the corner of his room. The feeling was not even very strong or great, but Ivan Ilyitch now wanted to be different, more particular, and he began to take careful stock of himself. “Tf you only think of it, I shall soon be thirty and so far I’ve lived as the grass grows. Terrible neglect, egoism and lack of discrimination of people. A filthy business, on the whole. I must reform before it’s too late.” At the end of March, on one of those early spring days, which had dawned over the town, white and warm in its covering of snow, when from early morning the water could be heard dripping from roofs and gutters, and rushing down drain-pipes, making the green water- barrels beneath them overflow, when the snow was be- ing cleared from the streets and vapour rose from the asphalt, on which dry patches appeared, your winter’s coat hung heavily on your shoulders and you looked around and saw some man with a pointed beard, walk- ing along in his jacket only, and every one looked at him and smiled, and you raised your head, and above, the sky was bottomless and blue, as though it had just been washed with water—it was on such a day, at half past three, that Ivan Ilyitch left the engineering office of Simens and Galske, unbuttoned his skunk coat, blinked his eyes from the sun and thought: “Tt’s good to be alive on such a day.” It was at that moment that he saw Dasha. She was in a blue spring coat, walking at the edge of the pave- ment, swinging her left arm, which held a parcel; on her blue hat some white daisies bobbed up and down; the expression of her face was pensive and sad. She was coming from the direction where the puddles, the [47 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY tram-lines, the glass, the backs of the passers-by and the ground beneath their feet, the spokes of the carriage wheels were shining from the blue depths of the huge sun, rugged and sparkling in all its spring brilliancy. Dasha seemed to have emerged from the blue and the light, and passed and disappeared in the crowd. Ivan Ilyitch stood for a long time staring in the direc- tion in which she had gone. His heart beat like a ham- mer. The air was heavy, scented, intoxicating. Ivan Ilyitch walked slowly to the corner of the street and putting his hands behind his back, stood for a long while looking at the posters on the hoarding. “New. and exciting adventures of Jack the Ripper of stomachs of 2400 metres,” he read, feeling that he understood noth- ing but was happy as he had never been happy in his life before. | As he left the hoarding, for the second time he saw Dasha. She had turned and was walking towards him, | just as before, with her bobbing daisies and her parcel at the edge of the pavement. He approached her, raised © his hat and said: ; “Daria Dmitrievna, I shan’t be detaining you, I hope, © by saying how do you do?” : She almost stared. Then she looked up at him with her cold, blue eyes, in which the green pupils — sparkled in the light. She smiled sweetly, held out her — hand in a white kid glove and gave his a firm and friendly pressure. , i “How lucky to meet you! I was thinking of you © today, I was really!’ Dasha shook her head and the little white daisies bobbed to and fro. | “T had some business on the Nevsky, but now I’ve the whole day free. What a day it is!” . . . Ivan Ilyitch pursed up his lips and tried his hardest-not to smile. [ 48 ] x eS = et ee THE ROAD TO CALVARY “Could you walk home with me, Ivan Ilyitch?” Dasha asked. “Of course, I can.” They turned down a side street and walked in the shade. “Ivan Ilyitch, you won’t think it strange if I were to ask you something? But I know I can ask you anything. Only you must answer me at once, without consideration and frankly. As I ask, you must reply.” Her face was troubled and her brows were drawn. “It had always seemed to me like this,” she waved her hand in the air. “There are thieves and liars and murderers and women of the streets and they exist just like snakes and spiders and mice—I’m afraid of mice—and that all people are a little funny, with their weaknesses and crankiness, but that all are good and true. Now look at that girl coming towards us. Just as she seems so she must be. The whole world seems to me to be painted in wonderful colours. Do you under- stand what I mean?” “It’s most interesting, Daria Dmitrievna. . . . “Wait a moment. Now the picture seems to have tumbled about me and I’m suffocating in darkness. A person may be charming and lovable, yet at the same 99 time may sin in a terrible way. It’s not merely a question of stealing cakes from a counter, but to commit a real sin—to lie.” Dasha turned away; her chin trembled. “To commit adultery, and a married woman, too. May one sin, then, Ivan Ilyitch?”’ “No. One mustn't.” “Why not?” “One can’t say off-hand, but I feel one shouldn’t.” “And don’t you think I feel so, too? Since two o’clock I’ve been wandering about the streets in despair. [ 49 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY It’s such a beautiful day, so clear, and I can’t help feel- ing that in all these houses, behind the curtains, unen- lightened people are hidden, and I must go in to them, don’t you see?” “I don’t,” he replied hastily. “T must and will go to them, because life is there, behind the curtains and not here. Oh, how wretched I am! I suppose I’m still a stupid little girl and this town was not meant for little girls, but for grown people.” Dasha stopped at the steps of the house and with the tip of her shoe, began to move over the asphalt a cig- arette box some one had thrown away, on which was the picture of a green woman with smoke coming out of her mouth. Ivan Ilyitch, looking at the patent leather tip of Dasha’s foot, felt how Dasha was dissolving like a snowflake, was disappearing like a mist. He wanted to keep her, but how could he? The force by which he could have kept her was crushing his heart and grip- ping his throat. But to Dasha this feeling of his had no more significance than the shadow on the wall, for he himself was no more than dear, kind Ivan Ilyitch. “Well, good-bye, and thank you so much, Ivan [lyitch. You’re very kind. I do not feel any better for our con-— versation, but thank you, all the same. You did under- stand me, didn’t you? What things there are in the world! One can’t do anything, though; I suppose one must be grown-up. Do come and see us when you can.” She smiled, shook his hand, went up the steps and disappeared in the darkness. Dasha opened the door of her room and stopped in~ astonishment. ‘There was a smell of fresh flowers and she instantly noticed on her dressing-table a basket with a tall handle and a blue bow and rushed up and buried her face in it. They were Parma violets, several large [ 50 J : THE ROAD TO CALVARY bunches, somewhat squashed and damp, with a tender smell of earth and spring about them. _ Dasha was excited. Since the morning she had longed for something but did not know what, and now she realized that it had been violets. But who could have Bent them? He had thought about her so much that he knew what she wanted even better than herself? The bow, though, seemed out of place. Untying it, Dasha thought : “She may be restless, but she’s not a bad girl. No matter what little sins you may be planning for your- selves, she’ll go her own way. You may think she holds her head too high. But there are some people who like it and would think the better of her.” Inside the bow there was a note written on thick paper in a large, unfamiliar handwriting, containing the two words, “Love, Love.” On the other side was printed “The Nice Flower Nursery.” Some one must have written in the shop “Love, love.” Dasha, with the basket in her hand, went out into the passage and called: “Mogul, who brought me these flowers?” The Great Mogul looked at the basket and sighed, as though none of those things concerned her. _“A boy from the shop brought them to Ekaterina Dmitrievna and she asked me to put them in your room.” “Did the boy say who sent them?” “He didn’t say anything, but only asked me to give them to the mistress.” Dasha went back to her room and stood by the window with her hands behind her. Through the glass she could see the sunset; behind the brick house op- posite it spread over the sky in green streaks. A star [51] UNIVERSITY OF ILLINGIS URBANA THE ROAD TO CALVARY | appeared in the green void, glistening as though newly washed. Below, in the narrow street, now misty, along the whole length of it, simultaneously, the electric lamps lit up, the light of which did not yet show much. Near by came the hoot of a motor-car and she saw it dis- appearing down the street in the gloom. It was quite dark in the room and the violets smelt sweet. He had sent them, the man whom Katia had sinned with. That was quite clear. Dasha stood there thinking how like a fly she had fallen into the net of a subtle and alluring sin. It was in the fragrant scent of the flowers, in the two words, “Love, love,” disturb- ing and exciting, in the gentle charm of the evening. Suddenly her heart began to beat fast. Dasha felt something tangible, something she could almost see and hear and touch, something forbidden and mysterious, that scorched her with its intense sweetness. She had suddenly solved the question of herself, had assumed — freedom. There was no gainsaying that she knew what had happened; in that moment she was already on the other, side. Her severity, her icy barrier, had dissolved — like a mist, just like the mist at the bottom of the street, where the motor-car had disappeared, bearing — away the two ladies in white hats. | Only her heart beat fast and her head was slightly — dizzy and over her body delicious cold shivers crept and something seemed to sing within her, “I am alive, © I love, the whole world is mine, mine, mine.” | “Now listen, my friend,” Dasha said aloud, “you are © a virgin, and you’re simply a bad character.” She walked over to a corner of the room, where she sat down in a soft armchair, and, slowly taking off the — wrapper from a cake of chocolate, she tried to recall — all the events of the last two weeks since Katia’s sin. [ 52] THE ROAD TO CALVARY In the house nothing was changed. Katia had been even peculiarly gentle with Nikolai Ivanovitch. He went about in a happy state and was planning to build -a country house in Finland. Dasha alone had had to bear “the tragedy” of these two blind people. To be the first to broach the subject with her sister she dared not, and Katia, who had always been so sensitive to Dasha’s moods, on this occasion, seemed to notice nothing. Ekaterina Dmitrievna ordered for herself and Dasha new spring costumes for Easter, spent a great deal of time at tailors’ and dressmakers’, helped to arrange charitable bazaars, at Nikolai Ivanovitch’s request, organized a literary entertainment for the unproclaimed purpose of raising ‘money for the left section of the Social Dem- ocratic party, the so-called Bolsheviks, who were starv- ing in Paris, received visitors on Thursdays as well as Tuesdays—in a word, had not a spare moment to herself. “And you’ve been a coward all the while, too timid to decide on anything; you’ve only been worrying about the moral problem, about which you understand nothing and never will understand until you singe your own wings,” Dasha thought, laughing softly to herself. In the dark lake into which the icy balls had fallen and from whence no good could be expected, there rose up, as often happened these days, the corrosive, sinister image of Bezsonov. She had solved the riddle of her- self and he dominated her thoughts. Dasha grew quiet. In the dark room a clock ticked. Somewhere in the house a distant door banged and she heard her sister’s voice ask: “Has she been back long?” | ! Dasha rose and went into the hall. Ekaterina Dmit- rievna instantly said to her: “Why are you so flushed ?” Nikolai Ivanovitch rubbed his hands hard and dropped [ 53] THE ROAD TO CALVARY some witty remark about the resigned stage lover's store. Dasha looked at his soft thick lips with hatred and followed her sister into her bedroom. There, sitting by the dressing-table, which was elegant and beautiful, like everything in her sister’s room, she listened to the gossip about the people they had met during their walk. Ekaterina Dmitrievna, as she talked, tidied the mirror cupboard, in which were gloves, pieces of lace, veils, silk slippers, all sorts of small nothings, that smelt of her perfumes. It appeared that Rosa Abramovna did not have her dresses made at Madame Duclet’s but at home and very badly made they were, too, that Vedrensky had again spoilt a case and had no money; she had met his wife, who complained that they found it hard to live. At the Timiriasevs’ they had the measles. Sheinberg had again parted from that hysterical creature of his; it was said that she tried to shoot herself in his flat. “And the spring has come, the spring! What a day it has been! People are swarming in the streets like intoxicated flies. Oh, yes, and whom do you think ’ve met? Akundin. He assured me that before very long we shall have a revolution. You see, the factories and the country are ina ferment. If only it would come soon! Nikolai Ivanovitch was so elated that he took me into the Pivato and we had a bottle of champagne for no other cause than in honour of the future revo- lution.” Dasha listened to her sister in silence, stopping and unstopping the crystal bottles on the table. “Katia,” she said suddenly, “as I am I’m no use to any one, don’t you see?” Ekaterina Dmitrievna, her hand inside a silk stocking, turned and looked intently at her sister. “And what is more, I’m no use to myself as Iam. It is as though a person had taken to eating [ 54] THE ROAD TO CALVARY raw carrots and thought that thereby he became supe- rior to others.” “I don’t understand you,” Ekaterina Dmitrievna said. Dasha looked at her sister’s back and sighed. “All are bad, every one I must be judging. One is stupid, another is horrid, a third is dirty. Only I am all right. I am out of place here and it worries me. I judge you, too, Katia.” “Why?” asked Ekaterina Dmitrievna softly, without turning. “Just think of it. I go about with my nose in the air, that’s the sum total of my superiority. It’s merely foolish and I’m tired of being a stranger among you all. Don’t you see, Katia, I’m very much attracted to a certain man.” ; Dasha had spoken with her head down; she had thrust a finger into one of the little crystal bottles and could not pull it out again. “T’m glad to hear it, my dear, if you like him. You'll be happy. Who should be happy, if not you?” Ekate- rina Dmitrievna gave a slight sigh. “But you see, Katia, it’s not so simple as all that. According to my idea, I’m not in love with him.” “Tf you like him, you will love him.” _ “The whole trouble is that I don’t like him.” “But you've only just said that you are attracted to him. You're really % “Don’t quibble, Katia, dear. Do you remember the Englishman in Sestroretsk? I was attracted to him, even in love with him. But then I was more myself. . I used to be angry and hide myself and cry at night, but it all flowed off me like water. But this man... I cannot even tell whether it is he... . Yes, itis he... . Yes, itis he. . . . He has turned my head. [55] THE ROAD TO CALVARY . I am quite different now. I feel as though I had inhaled some vapour. . . . If he were to come into my room now, 1 wouldn’t stir... .” “My God, Dasha, what are you saying?” “Tsn’t that what is called sin, Katia? I feel it.” Ekaterina Dmitrievna sat down on the edge of her sister’s chair and drawing her close to herself, took her hot hand and kissed the palm, but Dasha gently dis- engaged herself, sighed, and resting her head on her hand, stared out of the dark window at the stars. “Who is he, Dasha?” “Alexis Alexeyevitch Bezsonov.” At this Katia sat down on the chair near by, clutched her throat and remained immovable. Dasha could not see her sister’s face, which was hidden in the shadow, but she felt that she had said something terrible. “So much the better,” she thought, turning away, and with this “‘so much the better,” she felt both re- lieved and desolate. “Why can’t I do what others do? For two years I have listened to the tale of some six hundred and sixty- six love affairs and in the whole of my life I have only — been kissed once by a schoolboy in a hut on the skating — rink,” She sighed heavily and ceased. Ekaterina Dmitrievna_ now sat bent, her hands dropped on her knees. “Bezsonov is a very wicked man,” she said. “He’s a — terrible man, Dashenka. Do you hear me?” “Ves,” “He will break you completely.” “But what can I do now?” “T won't allow it! Let others . . . let me perish, but not you, not you, my dear!” “A crow is bad; it is black in body and soul,’ Dasha [56] eS fe ee ae Ne THE ROAD TO CALVARY said laughing. “What is there. bad about Bezsonov? Tell me.” Mecca t tell. you. . acuneevdon tt know.) sien eee d shudder when I think of him.” “But I thought that you, too, rather liked him.” “Never! I hate him! The Lord preserve you from him!” “Now, Katia, my dear, you’ve really fired my curi- osity. Now I shall certainly fall into his net.” | “What are you saying? Have you gone mad?” Dasha was pleased by the conversation; she seemed _to be walking the plank on tiptoe. She was gratified by Katia’s excitement. She hardly thought of Bezsonov, but purposely began talking of her feeling towards him, about the occasions on which they had met, about his face. She so exaggerated everything as to make it appear that all her nights were spent in sinful thoughts and that she was ready to run to Bezsonov that very moment. At last she herself was amused. She wanted to take Katia by the shoulders and kiss her and say, “Tf there is a little fool, it is you, Katusha,” but Ekat- erina Dmitrievna suddenly slipped from her chair to the floor and seizing Dasha, she pressed her face against her knees, and trembling violently, she cried: “Forgive me! Forgive me! Dasha, forgive me!” Dasha was alarmed. Bending down to her sister, from fear and pity she, too, began to cry, and sobbing, asked Katia what she meant and what there was to forgive. But Ekaterina Dmitrievna merely clenched her teeth and fondled and kissed Dasha’s hands. [ 57 ] VI At dinner, observing the two sisters, Nikolai Ivano- vitch said: “Hm! Can I not be informed of the cause of these tears?” . “The cause is my own vicious mood,” Dasha in- stantly rejoined. “Don’t worry yourself, please. I know quite well, without your aid, that the whole of me, this fork included, is not worth your wife’s little finger.” After dinner some visitors arrived to coffee. In view of the family mood, Nikolai Ivanovitch decided that they should all go to some drinking place. Kulchok tele- _ phoned to a garage; Katia and Dasha were sent to change their dresses. Chirva arrived and hearing where the company was going, lost his temper. “After all, what suffers most from these continuous drinking bouts? Russian literature.” But he, too, was taken in the motor with the others. The “Northern Palmera” was noisy and packed with people. It was a large, low basement hall, brilliantly illuminated by six crystal chandeliers. The chandeliers, the tobacco smoke, which met them at the door, the men in evening dress, the bare shoulders of the women, their coloured wigs of green, purple and grey, the fine sprays of osprey, the precious stones, shimmering on throats and ears in clusters of orange, blue and ruby rays, the waiters, slipping in and out among the crowd, the lean man with the clump of clammy hair sticking to his. fore-_ head, his uplifted arms, his magic baton, cutting the air by the red velvet curtains, the gleam of the brass trum- [ 58 ] § ; - THE ROAD TO CALVARY pets were all repeated and multiplied in the walls of mirrors, until it seemed that in endless perspective the whole human race, the whole world was gathered there. Dasha, drawing her champagne up through a straw, observed the tables meanwhile. By a steaming pail and some fruit peel sat a clean-shaven man with pow- dered cheeks. His eyes were half closed, his lips cyni- cally compressed. He was sitting there reflecting, no doubt, that the time would come when the electric light would go out and all the people would be dead. Over there were a man and wife. They had probably quar- relled at home and were still snapping at each other in whispers, though there was a smile on the woman’s fat face and the man was lazily shifting his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. The curtains trembled and parted on either side and a little Japanese, as small as a child, with a tragically wrinkled face, appeared on the platform and began to manipulate in the air various coloured balls, plates and torches. As she watched him, Dasha thought: “What did Katia mean by ‘Forgive me, forgive me’?”’ And suddenly a band of iron seemed to grip her head, her heart stopped beating. “Could it be?” She shook her head and sighed deeply, and without giving herself ' time to consider the significance of her “Could it be?” she looked across at her sister. Ekaterina Dmitrievna was sitting at the other end of the table, looking so weary and sad and beautiful that Dasha’s eyes filled with tears. She raised her finger to her lips and blew on it imperceptibly. It was a sign agreed upon between them. Katia noticed it and gave a slow, gentle smile. _ About two o’clock a dispute arose as to where they should go next. Ekaterina Dmitrievna suggested home, [ 59} THE ROAD TO CALVARY but Nikolai Ivanovitch ruled that he would go where © the others went and the “others” decided to go “further afield.” Just then, through the dispersing crowd, Dasha caught sight of Bezsonov. He was sitting with his elbow rest- ing far on the table, listening intently to Akundin, who, with a half-gnawed cigarette in his mouth, was saying something and drawing rapidly with his finger-nail on the tablecloth. It was on Akundin’s flying finger-nail that Bezsonov’s gaze was fixed. It seemed to Dasha that above the din she heard the words “An end, an end to everything,” but they were both hidden from view by a stout Tartar waiter. Katia and Nikolai Ivan- ovitch rose and Dasha called out; she stood for some moments, her curiosity aroused, excited and dishevelled. When they came out into the street the frosty air smelt unexpectedly keen and sweet. The stars twinkled in the dark purple sky. Some one behind Dasha said, laugh- ing, “It’s a devilishly fine night!’ A motor glided up to the pavement and from behind it, out of the petrol fumes, there stepped a ragged individual, who pulled off his cap and with a flourish, opened the door of the car. Dasha stood to look at him as she stepped in. He was thin, had a growth of bristles on his unshaven face and a bitter mouth. He was shivering and pressed his elbows against his sides. “A pleasant evening, spent in the temple of luxury ‘and emotional delights!” he called out bitterly in a hoarse ‘voice, adroitly catching the forty-kopeck piece some one had thrown to him. Dasha felt that his dark, angry eyes had pierced through her. They returned home late. Dasha lay on her back in bed. She did not fall asleep, but seemed to lose con- sciousness of her body, so exhausted was she. [ 60 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Suddenly, with a groan, she pushed the clothes off her chest, sat up and opened her eyes. The sun shone in through the window on the floor. “Heavens! What a horrible thing it was!” She was so frightened that she nearly cried, but when she came to herself, she seemed to have forgotten what it was all about. Only in her heart there remained a pain, as from some hor- rible nightmare. After luncheon, Dasha went to her lectures, entered her name for the examination, bought some books and until dinner time was severe and industrious, learning by heart a boring course in Roman law. In the evening she again had to put on silk stockings (in the morn- ings it had been decided to wear cotton ones), to powder her arms and shoulders and to redress her hair. “I should like to make a bun on the nape of the neck, but people are all for a fashionable headdress. How can I make one, when my hair won’t stay up?” It was all very troublesome. On her new blue silk dress there was a stain from champagne, on the very front of it. Dasha. grew suddenly so grieved about her dress, so ‘grieved at her wasted life that she sat down and burst into tears with the spoilt skirt in her hand. Nikolai Ivanovitch was about to come in at the door, but catch- - ing sight of Dasha in her chemise and in tears, he called his wife. Katia rushed in, seized the dress, exclaiming, “We will soon get rid of this!” She called the Great Mogul, who came in with some benzine and hot water. The dress was cleaned, Dasha was helped to dress, while Nikolai Ivanovitch kept pacing up and down the hall saying, “It’s a first night, you must remember, we mustn’t be late!’ Of course, they arrived at the theatre late. Sitting in a box beside her sister, Dasha watched a [61 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY man with a false beard and unnaturally wide-open eyes, who stood by a flat tree, talking to a girl in bright pink. “Sophia Ivanovna, I love you, I love you!” And he held her hand. Though the play was not at all sad, Dasha wanted to cry. She was sorry for the girl in bright pink and annoyed that the plot did not work out to her liking. The girl, it appeared, loved and did not love and when the man embraced her, she laughed like a mermaid and ran away to the villain, whose white trousers gleamed higher up the stage among the tree trunks. The man clutched his head and swore to de-— stroy some manuscript, the work of his life, and the first act was finished. Some friends came into the box and there began the usual hastily started conversation. Little Sheinberg with his bald head and clean-shaven, wrinkled face which seemed to jump out of his stiff collar said that the play was interesting. “The sex problem again, but cleverly presented. Man must, after all, make an end to this cursed question. To which Burov, a tall man, a Liberal and prominent examining magistrate, whose wife had run away the Christmas before with the owner of some racing stables, replied : “Who must? As far as I am concerned, the ques- tion is settled. A woman deceives by the very fact of her existence, a man deceives by the help of art. The sex question is an abomination and art is merely one of the aspects of capital crime.” Nikolai Ivanovitch laughed and glanced at his wife. Burov continued gloomily. “When the time comes for the bird to lay an egg, the male puts on a brightly coloured tail. That’s a lie, because naturally his tail is grey, not bright. When a [ 62 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY flower blooms on the tree that is also a lie, a delusion, because the essence is in the ugly root beneath the ground. A man lies most of all. Flowers do not bloom on him and he has no tail, so he takes refuge in his tongue and invents love and all the things connected with it—a twofold and horrible lie. It’s a thing enigmatic for young ladies.only of tender age,” he looked askance at Dasha, “but in our dull times, unfortunately, the most serious-minded people are amused by it. Yes, Russia is suffering from indigestion.” With a grimace he bent over a box of chocolates, and rummaging about in it with his fingers, picked out one filled with rum, put it in his mouth, then looked through his opera glasses that were hanging on a strap across his shoulder. | The conversation turned on political stagnation and reaction. Kulchok, working his eyebrows, related the latest court scandal in an excited whisper. “It’s like a nightmare!’ Sheinberg said hastily. Nik- olai Ivanovitch slapped himself on the knee. “It’s a revolution we want, a revolution immediately; otherwise we'll simply perish. I have information”—he lowered his voice—“that the factories are in a very dis- turbed state.” In his excitement the whole of Sheinberg’s ten clas flew into the air. “But when, when? One can’t wait indefinitely.” “We'll live to see it, Yakov Alexandrovitch, you wait,” Nikolai Ivanovitch said cheerfully, “and Your Excel- lency shall have the portfolio of the Minister of Justice.” Dasha was tired of listening’ to these problems of revolutions and portfolios. With an elbow resting on the velvet ledge of the box and an arm round Katia’s waist she looked down into the body of the house, now [ 63 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY and again smiling to an acquaintance. Dasha saw and knew that she and her sister were admired and the glances distinguished in the crowd—tender on the part of the men and spiteful on the part of the women— the fragments of sentences and the smiles, excited her like the spring air. Her tearful mood had passed. One of her cheeks, near the ear, was tickled by Katia’s hair. “T do love you, Katia!’ Dasha said in a whisper. “And I you.” “Are you pleased that I live with your” “Very.” Dasha tried to think of something else pleasant to say to Katia, when suddenly she caught sight of Telie- gin. He was in a black coat, with his hat and pro- gramme in his hand and had for long been standing un- observed, staring at the Smokovnikovs’ box. His strong, sunburnt face stood out from amidst the pale and thin faces about him: His hdir was lighter than Dasha had imagined; it was like corn. When his eye met Dasha’s he bowed, then turned away, and in doing so dropped his stick. Bending down to pick it up, he bumped against a stout lady sitting in the stalls; he apologized and again looked askance at the box, but seeing that Dasha was laughing, he blushed and stepped back, treading on the toes of the publisher of an aesthetic journal entitled “The Chorus of Muses,” and with a wave of his hand, he walked towards the exit. Dasha turned to her sister. “Katia, that’s Teliegin.” “I know. Isn’t he a dear?” *“‘He’s such a dear that I feel I could kiss him. And you don’t know how clever he is, Katia!” “There now, Dasha... .” [ 64] | | ’ THE ROAD TO CALVARY “What ?” But her sister was silent. Dasha understood and also ceased. Again her heart was oppressed. There, within her shell, all was not well; she had forgotten for a mo- ment, but looking within again, it was dark, disturbing and stifling. When the lights went out and the curtains parted, it seemed to Dasha that she had been banished from home and had nowhere to take refuge from herself. She sighed and turned her attention to the stage. The man with the false beard still went on threatening to burn his manuscript, while the girl, who was sitting by the piano, kept on teasing him. It was evident that the best thing to do was to get the girl married as soon as possible rather than drag out another three acts. All this mental aberration was merely stupid. Dasha looked up at the painted ceiling of the theatre and there, among clouds, a beautiful nude woman was flying with a clear joyous smile on her lips. “Heavens, isn’t she like me!” Dasha thought. Then instantly she regarded herself from a detached point of view. There was a creature in a box, eating chocolates, lying, mud- dling, waiting for something extraordinary to happen, but nothing happened. “And there is no life for me until I go to him, until I hear his voice, until I feel the whole of him. The rest is a lie. One must simply be honest.” From that evening Dasha stopped asking herself whether she loved Bezsonov or was attracted to him by some wicked, unwholesome curiosity. She now knew that she would go to him and feared the hour. Once she had almost decided to go to her father in Samara, but reflected that a distance of twelve hundred miles would not save her from temptation and put the idea aside. [ 65 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Her healthy maidenliness was outraged, but what could you do with “the other person” when everything in the world helped her? Besides, it was unbearably humiliating to suffer and think so long about this Bez- sonov, who would have none of her, and lived for his own pleasure somewhere near the Kamennoostrovsky Prospect, writing verses about an actress with lace petti- coats. And Dasha was every inch of her immersed in him, absorbed by him. 7 Dasha felt an aversion for herself. She purposely dressed her hair plainly, in a knot on the nape of the neck, put on an old school dress, which she had brought from Samara, and in despair learnt Roman law by heart, refused to go out visiting and renounced all amusements. It was not easy to be honest. Dasha was simply afraid. Early in April, in the cool of the evening, when the sunset had died down and ‘the faded green sky ‘was illumined by a phosphorescent light that cast no shadows, Dasha was returning home from the islands on foot. She had told them at home that she was going to a lecture, but instead she had taken a tram to the Elagina Bridge and wandered the whole evening along the bare avenues, across little bridges, gazing now at the water, now at the purple lines in the orange sunset, at the faces of the passers-by, at the carriage lights floating over the mossy tree trunks. She was not thinking of anything and did not hurry. Her soul was calm and the whole of her being was filled with the spring, salt sea air. Her feet ached, but she did not want to return home to her room, which was filled with so many stifling thoughts. Along the broad Kamennoostrovsky Prospect car- riages rolled quickly by and long motor-cars, while with | 66 J THE ROAD TO CALVARY jests and laughter groups of pedestrians passed. Dasha turned down a back street. | Here it was still and deserted. There was the green sky above the roofs. Out of every house almost, from behind the curtained windows, strains of music could be heard. Here some one was practising a sonata, there a familiar waltz, there again, from a dark window of ‘an attic with the red sunset reflected in it, the clear sounds of four voices mingled together. It seemed as ‘though in the stillness of the blue evening the very air sang. And in Dasha too, affected as she was by the sounds, everything seemed to sing and to despair. Her body seemed light and pure, without the least stain. _ Dasha turned a corner, read the number of the house ‘on the wall, smiled, and going up to the front door where, above a lion’s head of brass, there was a visiting card with “A. Bezsonov” written on it, she loudly rang the bell. [ 67 | VII Some one knocked on the iron gate. On a stone seat within the shadow of the gateway a sheepskin coat was seen to move, a hand was held up with a bunch of rattling keys, some one snorted. The sheepskin coat moved, the lock creaked and the heavy gate opened. Two men came out into the street, their chins muffled in the collars of their coats. They were Bezsonov and Akundin. From out the sheepskin coat the blear-eyed face of the night watchman peered and asked for a tip, Bezsonov thrust a twenty-kopeck piece into the end of his sleeve and turned to the right of the deserted street. Akundin followed somewhat behind, then caught him up and took his arm. “Well, Alexis Alexeyevitch, what do you think of our prophet, Elijah?” Bezsonov immediately stopped. “Now, look here, I think it madness! In a stuffy little room up a backyard and up a back stairs amidst his books and smoke to think the way he does! . And did you notice his face? It seemed bloodless. Only his lips were curiously red, as though he sucks them — with words. I wonder what will happen now, if all he says comes to pass?” “There would be much fun in the world, Alexis Alex- eyevitch.” “It’s madness! To expect to set the world on fire from that old sofa of his, amidst the tobacco smoke. It is no use your talking to me. . . . Here it is raining, [ 68 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY and it will go on raining to the end of time. You can’t move mountains.” They were standing by a street-lamp. Bezsonov watched the greenish patches of light disappearing in the gloomy drizzle. The few passers-by, reflected in the dark asphalt, were hurrying to their homes, their hands in their pockets, their noses in their collars. Akundin, in a large grey hat, looked Bezsonov up and down and smiled, stroking his beard. “We'll sound such a blast on our trumpets of Jericho that not only the walls, but everything will crumble, Alexis Alexeyevitch. Our stunts are devilishly good. We’ve got the formula. A good deal depends on the formula. “Open Sesame.’ And ours is such a tricky formula that whatever you may apply it to will rot and fall to pieces. And you talk of not being able to move mountains. For the prosperity, let us say, of the Alaun- sky hills, we must go and fight the Germans and burn their towns. Hurrah, boys, for the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland! But try and apply our formula to that. Comrades, Russians, Germans and so on, you are naked and poor, you, who are the lowest of the low, enough of your blood has been drunk by your oppressors! Come, let us build universal justice. We do not ask less of you. It is you only who are human beings, the rest are parasites. What does it mean? What parasites? What is universal justice? Don’t you see, Alexis Alexe- yevitch, the kind of gesture that is necessary—the same kind with which Jesus Christ from the mount testified to the earthly kingdom. It’s essential to go on repeating. You must explain by examples what universal justice is, so that it can be comprehended by the Kashirsky district, by the village of Brukhin, by the peasant Likse [69 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Ivanov Sedmoi, who from the age of twelve has been working at some brickyard for fifty-five kopecks a day, providing his own food. Example: Do you see that stone house over there? We do. The brick manufac-| turer is sitting inside it, with a watch-chain across his stomach, do you see? We do. He’s got a cupboard full of money and there’s a severe-looking policeman walk-| ing up and down by his windows, do you see him? We do. By universal justice it is all yours, comrades. Do you understand? And you, Alexis Alexeyevitch, accuse - us of being theorists. We are like the early Christians. They prostrated themselves before the poor and we before the humble and wronged before the torn and ta ) tered who scarcely look human; we bow down low be- fore them on behalf of the five continents. The early Christians had a formula and we have a formula; they went on crusades and we go on crusades. . . .” Akundin laughed; he tried to make out Bezsonov’s face, which was over-shadowed by his hat. Then, look- ing at his watch, he added hastily: | “You'll kick against it, but you’ll come to us, Alexis Alexeyevitch. We want men like you. . . . The time is near; we are living through the last days... . ” He laughed to still his excitement and, with a jerk, firmly pressed Bezsonov’s hand and disappeared round the corner. For some time the assured sound of his heels: along the pavement could still be heard. Bezsonov hailed a cab. Somewhere in the wet gloom some one smacked’ his lips and a vehicle rattled up. A woman stopped by. the lamp-post and also began to watch the disappearing lights. Then she spoke, hardly moving her tongue. | “T will never forgive.” Bezsonov started and looked at her. Her face, : wrinkled and drunken, was laughing all over. An izvoz- [70 J THE ROAD TO CALVARY chik drove up—a tall peasant with a small horse. ‘Wo!’ he said in a thin voice. Getting into the wet cab Bez- sonov remembered that he had an appointment with a woman. It would probably be dull and commonplace. So much the better. He gave the izvozchik the address and putting up his collar, he swam past the hazy out- lines of the houses, the diffusing lights from the win- dows, the little clouds of yellow fog around each street- lamp. As he drew up at the restaurant the izvozchik said in a broken voice, used only for the gentry: “You’re the fourth I’ve brought here today. Is the food so good? One of them was in a mighty hurry. ‘Tl give you a rouble,’ he said, ‘if you'll whip up.’ And my horse is not a good one.” Bezsonov, without noticing how much, thrust a hand- ful of change into his hand and ran up the broad staircase of the restaurant. The porter, when taking off his coat, said: “Alexis Alexeyevitch, some one is waiting for you.” “Who is it?” “A lady whom we don’t know.” Bezsonov, with his head raised high and staring be- fore him with glassy eyes, walked across the low hall, which was packed with people, to his own little table. The maitre d’hotel, Loskutkin, a gentle old man, leant over the tablecloth and observed that there was a good leg of mutton today, but Bezsonov said: “T don’t want anything to eat. Give me some white wine. The kind I like.” He.sat straight and severe, ‘his hands on the table- cloth. At that hour and in that place there descended on him his habitual condition of gloomy inspiration. All the impressions of the day seemed to link them- [71] THE ROAD TO CALVARY selves into one harmonious, comprehensive form and, into the very depths of him, moved as he was by the wail of the Rumanian fiddler, the scent of the women’s perfumes, the hot atmosphere of the crowded hall, there entered that spirit emanating from outward forms—the spirit of inspiration. With some blind inner sense he felt himself penetrate to the mysterious meaning of things and words—a laughing face in tears by the lamp- post, the music, the sensuous ecstasy of this dark night, the fantastic wanderings of the prophet Elijah (Uri Davidovitch Aliseyev, the publicist and sociologist, to whom Akundin had taken him that day) and all the strange comparisons and examples and laughter at the street corner by the lamp-post. Bezsonov raised his glass and drank the wine without opening his lips. Huis heart beat evenly. There was an unutterable sense of pleasure in feeling the whole of himself penetrated by sounds and voices. At the table opposite, beneath the mirror, there were supping together Sapojkov, Antoshka Arnoldov, a gaunt individual with tragic eyes, and Elisaveta Kievna. Yes- terday she had written Bezsonov a long letter appoint-— ing a meeting with him here and now she was sitting flushed and excited. She wore a dress of some striped material of black and yellow and the same kind of band in her hair. When Bezsonov came in, she felt suffo- cated. Sapojkov said: “T bet you are afraid.” “Be careful,” Arnoldov whispered with a broad smile, exposing his rotten and golden teeth, “he has left his actress; he has no woman now and is as dangerous as a tiger.” Elisaveta Kievna laughed, shaking the striped ribbon in her hair and walked over between the tables to Bez- — [72] THE ROAD TO CALVARY sonov. Every one looked at her and chairs were moved to make way for her. Lately Elisaveta Kievna’s life had been very dull. Day followed day with nothing to do, with no hope in the future—she was in despair. Teliegin plainly did not love her. He treated her kindly, but avoided seeing her alone. In desperation she knew that it was he that she wanted. When she heard his voice in the corridor, Elisaveta Kievna raised her eyes from her book and fixed them on the door. He walked along the corridor on tiptoe as usual. She waited, the beating of her heart ceasing, the door swimming before her eyes, but again he had gone past. If only he had knocked and asked for some matches. Besides, it was all so senselessly humiliating. A few days ago, to spite Jirov, who with cat-like caution abused everything on earth, she bought Bez- sonov’s book, the pages of which she cut with some curling tongs. She read it through several times, upset some coffee over it, crumpled the pages in bed and at dinner announced that Bezsonov was a genius. . . . Tel- iegin’s lodgers were shocked. Sapojkov said that Bez- sonov was a fungus growing on the decomposing body of the bourgeoisie. The veins on Jirov’s forehead stood out. He said: “Tt seems to me that you don’t sufficiently understand the kind of poetry it is. It is weak and without back- bone.” | The artist, Valet, flung down his fork. Only Teliegin remained unconcerned. Then she experienced what she called ‘“‘a moment of self-provocation.” She laughed and went into her room, wrote Bezsonov an enthusiastic, ridiculous letter, in which she asked to see him, re- turned to the dining-room and silently threw the letter [73 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY on the table. The lodgers read the letter aloud and dis- cussed it for a long time. Teliegin said: “It’s very boldly written.” Then Elisaveta Kievna sent the cook to post it and felt that she was making headlong for the abyss. As she now approached Bezsonov, Elisaveta Kievna said resolutely, “I wrote to you. You have come. Thank you.” And she immediately sat down opposite him, side- ways; she crossed her legs, rested her elbow on the table and began to stare at him with her pencilled eyes. He was silent. Loskutkin put down a second glass and poured out some wine for Elisaveta Kievna. She said: “You will, no doubt, ask why I wanted to see you.” “TI will not ask. Have some wine.” “You are right. I have nothing to tell you. You live, Bezsonov, and I do not. If I had the money I would race over Europe in a motor-car until I had fallen down an abyss. To put it shortly, I am bored.” “What do you do?” ; “T was asked to join the party to carry out acts of | terrorism, but I hate discipline. I’m too squeamish to become a courtesan, and as for some useful occupation, — I would sooner hang myself. What can one do just now when everything is decaying and rotting? I do nothing. Are you horrified? Disgusted? I ask you, © what shall I do?” “People like you will have to wait a bit,’ he replied, holding his glass up to the light. “The time is coming | soon, very soon, when thousands of fossilized chimeras like you will flock to get their prey. You have the eyes — of a chimera.” And he slowly sucked the wine through © his teeth. | 3 | [74] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Elisaveta Kievna did not quite understand what he meant, but she flushed with pleasure. Feeling a ready listener in her, Bezsonov’s “style” changed automatically. He resolved to indulge in the pleasure of) casting a charm ‘over this woman, so pacified by his attention, of enveloping her in the obscure fog of fantasy. He spoke of the night descending on Russia that would bring ful- fillment and a terrible reckoning. He could see this by mysterious and sinister signs. On the hoardings and on the walls of the houses, in the form of trade adver- tisements, the image of the devil had begun to appear. Yesterday, for instance, the firm “Cosmos” had posted up a huge poster representing an endless staircase, down which, on a motor tire, flew a laughing devil, flaming red, like blood. And on a hoarding in Denejni Street _he had seen a poster showing a cloud from which a hand pointed down to the terrible inscription “In the near future.” ! “Do you realize what it means? There will soon be _ great scope for you, Elisaveta Kievna.” While he spoke he filled the glasses. Elisaveta Kiev- na looked at his cold eyes, his feminine mouth, at his raised thin eyebrows, at the slight trembling of his fingers as he held the glass, at the way he drank, eagerly and slowly. Her head went pleasantly round. From where he sat Sapojkov began to make signs to her. Suddenly Bezsonov stopped, turned round and asked with a frown: “Who are these people?” “Friends of mine.” “T don’t like their making signs.” Then Elisaveta Kievna said without thinking: “Shall we go somewhere else?” Bezsonov looked at her intently. Her eyes squinted [75 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY slightly, her lips smiled feebly, small beads of perspi- ration appeared on her temples. He was suddenly seized with a desire to possess this strong, short-sighted girl. He took her large, hot hand resting on the table and said: .“You. must either leave me immediately, or be silent. Let us. go.) Tt nrastibe. ..../ Elisaveta Kievna merely gave a little gasp and her cheeks turned pale. She did not know how she got up from her chair, nor how she took Bezsonov’s arm, nor how her coat was put on in the cloakroom. And when they got into the cab even the wind did not cool her burning skin. The cab rattled over the stones. Bezsonov leant with both hands on his walking-stick, rested his chin on them and said: “You said just now that I live.. I have lived. I am thirty-eight, but my life is finished. I am no longer deceived by love. What can be sadder than to realize suddenly that the noble steed is no more than a miser- able hobby-horse? And there is a long time yet to drag out this life, like a corpse... .” He turned; his upper lip curled into a smile. “It. seems that like you I must wait for the blast of the trumpets of Jericho. How nice it would be if the sound were to break out suddenly over this graveyard 33 and the sky were to turn a flaming red... . They drove up to a hotel outside the town. A sleepy waiter led them down a long corridor to the only vacant room. It was a low room with a red wall-paper, torn and dirty. Against the wall, beneath a large, jaded can- opy, stood a bed, at the foot of which was an iron washstand. There was a smell of mustiness and stale tobacco smoke. few years ago I would have believed that I could still - drink of eternal youth. I would not have let you go from me. I would have fastened on the cup. ia | Dasha felt that he was digging needles into tee. His | words were protracted torture. : “Niow I can only spill the precious wine. You must realize what this means to me. To stretch out my hand — ag stakes) tei. “No, no!” Dasha said in a hurried whisper. i “But it is so. . . . And you feel it. There is no | sweeter sin than to squander and to spill. That is why — you have come to me. Otherwise you would have — guarded forever behind your white curtains the cup of © honey God has given you. You have brought it to THEE ie tans . [86] THE ROAD TO CALVARY He half closed his eyes slowly. Dasha, holding her breath, looked in horror at his face. “Daria Dmitrievna, may I be frank with you? You are so like your sister that at first Pr “What?” Dasha cried. “What did you say?” “T feared that under the circumstances, it would be too hard to conquer myself.” Dasha jumped up from her chair and stood before him. Bezsonov did not understand the reason of her excitement. He felt that he was losing his head. His nostrils smelt fragrant perfumes and that inexplicable, overwhelming scent of a woman’s skin. “This is madness . . . I know. . . I cannot . he murmured, blindly ey: to take. her hand. But Dasha tore it back and ran away. On the threshold she looked back with wild eyes, then disappeared. The front door banged. Bezsonov walked slowly to the table and drummed with his fingers on a crystal cigarette-box. He pressed his hand over his eyes. With all the grue- some force of his imagination it seemed to him that the White Order, making ready for a decisive battle, had sent this spirited, gentle, alluring girl to attract him, to direct and to save him. But he was hopelessly in the hands of the Black and beyond salvation. Slowly, like a poison coursing through his blood, they excited his unquenchable thirst and pity. 99 [387] Vill “Is that you, Dasha? Come in.” Ekaterina Dmitrievna was standing by the wardrobe mirror putting on her corsets. She smiled absently at Dasha and continued her absorbed twistings by the mir- ror, dancing about on the carpet in her tight slippers. On a low little table near by was a cup of hot water, and all about were nail-scissors, files, pencils and pow- der-puffs. This was a free evening and Ekaterina Dmitrievna was “cleaning her feathers,” as they called it at home. “Do you know,” she said, pulling on a stocking, “they no longer wear corsets with straight busks. Look at this one; it’s a’new one, from Madame Duclet’s. The © stomach is much freer and is even a little accentuated. — Do you like it?” “T don’t,” Dasha said. She was standing by the wall, her hands crossed behind her. Ekaterina Dmitrievna raised her brows in wonder. “Don’t you? I’m sorry. It’s so comfortable.” “What is comfortable, Katia?” “Ts it the lace you don’t like? It can easily be changed. — It’s funny that you don’t like it.” And she again turned to right and left by the mirror. Dasha said: | “You needn’t ask me if I like your corsets.” “Oh, well, Nikolai Ivanovitch doesn’t understand these things.” . “T don’t see where Nikolai Ivanovitch comes in.” [88 ] 3 . THE ROAD TO CALVARY “Dasha, what is the matter?” Ekaterina Dmitrievna stood open-mouthed in wonder. She only now remarked that Dasha could scarcely con- tain herself, that she spoke through clenched teeth and _ that there were red patches on her cheeks. “T think you might stop dancing before the mirror.” “But I must make myself tidy.” “For whom?” “Well, really . . . For myself, of course.” “You lie.” For long after this the sisters were silent. Ekaterina Dmitrievna took from the back of a chair a camel-hair dressing gown lined with blue silk; she put it on and slowly tied the girdle. Dasha watched her movements intently, then said: “Go to Nikolai Ivanovitch and tell him everything, honestly.” Ekaterina Dmitrievna continued to stand there, fid- dling with her girdle. A lump could be seen to rise in her throat as though she were swallowing something. “Dasha, have you heard anything?” she asked softly. “I have just come from Bezsonov’s.” Ekaterina Dmitrievna looked up quickly with her bedimmed eyes and turned deadly pale. Her shoulders twitched. “You need have no fear; nothing happened to me there. He told me in time that my charms were enhanced by’ my resemblance to you.” Dasha stepped from one foot to the other. “T have long suspected that it was with him. . . . But it was too disgusting to believe. You were a coward and you lied, and it seems that you are now resigned. . . . But I tell you I won't live in this filth. . . . Go to your husband and tell him and then disentangle your- self as best you know how... .” [89 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Dasha could say no more. Her sister was standing before her with bowed head. Dasha had expected any- thing but this submissive bowed head. “Shall I go now?” Katia asked. ‘ ‘Yes. This'imoment.... yD demand’... Yom must understand yourself... .” Ekaterina Dmitrievna gave a gentle sigh and walked towards the door. She hesitated for a moment and said : “T can’t, Dasha.” But Dasha was silent. “Very well, I will tell him.” | Nikolai Ivanovitch was sitting in the drawing-room > scratching his beard with a bone paper-knife and read- ing Akundin’s article in “The Russian Review,’ which he had only just received. The subject of the article was the commemoration of the anniversary of Bakunin’s death. Nikolai Ivano- vitch was enjoying himself. “Katia, my dear, sit down. Just listen to what he says here... . ‘It is not so much in his mode of thought, nor in his untiring devotion to the cause that the fas- — cination of the man lies’—that is, Bakunin—‘as in the pathos of his translation of ideas into real life, which could be seen in every action of his—in his night-long discussions with Proudhon, in the gallantry with which — he fought in the very heat of the battle, even in his ro- © mantic gesture when, merely passing through the coun- © try, he directed the guns of the Austrian rebels, with- — out quite knowing whom and what they were fighting for. Bakunin’s pathos is the symbol of the fury with which the new classes enter the fight. The materialization of ideas is the problem of the coming age. Not the ab- straction from the mass of facts, which are subjected to the blind inertia of life, not the withdrawal into the [90] THE ROAD TO CALVARY world of ideals, but a contrary process—the conquest of the physical world by the ideal world. Reality is an inflammable mass, ideas are the sparks. The two worlds are separate and hostile. They must be welded together in the flame of the world revolution.’ Just think, Katia. . . . It’s as plain as a pike-staff. Hurrah for the revolution! A splendid fellow, Akundin! We are certainly living in a time void of big ideas and deep feeling. The government is only guided by its insane fear of the future. The intellectuals spend their time eating and drinking; it is time to open the windows. We do nothing but talk and talk, Katia, and are up to our ears in the swamp. The people are rotting alive. The whole of Russia is steeped in syphilis and vodka. Russia is like a rotted mass; if you were to blow on it, it would go into dust. We need the self-sacrificial pyre, purification by fire... .” Nikolai Ivanovitch spoke in an excited velvety voice; his eyes grew round, the paper-knife he held cut the air. Ekaterina Dmitrievna was standing near by, her hand resting on the back of a chair. When he stopped speaking and began to cut the pages of the review, she went up to him and put her hand on his hair. “Kolenko, what I am going to say will cause you great pain. I had wanted to keep it from you, but things have so happened that I must speak... .” “Nikolai Ivanovitch disengaged his head from her hand and looked at her intently. “T am listening, Katia.” “When we quarrelled, if you remember, I said, in spite, that you need not be so sure of me . . . And then I denied it. . . .” “TI remember quite well.” He put down his book and [91] THE ROAD TO CALVARY swung round in his chair. His eyes, meeting Katia’s quiet, calm gaze, were full of alarm. “Well, I lied to you . . . I had been unfaithful to MOEN ous He screwed up his lips pitifully, trying to smile. His mouth was parched. When he could no longer be silent, he said in a hoarse voice: “You have done well to tell me . . . Thank you, Katia.” She took his hand, touched it with her lips and pressed it against her breast. But the hand slipped away and she made no attempt to keep it. Then Ekaterina Dmitrievna sank softly on the carpet and put her head on the leather arm of the chair. “Have you nothing else to say to me?” “No, Katia, you can go.” She rose and went out. In the dining-room doorway she was seized unexpectedly by Dasha, who embraced her and showered kisses on her hair, her neck, her hands. “Forgive me! Forgive me she whispered. “You are wonderful, amazing! JI heard everything . . . Can you ever forgive me, can you ever forgive me, Katia?” Ekaterina Dmitrievna freed herself gently and went over to the table where she straightened a crease in the tablecloth. “I have done what you told me to do, Dasha.” “Katia, can you ever forgive me?” “You were right, Dasha. It is better as it is.” “I wasn’t right; I only said those horrible things to you out of spite! I see now that no one is fit to judge you. It doesn’t matter if we are all miserable, if we all suffer, but you are in the right! I feel that you are right in everything. Forgive me, Katia.” [ 92 ] 3 ! THE ROAD TO CALVARY Large tears as round as peas fell down Dasha’s cheeks. She was standing behind Katia, a step or two away from her and said in a loud whisper: “If you won’t forgive me, I don’t want to live. Any- how, I don’t know how to live now . . . And if you will treat me like this ‘: Ekaterina Dmitrievna turned to her sharply. “Like what, Dasha? Did you expect everything to be as easy and affectionate as before? You must know . . I lied because I knew that it was only by doing so that I could go on living with Nikolai Ivanovitch a little longer. And now there is an ending to everything. . Do you understand? I ceased to love Nikolai Ivanovitch long ago and have long been unfaithful to him. I don’t know whether Nikolai Ivanovitch loves me or not; at any rate, he is no husband to me. Do you understand? He may have another family somewhere or he may have no need of a woman, or perhaps he has acute neurasthenia, I don’t know. And there you are _hiding your head under your wing so as not to see ugly things. I could see them all the time and I knew and I went on living in this filth because I was a weak woman. I could see that you, too, were being drawn into this life. I tried to protect you and forbade Bez- sonov the house . . . That was before he . . . How- ever, it doesn’t matter . . . Now everything is at an end: sop kh? Ekaterina Dmitrievna suddenly raised her head and listened. In between the curtains of the doorway, stand- ing sideways, was Nikolai Ivanovitch. ‘He kept his hands behind his back. “Bezsonov?” he asked with a smile, shaking his head. He came into the dining-room. Ekaterina Dmitrievna did not reply. Red patches ap- [ 93 ] THK ROAD TO CALVARY peared on her cheeks; her eyes were dry; her lips tightly compressed. “You are mistaken if you think that our conversation is finished, Katia.” | He continued to smile. “Dasha, leave us alone, please.” “T won’t go.” And Dasha stood beside her sister. “But you will go if I ask you.” “IT won't go.” “In that case, I shall have to leave this house.” “Leave it then,” Dasha said, looking at him with. hatred. Nikolai Ivanovitch turned purple, but instantly his former expression of light-hearted madness appeared in his eyes. “So much the better, you can stay. Now look here, Katia . . . I stayed where you left me and, to speak the truth, I went through some very hard moments... .I have come to the conclusion that I must kill you. . . PRES ik ih . At these words Dasha pressed against her sister and ~ put both arms about her. Ekaterina Dmitrievna’s lips trembled disdainfully. “You are hysterical, Nikolai Ivanovitch; you must take some valerian.” “No, Katia, it is not hysteria this time... . “Then do what you have come to do,” she cried, push- ing Dasha aside and going right up to Nikolai Ivano- vitch. “Do it! I tell you to your face, I don’t love you!” He stepped back, produced the revolver which had been concealed behind his back and put it on the table. He then put his fingers in his mouth and bit them and turned towards the door. [94] 39 » THE ROAD TO CALVARY “Tt hurts! It hurts!’ Then Ekaterina Dmitrievna rushed up to him, seized his shoulders and turned his face to hers. “It’s a lie! You know it’s a lie! . . . You are lying this moment! . . .” But he shook his head and went out. Ekaterina Dmitrievna sat down by the table. “Well, Dashenka, we have had the shooting scene from the third act. You can see for yourself what a woman must come to with a weakling like that... I shall leave him.” “Heavens! Katia!” “T shall go away; I can’t live like this. In five years I shall be old; it will be too late then. I can’t live like this any longer . . . It’s horrible, horrible!” She cov- ered her face with her hands, then buried it in her arm on the table. Dasha sat down beside her and gently kissed her shoulder. Ekaterina Dmitrievna raised her head. | “Don’t think that I am not sorry for him. I am al- ways sorry for him. If I were to go to him now we should start a long conversation which would be false through and through. It seems as if a demon were al- ways between us, twisting our words. To talk to him is like playing on a piano that is out of tune. I shall go ' away. Dasha, my dear, if only you knew how miserable I feel! I want something so different. All my life I have been aching to love. To love in such a way that every moment, with every thought, with the whole of my body, with my skin, I; should be conscious that I loved .. . As] am I hate myself.” Nevertheless, late in the evening, Ekaterina Dmitri- evna went into her husband’s study. They talked for a long time, quietly and sadly, each trying to be honest with the other, and not sparing them- [95 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY selves. Both, however, were left with the impression that nothing had been accomplished by the talk; they had failed to understand each other and had not been brought any closer by it. When left alone Nikolai Ivanovitch sat sighing at the table until daybreak. “During those hours, so Katia learnt later, he had re- viewed the whole course of his life. The result was a long epistle to his wife which ended in this way: “Yes, Katia, morally we are in a blind alley. For the past five years I have not experienced a single deep feeling nor have I done anything worth while. Even my love for you and our marriage have gone by unnoticed, as it were. An existence petty and half hysterical, perpetually under the narcotic of the deliberate artificialities of our life. There are only two issues, to put an end to myself or to tear the stifling shroud that is wrapped around my thoughts, my feelings, my consciousness . . . I am not in a condition to.do the one or the other... .” The family misfortune had come about so suddenly - and the domestic world had collapsed so easily and ir- revocably that Dasha was too overwhelmed to dream of worrying about herself. What was there in those girl- ish moods of hers, anyway? They reminded her of the terrible goat on the wall which their nurse, Lukeria, used to show her and Katia long ago. She would take a lighted candle and put her hands together and on the wall there would appear a goat eating cabbage-leaves and wagging its horns. Several times during the course of the day Dasha would go to Katia’s door and knock gently with her fingers, but Katia would say: “Dasha, dear, if possible, do leave me alone.” During those days Nikolai Ivanovitch had to appear © [96 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY in court. He left home early, lunched and dined in a restaurant and returned late at night. His defence of an excise official’s wife, Zoya Ivanovna Ladnikova, who had murdered her sleeping lover in Gorokhova Street, a student, Shlippe by name, the son of a Petersburg landlord, astounded the whole court. The women pres- ent wept. The accused, Zoya Ivanovna, who had dashed her head against the railings, was acquitted. Nikolai Ivanovitch, pale and weary-eyed, was besieged by a crowd of women at the exit; they threw flowers at him, shrieked and kissed his hands. From the court he went home and had an explanation with Katia in which he showed genuine tenderness. Ekaterina Dmitrievna, it turned out, had her trunks packed. He honestly advised her to go to the south of France and gave her twelve thousand for expenses. As for himselfi—this also came out during the conversation —he had decided to entrust his practice to his assistant and to go away to the Crimea there to rest and take stock of himself. It was really very vague and indefinite as to whether they were parting for a time or forever and as to who had left whom. These poignant questions were kept carefully in the background in the general bustle of de- ' parture. Both had forgotten Dasha. Ekaterina Dmitrievna remembered only at the last moment, when, dressed in a grey travelling costume, tired and wan and sweet, she caught sight of Dasha sitting on a trunk in the hall. Dasha was swinging her legs and eating bread and mar- malade, for dinner had been overlooked that day. “Dasha, my dear,” Ekaterina Dmitrievna said, kissing her through her veil, “what will you do? Would you like to come with me?” [97 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY But Dasha announced her intention of staying on in the flat with the Great Mogul and entering for her ex- amination, after which she would go to her father’s for the summer. : [98 ] IX Dasha remained alone in the house. The large rooms seemed to lose their coziness and the things in them ap- peared superfluous. With the departure of host and hostess even the cubist portraits began to fade and lose their terror. The door-curtains hung in dead folds. The lifeless arabesques of distorted flowers and figures stood out in woeful monotony. Though the Great Mo- gul, ghostlike, moved about the rooms each morning flicking off the dust with a feather brush, some other in- visible dust seemed to settle as fast again on the house. Surrounded by this accumulation of utterly useless and superfluous objects it struck Dasha for the first time that her sister and brother-in-law, so to speak, nailed themselves to life with these things, filling up the empty places with them, not having the strength or the stick- ing-power to hold on of themselves. Her sister’s room spoke as a book of what she Jived by. Here in one corner stood a small wooden easel with an unfinished drawing on it of a girl in pro- file in a white wreath. Ekaterina Dmitrievna had seized on this easel in the hope of extricating herself from the general turmoil, but had not been able to hold out. There stood an antique work-table in disorder, filled with un- finished pieces of work—unripped hats, bits of coloured stuff—all begun and abandoned. Equally untidy was her wardrobe, though it showed traces of an attempt at orderliness, which was subsequently abandoned. And all over the place were flung and thrust half cut books [99] THE ROAD TO CALVARY on Yoga, popular lectures on \anthroposophy, poetry, novels. What many fruitless endeavours to begin a vir- tuous life! On the dressing table Dasha found a silver- cased memorandum block on which was jotted: “24 chemises, 8 slips, 8 lace slips. . . . Tickets for the Ved- rinskys for ‘Uncle Vanya.’ ” And then in a round, child- ish hand, “Dasha likes apple-tart.” Dasha remembered that the apple-tart was never bought. She felt so sorry for her sister that the tears came. Affectionate and kindly, too gentle for this life, she seized on trifle after trifle to fortify herself, to. shield herself from destruction, but there was nothing and no one to help her. Dasha rose early and sat down at her books. The result of her examination was good in almost everything. To the telephone, which kept on ringing incessantly in the study, she would send the Great Mogul, who invari- ably said, “The Master and the Mistress have gone away; the young lady cannot come to the telephone.” On many occasions the whole evening long Dasha would play the piano. Music did not excite her as be- fore; it no longer aroused vague desires in her, nor made the heart tremble strangely. Sitting quietly and solemnly at her music-book with a candle on either side of it, Dasha seemed to purify herself with the majestic sounds that penetrated into every corner of that in- iquitous house. Sometimes during the music small foes would ap- pear—uninvited recollections. Dasha would drop her hands and frown. And the house would grow so still that the guttering of the candles could be heard. Then Dasha would sigh deeply and once more her fingers forcefully touched the keys and the small foes, like dust and leaves driven by the wind, fled from the big [ 100. ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY room somewhere into the dark corridor, behind ward- robes and cardboard boxes. .. . She had finished for- ever with the Dasha who had rung Bezsonov’s bell ten days ago and had spoken those spiteful words to de- fenceless Katia. The crude, half-crazy girl had nearly done great harm. What an extraordinary thing it was! As if love were the only thing in the world. And it had not been love even, but mere curiosity, stimulated by the general turmoil of life in the house which was her home. At eleven o’clock, Dasha closed the piano, blew out the candles and went to bed. It was all done in a resolute and business-like manner. It was in these days that she decided to begin an independent life as soon as possible, to earn her own living and get Katia to come and live with her. She would surround her sister with such loving care that never again would she have need to weep in sorrow. At the end of May, after the Be rirations Dasha went to her father, by way of Rininsk, along the Volga. She went straight from the train on board a white steamer, brilliantly illuminated in the dark night and black water, unpacked her things in a clean little cabin, teflecting that the independent life had not begun so badly, and, with her head on her elbow and smiling with pleasure, she fell asleep, lulled by the measured throb- bing of the engines. She was awakened by heavy footsteps and running about on deck. Through the Venetian shutters the sun- light streamed in, playing in liquid rays on the ma- hogany wash-stand. The breeze, which caught the can- vas blinds, smelt of honey flowers and wormwood. She opened the shutters. The ship stood near a deserted shore, where, beneath a recent landslide, strewn with [101] THE ROAD TO CALVARY roots and clumps of earth, was a low bank, on which were some loads of pine boxes. A chestnut foal, sprawl- ing with its thin legs and thick knees, was drinking by the water. On the bank, in the form of a large red cross, the lighthouse beacon stuck out. Dasha jumped down from her berth and putting a tub on the floor, she filled a sponge with water and squeezed it over herself. It made her shiver so with cold that she huddled her knees to her chest. Then she put on some white stock- ings, a white dress and white cap, which had all been prepared overnight and sat on her with a severe smart-. ness, and feeling independent, composed and frightfully happy, she went on deck. Liquid reflections of the sun danced about the whole of the white ship; it was painful to look at the water; the river shimmered and shone. On the further bank, hilly and wooded, old belfries, belted by silver birches, gleamed white. | When the ship left the shore and making a circle steamed away down the river, coming to meet it were the banks of meadows and bare places and hills and woods and patches of various coloured green and stone. From among the hills, looking as though they were tumbling over, the thatched roofs of cottages could be seen here and there. In the sky heaped clouds with blue bases cast white shadows in the blue and yellow depths ~ of the river. Dasha was sitting in a wicker chair, one leg crossed over the other, embracing her knee. The sparkling curves of the river, the clouds and their white reflec- tions, the birch-covered hills, the meadows and gusts of wind, which now smelt of swamp grasses, now of dry ploughed earth, of clover and wormwood, seemed to go [ 102 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY through and through her and filled her heart with a gentle triumph. Some man came up and stood sideways by the rail- ing. He appeared to be staring at her. Dasha forgot his existence now and again, but he still stood there. She took a firm resolve not to turn round, but being too hot-tempered to endure it calmly, she turned round sharply and angrily. Before her stood Teliegin, his hand on a rail, unable to make up his mind to approach her, to speak or to go away. Dasha laughed unexpectedly ; he made her think vaguely of something pleasant and good. And the whole of the man, clumsy and strong and shy, seemed like a fitting completion to the beauti- ful river calm. She extended her hand. After exchang- ing greetings, Teliegin said: “I saw you come on board. We travelled in the same carriage from Petersburg, but I didn’t want to bother you; you looked so worried . . . I’m not in the way, am [?” | “Do sit down.” She moved a chair for him. “I am going to my father’s. Where are you going?” “To tell the truth, I don’t know yet. For the time being I am going to Kineshma, to my people.” Teliegin sat down beside her and took off his hat. His eyebrows moved; wrinkles appeared on his fore- head. With eyes half closed he looked at the water, a foaming track cut by the ship. Above it, like midges, keen-winged gulls sought for food, dashing down on the water, flying up with hoarse, pitiful cries, and left far behind, circled and fought about a floating crust. “What a nice day it is, Daria Dmitrievna,” Teliegin said. “What a day, indeed, Ivan Ilyitch! On my word, I sit here wondering how I have come out of hell alive. [ 103 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Do you remember our conversation in the street?” “I remember every word of it, Daria Dmitrievna.” “Since then terrible things have happened. I will tell you all about it some day.” She shook her head pen- sively. “You seemed to me to be the only sane man in Petersburg. That is why I like being with you.” She smiled gently and put her hand on his sleeve. Ivan Ilyitch’s eyelids twitched nervously and his lips com- pressed. “I trust you absolutely, Ivan Ilyitch. You are very strong, aren’t you?” “Far from it.” : “And reliable.” Dasha felt all her thoughts to be kindly and straightforward and loving and that Ivan Ilyitch’s must likewise be good and true and strong. There was a special joy in being able to express freely and frankly all the bright emotions that filled her heart. “TI believe, Ivan Ilyitch, that if you were to love, it would — be in a manly way, tenderly and truly. And if you~ wanted something you would not let it go.” : Ivan Ilyitch did not reply. He slowly pulled a piece of bread out of his pocket and began to throw it to the birds. A flock of white sea-gulls with excited cries made a dash to catch the crumbs. Dasha and Ivan II- yitch walked over to the side of the ship. “Throw a piece to that one,’ Dasha said, “it looks hungry.” Teliegin threw the remaining piece of bread high in the air. A fat sea-gull with a large head glided on motionless wings, split in two like a skin, then shook | them, and instantly a dozen others dived after the fall- ing piece of bread to the water, which rushed from be- neath the ship in a warm foam. Dasha said: “Do you know the kind of woman I would like to be? I should like to give up bothering about myself. Whom | [ 104 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY did I love and worry about? No one but myself. I was restless and stifled and miserable. I should like to be the kind of woman who wears a spotlessly clean apron and is over head and ears happily in love, and I want my life to feel like running barefoot over the dewy ground. I shall finish my course next year and I hope to earn lots of money and have Katia to live with me. I am going to be a different person. You will see, Ivan Ilyitch. You won’t despise me any more.” While she spoke Teliegin frowned and tried to con- tain himself, but at last he opened his mouth, showing a set of strong white teeth, and laughed aloud so heartily that his lashes grew wet. Dasha flushed with annoy- ance, but involuntarily her chin, too, began to dance, and she laughed with Teliegin, without in the least knowing what she was laughing at. “Daria Dmitrievna,” he said at last, “you are wonder- ful. . . . At first I was mortally afraid of you... . But you are really wonderful. . . .” “What an idea! Let us go to lunch,” Dasha said angrily. “With pleasure.” Ivan Ilyitch ordered a table to be placed on deck and began to study the wine-list, anxiously stroking his clean-shaven chin. “What would you say to a bottle of light white wine, Daria Dmitrievna?” “T should enjoy a little.” “Chablis or Barsac?” Dasha replied in an equally business-like way. “T don’t mind which.” “In that case let us have something sparkling.” Past them floated the hilly bank with its silky green rows of wheat and green-blue rye, and pink flowering [105 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY buckwheat. Round a bend, above clay cliffs and rub- bish, beneath their hats of straw, stood dwarfed little huts with glittering windows. Further on were ten crosses or so of the village cemetery and a six-winged mill with a broken side. A crowd of boys were running after the ship along the bank, throwing stones, which barely reached as far as the water. The ship turned. On the deserted bank was a low bush with some kites on it. A gust of warm wind blew under the tablecloth and under Dasha’s dress. The golden wine in large, cut glasses seemed like a gift of the gods. Dasha re-. marked that she envied Ivan Ilyitch. He had his own — work to do, was sure of life, while she had to pore for another eighteen months over her books with the additional misfortune of being a woman. Teliegin replied, laughing: “They have turned me out of the Obukhovsky works.” “You don’t mean it!” “T had twenty-four hours in which to clear out. I shouldn’t have been on the ship otherwise. Haven’t you heard what has happened at the works?” shy’ ah Ne eOe Ose, cheaply. °. Yes), He stopped and rested his elbows on the table. “You’ve no idea how stupidly and inefficiently everything is done with us. The devil knows how we get our reputation, we Rus- sians. It’s a shame and a disgrace to think of it. Here we are, a capable people with a’ rich country, and how far do we see? About as far as the cheeky, grimy face of an office clerk. Instead of life we get ink and 9 paper. You can’t think how much ink and paper we — make. Since they started writing about Peter the Great | they haven’t been able to stop. And there can be blood in ink, you know.” [106 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Ivan Ilyitch moved away his glass of wine and lighted a cigarette. He was evidently reluctant to con- tinue. “But what is the use of thinking about it? We must hope that some day things will be better, no worse than with other people.” The whole of the day Dasha spent on deck. Toa stranger it would have seemed that they talked the mer- est nonsense, but that was because they spoke in code. The most ordinary words, mysteriously and incompre- hensibly, assumed a double meaning. When Dasha with a motion of her eyes towards a short plump girl with round, surprised-looking eyes and no brows and her pink scarf blowing out behind her round-shouldered back and the second mate of the ship walking intently beside her, remarked, “Observe, the affair is going splendidly, Ivan Ilyitch,’ what she really meant was, “If that had been you and I, things wouldn’t have gone quite so smoothly.” Neither of them could honestly have remembered what each had said, but Ivan Ilyitch was left with the impression that Dasha was more clever, subtle and observant than himself and to Dasha it seemed that Ivan Ilyitch was kinder, better and a thousand times more intelligent than she was. Dasha tried to collect her courage on several occasions to tell him about Bezsonov, but changed her mind. The sun scorched her knees, the wind, as with round caress- ing fingers, touched her cheeks, her shoulders, her neck, and the flapping flag on the front of the ship, the rope railing of the sides, the sparkling grey deck all seemed to float with her and Ivan Ilyitch among the clouds, past the low, gentle banks. Dasha thought: “T will tell him tomorrow. When it rains, I will tell him.” [ 107 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Dasha, who, like most women, was a keen observer, at the end of the day knew more or less everything about their fellow passengers. To Ivan Ilyitch it seemed al- most miraculous. She decided that the rector of the Petersburg Uni- versity, a morose-looking man in smoked spectacles and an Inverness cape, must be a sharper, and though Ivan Tlyitch knew that he was the rector of the Petersburg University, he also began to entertain suspicions about him. On the whole his ideas of reality were a little shaken that day. He felt dazed or in a waking dream. and now and again was unable to contain the onrush of a feeling of love towards everything that he saw and heard about him. He would gaze around and think how delightful it would be to throw oneself ‘into the water after that girl with the bobbed hair if she were to bend still lower over the side with the crumbs she was throwing to the birds and fall in. At one o'clock at night such a sudden and delightful feeling of sleepiness came over Dasha that she could hardly walk to her cabin. Bidding him good night by the door, she said with a yawn: “Good-bye; mind you keep a lookout for that sharper.” Ivan Ilyitch instantly went into the first-class smok- ing-room, where the rector, who suffered from insomnia, was reading a book of Dumas’s. He watched him for ~ some time thinking what an excellent man he appeared, even though he was a sharper. He returned to the brightly illuminated corridor, which smelt of machin- ery and varnished wood and Dasha’s perfumes. He walked past her door on tiptoe and once in his own cabin threw himself on his back on the bunk and closed his eyes. He was agitated and filled with sounds and [ 108 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY perfumes and the heat of the sun, but above it all he felt an incomprehensible, poignant sadness. At seven o’clock he was awakened by the ship’s siren. They had reached Kineshma. Ivan Ilyitch dressed hast- ily and peered out into the corridor. All the doors were closed; every one was still asleep. Dasha, too, slept. “I must get off here, or it will be damned awk- ward,” Ivan Ilyitch thought, and went on deck. He looked at Kineshma, reached so inconveniently soon, at its steep high bank and its wooden steps and its medley of tumble-down wooden houses and roofs and fences, at the yellow-green limes of the town garden, so bright _ in the early morning, and at the clouds of dust hanging motionless above the carts moving down the slope. A broad-faced sailor, treading with firm, bare feet along the deck, appeared with Teliegin’s brown trunk... . “No, no, take it back; I’ve changed my mind,” Ivan Ilyitch said excitedly. “I’ve decided to go on to Nijni. I find I needn’t go to Kineshma. Put it there under the bunk. Thank you.” Ivan Ilyitch remained in his cabin for three hours trying to make up his mind how to explain to Dasha what he considered a vulgar and intrusive thing to do. It was clear that he could not explain it; he could neither lie nor tell the truth. At eleven o’clock, contrite, hating and despising him- self, he appeared on deck, his hands behind his back, his gait jaunty, his face deceitful; looking for all the world like some bounder. But when he had gone all over the deck and not been able to find Dasha, he grew alarmed and searched for her everywhere. Dasha was nowhere to be found. His mouth grew parched. Some- thing had evidently happened. But suddenly he came upon her. Dasha was sitting in the same spot as yes- [109 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY terday, in a wicker chair, sad and quiet. On her lap was a book and a pear. She slowly turned her head towards him; her eyes opened wide as though with fear and filled with joy; the colour rose on her cheeks; the pear rolled from her lap. “You here? Didn’t you get off?” she asked softly. Ivan Ilyitch swallowed his emotion, )sat down, be- side her and said in a hoarse voice: “I don’t know what you will think of me, but I purposely did not get off at Kineshma.” “T won't tell you what I think of you.’ Dasha — laughed and suddenly put her hand in his, simply and gently, making Ivan Ilyitch’s head go round that day even more than yesterday. | [110] X As a matter of fact this is what had happened in the Obukhovsky works.; On a rainy evening, when the phosphorescent sky was covered with wind-swept clouds, in a narrow street, stinking and dirty, with that partic- ular coal and iron dirt with which the neighbouring streets of a big works are habitually covered, there ap- peared among the crowd of workmen, who were re- turning to their homes after the hooter had gone, a stranger in a rubber coat with the hood up. For some time he followed them all, then he stopped and began to distribute leaflets to right and left, say- ing in a hoarse voice: “From the Central Committee. Read it, comrade.” The workmen took the leaflets as they walked and hid them in their pockets or in their caps. Of late among the sullen and angered mass of workmen, so jealously guarded by the authorities, through every pos- _ sible crevice there crept such young people, sent by in- visible friends. They appeared in the guise of ser- vants, unskilled labourers, hawkers, or like the present one, in a cloak and hood. They would give away leaf- lets and books, send forth rumours, explain the abuses of the management, and all would reiterate, “If you want to be human beings and not beasts, learn to hate those for whom you work.” The workmen felt and realized that on the Tsar’s government, which compelled them to work twelve hours a day and kept them from a full and happy life by this town of dirty streets and [2E) THE ROAD TO CALVARY night watchmen, which forced them to eat bad food and to dress in grimy clothes, to live with slovenly women who grew old while they were still young, who made them send their daughters into the streets and their boys into loathsome factories, there had come a judg- ment in the form of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party. The committee was elusive and in- visible. The workmen hated the government because of their monotonous life at the foundry, the Central Com- mittee hated it in a bitter and business-like way. It kept on repeating incessantly, “Demand, shout, revolt. | You are taught to be good, that is mere provocation. The proletariat’s virtue is to hate. You are told to be patient and forgiving, that is treason! You are not slaves. Hate and organize! You are enjoined to love your neighbour, but your neighbour uses your love to put you to the yoke. The only love that is worthy of man is the love for freedom. Remember, Russia was built by your hands. You alone are the lawful masters of the Russian State.” When the man in the rubber coat had nearly finished distributing all his leaflets a night-watchman forced a way through the crowd with his shoulders, saying hur- riedly, “You wait there,’ and seized the man behind by his coat. But the man was wet and slippery. He wrenched himself free and bending to the ground, got away. ‘There was a shrill whistle; from the distance an answering call came. A murmur arose among the dis- persing crowd, but the thing was done; the man in the rubber coat had disappeared. Some two days later the turners at the Obukhovsky works struck, quite unexpectedly to the management. They formulated demands which were not so serious as insistent. [112 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Throughout the whole factory, which was badly lighted by dirty windows and grimy sky-lights, vague phrases and angry words flew about like sparks. The men standing at the lathes looked curiously at their superiors as they passed; they were evidently restrain- ing some terrific excitement and were waiting for some kind of order. Old Pavlov, a skilled man, a tell-tale and gossip, who was fidgeting about near a hydraulic press, had his foot accidentally crushed by a red-hot mould. He screamed wildly and the rumour instantly went about the works that some one had already been killed. At nine o’clock the black limousine car of the chief engineer dashed into the yard like a storm. Ivan Ilyitch arrived at the works at the usual hour. It was a huge structure built in the form of a circus. The windows were broken here and there; long chains hung down from the cranes; there were smelting fur- naces by the walls and the floor was of earth. Ivan _llyitch stopped by the door. He shuddered from the morning cold and bid an amiable good morning to an incoming mechanic, Punko by name, whom he shook by the hand. _ They were busy on an urgent order for motor cheeks and Ivan Ilyitch discussed the work with Punko, con- sulting him in a thoughtful and business-like way. This small consideration gratified Punko. He had come to the works some fifteen years earlier as an unskilled labourer and had risen to be chief mechanic, thinking no end of his own knowledge and experience. Teli- egin knew that if Punko was satisfied the work would go quickly and well. As he went the round of the works Ivan LIlyitch ex- changed pleasantries with the moulders and smelters, [113 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY in that friendly, bantering kind of tone which more : than anything defined their true relationship. It seemed — to say, “You and I do the same work and are therefore comrades, but inasmuch as I am an engineer and you are a workman, we are actually enemies ; however, since we like and respect each other, we may as well be friendly.” A’ crane moved towards one of the furnaces, its de- scending chain clanging as it went. Philipp Shubin and Ivan Oreshnikov, tall, muscular men, one of whom re- sembled Pugatchev, dark, with slightly grey hair and in round spectacles, the other, Ivan Ilyitch’s favourite, with curly beard, fair hair fastened by a strap, blue-eyed and athletic, began, the one to tear away the plate from the front of the furnace, the other to shove a claw into the high white-hot melting-pot. The chain clanged, the pot moved forward, and, hissing and gleaming and dropping bits of clinker, it floated away in the air to the middle of the room. “Stop,” called Oreshnikov, “lower it.” Once more the crane groaned; the melting-pot came > down and a blinding stream of bronze, emitting bursting green stars, and sending an orange glow over the can- vas ceiling, poured out into the ground. There was a — heavy, sickly smell of copper fumes. Just then the folding-doors leading into the next build- ing swung wide open and quickly and resolutely there walked in a young workman with a pale and angry face; he was in a black shirt and wore a iP pulled low over the eyes. “Stop work and get out!’ he bucited) in a cruel voice, looking askance at Teliegin and pulling his black moustache. “Do you hear, or don’t you?” “We hear, don’t shout,’ Oreshnikov said quietly, [114 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY raising his head to the crane. “Wake up, Dmitri, let it down.” “If you’ve heard, then you know what to do; we won't ask a second time,” the workman said, and turn- ing sharply, walked out of the building. Ivan Ilyitch, sitting near some freshly poured molten metal, began to dig the ground carefully with a piece of wire. Punko, sitting on a high bench by the desk at the door, passed his hand quickly over his grey, goat- like beard and said, blinking his eyes: “You’ve got to stop work whether you like it or not. The fellows don’t care who’s to feed the young ones when they kick you out of the works.” “You had better not talk, Vasili Stepanitch,” Oresh- nikov said in a thick voice. “What do you mean?” “This is our mess. It won’t be your children who will go hungry . . . You will soon be running to the ‘managers . . . On this occasion you had better hold your tongue.” “What is the strike about?” Teliegin asked at last. “What do they want?” Oreshnikov, at whom Teliegin was looking, turned his eyes away. Punko answered for him. “Tt is the locksmiths who have struck. Sixty of their benches were put on piece work last week as an ex- periment and it happened that the men did not earn as much and had to put in overtime. There is a whole list of demands put up on the door of the sixth build- ing, but they are not serious ones.” He dug the pen fiercely into the pot and set to writing his report. Teliegin put his hands behind his back and [115] THE ROAD TO CALVARY walked the length of the furnaces, then said, with a | motion of the eyes towards a round hole beyond which, in an insufferable white heat, there danced and writhed in snake-like coils the boiling bronze: “Oreshnikov, couldn’t we manage so that this shouldn’t spoil, eh?” Without replying Oreshnikov took off his leathern apron, which he hung on a nail, put on his sheepskin cap and long thick coat and said in a heavy bass voice that resounded throughout the building: “Come away, comrades. Any of you who want to can go to the sixth building through the middle door.” And he walked towards the exit. The men silently threw down their tools, one climbing down from the crane, another crawling out from a hole in the ground, and in a crowd they followed Oreshnikov. Suddenly something occurred at the door. A shrieking, angry voice broke out: “Writing! Writing! You dirty cur! There, you report about me! Go on, tell the managers!” It was Alexis Nosov, a moulder, who was thus shouting at — Punko. His worn unshaven face with the dim, sunken eyes danced and writhed; a vein stood out on his thin neck. As he shouted he banged his fist on the edge of the desk. “Bloodsuckers! Torturers! We'll find a knife even for the likes of you!” Just then Oreshnikov seized Nosov round the middle and pulled him away from the desk to the door. The latter instantly grew quiet. The workshop was empty. - By mid-day the whole of the works was on strike. — There were rumours that all was not quiet at the Baltic and Nevsky shipyards. The men stood about in big groups in the yard, waiting to hear the results of the conference between the management and the strike com- [116 ] ) * THE ROAD TO CALVARY mittee, which, it turned out, had long been in existence. The conduct of the strike was left in its hands. A meeting was going on in the office. The manage- ment were prepared for concessions. The only hitch now was the question of a gate in the wooden fence which the men demanded should be opened as otherwise they were compelled to plough through the mud for a ‘quarter of a mile. Actually no one attached any im- portance to this gate, the matter was now merely one of prestige; the management grew obstinate and a long dispute arose. The strike committee placed this ques- tion of the gate on the social plane. At this moment, however, some one from the Ministry of the Interior rang up on the telephone to say that the demands of the strike committee were not to be conceded and that until special instructions had been given no conference was to be entered into with the committee. This order so prejudiced the whole affair that the senior engineer quickly dashed down to the town for an explanation. The men wondered; on the whole they were in a peace- ful mood. Several of the engineers went out among the crowd and explained the situation to them, per- plexed. Laughter could be heard here and there. No one could believe that because of some stupid door the whole of the works should be held up. At last, a big, burly, grey-haired engineer, Bulbin by name, appeared on the steps leading to the office and shouted out to the men in the yard that the conversations had been post- poned until tomorrow. | _ Ivan Ilyitch stayed in the workshop until the evening and seeing that the furnaces would go out in any case, he went home in disgust. In the dining-room the futurists were gathered and appeared immensely interested in what was happening [117] THE ROAD TO CALVARY at the works. Ivan Ilyitch did not tell them anything, however ; he thoughtfully munched the sandwiches which Elisaveta Kievna had placed before him, then he departed to his own room, locked the door and went to bed. Go- ing to the works next day he could see even from a dis- tance that something was wrong. All over the street, groups of workingmen, were standing talking together. — Near the gates was a crowd of several hundred men who were humming like excited bees. Ivan Ilyitch was in a soft hat and civilian overcoat and so no one paid any attention to him. He listened to the various groups and was able to gather that the night before the strike committee had been arrested, that ar- rests were still going on from among the men, that a new committee had been formed which was meeting secretly in some public-house and that the demands which they now formulated were of a political kind, that the yard of the works was full of Cossacks, and, it was said, they had been ordered to disperse the crowd but had refused | and that the Baltic and Nevsky shipyards and the French and several smaller works had joined in the strike. ’ This was all so improbable that Ivan Ilyitch resolved to get to the office to learn the news, but with the great- est difficulty he managed to push his way only as far as the gates. Next to the familiar porter, Bakin, a sul- len man in a huge sheepskin coat, stood two tall Cos- _ sacks with their caps drawn over their ears and red side- whiskers. They looked cheerfully and impudently at the unhealthy faces of the workmen, worn from lack of sleep; their own faces were red and their uniforms were smart and they were adepts, no doubt, at quarrelling and ~ sneering. “These peasants won’t stand on ceremony,” thought [118 ] ’ THE ROAD TO CALVARY Ivan Ilyitch and was going into the yard when the near- est Cossack barred his way, and looking at him steadily with his clear, merry eyes, he said: “Where are you going to? Back, there!” “T have to go to the office; I am an engineer.” “Back there, I say!” Then voices were heard in the crowd. “Infidels! Hounds!” “You've spilt enough of our blood!’ “Sated devils! Landlords!’ At this moment, a short pimply youth pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He had a large crooked nose, wore a coat much too large for him and a tall brownish cap clumsily thrust on his curly hair. Waving an un- developed white hand, he began, in a lisping voice: “Comrades, Cossacks, are we not all Russians? Against whom are you raising your arms? Against your own brothers: Are we your enemies that you should shoot us? What do we want? We want all Russians to be happy. We want every man to be free . . . We want to put an end to license. . . .” The Cossack compressed his lips, looked the young man up and down contemptuously, turned and walked through the gate. The other one said in a commanding and haughty voice: “We can’t allow any mutiny because we have taken the oath.” Then the first, who had evidently thought of a re- joinder, called out to the curly-haired youth: “Brothers, brothers . . . You hitch your trousers up, or they'll fall down!” The two Cossacks laughed. Ivan Ilyitch moved away from the gates and the surge of the crowd pushed him to the side against the fence, [119 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY where there were some rusty cog-wheels. He got on them and caught sight of Oreshnikov, who with his sheepskin cap at the back of his head, was calmly munching some bread. He gave a motion of the brows in Teliegin’s direction and said in his bass voice: “A pretty business this, Ivan Ilyitch.” “Good morning, Oreshnikov. How do you think it will all end?” “We shall go on shouting for a time and then touch our caps. Every revolt ends like that. They have brought out their Cossacks. With what can we fight them? Unless I throw this onion at the two of them and kill them. Queer devils.” Just then there was a murmur in the crowd and then silence. At the gate an abrupt commanding voice was heard in the stillness. “I ask you to go to your homes. Your grievances will be seen into. Please go away quietly.” The crowd became excited ; it moved backwards andi to the side. Some walked away altogether, others moved further back. The talk grew louder. Oreshnikov said: “This is the third time they have asked us.” “Who was it spoke?” “Esau.” “Comrades, don’t go away,” some one said in an ex- cited voice, and on the cog-wheels, behind Ivan Ilyitch, there jumped up a pale, agitated man in a large hat and with a black tangled beard, beneath which his smart jacket was fastened with a safety-pin at the neck. His face seemed familiar to Ivan Ilyitch. “Comrades, don’t go away on any account”; he ges- ticulated with his clenched fists; “we know for certain that the Cossacks have refused to fire. The manage-_ ment is negotiating indirectly with the strike committee. [ 120 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Besides which, the railwaymen are at this moment con- sidering the question of a general strike. The govern- ment is in a panic.” “Hurrah!” some one called joyfully. The crowd be- gan to murmur and to shout as it surged forward. Men could be seen running up the street. Ivan Ilyitch sought Oreshnikov with his eyes, but the latter had moved on some distance and now stood by the gate. From time to time his ear caught the word, “Rev- olution, revolution.” A frightened joyous thrill went all over Ivan Ilyitch. Climbing up on the cog-wheels he looked upon the crowd, which was now bigger, and suddenly he saw Akundin standing about two steps away by the fence. He did not recognize him at first. Ivan Avvakumovitch Akundin wore spectacles, a cap with a large peak and a black cape. With head bent, he was viciously gnawing his thumb-nail. Pushing his way towards him was a man with trembling lips and in a top-hat. Teliegin heard him call to Akundin. “Go, Ivan Avvakumovitch, they are expecting you.” “T will not go,’ Akundin bit off a piece of nail and stared with vacant eyes at the man approaching him. “The whole committee has met. They do not want to come to a decision without you.” “T stay here for a particular reason, that is clear,” Akundin replied. “Are you mad? You see what is going on. They'll begin to fire at any moment, I tell you. . . .” The cheeks and lips of the man in the top-hat trembled vio- lently. “First, J must ask you not to shout,’ Akundin said, “and then to go and take your attitude of compromise away with you. I won’t take back my word... .” [121] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “The devil knows what madness this all is!” said the man in the top-hat, pushing his way through the crowd. To Akundin there walked up the workman who had taken the men off their work in Teliegin’s workshop yes- terday. Akundin said something to him and the former nodded and disappeared. The same short sentence and the nod of the head were repeated with another man, whom Teliegin did not know. It was clear that Akundin was giving some order. The crowd on the further side of the gate became agitated again and shouting was heard. Suddenly three sharp volleys were fired in suc- cession and immediately there was silence. “A-a-h!’ groaned a stifled voice, as though intentionally. The crowd parted and backed away from the gate. In the trampled mud, face downwards and knees under him, lay a Cossack. Instantly a protest arose from the crowd, “Don’t, don’t!” The gates were opened. From behind somewhere a fourth revolver report was heard and some stones were flung which hit against the iron palings. Just then Teliegin caught sight of Oreshnikov, who was standing hatless and open-mouthed in the very front of the fast dispersing crowd. In his horror he seemed to have grown into the ground with his huge boots. At this moment a rifle shot rent the air like a crack of a whip, another, and Oreshnikov sank quietly to his knees, then fell flat on the ground. Within a week the investigation into the disturbances © at the Obukhovsky was finished. Ivan Ilyitch was one of the people who were suspected of sympathizing with the workmen. He was summoned to the office and, surprising every one, he said some sharp things to the directors, expressed his disapproval of the existing ar- rangements and signed his resignation. [ 122 ] XI Doctor Dmitri Stepanovitch Bulavin, Dasha’s father, was sitting in the dining-room at a bent, steaming samovar reading ‘““The Samara News.” When his cig- arette had burned down to the end, he took another from a flat cigarette-case, and lighted it at the end of the ~ first. He coughed, turned purple in the face and put his hand in at his unfastened shirt and scratched his hairy chest. His starched shirt-front and neck-tie were lying beside him on the table. As he read he kept dropping cigarette-ash on the newspaper, on his shirt and on the tablecloth. | | The creaking of a bed was heard from the other side of the door, then footsteps, and Dasha came into the room, a white dressing-gown flung over her nightdress. She was still rosy and half sleepy. Dmitri Stepanovitch looked at his daughter over the top of his pince-nez with those cold, grey, humorous eyes of his—like Dasha’s —and offered her his cheek. Dasha kissed him and sat down opposite, reaching out for the bread and butter. “Another windy day; what a bore!” she said. For the past two days a strong hot wind had been blowing. Limey dust hung in clouds over the town, obscuring the sun. These thick clouds of stinging dust blew in gusts about the streets and the few passers-by could be seen turning their backs on it and shutting their eyes painfully. The dust crept in everywhere and one felt it scrunch between the teeth. The wind shook the windows and rattled the iron roof and withal it was [ 128 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY hot and stuffy and even the rooms smelt of the street. “There is an epidemic of eye disease in the town,” Dmitri Stepanovitch observed. Dasha did not reply; she merely sighed. Her father was interested in epi- demics and politics, while she, oh God! what difference did it make how many epidemics of eye diseases there were in the town when her own affairs were in such vague and unsatisfactory condition? It was a fortnight now since Dasha had taken leave of Teliegin at the ship’s gangway—he had gone with her as far as Samara—and she had been living with her father with nothing to do in that new and unfa- miliar house, where boxes of unpacked books were still standing in the drawing-room since the winter and the curtains had not yet been put up. Not a comfortable corner was to be found; it was like living in an inn. As she stirred her tea, Dasha, in despair, stared through the window at the whirling clouds of dust. The last two years seemed to have gone as a dream and there she was at home again, and of all the hopes and fears and the many people she had met in noisy Peters- burg nothing seemed to ‘remain but these clouds of dust. “The Archduke has been killed,’ Dmitri Stepanovitch observed, turning over a fresh sheet of his paper. “Which one?” “How, which one? The Austrian Archduke has been assassinated in Sarayevo.” | “Was he young?” “I don’t know. Pour me out some more tea, please.” Dmitri Stepanovitch put a tiny piece of sugar in his mouth—he always drank tea with the sugar in his mouth—and looked good-humouredly at Dasha, who was standing by the samovar. [124] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “Tell me,” he said, “has Ekaterina definitely parted from her husband? I don’t quite understand.” “I have coed told you, father.” “Never mind. . . And again hel grew absorbed in his paper. Dasha went over to the window. How depressing! She re- called the white ship and above all, the sun, which was everywhere, in the blue sky, on the clean deck; every- thing was full of sunshine, moisture and freshness. It had seemed to her then that the shining road that wound slowly over the broad river was leading to hap- piness, that the expanse of water and the ship, “Fedor Dostoievski,’ and herself and Teliegin were all pour- ing into that blue, shoreless sea of light and joy which was happiness. Ivan Ilyitch suffered greatly. As they neared Sam- ara he grew despondent, lost his liveliness and mixed things up, somehow. Dasha imagined they were float- ing in towards happiness; she felt his gaze on her, like the gaze of a strong man who had been crushed by wheels. She was sorry for him and consequently tender and grateful, but how could she break down the barrier even ever so little when she realized that there would instantly come about that which must only hap- pen at the end of the journey? They would not be floating into happiness, but would be stealing it, im- patiently and foolishly. It was for this reason that she was gentle with Ivan Ilyitch as a sister would be and no more. To him it seemed that he would mortally offend her if he even hinted by so much as a word at ‘what had been keeping him awake for the past four nights and placed him in that strange half visionary kind of world, where all external objects glided by like shadows in a blue haze, and where Dasha’s challenging [125 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY and disturbing grey eyes scorched him and where he was conscious only of scents and sunlight and an in- cessant pain in his heart. At Samara Ivan Ilyitch had boarded another vessel and gone back, and Dasha’s shining sea, towards which she had drifted, vanished, fell to pieces, and outside the shaking windows, clouds of dust rose up. “The Austrians will give these Serbians what for,” said Dmitri Stepanovitch, taking off his pince-nez and _ throwing down his paper. “And what do you think of the Slav question, Kit-. ten?’ “Will you be home to dinner, Father?’ Dasha asked, returning to the table. “Quite impossible. I have a case of scarlet fever in the country at the Postnikovs’.” “You must be mad to drive into the country through this dust.” Dmitri Stepanovitch slowly put on his shirt-front, buttoned his coat, felt in his pockets to make sure that everything necessary should be there and combed the grey hair on his forehead with a broken comb. “Well, and what do you think of the Slav question, Kitten?” “T really don’t know. Why do you want to bother me ?” “T have my own ideas about it, anyhow, Daria Dmit- rievna’—he evidently had no desire to set out on his drive and on the whole he liked to discuss politics in the morning over the samovar—“the Slav question—mark my words, the Slav question is the peg of world politics. Many nations have broken their necks over it. That is why the place where the Slavs originated—the Balkans — —is the appendix of Europe. But why, you will ask. [126] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Let me explain.” And he bent his fat fingers. “First, the Slavs number more than two hundred millions and they breed like rabbits. Secondly, the Slavs succeeded in creating a powerful military state like the Russian Empire. Thirdly, the small Slav groups, notwithstand- ing the process of assimilation, are organizing into in- dependent units and are striving toward what is known as Slav federation. Fourthly, and this is most impor- tant of all, morally the Slavs represent something quite new and in a sense highly dangerous to European civ- ilization, the type of a seeker of God. And God-seek- ing—mark my words, Kitten—is a negation and de- struction of our modern civilization. I seek God, that is, the truth within myself. For this purpose I must be free, so I destroy the moral foundations beneath which I am buried and I destroy the state that keeps me in chains. Why can’t I lie? steal? kill? Tell me? You think that truth lies only in the good. But I will go and kill purposely and cross that most painful thing of all, conscience, and will find truth in despair.” “You had better start, Father,” Dasha said dejectedly. “T will seek truth there’”—Dmitri Stepanovitch pointed with his finger as though indicating the cellar, but stopped suddenly and turned to the door. A bell was ringing in the hall. “Dasha, open the door.” “T can’t. I’m not dressed.” “Matrena!” Dmitri Stepanovitch called. “Oh, that wretched woman, Ill wring her neck one of these days!” He went to the door himself and came back with a letter in his hand. “From Katia,” he said; “wait, don’t snatch it out of my hand. I will finish first. . . . You see, God-seek- ing begins, first of all, by destroying. That is a very [ 127 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY dangerous period and contagious as well. Russia is going through that aspect of the disease just now... . Everything is falling to pieces, you see, Kitten. When you go out in the evening along the main street you constantly hear some one crying aloud for help. Hot- heads saunter about the streets, working fellows from the outskirts and the factories. They won’t let any one pass. The police are quite unable to cope with their insolence. They’ve got no moral sense, and these hooli- gans, blackguards and scoundrels are God-seekers. Today they behave in this disgusting fashion in the. main street, tomorrow they will do it throughout the- whole of Russia. And it is all done for the sake of destruction. They have no other conscious purpose. In the mass the people are going through the first phase of God-seeking—the destruction of foundations.” Dmitri Stepanovitch sniffed and smoked his ciga- rette. Dasha seized Katia’s letter and went into her own room. He went on expounding for some time longer, walking about and banging doors in that large, half- empty and dusty house with its painted floors. Then he set out on his drive. “Dasha, dear,’ Katia wrote, “all this time I have no news of you and Nikolai. I am living in Paris. The season here is at its height. Skirts are being worn very narrow at the bottom. I do not know where I shall go at the end of June. Paris is very beautiful. I wish you could see it. Absolutely every one dances the tango. At lunch between the dishes people get up and dance and at five o’clock and at dinner and so on through the night. I cannot get away from the music, which is somehow so sad and painful and sweet. I feel as if I am burying my youth, something that I. can never recall. When I look at the women here with — [128 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY their low-cut dresses and their painted eyes and their smart men, I feel frightened and sad. I feel wretchedly miserable. I keep thinking that some one is going to die. I am anxious about father; he is no longer young. The place here is full of Russians, mostly people we know. We meet somewhere or other every day. It is just as if we had never left Petersburg. By the way, some one here told me that Nikolai was very friendly with some woman. Modern civilization had come to this monstrous pass. The state,consumed itself for the sake of equality, which was universal slavery. There was only one issue: to destroy to the roots our present world civilization and on the liberated and desolate earth, to begin to live for the sake of oneself. These ideas seemed miraculous to Elisaveta Kievna. She had at last met a man who had fired her imagination. For hours on end, with burning cheeks, she stared at Jadov’s lean and cynical face and listened to his ravings. When her leave was over and she was compelled to return to the “flying” hospital, Jadov said, “It would be absurd of you to leave me.” “But they won’t extend my leave.” “We must be married.” Elisaveta Kievna nodded her consent. They were mar- ried in the hospital. In December Jadov was moved to Moscow, where he had another operation performed and early in the spring he came with Elisaveta Kievna to Anap and settled in the “Chateau Caberné.” They had very little money and kept no servants, except an old porter, who used to do their shopping in the town. A long period of hopeless idleness began in that cold, bare, half-ruined house. There was nothing left to talk about and in front of them lay boredom and poverty. A dark door seemed to have slammed behind them. Elisaveta Kievna tried to fill the emptiness of those terribly long days with her own personality, but in this she succeeded badly. She was ridiculous when she tried to charm, with her untidiness and incapacity. Jadov would taunt her with it and she would think in despair that, notwithstanding her broadness of view, she was very sensitive as a woman. [271 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY | Lately he had become cruel and would be silent for days, while she found consolation in imagining how he would kill and then, in his, hopeless loneliness, would come to love her at last. And yet, she knew that she would not have exchanged for any other life, this life of torment, anxiety and pain, of submission to her husband and rare moments of joy. Elisaveta Kievna took up the heavy jug when she had filled it and went upstairs. The lamp had not yet been lighted in the room, but visitors were there. Alexander | Ivanovitch Jirov and Filka were sitting on the window- sill and Gvosdik, a tall man with a weak back, was pacing from door to window, angrily talking to Jadov. “The French Revolution let loose individuality and in the fever of romanticism, bourgeois civilization was born. At the end of the century a few individualities, some score of millionaires, attained perfect freedom, but at the price of enslaving the whole world. Your idea of in- dividuality, your king of kings, has been exploded like a soap-bubble. It led nowhere, merely lighting up the dungeons of the penal prisons where we forged our chains. The light of that pernicious torch has been broken. ... We must uproot the very instinct of separate individuality, the I as I. ... We must let mankind go back to the herd and we will become its leaders. We must destroy any one who is an inch above the herd.” He pointed a bony hand at Jadov: “The whole idea is in that inch and we must lop it off. In the terrible sunset of the age in which we have started on our way, we are envel- oped in night. A war was arranged for us. We have been set against each other once more. For the last time they have tried to deceive us damnably. But there are many millions of us and we will survive this war.” (272) —————e THE ROAD TO CALVARY | He doubled up suddenly and began to cough, a dry, in- ternal cough, which sounded like a bark. He dropped into a chair and shook his hairy head. Filka, who was sitting on the window-sill, began to speak in a thin, soft voice. “At our works it is only the fools who do not see why the people are shedding their blood and why we are straining our stomachs with overtime. It is an adventure of world capitalism. The people were driven into the war; the chief ring-leaders, the German Emperor, the King of England, the French President, the Austrian Francis Joseph, and our own fool have long settled it among themselves.” _ “Nonsense,” said Gvosdik, breathing hard. ‘Don’t talk such nonsense! But if you mean that their aim is the same, there I agree with you.” “T have every reason for what I say.” Gvosdik rose and poured himself out a glass of wine. His Adam’s apple moved up and down as he drank it. Once more he began to pace the room with his flat feet. “You have come back a stranger, Jadov,” he said. “We no longer understand one another. Hear me out. - Your analysis is a correct one. In the first place, capi- talism had to make a clearance of its accumulated goods; in the second place, capitalism had to crush with a single blow proletarian democracy, which was becoming too dangerous. They have attained their first object with even more success than anticipated. The demands of the war were a hundredfold more than the peace demands. Wagon-loads of goods can be cast into that furnace. As for their second object, they will be broken on that. The ace of hearts will be beaten. It won't be capital that will triumph, but the masses of the people, the ants, social- [ 273 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY ism. A milliard people are living under conditions of military operations and the military socialization of in- dustry. Fifty million men, from the ages of seventeen to forty-five, are in possession of arms. The separation of the working masses of Europe is an artificial one. The workers have learnt to make arms and at a given sign they will stretch out their hands to each other across the trenches. The war will end in revolution, in a world conflagration; the bayonets will be turned on the coun- tries’ interiors. And now you come out with your retro-. grade deduction which is both false and foolish. What is the use of your individual freedom? It is anarchism, madness. The pathos of equality is the issue of the war. You understand what that means. It means a reconstruc- tion of the whole world, of the state and morality. The globe must be turned inside out in order to come but a little nearer to the truth, which is burning in a bloody flame among the masses of the people. Justice! A scabby beggar will rise up on an emperor’s throne and cry, “The world for all!’ and the people will bow down before him and kiss his scabs. From cellar and sewer they will drag out a creature, in the last stages of degradation, a creature barely resembling a human being, and according to his pattern they will cut the general level. Where do you come in with your individuality, with your king of kings? They will cut off your head if it sticks up above the - others.” Jadov was sprawling on the couch, shifting his ciga- rette from one side of his mouth to the other. The glow it cast lighted up his sneering lips and his cold nose. Elisa- veta Kievna gazed at him from the dark corner in which she sat. “Drunk and tired as you are,” she thought. “I will [ 274 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY | undress you and put you to bed. Nobody but I under- stands your soul. Even though you hate, I shall be true to you till death.” Her heart beat fast. “Supposing,” Jadov began, in a low, icy voice, “suppos- ing that your rickety Mitruka, with his jaw smashed at the war, does get up at last and bawl about equality; supposing that he kills his officers, abolishes parliaments and councils of ministers and chops off the head of any one who uses a handkerchief and so on, and that every- thing in the world is made equal. Supposing it is as you say. But what will you leaders be doing all the time? Will you be brought down to the level of Mitruka, the syphilitic from the sewer, eh?” Gvosdik replied quickly. : “To pass from war to mutiny, from mutiny to political revolution and further on to social revolution, we must © bring out a fourth class, the armed proletariat, which must bear the responsibility for the revolution, assume the dictatorship.” “Then you abandon your idea of levelling down to Mitruka ?” “During the revolution there will not be equality; there _ will be dictatorship. Revolutionary ideas are implanted in fire and blood, as you ought to know.” “And what will you do with your revolutionary prole- tariat when the revolution is over? Will you level the whole class to Mitruka, or will you allow your worthy revolutionary aristocracy to remain somehow or other?” Gvosdik stopped and scratched his beard. “The proletariat will return to its lathes. . . . Of course you are bound to come in conflict here with hu- man nature, but what are you to do? The tops must be lopped off.” . [ 275 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY | “On one fine day, then, realizing that the revolution is finished, your revolutionary proletariat with the com- rade dictators at the head will decree to have itself abolished,” Jadov said, “‘so you would have us believe. But that is not my idea. There is a curious law of na- ture according to which, the more abstract an idea, the bloodier is its incarnation to life, and it incarnates math- ematically, feet upwards. In Jewish cabalistics our world is supposed to be an overturned shadow of God. It is a very old law. When you come to the idea of love and freedom, it is quite clear to what they will lead. You have only to apply such an idea to man- kind and fountains of blood will rush to meet you. The time has gone by for your idea of equality. You ad- mit that it must bring bloodshed, and in that, I am at one with you; I give you my hand on it, comrades; I believe in your dictatorship, too, but as to how it will end, about that’ we had better keep silent. Your son of a dog, your rickety Mitruka, the syphilitic, I loathe and despise from the bottom of my heart. I agree to level him under the rake and to knock him on the head when he cries out. I am ready to make revolution to- morrow morning, if you like, but not for the sake of levelling myself to Mitruka, but for the levelling of Mitruka. . . . I shall be a good master, I promise you.” Jadov lifted his legs and got up. He finished his glass of wine at a gulp and began to pace the room with a light, jerky tread. Elisaveta Kievna watched him from her corner with a beating heart. “Look at him, the king of kings, the great man, my husband !” The wind, which had risen with thg might, shook the shutters, blew in at every crevice, arid howled wildly in the attic. | [ 276 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY | The friends were silent. Filka got off the window- sill, poured himself out some wine, and turning with the glass in his hand, said to Jadov, in a wheedling tone: “We want more men like you, Comrade Jadov. God only knows when the revolution will begin or when it will end, and we have no fighters. The people are very ignorant. They only know how to hate, but when it comes to business, they are ready to stab each other in the back. Itisa risky business to begin, of course, and there is no one to begin it.” “To begin it, the devil! To begin with three ko- pecks!” Jadov said, throwing himself down on the couch again. Suddenly he asked in a different tone: “Alexander Ivanovitch, well now? . All heads turned to the dark, narrow- Paeeied form of Jirov, sitting on the window-sill. He began to fidg- et. Gvosdik spoke excitedly. “Comrades, I haven’t the party’s permission; I can’t hex _ take part in this business.” “T take the responsibility of it myself,” said Jadov; “that’s settled and has nothing to do with the party. “Are you satisfied ?” | -Gvosdik was silent. Filka spoke in a still more wheedling voice. “It is a public affair. We agree absolutely, but as for the party, it is doubtful.” Gvosdik drummed his fingers on the table. “T shall take part in the deliberations as a private person only. I must warn you again that I can’t take _ the responsibility. You must act without me. Filka can do as he likes.” “But will you take the money?” Jadov cried. “Yes.” ! [277 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “That’s all right, then; it’s settled, Lisa, bring some more wine.” Elisaveta Kievna took up the jug and walked out. She knew that something important was going on just now, a thing they had been deliberating for five nights. It began soon after Alexander Jirov had told them about a new acquaintance he had made, Colonel Bris- sov, the commandant of the Anap garrison, a Vladi- vostok man, whom he discovered to be an unexpected admirer of the new poetry. A few days later, in a room at the Anap Greek hotel there had been a meeting with the colonel. Jadov, Jirov and Elisaveta Kievna were there. Brissov gave them some genuine crown vodka, read them futurist poems and laughed loudly, stroking his half grey beard on each cheek. There was no end to his good-nature and muddle-headedness. “I am the last of the Lantsepoups,” Brissov had cried, unfastening his sweating khaki coat. “I’ve got the will in my possession. After the Japanese war, the modern style came into vogue and the Lantsepoups grew degenerate. There used to be a club at Vladivostok at one time. They’d have a glass of vodka for you at every step on the staircase. You ought to have tried the walking up; ha, ha; with thirty-seven steps to get u i The colonel, evidently, had no secrets whatever. He told them about “the phenomenal looting that was go- ing on in the newly occupied Turkish regions,’ and that “a felucca with stolen gold would be coming there in a day or two from Trebizond. I am told they are carry- ing rice; ha, ha! Rice! And why, may I ask, should they order me to place a military guard for the ar- rival of a private vessel carrying rice?” Elisaveta Kievna had guessed that the nocturnal gath- [278 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY erings related to the felucca. When she returned with the wine, the visitors had already gone. Jadov was standing by the window. “They can all talk,” he said in a low voice, without turning, “but when it comes to jumping from the word mormenre deed: 3.4... Yous try tye.’ He’ turnedito his wife. His face was distorted. ‘The essence is in the jump, not the idea of it. I may break my neck, but I shall jump. The jump is the brave thing. . . . Ideas are ideas. Gvosdik says I am an anarchist. He talks nonsense, like a fool. . . . I want to live. That is the sum total of my philosophy. Quite enough reason to spit on all your laws, God-made and man-made. . . . Why do you stare at me? Yes, I] am brave because. . .”’ He put out his hand to push Elisaveta Kievna aside, for she had come quite close to him, but she caught at his cold fingers. He suddenly drooped his head. “What have you decided to do?” “To rob the felucca with rice tomorrow night.” He repeated the sentence more calmly and with a sneer, then he began to stare at the dark window. Elis- aveta Kievna put her arms round his shoulders and pressed her cheek against him. He spoke more quietly. “There is no justification for the robbery, that is the whole force of it. Had there been I would have re- fused to have anything to do with it. It is unjustifi- able, that’s the whole essence, don’t you see?” “Can I come with you tomorrow ?” “Yes. The business is only a beginning, Lisa. It will help me to turn around. I will raise a cry. We shall find friends. We will open the cellars and let man’s hatred loose. That will do for the present. Let us go to bed.” The whole of the day a strong, cold wind blew. Jadov went into the town and returned in the evening, [ 279 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY excited and cheerful. At dusk, he walked with Elisa- veta Kievna down the hills to the rough, noisy sea. Elisaveta Kievna’s teeth chattered. The shore was de- serted. The twilight grew thicker. At the place where the dunes came right up to the water, two figures rose from a bush. They were Filka and Alexander Jirov. “We have left the sloop by the bathing place; it was too shallow to bring it here,” Filka said in a whisper. Jadov did not reply. He walked over the sticky sand, against which the waves were lapping. Walking was difficult, the water coming up higher than the knees. Elisaveta Kievna stumbled against a stump and caught hold of Jirov, who staggered, terrified. His face and thick lips were as white as chalk. “It’s a mad, astounding night,” she said. “Aren’t you afraid?” he asked in a whisper. “What nonsense! On the contrary.” “Do you know that Filka threatened to kill me?’ “Why “sd “Tf I refused to come with you.” “He was right.” “But, you know. . . By a crooked, érbatiny bathing-hut, which smelt of sea-weed and decay, a steep-sided sloop rocked to and fro. Jadov was the first to jump into it. He sat down by the rudder. “Jirov to the prow; Lisa and Filka take the oars!” It was difficult to get away from the bank; huge breakers kept dashing the sloop on the sands. They were all soaked through. Jirov gave a low cry, hold-| ing on to his hat and made a sudden attempt to leave the boat. Jadov stood up and said, “Filka, knock him ! and Jirov again huddled up, trem-— ey down with the oar! bling at the boat’s prow. [ 280 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Elisaveta Kievna pulled strongly at the oars, lean- ing back with every stroke. Had it not been for her husband she would have cried aloud with joy. The boat now rose at the crest of the noisy waves, now fell between the walls of black water. Jadov again rose in the stern and looked about him. Some twenty sagenes ahead there rocked the black form of a two-masted felucca. Jadov turned leeward and called to Jirov, “Catch hold of the rope!” The sloop came close to the body of the felucca, which smelt strongly of hot tar and creaked as it rose and fell with the waves. The wind whistled through the rigging. Alexander Jirov caught hold of the rope with both hands. Filka caught at the rope ladder with the boat-hook. Light as a cat Jadov ran up the ladder and sprang on deck. Filka sprang after him. Elisa- veta Kievna put down the oars and looked up. A min- ute passed, not more, and three sharp reports were heard. Alexander Jirov pressed against the rope and dropped his head. Above, a strange voice cried slowly, son, ‘they ve killed me, ..\..\.77 Instantly a bustling began. Three locked figures ap- peared at the ship’s side. One of them hung over. An -arm was raised and came down with a heavy blow and a body fell with a heavy thud into the water by the sloop. Elisaveta Kievna, dazed, looked and _ listened. Jadov came to the ship’s side and called: “Alexander Jirov, come up!” Jirov hung limp on the rope-ladder. Jadov stretched out a hand and pulled him on deck. “Lisa, you look after the boat,” he said. ‘We shall soon be through.” In an hour, the sloop pushed away from the felucca, Filka being the only one to row. A small trunk stood [281] THE ROAD TO CALVARY at Elisaveta Kievna’s feet. They had found it in a sack of rice. At the bottom of the boat, too, sat Jirov, his face huddled between his raised knees. They left the sloop by the bathing place and the four of them set out to the “Chateau Caberné” along the edge of the water, which covered their traces. About half way, red shadows were cast on the sand by their mov- ing figures and the foam of the breakers grew blood- red. Elisaveta Kievna turned. In the distance, among rolling clouds of smoke, the felucca was burning, cast- ing a round glow. Jadov bent forward and shouted, “Run, run! . Ay 4 [ 282 ] XXIV At the beginning of the winter of 1916, at a time of deep depression and disappointed hopes, the Russian troops unexpectedly attacked and captured the fort of Erzerum. It was a time when the English had under- gone military reverses in Mesopotamia and Constan- tinople and on the western front desperate fighting was going on for the possession of the ferryman’s little house of the Yser, when a few metres of blood-stained land captured was held to be a victory, about which the electric currents from the Eiffel Tower were busy sending messages throughout the world. Under most cruel conditions, the Russian army, in mountain snowstorms and frost, scrambling up frozen rocks, attacked Erzerum and spread throughout the big district of ancient towns abandoned by the Turks. There was international consternation. A book was hastily published in England about the mysteries of the Russian soul. And in fact, contrary to all logical rea- soning, after eighteen months of war, defeat and the loss of seventeen governments, the low morale, eco- nomic collapse and political chaos, Russia once more began an advance on the whole of her three thousand versts of front. There was a reaction of new and seemingly inexhaustible strength. Hundreds of thou- sands of prisoners were moved to the interior of Rus- sia. Austria had received a death-blow, after which she easily fell to pieces. Germany made a secret offer of peace. The value of the ruble rose. Again hopes [ 283 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY were revived that the war would be ended by military force. The “Russian soul” grew popular. Ships were filled with Russian divisions. Peasants from Orlov, Tula and Riasan sang “Nightingale, little bird” in the streets of Salonica, Marseilles and Paris and went into the fight with coarse oaths to save European civiliza- tion. It entered many of their heads at the time that lackeys and dogs and superior officers might knock them about, but that they could not be dispensed with. Throughout the summer there was an advance-in- the south to Mesopotamia, Armenia and Asiatic Tur- key and in the west to the interior of Galicia. All re- serves were called up. Men of forty were taken from field and workshop. In every town supplementary for- mations were going on. The number of men mobilized approached twenty-four millions. There hung over Germany and the whole of Europe the time-old terror of multitudes of Asiatic hordes. \ Moscow was deserted that summer. Like a pump, the war had sucked up all the masculine population. Nikolai Ivanovitch had gone to the front, to Minsk, in the spring and Dasha and Katia lived in the town in a quiet, retired way. There was a great deal of work to do. Sometimes short, sad letters would come from Teliegin. He had made an attempt to escape from captivity, but was caught and removed to a fortress. At one time a pleasant young man used to call on the sisters. His name was Roshchin; he had only just been made an ensign. He came of a good professorial [ 284 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY family and had known the Smokovnikovs in Peters- burg. Every evening at dusk, a ring ‘would be heard at the front door. Ekaterina Dmitrievna would sigh guardedly and go over to the sideboard to put jam in the dishes and to cut up the lemon for tea. Dasha noticed that when Roshchin came in after the ring, Katia would not immediately turn her head toward him, but would wait a moment and smile in her usual sad and gentle way. Roshchin would bow silently. He was a tall man, with large hands and slow movements. He would sit down slowly by the table and in a calm, low voice, would relate the war news. Katia would sit quietly by the samovar, gazing at his face, and from the solem- nity of her eyes and her large pupils, it was clear that she was not listening to his words. When his gaze met hers, Roshchin would immediately bury his clean- shaven face in his large glass and a bead of perspira- tion would begin to roll down his cheek. Sometimes there would be a long silence at table and Katia would sigh, “Oh, heavens!’ and she would colour and smile apologetically. At seven o’clock Roshchin would rise, kiss Katia’s hand carefully and Dasha’s absently and depart, hitting his shoulder against the doorpost as he went out. His footsteps would long be echoed down the deserted street. Katia would wash the cups, lock the sideboard, and without a word, would go into her own room and turn the key in the lock. Once, at sunset, Dasha was sitting by the open win- dow. Martins were flying high above the street. Dasha listened to their shrill, crystal-clear voices, thinking that tomorrow would be a hot, fine day, since the martins flew so high. The martins knew nothing about the war, happy birds! [ 285 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY — The sun sank. The whole town was bathed in a golden dust, through which the narrow crescent of the moon grew clearer and clearer. People were sitting at gateway and porch. Dasha felt sad and apprehen- sive. Near by a street-organ struck up in the eternal evening dullness of the lower orders. Dasha leant her elbow on the window-sill. A woman’s high voice, which seemed to reach to the very garrets, began to sing “I lived on dry crusts and drank cold water.” Katia approached the back of Dasha’s chair and seemed also to be listening, motionless. ; “How well she sings that, Katia.” “Why?” Katia burst out in a low, agitated voice; “why have we been afflicted like this? Is it my fault? When will it all end? I shall be an old woman soon. I can’t bear it any longer! I can’t! .. .” She choked. She was standing by the wall near the curtains, pale, with wrinkles round her mouth, staring at Dasha with dry, clear eyes. “T can’t bear it any more! I can’t!” she repeated in a quiet, hoarse voice. “It is never going to end! We shall all be dead! We shall never be happy again. Do you hear her singing? She is burying me alive!” Dasha put her arms about her sister. She caressed and wanted to soothe her, but Katia stuck out her el- bows and repulsed her. She was like stone. “What is the matter, Katia? My dear, do calm your- self!’ But Dasha heard Katia clench her teeth; her hands were like ice. “What has happened? Why are you like this?” Just then a bell rang in the hall. Katia put her sister aside and stared at the door. Roshchin entered with shaven head. He greeted Dasha with a crooked smile, gave his hand to Katia and frowned when he looked | 286 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY > at her face. Dasha immediately went into the dining- room. As she put the tea things on the table, she heard Katia ask in a restrained, hoarse voice: “Are you going away?” “Yes.” “Tomorrow ?” “Yes. Tomorrow morning.” “Where to?” “To the third army.” After a pause, he said: “The fact is, Ekaterina Dmitrievna, that as we are meeting for the last time I have decided to tell you a “No, don’t. I know everything. . . . And you know aboutime, 2.5” “Ekaterina Dmitrievna, you?” Katia cried desperately. “You can see for yourself! Do go, I implore you!” The jam jar in Dasha’s hand trembled. There was silence in the drawing-room. At last Katia said quietly: “God will guard you. . . . Go, Vadim Petrovitch.” “Good-bye.” He sighed gently, then his footsteps were heard and the door banged. Katia came into the dining-room and sat down by the table. She covered her face with her hands and the tear-drops fell between her fingers. From that day she never spoke a word about the man who had gone. And there was nothing to talk about. Had she the strength she would have wrenched from her heart and forgotten the needless pain, which at twilight had entered her foolish, lovesick heart at such an incon- venient time. Katia bore her pain bravely, though she would rise in the morning with red eyes and swollen mouth. Roshchin sent a postcard on his journey, giving the sisters his kind [ 287 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY | regards. The postcard was put on the mantel-piece, where it became covered with fly marks. Every evening the sisters would go for a walk in the Tverskaya Boulevard to listen to the music. They would sit down on a bench and watch the boys and the girls in pink dresses and the women and children all strolling beneath the trees. A man in uniform with a bandaged arm would be seen here and there or an invalid on crutches. The Dukhov band would play the waltz “On the Hills of Manchuria.” “Tu, tu, tu,” a cornet sang sadly, and the sound was borne into the evening sky. Dasha took Katia’s hand and kissed it gently. “Katia,” she said, gazing at the setting sun that peeped through the branches, “do you remember the poem, ‘Love o’ mine unfulfilled, Cooling in my heart’? I believe that if we are brave enough, we shall live to a time when we can love with eyes shut, without thinking and troub- ling. . . . We know now that there is nothing better on earth than love. I sometimes feel that if Ivan Il- yitch were to come home, he would be a stranger to me. Now I love him in a kind of immaterial way, but I love him well and truly. We shall meet, however, as though we had loved each other in another life. We shall seem kindred and strange to each other at the same time. Don’t you think it’s a little terrifying? Something is going to happen, I know. I feel at times as if my heart were quite transparent.” Ekaterina Dmitrievna pressed her cheek against Dasha’s shoulder and said: “And my heart is so full of grief and pain that it seems to me quite old. My bloom is over and sterile.” “It’s a shame to talk like that, Katia!” “But we must be brave, my child.” It was on such an evening that a man in uniform sat [ 288 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY | down at the other end of their bench. The band was playing an old waltz. The lamps were lighted behind the trees and shone dimly as yet in the half light. The man on the bench stared so hard at Dasha that her neck grew uncomfortable. She turned and suddenly gave a low, frightened cry. “Tt can’t be!” : Bezsonov was sitting beside her. He was thin and drawn and his leather coat hung on him like a sack. On his cap was a red cross. He rose and bowed silently. Dasha said, “How do you do?” and compressed her lips. Ekaterina Dmitrievna leaned back against the seat in the shadow of Dasha’s hat and shut her eyes. Bezsonov stared at the gravel beneath his feet. He seemed either dusty or unwashed, so grey did he look. “I saw you in the boulevard yesterday and the day before,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “but I dared not come near you. . . . I am going to the front to fight tomorrow. You see they’ve come even to taking me.” “How can you be going to fight when you are in the _ Red Cross?” Dasha said with sudden irritation. “T allow the danger is comparatively less. But it’s all the same to me whether I am killed or not killed. life is dull, Daria Dmitrievna.” He raised his feat aud looked at her lips with a heavy, dull gaze. “It’s so dull with nothing but corpses, corpses and corpses. . . .” “Do you find that dull?’ asked Katia without open- ing her eyes. “Very, Ekaterina Dmitrievna. I still retained some sorry hopes. . . . But with all these corpses and corpses, everything has gone to the devil. The civilization we created has turned out futile and illusive. Reality consists of corpses and blood—chaos. To be quite frank with you, Daria Dmitrievna, I sat down here with [ 289 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY the object of asking you to spare me half an hour.” “What for?” Dasha looked at his face, strange and unwholesome with the loose and cynical mouth. It struck her with a force that made her head go round that she was seeing the man for the first time. “T have thought a great deal about what happened in the Crimea,’ Bezsonoy said, frowning, “and I wanted to talk to you.” He slowly felt in the pocket of his leather coat for his cigarette-case. “I wanted to re- move certain prejudicial impressions. . . .” Dasha half closed her eyes. There was no sign of magic attraction in the face. He was simply a man in the street. And she said resolutely: “T don’t think you and I can have anything to talk about.” She turned away. Katia’s arm trembled behind her back. Dasha coloured and frowned. “Good-bye, Alexis Alexeyevitch.” Bezsonov twisted his chapped, tobacco-stained lips into a smile, raised his cap and walked away. Dasha looked at his weak back, at his loose trousers, which seemed to be falling off him, at his heavy dusty boots. Was that indeed Bezsonov, the demon of her girlish nights? She felt a sudden intense pity for him. “Katia, wait for me; I’ll be back in a moment.” And she ran after Bez- sonov. He had turned down a side path. Panting, Dasha caught up with him and touched his sleeve. He turned round and compressed his lips. “Don’t be angry with me, Alexis Alexeyevitch.” “T am not angry. It was you who refused to talk to me.” “Tt was not that. . . . You misunderstood. I am quite kindly disposed towards you. . . . I wish you all good things. . . . As for what happened between us, [ 290 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY it is not worth bringing that back, is it? There is noth- ing left of the former. . . . I was much to blame. I am so sorry for you... .” He shrugged his shoulders and stared beyond Dasha at the passers-by with a smile. “T thank you for your pity.” Dasha sighed. Had Bezsonov been a little boy, she would have taken him home and washed him in warm water and given him sweets to eat and not have let him go until pleasure had shone in his eyes. But as he was, what could she do with him? . . . Inventing his own pain and miserable and hurt and angry. “Alexis Alexeyevitch, if you would care to, do write to me every day. I will be sure to reply regularly,” Dasha said, looking up in his face with the kindliest ex- pression. He threw back his head and laughed a wooden, cyni- cal laugh. “Thank you. . . . It is a year now since I’ve got to hate ink and paper.” He clenched his teeth with a frown, as though he had swallowed some sour substance. “You must either be a saint or a fool, Daria Dmit- -rievna. . . . Don’t mind what I say. . . . Like an in- fernal pain you have been sent to torment me in life. . For two years now I have lived like a monk. You have it now!” He made an effort to go, but could not move his feet from the spot. Dasha was standing with bent head. She had understood everything and was sad, but her heart was unclouded. Bezsonov gazed at her bent neck, at her virgin breast, visible through the open- ing of her white dress. He felt that this must be death. “Be merciful!’ he said, in a soft human voice. “Yes, [ 291 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY yes,” she murmured without raising her head, and walked away among the trees. For the last time, Bezsonov, with piercing glance, sought her fair head among the crowd. She did not turn. He rested a hand on a tree and his fingers dug into the green bark. The earth, that last resting place, was giving way beneath his feet. [292] XXV The dull disc of the moon hung above the desert peat bogs. The mist curled above the holes and ditches of abandoned trenches. Tree stumps projected everywhere and low-growing charred fir trees. It was damp and still, Across the narrow dam, in single file, horse fol- lowing horse, the hospital baggage-train trundled along. The front, which was their destination, lay some three versts from the jagged outline of the wood, from whence no sound came. In one of the carts Beuarar lay on his back. He was covered with a horse-cloth that smelt of horse sweat. Every evening when the sun set his fever would begin. He shivered and his teeth chattered. The whole of his body seemed to dry up and with a cold effervescence, flitting, changing thoughts whirled clearly in his brain. He felt a wonderful sensation of losing physical sub- stance. He tucked the horse-cloth up to his chin and gazed at the misty, feverish sky. It was there that his earthly journey ended. Mist and moonlight and the rocking of the wagon like a cradle. Completing the cycle of a century, once more the creaking of Scythian chariots could be heard. Everything that had gone before was a dream, the Petersburg lights, the music in the hot, bril- liant halls, a woman’s hair flung over a pillow, the dark pupils of her eyes, the mortal despair of her gaze. . . The dullness, the loneliness. . . . The dim light of his study, the tobacco smoke, the agitated beating of the [ 298 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY heart and intoxication at the birth of words. ...A girl with white daisies fatally coming in from the lighted hall into his dark room, into his life. . . . And despair, despair, which covered his heart with a sald FST: 1%. They were all dreams. . . . The wagon rocks. Beside him walks a bearded peasant with a cap over his eye; he has walked beside that cart for two thousand years. ‘ . There it lay, the endless stretch of time, in the mist of the moon. . . . Shadows move from the dark- ness of the ages, carts creak and the world is furrowed | in black lines. Once more the Huns are walking over the earth. And in the dim mist, burning columns and smoke stretching to the sky and the creaking and jolt- ing of wheels. And the creaking grows louder and spreads, until the whole sky is filled with the rumbling noise. . Suddenly, the cart stopped. Above the noise which filled the white night, the voices of the men on the baggage-train were heard. Bezsonov raised himself on his elbow. Low above the wood a long body floated. It gleamed and shone in the moonlight. The throbbing of | engines grew nearer and louder. A narrow shaft of light shot from its belly and ran across the bog, the stumps, the shattered trees and the fir-bush and struck the road by the wagons. Above the din, ta, ta, ta, came fainter sounds like the © banging of a machine-gun. . . . Men came out of their wagons. The ambulance wagon swerved and rolled over in the bog. . . . About a hundred paces from Bezsonov, on the road, a blinding mass of light shot up. In a dark mass, horse and wagon rose in the air. A huge | volume of smoke, a thundering crash and whirlwind and the whole baggage-train pitched forward. Horses with the foreparts of carriages galloped across the bog and | [ 294 J THE ROAD TO CALVARY men ran ‘wildly. The wagon on which Bezsonov lay swerved and fell and Bezsonov rolled into a ditch. A heavy sack struck his back; he was completely covered with straw. The airship dropped another bomb and then the sound of its engines retreated and stopped altogether. Groan- ing, Bezsonov tried to dig his way out of the straw. With difficulty he crawled from beneath the baggage that had fallen on him. He shook himself and scrambled to the road. A few wagons were standing there with their foreparts gone. On the bog lay a horse in the shaft with its head thrown back, automatically twitch- ing its hind leg. Bezsonov touched his face and fore- head. There was a sticky place by his ear. He put his handkerchief on the scratch and walked away down the road towards the wood. From the shock of the fall and the fright his legs trembled so that he soon had to sit down on a rubbish heap. He would have liked some brandy, but the flask had been left with the baggage in the cart. After some difficulty Bezsonov pulled some matches and a pipe out of his pocket and lighted up. The tobacco smoke tasted bitter and nasty. He remem- bered that he had a fever. He was in a bad plight. At any cost he must reach the wood where he had been told a battery was stationed. He rose, but his legs gave way beneath him. They felt so wooden that they would not move below the knees. He sat down again and rubbed and stretched and pinched them and when he felt them ache, he rose, and walked on. The moon now stood high and the road, winding through the desert bog, seemed endless. He put his hands on the small of his back and staggered on, with difficulty lifting his heavy boots. Bezsonov began to talk to himself. [295] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “They take you and chuck you out. . . . There, drag yourself along, you dog, until the wheels go over you. . . . And how did I interfere with you, may I ask? All I did was to write verses and seduce stupid women... . But they would run after me. ... And life was so dull. . . . still, that was my own affair. . . . They take you and chuck you out. . . . Go, drag yourself along the bog and perish. . . . You can protest if you have a mind) to... Go on, protest, ‘scream. ",) 4." Screany scream louder. . . .” Bezsonov turned suddenly. A grey shadow crept along the road. A cold shiver passed down his spine. He smiled and, shouting detached, incoherent phrases, he walked on in the middle of the road. After a while he turned again. Some fifty paces away a big-headed, long-legged dog slouched after him. “Damnation!” Bezsonov muttered and walked the faster, casting a glance over his shoulder again. There were five dogs in all, walking in single file, grey, with hanging jaws and backs. Bezsonov threw some stones at them. “I'll. . . Get away, you filthy beasts!’ The animals slouched down to the bog. Bezsonov filled his pockets with stones and threw them from time to time. He walked on whistling and yelling, “Hi! Hi!” The animals came on to the road again and walked in file, without coming any nearer. On either side of the road a low-growing fir wood commenced and at the bend, Bezsonov caught sight of a human figure in front of him. The figure stopped, glanced around and walked slowly away into the wood. “Damnation!” Bezsonov swore under his breath and also stepped into the shadow of the wood. He stood still for some time, trying to restrain the violent beating of his heart. The animals, too, stopped some distance [ 296 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY away. The foremost of them lay down with its jaws resting on its paws. The man in front made no move- ment. Bezsonov saw a white foam-like cloud pass across _ the moon, then there was a sound like a needle piercing his brain; it was the snap of a dry twig beneath the feet of the man. Bezsonov clenched his hands and in des- peration walked out quickly into the middle of the road. A tall soldier was standing to the right of him; he wore a long coat and his long face without any eyebrows seemed dead; it was grey and its mouth was half open. “Hi! you there!’ Bezsonov cried; “what regiment are you from?” “From the second battery.” “Take me to the battery.” The soldier was silent and made no movement. He looked dully at Bezsonov and turned his face to the left. “What are those things down there?” “Dogs,” Bezsonov replied impatiently. “Those aren’t dogs.” “Come on, show me the way.” “T won't.” “Look here. I’ve got a fever. Do show me the way. ll give you some money.” “T won't.” The soldier raised his voice. “I can’t go back; I’m a deserter.” “They'll catch you anyhow, you fool.” “Perhaps.” Bezsonov looked over his shoulder. The animals had gone, probably into the wood. “Is it a long way to the battery?” The soldier did not reply. Bezsonov turned to go, but the man seized his sleeve by the elbow in fingers as stiff as pincers. [ 297 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY 39 HY ou ré mot going there, 215.2% “Let me go!” “T shan’t let you go!’ Without releasing his arm, the soldier glanced to the side over the wood. “I haven’t eaten a bite for three days. . . . I was asleep in a ditch a short while ago, when I heard some one coming. I thought it must be the patrol, so I lay still. They kept on coming, many of them, coming and coming; they rumbled all along the road. What could it be? I crawled out of the ditch and looked. ‘They walked in shrouds all over the road, no end of them. . . . They swayed | like the mist and the ground shook beneath them. . .” “What are you talking about?’ Bezsonov shouted in a wild voice and tried to tear himself away. “Tt’s the truth I’m telling you and you must believe me, you swine!” Bezsonov tore his arm away and ran, but his legs _ seemed to be made of cotton-wool. The soldier ran after him with his heavy boots and panting, seized him by the shoulder. Bezsonov fell and covered his head and neck with his hands. Panting, the soldier bore down on him, extending his stiff fingers to his throat and squeezed it, till it grew silent and cold. _ “So that’s what you are, are you?” the soldier hissed, The body on the ground shuddered, stretched itself, col- lapsed and flattened in the dust. The soldier let it go. He got up and put on his cap. Without looking at what he had done, he walked away down the road. He stag- — gered and shaking his head, sat down, his legs dangling © in a ditch. 4 “Oh, death!” he exclaimed slowly. ‘Oh, God, let me Ol ei. MVE SCOTT, 4.0 3 U [ 298 ] XXVI After an unlucky attempt to escape from the con- centration camp, Ivan Ilyitch was removed to a fortress and placed in solitary confinement. There he planned another escape and for six weeks filed the gratings of his window. At the beginning of the summer, however, the fortress was unexpectedly evacuated and Teliegin found himself in what was known as “The Rotten Hole.” It was a horrible, miserable place. On a peat field in a wide valley stood a square of four barracks, surrounded by barbed wire. In the distance, by the hills, where the brick chimneys stood out, there began a single-track railway, the rusty lines of which stretched throughout the marsh and ended near the barracks in a deep hol- low, the work of the year before, on which over five thousand Russian soldiers had perished of typhoid and dysentery. On the other side of the dirty yellow valley, the uneven peaks of the purple Carpathians rose high, To the north of the barracks, immediately on the other side of the wire, numerous pine crosses stretched far in the distance across the marsh. The barracks were surrounded by a big yard with a well in the middle of it. Boards were thrown about the place, beneath which the brown liquid mud oozed. On hot days, steam rose from the valley, gadflies hummed, midges stuck to the face and the red, hazy sun steamed and decomposed that hopeless, desolate place. The Austrian military authorities intended to clear [ 299 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “The Rotten Hole” of war prisoners after the epidemic, but pressed as they were by General Brusilov, they evacu- ated several camps and shoved into the deserted barracks a group of officers, about fifteen hundred men, who had been guilty of insubordination and attempted escape. The conditions were hard and the food was scarce. At six in the morning a loud drum would be sounded for rising, at seven bread was brought round and coffee made of acorns served without sugar. For lunch and dinner cooked vegetables were allowed. There was a roll-call three times a day and three times during the night. Half the officers were ill with stomach troubles, fevers, ulcers and rashes. In spite of everything, hope ran high in the camp. Brusilov, fighting stubbornly, was advancing, the French were beating the Germans in the Champagne district and at Verdun, and Asia Minor was cleared of Turks. The end of the war seemed to be really in sight. The prisoners in “The Rotten Hole” clenched their teeth and bore their privations. In the new year they would all be at home. But the summer had gone and the rains had come; Brusilov had stopped without taking Krakow or Lvov, the fierce battles on the French front had ceased. Alli- ance and Entente were licking their wounds. Clearly — the end of the war had been put off till next autumn. A. period of despair began in “The Rotten Hole.” | Teliegin’s neighbor, Viskoboinikov, left off washing : and shaving, lay for days at a time on his bunk with half shut eyes, refusing to answer questions. Now and | 4 again he would get up in exasperation and scratch him- © self viciously with his nails. Red spots would appear — and disappear on his body. One night he awoke Ivan Il- yitch and asked in a hushed voice: “Are you married, Teliegin.” [ 300 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “Wo,” “I’ve got a wife and daughter in Tver. You will let them know, won’t you?” “Don’t, Jakov Ivanovitch; go to sleep.” At three in the morning Viskoboinikoy did not answer the roll-call. He was found in the water-closet, hanging on a thin, leather strap. The whole barrack rose up. The officers crowded round the body, which was lying on its back on the floor. The lantern, which stood at the head, shone on the bony face, distorted by the hor- rible pain and on his chest, on which, beneath the torn shirt, bloody scratches could be seen. A dirty light fell from the lantern, the faces of the living, bending over the corpse, were swollen and yellow and twisted. One man, Ensign Melshin, turned suddenly in the darkness of the barrack and said aloud, “Are we going to stand this, comrades ?” A murmur rose from the crowd and from the bunks. The entrance door flew open and a sleepy Austrian of- ficer came in, the commandant of the camp. The crowd parted and allowed him to pass to the body. And in- stantly loud voices were raised. “We are not going to stand this!” “The man was tortured.” “That’s their system.” “T am also rotting alive.” “We won’t stand it, we must be moved from here.” “We are not criminals.” “The devils haven’t been beaten enough.” “Silence! To your places!” shouted the commandant, raising himself on tiptoe. “What? What does he say? Are we to be silent?” “To your places, you Russian swine!” Instantly, Sub-Captain Jukov, a short, thick-set man [ 301 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY with a tangled beard, pushed forward and poking a short finger at the Austrian’s nose, cried in a wailing voice : “Do you see this finger, you son of a dog? Do you see it?” And shaking his shaggy head he seized the commandant by the shoulders and shook him viciously. He knocked him down and fell on top of him. The officers crowded silently round the struggling men. The footsteps of soldiers could be heard running along the boards and the commandant cried for help. Teliegin, who had so far been standing at the back of the crowd, pushed forward saying, “Are you mad? He'll choke him!” and seizing Jukov by the shoulders he tore him away from the Austrian. “You blackguard!” Teliegin said to the commandant in German. Jukov was panting with wide open mouth. “Let me go! Tl show the swine!” he said hoarse- ly. The commandant got up and casting a quick search- ing glance at the faces of Jukov, Teliegin, Melshin and two or three of the other officers standing near by, he clinked his spurs and walked out of the barrack. The officers wandered about the bunks, some lay down. All was still. It was clearly a question of mutiny and would be followed by a court martial. Ivan Ilyitch, as usual, began the day without omitting a single of his self-appointed tasks, which he had been observing now for over a year. At six in the morning he undressed naked, pumped some brownish, muddy water into a pail, sluiced and rubbed himself, did a hun- dred and one gymnastic exercises, taking care that his muscles cracked, then he dressed and shaved and as there was no coffee that day, he sat down on a hungry stomach to his German grammar. Afterwards he would [ 302 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY usually take a walk, have luncheon, then half an hour’s rest, then study English and French, then dinner, then half an hour’s game of preference or chess, then another hundred and one gymnastic exercises, then sleep. Such a regulation of time filled the whole day and left not a spare moment in which to give way to depression. His body and will were hardened, every softening of the spirit he resolutely crushed. | The hardest and most devastating thing of all for the prisoners to bear was continence. Many a man came to grief over it. One man would begin to powder him- self and to paint his eyes and eyebrows and go about for days whispering with another fellow powdered like himself. Another man would avoid all contact with his fellows, lie with covered head among the rags, unwashed and unkempt. Another would use filthy language, an- noy people with disgusting stories and in the last stages, make such an obscene display that he would be removed to the hospital. Strictness was the only salvation against these things. During his captivity Teliegin grew very taciturn. His muscular body grew wiry, his movements angular. His eyes lost their lustre and seemed to be paler, animated only by a cold, determined light. In moments of anger they looked terrible. On that day, Teliegin repeated the German words he had copied more diligently than usual, then he opened a tattered volume of Spielhagen. Jukov came up and sat down beside him on the bunk. Ivan Llyitch continued to read softly to himself without turning. Jukov sighed. “T want to make out that I’m mad at the trial, Ivan Ilyitch,” he said. Teliegin gave him a quick look. Jukov’s rosy, kindly face, with the broad nose and curly beard and soft warm [ 8303 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY lips seen through his big moustache, was hanging guiltily. His fair eyelids blinked. “What the devil made me go and poke my finger at him? I don’t know what I expected to get by it! If you fellows would only curse me instead of being silent! I know it’s my fault, Ivan Ilyitch. I would go and poke that finger of mine. I shall say that I’m mad. What do you think?” “Now look here, Jukov,”’ Teliegin said, shutting his book with a finger inside it, “some of us are bound to be shot. You know that, don’t you?” io § doc “Then would it not be as well not to play the fool at the trial, eh?” “You are right.” “We none of us blame you. Only the price to be paid for the pleasure of hitting an Austrian in the jaw is rather a high one.” “And what must I feel about it, Ivan Ilyitch, to have brought this on you?” Jukov waved a clenched fist and shook his hairy head. “If only the swine would bowl me over alone, I shouldn’t mind it so much.” Jukov went on talking in this strain for a long time, but Teliegin took no further notice of him and went on reading Spielhagen. After a time he got up and stretched himself, cracking his muscles. The door flew wide open — and four soldiers with fixed bayonets came in and placed themselves on either side of the doorway, clinking the bars of their rifles. Immediately there entered a ser- geant-major, a gloomy man with a bandaged eye, who stared round the barrack and curled the ends of his moustache. He called out in a hoarse, angry voice, “Sub-Captain Jukov! Lieutenant Melshin! Sub-Lieuten- ant Ivanov! Sub-Lieutenant Ubeiko! Ensign Teliegin!” [ 304 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY The men whose names had been called came up. The sergeant-major examined them carefully. The soldiers surrounded them and led them across the barrack yard to a small wooden house, where the commandant lived. A newly arrived military car was standing by the door. The spikes covering the entrance of the barbed wire en- closure were removed. A sentry stood by a striped sentry-box. Lounging on the seat at the wheel of the car was a young officer with a swarthy, ape-like face, the large peak of his cap pulled low over one eye. Tel- iegin touched Melshin’s elbow. Melshin was walking beside him. “Can you drive a car?” Teliegin asked. “Yes. Why?” Aeoah a elisa They were brought to the commandant’s house. At a pine-wood table, covered with clean, pink blotting paper, sat three Austrian senior officers, who had just arrived for the trial. One of them, a clean-shaven man with purple patches on his thick neck, was smoking a cigar. Teliegin noticed that he did not even look at the incom- ing men. His hands were on the table with locked fin- gers, fat and hairy; his eyes were half closed to shield ‘them from the smoke, his collar dug into his neck. “This man has already made up his mind,” Teliegin thought. The presiding judge was a thin old man with a long, sad face, a few well smoothed wrinkles and a thick, grey moustache. One eyebrow was raised by a mon- ocle. He looked intently at the accused men and, through the monocle, fixed his large grey eye on Teligin. The eye was clear, intelligent and kindly. His moustache trembled and he lowered his head. “That looks bad,” Ivan Ilyitch thought and turned to - the third judge, before whom lay a pair of tortoise- [ 305 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY shell spectacles and several square sheets of closely writ- ten paper. He was a short man with a yellowish skin, a receding forehead, stubbly hair like a hedgehog’s and ears as large as dumplings. He was frowning as from acute indigestion. This officer looked as if he had been unlucky in everything. When the accused men were placed round the table, he put on his round spectacles, smoothed the sheets of paper with a withered hand, coughed, exposing thereby his false, yellow teeth, and began to read the indictment. On one side of the table, with twitching eyebrows and — compressed lips, sat the commandant. Teliegin strained every effort to follow the words of the indictment, but contrary to his will, his thoughts were working in an- other direction. “When the body of the suicide was taken into the barrack, some of the Russians, making this a pretext, in- cited the others to open rebellion. They swore and used filthy language and shook their fists. Lieutenant Mel- shin had an open penknife in his hand.” Teliegin could see the boy chauffeur through the win- dow. He was picking his nose, then he turned on the seat and completely covered his face with his cap. Two short soldiers in blue coats approached the car and be- gan to examine it; one man, sittting down, poked the tires with his fingers. They both turned. A kitchen was wheeled into the yard, the smoke rising from its chimney. The kitchen was turned to the barrack and the soldiers lazily followed it. The chauffeur neither moved nor turned. He was probably asleep. Teliegin bit his nails in his impatience. Once more he turned his attention to the prosecutor’s rasping voice. “The said Sub-Captain Jukov, with the obvious in- tention of threatening the life of the commandant, first [ 306 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY attempted to seize the commandant’s nose between his fingers, which act could have had no other purpose than that of casting dishonour on the Imperial Royal uni- ya ial At these words, the commandant rose, red in the face, and began to explain the rather incomprehensible tale of Jukov’s finger. Jukov attempted to put in a word, looking with a kindly guilty smile at his comrades, but unable to contain himself any longer, he turned to the prosecutor and burst out in Russian: “Will you allow me to explain, sir? . . . I said to him: ‘Why do you treat us like this? Why? I’m sorry I can’t explain in German. . . . And I pointed my BES go 3th “Do shut up, Jukov!” Ivan Ilyitch hissed. The presi- dent knocked on the table with his pencil. The prose- cutor went on reading. He described how Jukov had seized the commandant and in what particular part of his body and “knocking him on his back, he squeezed his throat with large fin- gers with intent to cause death.” The colonel then went on to the more doubtful part of the indictment. “The Russians, pushing and shouting, egged the murderer on and one of them, Ensign Ivan Teliegin, on hearing the soldiers come running up, dashed with bloodthirsty impa- tience to the spot, shoved Jukov aside, and but a moment separated the commandant from death,” At this point the prosecutor stopped, unable to keep back a smile of self- satisfaction. “But the guard came in just then’’—their names followed—‘‘and Teliegin could only shout ‘Black- guard!’ to his victim.” After this there followed an amusing psychological examination of Teliegin’s conduct, “a man who had twice attempted to escape and had not stopped even at filing the bars of his window.” [ 807 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY The colonel charged Jukov and Teliegin uncondition- ally and Melshin, “according to the testimony of the wit- nesses,” with incitement to murder and with flourishing his penknife, and, to give more point to the indictment, he stated that Ivanov and Ubeiko had “acted while in a condition of insanity.” When the prosecutor had finished reading, the com- mandant confirmed all his statements. The soldiers were examined. In their opinion, the three first charged were guilty, but they did not know about the other two. The president rubbed his hands and suggested that Ivanov > and Ubeiko should be acquitted, owing to lack of evi- dence against them. The red-faced officer, who had by now smoked his cigar down to the very end, nodded his approval, and after some hesitation, the prosecutor also agreed. Two of the convoys shouldered arms. Teliegin said, “Good-bye, comrades.” Ivanov turned green and dropped his head and Ubeiko gazed at Ivan Ilyitch in silent horror. When they had been led out the president turned to the men charged. “Are you guilty of inciting to mutiny and of attempt- ing to kill the commandant of the camp?” he asked Teliegin. ING “What have you to say in your defence?’ “The indictment is false from beginning to end.” “Have you anything more to say?” “Nothing.” As he walked away from the table, Teliegin looked in- tently at Jukov. The latter coloured, but when he was questioned, he replied word for word as Teliegin had done. Melshin also replied in a similar way. The president lis- tened to them, shutting his eyes wearily. The judge at last rose and went into the next room. As he reached [ 308 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY the door, the red-faced officer who was the last to go _ out, spat out his cigar and stretched himself agreeably. “There is no doubt that we shall be found guilty. I saw that as soon as we came in,” Teliegin whispered and turning to the convoy, asked him for a glass of water. The soldier walked quickly up to the table, put down his rifle and poured some dirty-looking water from a bottle. Ivan Ilyitch whispered hastily into Melshin’s ear. “When we are led past the car, try and set the engine going. Say something or other to the convoy in Rus- sian and don’t mind any untoward movement.” “I follow,’ Melshin whispered in reply and shut his eyes. The judges immediately appeared and seated them- selves in their former places. The president slowly took off his monocle and holding a crumpled piece of paper which trembled slightly close to his eye, he read the brief sentence, by which Jukov, Teliegin and Melshin were condemned to death by shooting. Ivan Ilyitch, though he felt sure what the sentence would be beforehand, yet when the words were pro- nounced, felt sick and the blood rushed from. his heart. _Jukov dropped his head and Melshin, a tall, big-boned, blue-eyed youth, licked his lips slowly and stepped from one foot to the other, The president wiped his weary eyes and covered them with the palm of his hand; then he said slowly and distinctly: “The commandant is to carry out the sen- tence immediately.” The judges rose. The commandant sat for a moment or two longer, green in the face, with outstretched legs; then he, too, rose, and pulling down his spotless uni- form, in an exaggeratedly harsh voice, he ordered the [ 309 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY remaining convoys to lead out the condemned men. Teliegin managed to linger in the doorway so as to allow Melshin to pass out first. Melshin, seeming to collapse entirely, caught the convoy by the sleeve and began to jabber to him in Russian: “Come, please come over there, a little turther’, vie I’ve got the stomach-ache, I can’t stand it.” The soldier stared at him in Beserialtnent He gave a frightened glance over his shoulder, at a lossi what to do in such a contingency. Melshin, however, had man-_ aged to drag him to the front of the car, where he squatted down and made faces and groaned and tore with trembling fingers first at the buttons of his clothes, then at the handle of the car. The convoy’s face ex- pressed pity and disgust. “Got the stomach-ache? Sit down, then!” he said angrily. “Look sharp!” But Melshin seemed doubled up with the gripes. He ground his teeth and gave a furious turn of the engine handle. The soldier was alarmed and tried to pull him away. The boy chauffeur awoke and jumped out of the car, cursing furiously. Teliegin kept close to the second convoy, keeping a keen lookout on all Melshin’s doings. At last the engine began to throb and his own heart beat violently in measure. “Jukov, you get the rifle!” Teliegin yelled, seizing his convoy round the middle and hurling him to the ground. With a bound he reached the car, where Melshin was struggling with the soldier for the possession of the rifle. Ivan Ilyitch, with the full force of his bound, struck the soldier’s neck with his fist. The man groaned and sat down. Melshin dashed to the wheel and pressed the lever. Ivan Ilyitch could see Jukov climbing into the car with the rifle and the chauffeur stealing along the [ 310 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY wall to the commandant’s door. A long, distorted face with a monocle appeared at the window, the stubby fig- ure of the commandant dashed out with a revolver in his hand. Then came flash, report, flash, report. : “Missed! Missed! Missed!” The heart stopped beating, The wheels of the car seemed to have grown into the ground. At last the engine throbbed, the car moved, Teliegin fell back on the leather seat. They were cut- ting through the wind more quickly; they had reached the striped sentry-box; the sentry was aiming. Like a storm the car dashed past him. Soldiers rushed out and fell on their knees. “Bang! bang! bang!” came the faint sound of firing. Jukov turned and shook his fist at them. The glocmy square of barracks grew smaller, lower, and the camp was hidden from view at the bend. Posts and trees and the figures on the milestones came rushing toward them. Melshin turned. His forehead, eyes and cheeks were covered with blood. “Straight on?” he asked Teliegin. “Straight across the bridge, then to the left, to the hills.” [311 ] 7 XXVII Gloomy and desolate are the Carpathians on a windy autumn evening. Troubled and anxious were the hearts of the fugitives when they reached the crest along the white, ramn-washed road. Some three or four pine trees, bare to their topmost branches, were swaying above a ravine. In the mist below a faint murmur rose from a barely visible wood. Lower still, at the very bottom of the ravine water roared and splashed among the stones. Through the trunks of the pines, far beyond the wooded, desert mountain tops, a long streak of purple sunset glowed among the leaden clouds. A strong wind blew freely on that height; forgotten memories whistled in the ears; the apron of the car flapped to and fro. The fugitives were silent. Teliegin studied a map and Melshin, his elbows resting on the wheel, stared in the direction of the setting sun. His head was bandaged with a rag. — “What are we to do with the car?” he asked quietly. “There is no more petrol.” | “We can’t leave it here, by God!” Teliegin replied. “We can pitch it down the ravine.” Melshin jumped to the ground with a groan and stamped up and down to stretch his legs, then he shook Jukov by the shoulders. “Wake up, Captain, we’ve arrived!” Without opening his eyes Jukov jumped into the road, stumbled and sat down on the stones. Again he nodded his head. They gave him a dose of brandy. From the car Ivan Ilyitch took out some leather cloaks and a [312] THE ROAD TO CALVARY basket of provisions, which had been intended for the judges’ dinner at “The Rotten Hole.” They filled their pockets with the provisions, put on the cloaks and taking hold of the wings of the car they pushed it to the edge of the ravine. “You've served your turn, my dear,” Melshin said. “Forward! Together! Again!” The front wheels were suspended above the ravine. The long, dusty car, covered with leather and mounted with bronze, obedient like a living creature, heeled over and crashed below with the stones and rubble. For a moment it caught on a projecting rock, trembled, and then, amid the thunder of flying stones and broken iron, it crashed to the torrents below. The fugitives turned into the woods and walked along parallel to the road. It was now quite dark. The pines overhead rustled solemnly with a sound like that of a distant waterfall, sad and eternal. Teliegin moved to the road from time to time to look at the milestones. They skirted one place, where they supposed there was a militia station, climbing over ravines, striking against fallen trees, stumbling into mountain streams and getting soaked and torn. They walked the whole of the night. Once, it was almost at dawn, they heard the sound of a car and hid in a ditch, as it passed so close that they could hear the voices of the people inside. In the morning the fugitives chose a place to rest in a densely wooded ravine by a stream. They half emptied the flask of brandy and Jukov asked to be shaved with a razor which they had found in the car. When they had divested him of his beard and moustache, he was found to have a childish chin and full, big lips, which pouted like the mouth of a jug. Teliegin and Melshin [ 313 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY pointed their fingers at him and laughed for a long time. Jukov was delighted. He bellowed and shook his head. He was a little drunk from the brandy. They covered him up with leaves and bade him go to sleep. Teliegin and Melshin afterwards spread the map on the grass and each made a small topographical copy for himself. They had made up their minds to separate on the morrow, Melshin and Jukov to go to Roumania and Teliegin to Galicia. The big map was buried in the ground. They collected a pile of leaves and nestled down among them, falling asleep immediately. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. At the top of the ravine, on a high rock, a man stood leaning on his rifle. It was the sentry guarding the bridge. Around him and in the wooded waste at his feet it was still; the silence was broken only by a heavy woodcock flying across the field and striking its wing against a tree and by the distant sound of slowly falling water. After a time the sentry walked away, shouldering his rifle. It was night when Ivan Ilyitch opened his eyes. Through the still, black branches of the trees, the stars shimmered, big and clear. He raised himself and looked about him and once more lay down on his back. He recalled the events of yesterday, but the mental strain of the trial and the flight was so great that he tried to banish all thoughts of them. Overhead, in a small constellation, a star shone with a blue light. The blue ray had left it a thousand years ago, and now entered the eye and heart of Ivan Ilyitch. This star and the Milky Way and the countless constel-— lations were but a grain of sand in the heavenly sea. And in the distance were dark chasms looking like sacks of coal—depths leading to eternity. And the stars and [ 314 ] ll Ne ITT gt 5 THE ROAD TO CALVARY the black chasms were in Ivan Ilyitch’s warm heart that beat among the dry leaves. It may be that the star dust of a million worlds went to the making of the small atom of a heart that lived by the sheer will to love. As the mysterious, insensible starlight bathed the earth, so the heart sent out its in- visible light—the longing for love—to meet it, refusing to believe that it was small and mortal. It was a divine moment. “Are you asleep, Ivan Ilyitch?’”’ Melshin asked quietly. “No; I have been awake a long time. We must get up. You wake the Captain. We ought to be making a move.” Within an hour Ivan Ilyitch was walking alone down the white road, in the darkness. [ 315] XXVIII On the tenth day Ivan Ilyitch had reached the lines near the front. He was only able to walk at night then. As soon as it was light he would go into the woods and when he was forced to walk in the valleys he would choose for a night shelter a place as far as possible removed from habitation. He lived on vegetables, which he stole from kitchen gardens. The night was rainy and cold. Ivan Ilyitch was walk- ing along the road among the hospital wagons, loaded with wounded going west and carts with household goods and crowds of women and old men, who carried babies and bundles and utensils in their arms. Coming east to meet them were the military baggage- train and the troop units. It was strange to reflect that the years 1914, 1915 had gone and that 1916 was drawing to a close and still the baggage-carts rumbled over the rough road and the population of burnt villages wandered in meek despair. Only now the military horses could scarcely move their legs, the troops looked tattered and shrunken and the crowd of homeless were silent and in- different. And in the east, whence a strong wind was sweeping the low clouds, fighting was still going on, men fighting men who had ceased to be enemies, unable to exterminate one another. In the swampy valley, a mob of people and carts moved in the darkness over the bridge across the swell- ing river. Wheels rumbled, whips cracked, orders were © shouted, numerous lanterns swung, their light falling on the dark water, rushing between the stakes. [ 316 ] ee THE ROAD TO CALVARY Gliding along the slope by the road, Ivan Ilyitch reached the bridge. A military cart went past him. He would not have thought of crossing to the other side earlier in the day. At the bridge-head the horses strained against the shafts, digging their hoofs into the sopping boards, unable to drag out their heavy loads. * By the bridge was a man on horseback, in a cloak which flapped in the wind. He car- ried a lantern and yelled in a hoarse voice. An old man approached him and touched his cap, wanting to ask him something, no doubt. Instead of replying, the horseman struck him in the face with the hilt of his sword and the man rolled over among the wheels. The other end of the bridge was lost in the darkness, but by the nu- merous moving lanterns thousands of refugees must have been walking there. The baggage-train moved slowly. Ivan Ilyitch was pressed against a cart, in which sat a thin woman, wrapped in a blanket, with hair hanging over her eyes. In one hand she held a bird cage, in the other she held the reins. The stream of carts came to a sudden standstill. The woman turned her head in horror. From the other end of the bridge a sound of voices was _ heard, and lanterns swung quickly. Something must have happened. A horse screamed wildly, as only an animal can. Some one cried: “Save yourselves!” and a rifle report rent the air. Horses reared, carts shook, women and children howled and screamed. Intermittent flashes came from the distance to the right, it was the counter firing. The heart beat like a hammer. They seemed to be firing all over the river. The woman with the bird cage scrambled out of the cart. Her skirt caught on something and she fell, crying in a [ 317 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY deep voice: “Save me!” The bird with the cage rolled down the slope. Amidst cries and jolting the baggage-train moved on again across the bridge. Ivan Ilyitch saw a large cart heel over at the edge of the bridge and crash through the railings into the river. At that moment he jumped from the wheel on which he had been sitting, dashed over the scattered bundles and catching up a moving cart he threw himself into it on his back. Instantly the scent of baked bread reached his nostrils. He put his hand under the tarpaulin and broke off a chunk from the end of a round loaf. He nearly choked in his eagerness to eat it. In the confusion which followed the firing, the bag- gage-train crossed the bridge to the other side of the river. Ivan Ilyitch got out of the cart and wound his way among the refugees and vehicles to the fields, through which he walked parallel to the road. From bits of con- versation he had’ caught in the darkness, he gathered that the firing had come from the enemy, that is, Russian scouts. The front was no more than ten versts away. Now and again Ivan Ilyitch stopped to take breath. It was hard walking against the wind and rain. His knees wobbled, his face burned, his eyes were red and swollen. He sat down at last on the edge of a ditch and put his head in his hands. Cold raindrops fell down his neck, his body ached as though crushed by wheels. Suddenly a muffled sound reached him, which seemed like the opening of the earth in the distance. In a mo- ment a similar sigh broke the night. Ivan Ilyitch raised his head and listened. Between the sighs a muffled murmuring was borne to him, which now lessened, now increased to an angry rumble. The sounds came from [ 318 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY the left, almost from the opposite direction to that in which Ivan Ilyitch was going. He seated himself on the other side of the ditch. He could now see clearly low-hanging, broken clouds flying over the iron-grey sky. It was the dawn. The east. Russia was over there. Ivan Ilyitch rose and tightened his belt. He stretched his legs in the mud and set out in an easterly direction, walking through wet stubble, ditches and the partly cov- ered remains of last year’s trenches. When it was light at the end of the field he again saw the road full of peo- ple and carts. He stopped and looked about him. On one side, beneath a tall half-bare tree stood a white chapel. The door was open; the roof and ground were strewn with dead leaves. Ivan Ilyitch resolved to stay there until it was dark. He went in and lay down on the moss-covered floor with his face to the wall. The rumbling of wheels and crack- ing of whips were borne from the distance. The sounds were strangely pleasant, but were suddenly broken off. Fingers seemed to press his eyelids. In his heavy sleep _ a living point gradually grew. It tried to turn into the image of a dream, but could not. So great was his ex- haustion that Ivan Ilyitch groaned and turned his head, sinking deeper into the soft abysses of sleep. The point appeared again, troubled, as though at something that had happened. His heart was full of tears. Sleep was lighter now and the rumbling of distant wheels heard once more. Ivan Ilyitch sat up and looked around. Through the doorway, dull, heavy clouds could be seen and the sun, setting in the west, cast broad rays, beneath their leaden, watery bases. A liquid patch of light shone [ 319 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY on the crumbling chapel wall, lighting up the bent head of a faded wooden figure of the Virgin Mother sur- rounded by a halo. The Holy Child, wrapped in faded chrism-cloth, lay on her knees and His hand, extended in blessing, was broken off. Ivan Ilyitch made the sign of the cross quickly and walked out of the chapel. On a stone step at the entrance sat a young, fair-haired woman with a baby on her lap. She wore a white mud-bespattered overcoat. One hand supported her cheek, the other rested on the gaily col- | oured blanket wrapped around the baby. She raised her head slowly and looked at Ivan Ilyitch—her glance was strangely bright—and her tear-stained face twitched as though with a smile. In a soft voice she said simply in Russian: “The boy is dead.” And again she leaned her head on her hand. Teliegin bent over her and caressed her hair. She sighed and the tears rolled down her cheeks. “Come; I will carry him for you,” he said kindly. But the woman shook her head. “Where can I go? You go alone, kind sir, and God be with you.” Ivan Ilyitch regarded her for a moment, then pulled his cap over his eyes and walked away. Just then, from the back of the chapel, two Austrian field gendarmes gal- loped up. They were big-whiskered, dark men, in soaked, dirty coats. As they passed Ivan Ilyitch they looked at him and reined in their horses. The one in front called in a hoarse voice: “Come here!” Ivan Ilyitch came up. The gendarme leant from the saddle and looked at him searchingly with piercing eyes, swollen from the wind and lack of sleep. They sud- denly kindled merrily. [ 320 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “A Russian!” he cried, seizing Teliegin by the collar. Ivan Ilyitch made no attempt to get away. He smiled a crooked smile. Teliegin was locked in a shed some three versts away. It was already night. From the distance came a sound of gun firing, Through the cracks in the wall of wood a dull red glow could be seen in the east. Ivan Ilyitch ate up the remaining piece of bread which he had taken from the cart, then he made the round of the walls to find a place through which he could get out. He stum- bled against a bundle of hay, yawned and lay down. He was not able to sleep, though. Four guns began to boom soon after midnight at no great distance away. Flashes of red came through the crevices. Ivan Llyitch got up and listened. The intervals between the booms of each gun grew less and the walls of the shed shook. Sud- denly, quite close, single rifle reports rang out. The fighting was clearly drawing nearer. Outside, agi- tated voices could be heard and the throbbing of a motor- car. There was a stampede of many feet. Ivan Ilyitch then realized that they were firing on the shed. He lay - down on the floor behind a bundle of straw. There was a smell of powder smoke in the shed. The firing went on incessantly. The Russians were apparently advancing with great speed. The volume of sound that rent the heart did not last long, however. The bursting of hand grenades was heard, which sounded like a crack- ing of nuts. Ivan Ilyitch sprang up and groped along the wall. They were not going to kill him, were they? At last came a piercing shriek, a roar and a stampede of feet. The firing ceased. A few grenades exploded. In the long moment’s lull iron blows were heard on something [ 821 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY soft. Then came frightened cries: “We surrender, Rus- sians, Russians!’ Ivan Ilyitch tore away a splinter of wood and could see running figures, some covering their heads with their hands. From the right huge masses of cavalry dashed among the crowd. “Stop! stop! we surrender!” the run- ning figures cried. Three men turned towards the shed. After them came a horseman, hatless, with a big Cau- casian cowl flying behind him. He was mounted on a huge beast, which snorted and reared heavily. Like a man drunk, the horseman flourished his sword, open- mouthed. With a swish, he lunged out, but the horse made a forward movement and the blade split. “Let me out!” Teliegin cried in a strange voice, bang- ing on the door. The man reined in the horse. “Who is that?” “A prisoner. A Russian officer.” “One moment.” The horseman bent down and with the hilt of his sword drew back the bolts. Ivan Ilyitch came out and the man who had opened the door, the officer of the savage division. said with a sarcastic smile: “What a place to meet in, to be sure!” Ivan Ilyitch looked at him. “T don’t know you.” “IT am Sapojkov, Sergei Sergeyevitch.” He laughed a hoarse, rasping laugh. ‘Hang it, it would have been a splendid thing, eh? A pity my sword was broken.” [ 322 ] XXIX For the last hour of the journey to Moscow the train rolled shrieking past deserted country houses. The smoke from the engine mingled with the autumn leaves, with the transparent yellow of the birch, with the purple of the aspen tree, from the neighbourhood of which a smell of mushrooms was wafted. The red branches of the maple, here and there, hung over the very railway. Seen through a bare bush were glass balls on a flower bed; the country cottages had their shutters closed and the paths and the steps were strewn with leaves. They were now passing an intermediate station, where two soldiers with kit-bags stared open-mouthed at the carriage windows and a forlorn, God-forsaken girl, in a shabby check coat, was tracing a pattern on the wet plat- form with the end of her umbrella. Here, at the bend, was a wooden hoarding, depicting a large bottle, beneath which was printed “Matchless Riabinovaya Shustova.” The woods ended and long lines of bright green cabbages stretched to right and left. At a turnpike stood a hay cart and women and peasants in short coats were tugging a grey, obstinate horse by the’ bridle. And in the distance, beneath the long clouds, sharp-pointed spires were visible and high above the town were the five shining balls of St. Savior’s. Teliegin was lounging by the carriage window, breath- ing in the laden October air, the scent of leaves, the smell of decaying mushrooms, the smoke of burning straw and the fragrance of the earth on a frosty dawn. [ 323 |] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Behind him lay the hard road of two years of suffer- ing, and he felt that the end of it lay in this wonderful hour of expectancy. Ivan Llyitch reckoned that sharp on the stroke of three he would press the bell of the only door (he imagined it to be of light oak, with two windows over the top). Had he been dead, he would have dragged himself to that door. The fields of vegetables ended. They were flying by the mud-bespattered houses of a suburb, past the roughly paved streets with the rumbling carts, past the fences and gardens of old lime trees, which stretched their branches — to the middle of the road, past the medley of sign boards and the passers-by, who were bent on their own silly busi- ness, and paid no heed to the rolling train, nor to Ivan Ilyitch at the carriage window. Below, a toylike tram- — car was running up the street, and then there was a little church, hemmed in by houses. Ivan Ilyitch crossed him- self quickly. The wheels rattled over a siding. At last, after two long years of absence, he was gliding by the windows of the asphalt platform of the Moscow railway station. Well-kempt and indifferent old men in clean © white aprons dashed into the carriages. Ivan Ilyitch put his head far out of the window. How foolish of him! He had not informed them of his arrival. With a cheap-looking suit-case, purchased in Kiev, Ivan Ilyitch walked out of the station and could not keep himself from laughing aloud. In the square, some fifty paces away, stood a long line of izvozchiks. They gesticulated with their long sleeves, crying: “I can take you! I can take you! I can take you!” “What do you want with a piebald beast, sir, when here is a fine black one?” __ “T’ll take you, sir! I'll take you!” [ 324 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “Where are you going to, you damned fool? Whoa, back!” Dot pega “Mine’s a fast horse, sir!” Reined back, the horses stamped and snorted. The square was filled with cries. In one more moment it seemed the whole line of izvozchiks would dash into the railway station. Ivan Ilyitch mounted a high trap with a high seat, driven by a smart driver, an insolent peasant with a handsome face, who asked the address with kindly indul- gence and for greater “swank” started off at a gallop, sit- ting sideways with the reins loose in his left hand. The tires jolted over the cobblestones. “Just back from the war, sir?” “T was a priscner and escaped.” “Really? How are things with them? Some say they’ve got nothing to eat. Mind, Granny! .. . You're a national hero. . . . Many of our men run away be- cause there is nothing to eat there. . . . Look out, car- ter! . . . Ah, the boor! He’s filled himself with home- made vodka. . . . Have you heard of Ivan Trifonitch?” “Which one?” “The one from Rasgulia, who deals in carbolic or sul- phur. . . . He came to me complaining yesterday. . . . What a business, to be sure! He’s made such a pile on contracting, he doesn’t know what to do with his money and his wife ran away with a little Pole three days ago. She didn’t run far, either. Only to the Petersburg Park, to Jan. The next day the izvozchiks had got the story all over the town and Ivan Trifonitch can’t so much as show himself in the street, for everyone laughs at him. ... That’s what you get when you rob and get rich... .” “Do go faster, my dear fellow,” Ivan Ilyitch urged, [ 325 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY though the fine cob was tearing like the wind through the streets as it was, tugging viciously at the reins with his mouth. | “Flere we are, sir. The second door. Whoa Vasia!” In trepidation Ivan Ilyitch looked up at the six win- dows of a detached house, covered peacefully by lace curtains. He jumped out at the door. It was an old carved door, with a lion’s head for the handle. There was an ordinary bell, not an electric one. For some sec- onds, Ivan Ilyitch was unable to raise his hand to it. His heart beat violently. “Of course, I’m all in the dark. They mayn’t be at home, or perhaps they won’t see me,” he thought, as he pulled the brass handle. “A bell rang within. “I’m sure no one is at home.” Immediately the quick footsteps of a woman were heard. Ivan Ilyitch looked about in perplexity. The black- bearded, cheery face of the smart driver winked at him. A chain clanged; the door opened and the pock-marked face of a maid appeared. “Does Daria Dmitrievna Bulavina live here?” Teliegin asked with a cough. “She is at home. Come in, sir,” the pock-marked girl said in a kindly sing-song. “The mistress and the young lady are both at home.” As in a dream Ivan Ilyitch entered the hall, where by a glass wall stood a striped ottoman, and there was a smell of coats. The maid opened another door to the right, which was covered with black oilcloth. In the small, dimly lighted passage hung a woman’s coat and in front of a looking-glass lay a pair of gloves, a kerchief with a red cross on it and a down shawl. A familiar, faint scent of amazing perfumes came from those innocent things. [ 326 J THE ROAD TO CALVARY Without asking the visitor’s name, the maid went in to announce him. With his fingers, Ivan Ilyitch touched the down shawl. Coming from that bloody mess he felt that he had no connection with this pure, refined life. “Some one to see you, miss,” he heard the maid’s voice from the depths of the house. Ivan Llyitch shut his eyes. A divine thunder-clap would burst instantly. He trem- bled from head to foot as he heard a clear voice ask: “To see me? Who is it?” Steps were heard walking through the rooms. They seemed to come from the depths of two years of waiting. Coming from the light of the windows, Dasha appeared in the doorway. There was a golden light on her fair hair. She looked taller and thinner. She was dressed in a knitted blouse and a blue skirt. “Have you come to see me?” Dasha gasped. Her face twitched, her brows went up, her mouth opened. She threw her arms impetuously round Ivan Ilyitch’s neck and kissed him on the lips. Then she stepped back and touched her eyes with her fingers. “Come in here, Ivan Ilyitch.” Dasha led the way into the drawing-room and sank into a chair. She covered -her face with her hands and bending to her knees, -she wept. “How stupid of me. It will soon pass,” she said, wip- ing her eyes energetically. Ivan Ilyitch stood before her, his cap pressed against his chest. Dasha suddenly leaned her arms on the arms of the chair and raised her head. “Did you escape, Ivan llyitch : te . “Ves. 99 “Good heavens! Well?” “Well . . . and here I am.” ad we [ 327 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY He sat down in a chair opposite her, put his cap on a table and stared at his feet. “How did you manage it?’ Dasha stammered. “It was very ordinary, on the whole.” “Was there danger?” “There was. That is, nothing unusual.” Both were gradually caught in a kind of spider’s web. Dasha, too, dropped her eyes. “How long have you been in Moscow?” “I have just come from the station.” “I will have some coffee made.” ... “Please don’t trouble. I am just going to my hotel.” “Will you come in the evening?” Dasha asked in a scarcely audible voice. Ivan Ilyitch nodded with compressed lips. He wanted air. He rose to go. “Then I shall come back in the evening.” Dasha extended her hand. He took her soft, firm hand and the contact made him feel hot. The blood rushed to his face. He pressed her finger and turned to the hall, but stopped in the doorway. Dasha stood with her back to the light, looking askance at him, in a strange, unfriendly way. “May I come at seven, Daria Dmitrievna?” She nodded. Ivan Ilyitch rushed out of doors. “Drive to a good hotel,” he said to the driver; “the best in the place.” Leaning back in the seat of the trap, his hands drawn up in the sleeves of his coat, Ivan Ilyitch smiled broadly to himself. Blue shadows of people and trees and car- riages flew past his eyes. A cold wind, which smelt of a Russian town, beat against his face. Ivan Ilyitch took his nose in the palm of his hand, which still burned with [ 328 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Dasha’s touch, and laughed aloud. “Sheer witchery!” Dasha was at that moment standing by the drawing- room window with a ringing sound in her head. She could not collect her thoughts, could not make out what had happened. She shut her eyes with a groan and ran into her sister’s room. Ekaterina Dmitrievna was sitting by the window sew- ing and thinking. On hearing Dasha enter she asked, without raising her head: “Who was your visitor, Dasha?” “He.” Katia looked up, her face twitched. “Who?” ‘He. 5... Cant you understand’) Hey)... 2 Ivan Ilyitch.” Katia let fall her work and clapped her hands slowly. “Only think, Katia; I am not even glad. I am only frightened,” Dasha eid in a hushed voice. [ 329 ] XXX. When it began to get dark Dasha trembled at every sound. She kept rushing into the drawing-room and listening. Now and again she tried to read a book, a supplement of “The Neva,” beginning always at the same page. ‘“Marousia liked chocolates, which her husband > would bring her from Krapt.” . . . She threw the book down and went to the window. Two windows in a house opposite were lighted up in the frosty twilight. It was the house where Charodeyeva, the actress, lived. A maid in a cap could be seen quietly laying the table. Charo- deyeva, as thin as a skeleton, came in with a velvet coat thrown round her shoulders. She sat down by the table and yawned, looking as if she had been asleep on the couch. She served herself some soup and suddenly grew lost in thought, staring at a little vase containing a with- ered rose. “Marousia liked chocolates . . .”’ Dasha said under her breath. The bell rang. The blood rushed from Dasha’s heart. It was only the evening paper, however. “He is not coming,’ Dasha thought, and went into the dining-room, where a single lamp burned over the white tablecloth and a clock ticked. Dasha sat down by the table. “So at every second life goes by. A time will come when there will be only a few seconds left. One, two) tiree yi. There was another ring at the front door. Dasha choked and ran into the hall. It was a porter from the hospital with a packet of papers. Dasha at last went into © her own room and lay down on the couch. | [ 380] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “Tvan Ilyitch won’t come and he is perfectly right. I waited two years and when I got him I hadn’t a word to say. There was emptiness in place of love.” . . Dasha pulled a pocket-handkerchief from) beneath the cushion and applied it to her eyes. She knew that that was how it would all end. In the two years she had forgotten Ivan Ilyitch. She had loved some one of her own imagination and he had come back strange and new, with not a trace in his face to engage her former feelings. “Terrible, terrible!’ Dasha thought. She would have to pretend to love him, just the same; no one would excuse her perfidy. Dasha sat up on the couch and dangled her legs. . . . “He must never know. And as for you, don’t you dare think of it. Love him. Even if you can’t, you must love him all the same.” She bit the corner of her handkerchief, thinking: “TI must have no will of my own now; I am all his, thoughts and feelings and body. He can do as he likes with me.” Suddenly she grew calm. “I will submit and he must love me as I am.” Dasha sighed. She got up from the couch and went over to the looking-glass, where she tidied her hair and powdered her face to remove the traces of tears. She leant her elbow on the dressing- table and looked at herself in the glass. A pretty girl with fair hair, a sad, childish face with slightly swollen lips stared at her from the oval frame. The nose was small, the eyes large and clear. Too clear, somehow. As she looked, Dasha moved nearer to the glass. “Nothing might have happened to look at you. Every- thing might be serene and as it should be. A veritable angel. Arms, bare neck, charms hidden and exposed. . You couldn’t have done anything wrong.” . . . Dasha [ 331 J THE ROAD TO CALVARY smiled ; the glass became covered with steam. “You are going through the supreme moment. Good-bye. You will be taken out into fresh _water. Your eyes will be darker.) ie Dasha listened. A hot stream seemed to flow fifeted her body. She was both hot and calm. She did not no- tice the door open, nor the pock-marked Liza come in. “A visitor for you, miss.” Dasha gave a deep sigh. She rose as lightly as though her feet had not touched the floor and went into the dining-room. Katia was the first to see Dasha, whom she © greeted with a smile. Ivan Ilyitch jumped up. He blinked as from a strong light and held himself erect. He was dressed in a new woollen shirt, with a new shoul- der-strap on one shoulder. His hair was cut and his face shaven. It was only now that one could see how tall and broad-shouldered he had become. Of course, he was another man. The gaze of his blue eyes was steady, the corners of his straight-cut mouth had two wrinkles, two tiny points. Dasha’s heart beat. She knew that it meant contact with death and horror and suffering. His hand was strong and cold as ice. “Sit down, Ivan Ilyitch,” she said, going up to the table. “Tell us about yourself.” | She sat down on a chair beside him. Teliegin put his hands on the tablecloth and clenched them. He began to tell them about his captivity and flight. Dasha, who sat close to him, watched his face, open-mouthed. It seemed to Ivan Ilyitch that his voice came from afar. The words came of themselves. He was bewil- dered and agitated by the fact that beside him, her dress touching his knees, sat this indescribable girl, who was both dear and strange to him, quite incomprehensible, [ 332 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY who smelt of forest glades and flowers and of something warm that made the head go round. The whole evening Ivan Ilyitch related his experiences. Dasha questioned and interrupted him, clapped her hands and appealed to her sister: “Only think, Katia, he was condemned to be shot! Just imagine it!” When Teliegin came to the fight for the car, the mo- ment that divided them from death, describing how the car moved at last and the wind beat against their faces and there was liberty and life, Dasha turned pale and seized his hand. “We are not going to let you go again!” Teliegin laughed. “There won’t be any help for it when I am called up again. My only hope is to be listed on a munition works.” He gently pressed her hand. Dasha looked into his eyes intently ; her cheeks flushed a slight red; she let go his hand. “Won't you smoke? I will bring you some matches.” She went out quickly and returned with a box of /matches. She stood before Ivan Ilyitch, striking one match after another and all broke. What matches Liza bought, indeed! At last one struck and Dasha brought the flame to the end of Ivan Ilyitch’s cigarette. The light shone on the end of her delicate chin. Teliegin lighted his cigarette with his eyes shut. He did not know that so much pleasure could be experienced in the lighting of a cigarette. Katia watched the two of them. She felt immeasurably sad. She could hardly keep back the tears. Her mind was full of that never-to-be-forgotten dear youth, Rosh- [ 333 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY chin. He, too, used to sit with them at the table and she, too, used to bring him matches and strike a light. But she never broke a single one. Teliegin went away at midnight. Dasha embraced and kissed her sister and shut herself in her own room. As she lay on the bed with her arms thrown above her head, she reflected that at last she had broken through her spir- itual fog. Everything about her was desolate and empty and strange, but, at any rate, there was the-blue sky, there was happiness. [ 334] XXXI On the fifth day after his arrival, Ivan Ilyitch received a government intimation from Petrograd, commanding him to present himself at the Ibukhovsky works and put himself at the disposal of the chief engineer. The joy over this, the remainder of the day spent with Dasha busily in the town, the hasty farewell at the Nicholas Station, the second class well heated compart- ment, the packet he found in his pocket, tied with a rib- bon and containing two apples, chocolates and some cakes, were all like a dream. Ivan Ilyitch unfastened his woollen shirt, stretched out his legs, and unable to banish a stupid smile from his lips, he stared at his neighbour opposite, an old man in spectacles. “Are you from Moscow?” the old man asked. “Yes.” God! What a sweet word it was! Moscow! . . Lhe streets bathed in sunshine, the dry leaves be- neath the feet, Dasha, light and slender stepping over _them, her clear, intelligent voice (he could not recall her words), the constant smell of apples when he bent over her or kissed her hand. “Sodom! A veritable Sodom!” the old man said. “I spent three days in the Kokorev Inn and I did see things, I tell you.” . . . He parted his feet, in boots and high galoshes, and spat on the floor. “If you go out in the street there are people, people, crowding everywhere. What for? They tear about the shops, drive about furi- ously, and are always in a hurry. What is the reason of it all? And at night there isa twisting and whirling of illumi- [ 335 J THE ROAD TO CALVARY nated signs. What a noise and bustle! People crowding in thousands. . . . They are quite mad. It seems to me nothing but a devilish, shameless, stupid hurry-scurry. Now you are a young man; you’ve been wounded at the war; I can see that at a glance; I should like you to tell an old fellow like me, is it really for this damned hurly- burly that the men are shedding their blood at the front? Where’s the country? Where religion? Where the Tsar? Tell me. Now I’m going to Petersburg to buy some sewing cotton, be damned to it. . . . That we should have come to this! It will not be sewing cotton | that I shall bring back to Tumen. It’s a message that I'll bring. I shall tell them we have all gone to the devil. . . . Mark my words, young man. We shall pay for this rushing past thirty times when a man has to go quietly once.” ‘The old man leant on his knees, got up and pulled down the window blind to keep out the lines of flying sparks from the engine. “We have forgotten God and God has forgotten us. . . . A reckoning will come, I tell you, acruel reckoning.” ... “Do you mean the Germans will beat us?” Ivan Ilyitch asked. “Who knows? Whomever the Lord sends to chastise us, from him shall we receive our punishment. . . . Now look here, supposing the young fellows in my shop begin to misbehave themselves, I may bear it for a time, but then I'll give this one a knock on the head, another a blow in the neck, a third a punch in the jaw. Russia, however, is not a shop. God is merciful, but when peo- ple have defiled the way to Him, mustn’t that way be cleared? That is my meaning. It is not merely a ques- tion, young man, of abstaining from meat on Wednes- days and Fridays, it’s a question of something more seri- [ 336 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY ous. God has gone from the world; there is nothing more | terrible than that.” ... The old man folded his hands over his stomach and closed his eyes. His spectacles sparkled severely as he bobbed up and down in his corner on the grey bunk. Ivan Ilyitch left the carriage and stood by the corridor window with his face almost touching the glass. The fresh, keen air blew in through a crack. Without, in the darkness, lines of fire flew and interlaced and dropped to the ground. A cloud of smoke was borne past now and again. The carriage wheels clanked loudly, the engine gave a prolonged shriek and turning, the fire from its furnace lighted up the dark fir cones, making them stand out and disappear in the darkness. A signal dropped; the carriages gave a slight jerk; a green lantern flashed out and once more sheets of fire rained past the windows. As he watched them Ivan Ilyitch, with a sudden, over- whelming joy, realized the force of what had happened in the past five days. Had he been able to tell some one what he felt, he would have been counted a madman. There was nothing strange or mad in it for him, how- ever ; everything was unusually clear. In the darkness of the night, he felt, there moved and suffered and died millions upon millions of people. And all the millions imagined themselves to be living beings. But they lived only conditionally, and everything that took place on earth was merely conditional, fanciful al- most. It seemed to him fanciful to such a degree that were he to make a single effort, the whole world would be changed and assume a different aspect. And amidst the fantasy there beat a living heart. His own heart, belonging to the bent figure at the window. It had left the world of shadows and was flying over the dark world ; [ 337 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY in a rain of fire. His heart beat with divine joy and living blood—the sap of love flowed through it. This strange feeling of love for himself lasted for some seconds. He went back to his carriage, climbed on to the upper bunk and as he undressed he looked at his big hands, reflecting for the first time in his life that they were beautiful. He put them behind his head and shut his eyes and instantly he saw Dasha. She was gazing into his eyes in loving agitation. (It was the same day, in the dining-room. Dasha was turning over some cakes. Ivan Ilyitch walked round the table and kissed her warm | shoulder. She turned quickly. “Dasha, will you be my wife?” he asked. She merely looked at him without re- plying.) Lying on the bunk he could see Dasha’s face now and was unable to feast enough on the vision. For the first time he felt a joyous exultation in the thought that Dasha loved him and that he had big and beautiful hands. His heart beat violently. When he arrived in Petersburg Ivan Ilyitch imme- diately presented himself at the Obukhovsky works and was listed on night duty in one of the workshops. A great many things had changed at the works in the last three years. There were three times as many work- ers, some of them quite young fellows; some had been brought from the Urals and some had been taken from the operating army. Nota trace remained of the former half-starved, half-drunken workman, who was bitter and timid. The men earned good wages, read newspapers, abused the war, the Tsar, the Tsarina, Rasputin and the [ 338 ] eS at THE ROAD TO CALVARY generals. They were all enraged and believed in a revolu- tion after the war. They were particularly enraged that the bread in the town bakeries was mixed with chaff and that for days there would be no meat in the market, and that when there was any it would be bad. Potatoes, too, were rot- ten, sugar was dirty. and to add to everything food was very dear and shopkeepers were profiteering. As much as fifty roubles would be charged for a box of chocolates and a hundred for a bottle of champagne. And nothing would they hear of making peace with the Germans. Ivan Ilyitch was allowed three days to arrange his per- sonal affairs and spent the time rushing about the town to ldk for a flat. He had no clear notion as to why he wanted a flat, but when he had stood by the carriage win- dow he had thought it necessary to take a nice flat hay- ing white rooms and blue curtains and clean windows showing a view of the islands. He went over dozens of houses, but found nothing to please him. In one there was a wall opposite, in another the furniture was too rough or depressing. On the last day, however, he succeeded in finding the very thing he -had pictured to himself in the railway carriage. It was a flat of five tiny white rooms with clean windows facing west. It was situated at the end of Kamen Island and was very inconvenient and expensive, but he took it im- mediately and wrote to inform Dasha about it. On the fourth night he went on duty at the works. In the yard, black with coal-dust, were tall lamp-posts with lighted lamps. The smoke from the brick chimneys was beaten by the damp wind to the ground; yellow, stifling fumes filled the air. Through the big, semi-circular, dirty windows of the workshops numberless whirling [ 339 J THE ROAD TO CALVARY transmission straps could be seen turning the iron cheeks of the lathes and boring mills, planing and turning steel and bronze. The vertical discs of stamping machines came down. Cranes flew high in the darkness. The fur- naces blazed with a red and white light. Vibrating the ground with its rapid strokes was a huge steam hammer. From the low smelting chimneys, columns of flame rose in the dark-grey sky. The figures of men moved leisurely through the deafening noise and the gleam of iron-bound demons... . ; ) Ivan Ilyitch entered the workshop where they stamped shrapnel shells. Strukov, an engineer and old acquaint- ance, conducted him through the shop, explaining certain characteristics of the work with which Teliegin was not acquainted. He afterwards took him into a little office, partitioned off from the shop, and showed him the books and reports. He then handed him the keys and putting on his overcoat, said: “Twenty-three per cent of the goods turned out are duds. Try and keep to the figure.” By the way he talked and the manner in which he had given over the workshop, Teliegin gathered how indiffer- ent Strukov was to the work, and Strukov, as he had known him of old, was an excellent engineer and a great enthusiast. He was troubled and asked: “Isn’t it possi- ble to reduce the percentage of duds?” Strukov yawned and shook his head. He pulled his cap low over his unkempt head and went back to the lathes with Ivan Ilyitch. “Drop that, my dear fellow. What is the difference? Twenty-three per cent less men will be mown down. Be- sides, you can’t alter anything. The lathes are completely worn out. Let them go to the devil!” He stopped by a press. A short-legged old workman [ 340 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY in a leather apron put a red-hot pig of ore under the stamp; the frame came down, the rod entered the soft red steel, a hot flame shot up, the frame rose and a three-inch shrapnel shell fell to the ground. The old man immediately brought up another pig of ore. Another man, a tall young fellow with a curled black moustache, was busy by the furnace. Strukov turned to the old man. “Well, Rublev, are all the shells dud?” The old man smiled and with the slits of eyes gave a cunning, furtive look at Teliegin. “Of course, they’re dud. See how the thing works.” He put his hand on the post, green with grease, on which the frame of the press glided. “You can see the damned thing shake. It ought to have been chucked out long ago.” The young fellow at the furnace, Ivan Rublev’s son, Vaska, gave a short laugh. “A lot of things ought to be chucked out of here. The machine’s grown rusty.” “Easier, Vaska,” Strukov said cheerfully. “Easier! That’s just it!’ Vaska shook his curly head and his broad, handsome face with the black moustache _and fierce eyes smiled sarcastically in a self-assured kind of way. | “The two best hands in the shop,” Strukov said softly to Ivan Ilyitch as they walked away. “Good-bye. I am going to ‘The Red Bells’ tonight. Ever been there? An excellent cabaret and they give you good drink. I must take you there some time.” ‘one e ie” WE ze "Ivan Tyitet tia! to study. the Rublevs, both father and son. During that first conversation he was struck by the similarity of word and smile and glance that Strukov [ 341 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY had exchanged with them. All three seemed to be trying to discover whether he, Teliegin, was “one of us” or an — enemy. By the ease with which Rublev talked to him, © ; he came to understand that he had been put down as — “fone of us.” The term had no relation to Ivan Ilyitch’s political | views, which were exceedingly vague, nor to his past work | in the place, but rather to a comfortable feeling of happi- ~ ness, of which every one was conscious. The source of © a great, attainable happiness was contained in Ivan Ilyitch © and for this reason he was held to be “one of us” by — every one who came in contact with him. When on duty one night Ivan Ilyitch went up to the : Rublevs and listened to the father and son arguing, They made occasional appeals to him. Vaska Rublev was a socialist, well read and embittered. He talked only of class war, of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and expressed himself in a smart, bookish way. Ivan Rublev was an Old Believer, cunning, re- — ligious, but on the whole, not a God-fearing man. “At our place, in the Perm forests,” he said, “in the books at the hermitages everything is set down, the pres- ent war and how we shall be ruined afterwards. The whole of our land will be ruined and the number of peo- ple who will be left, and those will be few.... And how a man as strong as a beast will come out of a hermitage j and will rule the land according to the terrible word of - God.” “A mystic,” Vaska said with a wink. “There’s a word for you, you rascal! Calls himself a socialist. What sort of a socialist are you, eh? You are — a turner by trade; that is what you are, you dog. I was — just like him. He must be tearing about with his cap [ 342 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY over his ear, his shirt torn, his eyes bulging out and be singing, ‘Arise to battle. . . . Against whom? What for? You silly ass!” " “Hear how this old man talks?’ Vaska said, pointing with his thumb at his father. “He’s a dangerous anar- chist. He hasn’t a notion of what socialism is, yet always abuses me for the way I talk.” “No, my friends,” said Rublev, interrupting him as he seized a pig of ore and, executing a circle with it, placed it adroitly by the stamping rod, “you read books, but not the right books. Vaska has learned a single word e heart and that is, freedom. He must have freedom. . . You try and take it. It is like trying to hold smoke in your hand! There is no humility left. They don’t un- derstand that they must be poor in spirit according to the times.” “What a muddle-head you are, Father!” Vaska said with annoyance. “Not long ago he declared himself a revolutionary.” “And so I did. What is that to you? If anything were to happen, my dear fellow, I’d be the first to seize a pitchfork. Why should I hold on to the Tsar? I am a peasant. How much land have I ploughed in the past thirty years? I can’t eat freedom with my porridge. I want land and not those damned nuts of yours to crack!” He kicked his boot against a heap of shrapnel shells on the floor. ‘Revolutionary! Of course, I’m a revolutionary! Don’t I prize my soul’s salvation?” Vaska spat in disgust. Ivan Ilyitch laughed. He got up and stretched himself. The night was drawing to a close. Teliegin wrote to Dasha every day, but she did not reply so often. Her letters were strange and icy and Ivan [ 343 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Ilyitch felt slightly chilled when he read them. He would — sit down by the window with Dasha’s sheet of note- paper written in a sloping hand and read it again and ~ again. Then he would gaze at the grey, purple woods ~ on the islands and at the clouded sky, as muddy as the water in the canal. He leant his chin on the window-sill and stared out, reflecting that it was just as well perhaps that Dasha’s letters were not warm as he had foolishly hoped them to be and that Dasha wrote them honestly and sincerely. Her heart was true, calm and stern like — the Great Festival before the forgiveness of sin. “My dear Friend,” she wrote, “why have you taken a flat of five rooms? Think of the expense you are incur- ring! It is bad enough if you live alone. Five rooms! And then the service—you must keep two women and in these days, too! One should be content to creep into a hole and sit there with bated breath. . . . In Moscow the autumn is cold and rainy; there is no light... . We must wait for the spring. . . .” Just as on the day of his departure, when he had asked her to be his wife and she had answered merely by a glance, so now in her letter she never referred directly to their marriage nor to their future life together. He must wait until the spring. This waiting for the spring in vague and desperate hope of some miracle happening was common to every one. Life had stopped, people had burrowed into the winter to lick their paws. Outwardly it seemed that there was no more vitality to bear this new waiting for a bloody spring. On one occasion, Dasha wrote: “I had not meant to speak nor to write of Bezsonov’s death, but yesterday I again heard the details of his ter- rible end. Not long before he left for the front, I met [ 844 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY him in the Tversky Boulevard. He was pitiful then. Had I not repulsed him he would not have died perhaps. But I did repulse him; I could not do otherwise. I should do the same again if the past were repeated. His death lies at my door; I accept that. You must under- stand it. You are right when you say that man cannot live for himself alone... .” Teliegin spent half the day answering the letter. “How can you imagine that I do not accept everything that concerns you?” . . . He wrote slowly, trying hard to keep all the letters straight. “I sometimes ask myself what I would do if you were to fall in love with another man ; that is, if the worst thing of all were to happen. I should accept that, too . . . I would not resign myself, oh, no; my heart would be dark within me. . . . But my love for you does not consist only in pleasure. You sometimes feel that you want to die because you love too deeply. That is how Bezsonov must have felt when he went to the front. . . . Let his name be sacred... . And you must feel that you are absolutely free, Dasha. . . 1 ask nothing of you, not even love. . . . I have come to realize this lately... . I really want to be hum- ble in spirit. . . . Oh, God, what a hard time it is that we have to love in!” Two days later Ivan Ilyitch returned at daybreak from the works, had a bath and went to bed, but he was awak- ened by a telegram: “All is well. I love you horribly. Your Dasha.” One Sunday evening, Strukov, the engineer, called for Ivan Ilyitch and took him to “The Red Bells.” ‘[ 845 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY It was a cabaret in a basement and smelt of tobacco . and alcohol and the sweat of human beings. The arched ceiling and the walls were decorated with brightly col- oured birds, naked women, unnatural in hue and form, infants with distorted faces and many significant scrolls. The place was filled with noise and smoke. On a plat- form sat a wrinkled, painted little man in an army shirt, his hands wandering about the keys of a pianoforte. The tables were packed. A group of officers sat drinking : é cocktails and staring uneasily at the women passing by. q Advocates, interested in art, argued loudly. The queen of the place, a black-haired beauty with puffed eyes, was laughing at the top of her voice. At a corner of a table sat Antoshka Arnoldov, twirling a tuft of hair while writing his correspondence from the front. On a raised place, drunk and with hanging head, slumbered the pro- genitor of futurism, a veterinary surgeon with hollow, consumptive cheeks. Three young poets sitting in a cor- ner yelled out, “Sing something indecent, Kostia!” The painted old man at the piano, without turning round, tried to sing something in an unsteady voice, but no one heard him. The proprietor, an ex-actor, long-haired and har- rowed, appeared at a side door now and again, stared at his guests with wild eyes and disappeared. At dawn, three days back, his wife had run away from the place with a young composer straight to the Finnish railway station. He had not slept for three days and had been drinking heavily. Strukov, somewhat intoxicated. with the cocktail he was having, said to Ivan Ilyitch: ““No wonder I like this place. It would be hard to find a rottener hole any- where. . . . It does you good to look at it. Look at that creature sitting by herself in the corner! She’s so [ 346 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY thin she can hardly move. The last degree of hysteria. . . . Yet she has a great success among women... . And that man over there with the horselike jaw, that’s the famous poet, Semesvetov. He knocked out his front teeth to avoid going to the war and writes his verses... . ‘The war will not end till Russian bayonets are wiped on the silk drawers of Vienna prostitutes.’ That’s a pub- lished one, and there are unpublished ones, too. ‘Chew with iron jaw, burst human flesh, bourgeois! Our prole- tarian bayonet will slit your fat belly.’” Strukov laughed loudly and emptied the cocktail down his throat. Without wiping his lips, shaded by a Tar- tar moustache, he kept on telling Ivan Ilyitch the names of the different guests. He pointed out a sleepy, un- healthy-looking man with a wild face. “There is the very core of the contagion, the very » cancer”; he spoke the words with pleasure; “from that spot the decay spreads over Mother Russia. I know you are a patriot, Ivan Llyitch, a nationalist, an intellectual. . . . How would it be to splash and spatter the blood on this putrefaction? Ha, ha... . They'd chase over the earth and bite like mad things. . . . But you wait, the time will come when they will lick the blood; they will come to life again, these swine, these death-heads; they will be conscious of their power, they will believe in their right. . . . And they'll turn everything upside down like mad things. . . . Our Mother Russia, the accursed, will burst and the decay will flow throughout the world. . . . Curse you!” Strukov was very drunk indeed. His dry eyes glis- tened merrily and his oaths were pronounced with a gentle smile. Teliegin frowned. His head went round from the medley and the noise of Strukov’s incompre- hensible outburst. [ 847 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY At first several people and then every one in the room turned their’ gaze to the entrance door. The veterinary surgeon’s yellow eyes bulged; the wild face of the pro- prietor popped out of the wall; the half-dead woman sitting at the side raised her heavy eyelids and her eyes grew suddenly bright; with unexpected vivacity, she jumped from her chair and stared in the direction of the; door) out A) glassfell; At the door stood an oldish man of middle height, with shoulders thrust slightly forward and hands in his pockets. His narrow face with the long beard was smil- ing cheerfully with the two deep habitual wrinkles, and standing out of the whole face were two intelligent, piercing eyes, which shone with a grey light. Thus a minute passed. From out the darkness of the doorway another face approached his; it was the face of a civil- servant, who with a crooked, anxious smile whispered something in his ‘ear. The man unwillingly wrinkled his large nose and said: “There you go again with your foolishness! I’m sick of you!” And looking round at the guests, still more cheerfully, he shook his head and said in a big voice, “Well, good-bye, my jolly friends.,. . .”’ He went out and the door banged behind him. The whole room began to hum like a beehive. Strukov dug his nails into Ivan Ilyitch. “Did you see? Did you see?” he asked, gasping. “That was Rasputin!” ? [ 348 ] XXXIT It was four o’clock in the morning and Ivan [lyitch was walking home from the works. It was a frosty, December night. He could not find an izvozchik; they were hard to find at that time even in the centre of the town. Teliegin walked briskly in the middle of the deserted street, breathing steam into his raised collar. In the light of the few lamps, falling frost needles could be seen in the air. The snow crunched loudly beneath the feet. Red reflections danced on the flat, yellow fa- cade of a house. Teliegin turned the corner and saw the flame of a fire in a pail, around which were chilled figures enveloped in steam. Higher up the pavement was a long, motionless line. About a hundred people— women, old men and boys—were standing in a queue at a provision shop. At the side was a night-porter stamp- ing his feet and banging his arms to keep warm. Ivan Ilyitch walked the length of the queue and looked at the huddled figures, wrapped in shawls and pressed against the wall. “Three shops were looted yesterday on the Viborsky,” a voice said. “What else can you do?” “T asked for half a pound of kerosene yesterday,” another voice said, ‘and they told me they hadn’t got any and there was the Dmitrievs’ cook buying five pounds before my eyes at a free price.” “What did she pay?” “Two and a half roubles a pound, my girl.” “For kerosene?” [ 349 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “We'll remember it against the shopkeeper when the time comes.” “At Okhta, my sister says, they caught a shopkeeper at a trick like that and shoved his head into a pickle- barrel. He begged to be let off, but he was drowned.” “Serves him right. They deserve worse.” “Meanwhile we've got to freeze.” “While he’s drinking his tea.” “Who’s drinking tea?” a hoarse voice asked. | “They’re all swilling it. My mistress, a general’s wife, gets up at twelve o’clock and keeps on swilling tea till you think she’ll burst, the image.” “And you can stand here and freeze and get con- sumption.” “You're right. Ive got a cough already.” “My mistress is a cocotte. When I get back from market the place is full of men, all in their pants and drunk. Immediately they ask you for an omelette, or black bread or vodka, anything that’s coarse.” “Tt’s English money they drink on,” a voice said. “Now, really!” “Everything is sold, believe me. You stand ‘here and don’t know anything, but you’ve been sold in bondage for fifty years to come. The army, too, is sold. This is what we’ve come to, my God!” “What is the use of invoking God? You must demand to be told why you are freezing here while they are in the feather-beds. Are there more of you or of them? Go, pull them out of their feather-beds, lie down in their places and let them come and stand in the queue!” When these words had been spoken by the same mas- culine, assured voice, a silence ensued. “Porter! I say, porter!’ some one called with chat- tering teeth. [ 350 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “What’s happened ?” “Will there be salt today?” “Probably not.” “Then why am I standing here catching my death of cold?” “Be damned to them!” “This is the fifth day that we’ve had no salt!” “They drink the blood of the people, the swine!” “Stop it now, you women. You'll catch a cold in the throat if you talk so much,” the porter said in a thick voice. Teliegin had gone past the queue. The angry voices were still. Again the straight streets were empty, lost in the leaden, frosty mist. Ivan Ilyitch reached the embankment and walked on the bridge. The wind blew the tails of his coat aside. He recollected that he had to find an izvozchik, but soon forgot it again. Far on the other bank, a line of shadowy lights twinkled. A line of dim lights on the footpath stretched across the ice. A cold wind blew over the waste of the Neva; the snow crunched, the tramway cables and the cast-iron railings of the _ bridge vibrated plaintively. Ivan Ilyitch stopped and looked at the gloomy dark- ness, thinking, as he often thought now, of one and the same thing, of the moment when, in the railway-car- riage, happiness and the consciousness of himself had come to him like a fire from within. His sensation of happiness was like a light in the dark- ness. Around him all was troubled and confused and hostile to his happiness. An effort had to be made every time he said to himself, “I live, I am happy, my life will be bright and beautiful.” [ 351 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY At the window that night, amidst the sparks of the flying train, it had been easy to say that, but it needed an effort now to detach himself from the half starved fig- ures in the queue, from the howling despair of the Decem- ber wind, from the touch of the ruin that threatened. Ivan Ilyitch was convinced that his love for Dasha, her charm, the glad consciousness of himself he had ex- perienced at the carriage-window, was the highest good. There was nothing greater than that in life. However, to detach one of the good things in life from life as a whole was treachery. He could not say to himself: “Let other people be murdered, let them perish of cold and hunger, but Dasha and I will be happy. Let only the two of us remain on earth and we shall still be happy.” Such were corrupt and evil thoughts. In an early letter, Ivan Ilyitch had written to Dasha: “What a hard time it is we have to love in.” It was hard because the old, comfortable, rather narrow, but amazing temple of life was shaken; it crumbled at the blows dealt by the war; its columns swayed; its wide dome was broken, the old stones were scattered and amidst the dust of the ruins, two beings, Ivan Ilyitch and Dasha, in the madness of their oe desired to be happy despite everything. He looked at the gloomy darkness of the night, at the twinkling lights; he heard the wind howl desperately and thought: “It is not wrong; the desire for happiness is higher than everything. I am made in the image and likeness of God. I don’t want the image to be destroyed, I want it transformed, and that is happiness. I want happiness in spite of everything. Can I abolish queues, feed the hungry, stop the war? I cannot. And as I cannot, must I renounce happiness and merge in the misery? No. But can I, shall I be happy? .. .” [ 352 J THE ROAD TO CALVARY Ivan Ilyitch crossed the bridge and without noticing the way, he reached the Palace Embankment. Tall elec- tric lamps, shaken by the wind, burned brightly. Snow- dust flew with a rustling sound over the bare paving- blocks. The windows of the Winter Palace were dark and desolate. At a striped sentry-box near a snow-heap stood a giant guard in a big coat. His rifle was pressed against his chest by folded arms. Ivan Ilyitch pulled himself up suddenly. “The fact that I think about it means that there can’t be any happiness for me. We want to live by love and the whole world lives by hate... .” He walked faster, battling with the wind at first, then turning his back on it. He went round the palace and walked in the square. Had the square been full of people, it seemed to him that he would have got up on the plinth of the Alexander column and told them all the plain truth and every one would have believed him. “You cannot live like this any longer,’ he would have said; “the state is built on hatred, frontiers are de- termined in hatred, every one of us is a small fortress with aiming guns. Life is limited and terrible. All the world is stifling in hate; people are exterminating each other, rivers of blood flow. Is it not enough for you? Are you still blind? Must you have man kill man in every house? Come to yourselves, throw down your arms, break the boundaries, open the doors and windows to the free wind. Let the way of the cross pass through- out the earth and strengthen it with the water of life in the name of the Holy Ghost. That is the way we can live. We have land enough for corn, meadows for cattle, hilly slopes for vineyards; the inexhaustible womb of the earth is ours. There is room enough for all. [ 358 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Don’t you realize that you are still living in the igno- rance of the Middle Ages? . . .” . Ivan Ilyitch came out on the Moika, caught his breath and laughed aloud. What a walk indeed! He looked at his watch. It was five o'clock. Crunching over the © snow, a big car with extinguished lamps came round a corner. At the steering-wheel sat an officer in an open © cloak. His narrow, clean-shaven face was pale and his — eyes were glassy like the eyes of a drunken man. Be- © hind him sat another officer with his cap pushed to the back of his head. His face was invisible. In both’ hands he held a mat bundle. The third man in the.car © was a civilian in a tall caracal cap with the collar of his coat raised. He stood up and shook the shoulders of the man at the steering-wheel. The car drew up by the bridge. Ivan Ilyitch saw the three of them jump out on the snow, they pulled out the bundle and dragged it a few paces along the snow, then with difficulty they lifted it and carried it to the middle of the bridge and dropped it over the railing. The two officers immediately went back to the car, the civilian bent over and looked after it — for some time, then he put up the collar of his coat and ran after the others. The car set off at full speed and disappeared. “What a dirty thing to do!” Ivan Ilyitch said; he had watched the proceedings with bated breath. He went on to the bridge, but stare as hard as he would at the big black hole in the ice, he could not see anything; there was only a gurgling of stinking, warm water from a sewer. The lamps burned brightly on the deserted Moika em- bankment; desolation was reflected in the darkened win- dows; the misty sky was just the same, leaden and frosty. “What a dirty thing to do!” Ivan Ilyitch muttered again, [ 354 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY scowling as he walked along the railings of the canal. On the Nevsky he at last found an izvozchik, a starved old man with a heavy-jawed horse. Ivan Ilyitch closed his eyes as he fastened the apron. His whole body ached with weariness. “T love, that is vital, real,” he thought. “It doesn’t matter what I do, if it comes from my love, it must be good.” [ 355 ] XXXII \ The bundle which had been dropped by the three men into the hole of the ice was the body of Rasputin. In order to kill this superhuman, strong peasant he was first made drunk with wine, mixed with potassium cyanide; then he was shot in the breast and in the head and back. of the neck and his head was at last smashed open with a castette. Yet for all that, when his body was dis- covered twenty-four hours later, a medical examination established that Rasputin had only ceased to breathe when under the ice in the Moika. The murder became a license for all that happened. two months later—the license of blood. Rasputin had on more than one occasion declared that with his death the throne would crumble and the Romanov dynasty would collapse. This savage and violent man must have — had a presentiment of evil, such as dogs feel before a death in the house, and he died unwillingly, this last sup- porter of the throne, peasant, horse-thief and wandering fanatic. His death brought a sinister depression on the court and rejoicing throughout the land; people congratulated each other over it. Nikolai Ivanovitch wrote to his wife from Minsk, “The night the news arrived, the of- ficers of the Commander-in-Chief’s staff ordered seven dozen bottles of champagne for the mess and the sol- diers yelled ‘Hurrah’ throughout the whole front.” After a few days the murder was forgotten by the country, but not by the court. At the court they believed in his prophecy and with gloomy forebodings made [ 356 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY ready for the revolution. Petersburg was secretly di- vided into sectors. Machine-guns were demanded from the Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovitch and when he re- fused them, they were ordered from Archangel and four hundred and twenty-two of them were placed in attics on the street-crossings. The press was still more re- stricted; newspapers appeared with half their columns bare, but proprietors, not to be outdone, printed significant headlines on the bare columns which had a greater effect on the angry readers than the screaming articles. The Empress wrote her husband desperate letters to Stimulate his will and spirit. Once more she demanded the complete abolition of the Imperial Duma. The Em- peror, like one bewitched, stayed at Mogilov among his faithful (there was no doubt of this) tens of millions of bayonets. Women rioters and howling Petersburg queues were more terrible to face than an army of three empires, pressing on the Russian front. In Mogilov, at the same time, unknown to the Emperor, the Head of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Alexeiev, a clever man and ardent patriot, was preparing a plan to arrest the Empress and destroy the German party. _In January, to anticipate a spring offensive, an order was signed for an attack on the Northern Front. At the opening of artillery fire, a snowstorm began. The men advanced through deep snow amid a howling storm and the hurricane of bursting shells. Dozens of aéroplanes that had gone up to help the advancing units were beaten down by the wind and in the darkness were mown down by our own as well as the enemy machine-gun fire. For the last time Russia was making an attempt to break the iron ring that hemmed her in, for the last time Rus- sian peasants in white shrouds, driven by a polar storm, were fighting for an Empire embracing one-sixth part [ 357 J THE ROAD TO CALVARY of the world, for the autocracy, dangerous at one time to the world, but now become a lost conception, unfriendly and incomprehensible. The battle raged for ten days; thousands of the liv- ing were buried under the snow. The offensive stopped and froze. The front had once again congealed in the snow. [ 358 J XXXIV Ivan Ilyitch had counted on the holidays to pay a visit to Moscow but the works commissioned him to go to Sweden, from whence he returned only in February. He immediately set about arranging a three weeks’ leave and telegraphed to Dasha to say that he was coming on the 26th. For a week before his departure he was on duty at the workshops. Ivan Ilyitch was struck by the change that had come over the place in his absence. The manage- ment was polite and solicitous as it had never been be- fore and the workers showed their teeth. The men were so savage that at any moment it seemed some one would shout : “Stop work! Smash the lathes!’ The men were particularly incensed by the proceedings in the Imperial Duma, where a debate was in progress on the food question. The proceedings showed that the government could hardly preserve its dignity; it parried the attack with its last efforts. The Tsar’s ministers no longer talked like fairy heroes, but in human speech, which was a little whining. The men knew that the speeches of ministers were not true and that the truth was on, every one’s lips. There were dark and sinister rumours of a near collapse of the front and rear from starvation. On his last duty Ivan Ilyitch observed a peculiar ex- citement among the men. They would leave their lathes every moment and confer together. When he asked Vasili Rublev what these conferences were about, Vaska [359 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY angrily put on his wadding coat and left the shop, bang- ing the door behind him. “He’s got vicious, the rascal Vasili,”’ Ivan Rublev said. “He’s managed to get a revolver from somewhere and keeps it in his pocket.” Vasili soon returned and the men left their lathes and surrounded him. “ ‘Statement of Lieut.-General Kha- balov, Commander of the troops of the Petersburg Mili- tary District,’ ’”’ Vaska read aloud with emphasis, holding a white bill in his hand. ‘‘“During the last few days the amount of flour allowed to the bakeries and the quantity of bread baked have been the same as formerly.’ ” “That's a lie!” voices were instantly raised. “There’s been no bread at all for three days.” “*There ought not to be a shortage of bread,’” Vaska read on. “He’s proposed and disposed,” voices laughed sar- castically. “If there has not been enough bread in some shops that is because people fearing a shortage, have hoarded bread to make rusks.. . .’” | “Who’s made rusksP Let him show us the rusks!” | voices yelled. “We ought to jam a rusk down that lieu- tenant-general’s throat!” “Silence, comrades!’ Vaska commanded. “Let | Khabalov be made to show us those rusks. We must go out into the street, comrades. . . . From the Baltic Works four thousand men are marching on the Nevsky. And the women are coming out from the Viborg Works. They’ve fed us on statements long enough!” . “He’s right. Let them show us bread! We want bread!” | “They won’t show you any bread, comrades. There isn’t enough flour in the town to last for more than three days. Trains are standing still in the Urals... ,_ {[ 360 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY Elevators there are filled with corn! In Cheliabinsk three million poods of meat are rotting at the station! In Siberia they are making candles of butter. . . . And the Tsar’s government expects the workers to eat ea There stepped out from the crowd surrounding Rub- lev a fellow with crooked shoulders, whose grimy face twitched. He scowled and beat his breast and shook his head. “Why are you saying that to me? Why are you say- ing that to me?” “Arise! Throw down your work! Put out the fur- naces!’’ came shouts from all sides and the men rushed about the shop. Vaska Rublev went up to Ivan Ilyitch. His long eyelashes covered his eyes, his lips trembled. “Go!” he said audibly. “Go, while you are yet whole!” Ivan Ilyitch slept badly for the remainder of that night and awoke with a feeling of restlessness in every part of his body. The morning was cloudy; drops fell on the gutter without. Ivan Ilyitch tried to collect his thoughts. His restlessness would not leave him and the drops fell irritatingly, into his very brain, as it were. “T ought not to wait till the 26th, I ought to go to- day,” he thought. He took off his nightshirt and went into the bathroom where he turned on the douche and stood under the icy, cutting spray. There was a great deal to be done before his departure. Ivan Ilyitch had some coffee and went out. He jumped into a tram-car, which was full of people, and here, too, he felt restless. The passengers sat in their usual gloomy [ 361 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY silence, their knees pressed close together and angrily pulling the skirts of their clothing from beneath a neigh- bour. It was sticky underfoot; the raindrops rolled down the windows and the bell jingled irritatingly on the front platform. Opposite Ivan Ilyitch sat a war civil-servant with a patchy, yellowish face; his clean-shaven mouth was set in a crooked smile and his tin-coloured eyes, with an animation clearly unusual to them, looked round wonder- ingly. When he observed them, Ivan Ilyitch noticed that all the passengers were looking round in dismay — and wonder. The car stopped at the corner of Bolshoi Prospect. The passengers immediately began to fidget and to look about them; a few jumped off the platform. The driver took the key and put it in the breast of his blue coat and opening the door in front, he said in anger and alarm: “The car is not going any further.” Over the whole of the Kamennoostrovsky and the Bolshoi Prospect, as far as the eye could see, tram-cars stood. The pavements were black with people. Rowdy boys, products of the war, tore about wildly. The iron shutters of a shop now and again came down with a bang. A thin, wet snow fell. A man appeared on top of one of the cars. His long coat was unfastened; he pulled his cap off his head and ~ was shouting something below. ‘“O-o-o-o!” a sigh went through the crowd. The man tied a rope to the roof of the car, then he stood up and again tore off his cap. “Q-o-o-o” went through the crowd. The man jumped on the road. The crowd rolled back and then a group of people could be seen slipping over the snow as they i * tugged at a rope tied to the car. The car leant over; © the crowd moved back; boys whistled. The car rocked, [ 362 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY but remained standing; the wheels crashed. The group tugging at the rope were joined by other people who came running silently from all sides. The car swayed and crashed over; there was a sound of broken glass. The silent crowd surged to the overturned car. “There are going to be some doings now!” a voice remarked behind Ivan Ilyitch cheerfully, and then sev- eral voices sarcastically took up the refrain, “You fell a victim in the fatal war... .” On the way to the Nevsky Ten Ilyitch noticed the same wondering glances, the same anxious faces. All over the place, like small whirlpools, eager listeners seethed round news-bearers. Fat porters stood in doorways, house- maids stuck their noses out and peeped up the street, where a crowd surged at the top. Some man with a portfolio, a well-kept beard and an unfastened coat— an advocate evidently—asked a porter: “Tell me, good fellow, what is that crowd? What is happening there?” “They are asking for bread. It’s a riot, sir.” “Ah tee j Higher up the street, at the crossing, stood a pale, tear-stained lady with a sick dog in her arms, whose hanging back trembled. The lady kept asking every one who passed, “What is the crowd for? What do they want?” “Tt looks like revolution, madam,” the man in the fur coat answered tearfully as he passed. Walking along the pavement with the skirt of his short coat flapping smartly was a workman with an un- wholesome lynx-like face which twitched. “Comrades,” he whined, turning suddenly, “how much longer will they drink our blood?” A fat-cheeked boy officer stopped an izvozchik and, [ 363 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY clutching his girdle, stared at the crowd as at an eclipse of the sun. “Look! look!’ sobbed a passing workman. The crowd had grown denser and now filled the whole street; it hummed excitedly and moved in the direction of the bridge. In three places white flags had been put out. Like shavings passers-by were gathered up and q taken along with the stream. Ivan Ilyitch followed the crowd across the bridge. Several horsemen were com- ing across the misty, snow-covered Marsov Square, but on seeing the crowd, they pulled up their horses and drew near slowly. One of them, a ruddy-complexioned colonel with a divided beard, saluted with a smile. Some people in the crowd began to sing mournfully. From the mist of the Summer Garden, from the dark bare branches of the trees, like pieces of stuff there rose up the crows that had at one time frightened the murderer of the Emperor Paul. Ivan Ilyitch was walking in front. He felt a spasm in his throat. He coughed, but his agitation merely in- creased and the tears were ready to come to his eyes. When he reached the Engineers’ castle, he turned down the left to the Liteini Prospect. \ On the Petersburg side of the Liteini Prospect there was another crowd which stretched far across the bridge. All along its way at the gates stood curious onlookers and at every window excited faces were seen. Ivan Ilyitch stopped at the gate beside an old civil- [ 364 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY servant, whose hanging cheeks shook. Further on to the right, a chain of soldiers stood motionless across the street, leaning on their rifles. The crowd drew near and slackened speed. From the midst of it, frightened voices cried, “Stop! stop!’ Im- mediately thousands of women’s shrill voices yelled, “Bread! bread! bread!” “This can’t be allowed!” said the civil-servant with a severe look at Ivan Ilyitch over the tops of his spec- tacles. Just then two yard-porters issued from the gate and began to push the onlookers away with their shoul- ders. The civil-servant’s cheeks trembled, some girl in pince-nez exclaimed, “How dare you, you fool!’ The gate was nevertheless closed. All the way down the street gates and doors were being shut and frightened voices cried, “Don’t! don’t!” The screaming crowd moved onwards. A youth with a womanish, pimply face in a broad-brimmed hat, sprang out in front. “The banners in front! The banners in front!” voices shouted. At this moment, in front of the chain of soldiers, there appeared a tall, small-waisted officer in a fur cap. He held his hand on his hip by his pistol-case and cried aloud: “There is an order to fire. . . . I don't Want. ploodshed. ."". \; Dispersemass 0 “Bread! bread! bread!” voices cried. And the crowd moved on the soldiers. People with maddened eyes squeezed past Ivan Ilyitch. “Bread! Down with the dogs!” One man fell and caught Ivan Ilyitch by the leg. His wrinkled face con- torted pitifully and he cried senselessly, “I hate! I hate!’ Slowly, throughout the street came a sound like the tearing of calico. The crowd was stilled. Some school- [ 365 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY boy seized his cap and dived into the crowd. . . . The civil-servant raised his sinewy hand to make the sign of the cross. The volley had been fired in the air and it was not followed by a second. The crowd, however, retreated. A part of it dispersed and the remainder moved with the flag to the Znamensky Square. Some caps and 3 galoshes were left in the yellowish snow in, the street. When he came out on the Nevsky Ivan Ilyitch again heard the roar of numerous voices. It came from a second crowd which was crossing the Neva from the Vasilov Island. The pavements were packed with well-dressed women, officers, students and foreigners. An English officer, with a ruddy childlike face, stood like a post with the usual stony expression on his face. Shopgirls with powdered faces and black rib- bons in their hair were glued to the shop-windows. A tattered, dirty and angry crowd of working men and women walked in the middle of the broad, misty street, yelling, “Bread! bread! bread!” By the pavement, an izvozchik, leaning over the front of his sleigh, was saying amiably to a scared, red-faced woman, “You can see for yourself that I can’t goon. A fly couldn’t get by.” “Go on, you fool, and don’t dare talk to me!” “T’m not to be called a fool now. . . . Get out of the ‘sleigh. .02.”” On the pavement, passers-by poked their heads into the groups standing about and listened and talked ex- citedly. “A hundred people have been killed on the Liteini. .. .” [ 366 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “It’s not true. They’ve only killed a pregnant woman and an old man.” “Why did they kill an old man?” “It’s Protopopov who does everything. He’s mad.” “You're right. . . . Progressive paralysis.” “I’ve heard some impossible news. . . .” “What is it? What is it?” “There’s a general strike.” “What? Water and electric light?” “I wish to God it were true. . . “They’re splendid fellows, the workers! Ie “Don’t rejoice too soon. It may be crushed... . “Mind you are not crushed with that expression on easace fo? Ivan Ilyitch, Banbyed at the loss of time, pushed his way through the crowds, called at three addresses on business without finding one of the people he wanted at home, and in an angry state of mind, walked back along the Nevsky. The street had assumed its former aspect. Sleighs flew past, yard-porters came out to clear away the snow and at the crossing, a tall man appeared in a ‘long, black coat. Above the heads of the excited crowd and the muddled thoughts of the inhabitants, he raised his white club aloft, that magic sceptre of order. As they crossed the street, the passers-by thought, “All right, my dear fellow, you wait till the time comes!” But no one dreamed that the time had already come, and the pillar of a man with the big moustache and the club was no more than a shadow which would dis- appear tomorrow from the street-crossing, disappear from life, from the minds of men... . “Teliegin, Teliegin! Stop, you deaf grouse!” Ivan Ilyitch turned round. Strukov, the engineer, with [ 367 ] ane ”? THE ROAD TO CALVARY his cap at the back of his head and eyes sparkling, was — running towards him, “Where are you off to? Angry? Let us go to a café.” ~ He took Ivan Ilyitch by the arm and dragged him up © the first floor of a café. The room was filled with cigar © smoke, which made the eyes smart. Men in top hats, in © fur caps, in hastily thrown on coats were arguing, shout- — ing and jumping up from their chairs. Strukov pushed — his way to the window and sat down opposite Ivan Ilyitch, laughing. “The ruble is falling!” he exclaimed, clutching the table with both hands. “Paper money is going to the devil! Now we know where the power lies! Tell me what you’ve seen!” “T was on the Liteini; they fired there, but I think 39 PT eGA IE. ss “What do you think of it all?” “T think today’s events will make the government tackle the transport of provisions seriously.” . “It’s too late now!” Strukov bawled, banging the palm of his hand on the glass table-top. “Too late! : . We've eaten our own bowels! There’s an end to the war; it’s finished! There’s an end to everything! Everything will go to the devil. . . . Do you know what they are demanding in the factories? ‘They in- sist on the formation of soviets of workers’ deputies. They’ve no faith in anything but soviets! And they de- mand immediate demobilization. . . .” “You must be drunk,” Ivan Ilyitch said. “When I was at the works at night, I heard nothing at all... . If any demands are made, it must be you alone who are makine thems)... Strukov threw back his head and laughed. He kept his eyes fixed on Teliegin, [ 368 ] THE ROAD TO CALVARY “It would be well to smash the machine. The very time, eh?” “I don’t think so. . . . I don’t see anything good in i ety Ses “No government, no troops, no policemen, none of these swine in top hats. . . . To reduce to primeval chaos.” Strukov suddenly clenched his tobacco-stained teeth and the pupils of his eyes became like points. “To let loose horror, more horrible than the war... . Everything is damned and defiled and hideous. What if we destroy it all, like Sodom and Gomorrah . . . and leave a clean place?’ Beneath the sweat on his forehead a vein stood out. “That is what everybody wants and you want it too. Only I say it and you dare not.” “You've been in the rear throughout the war,” Telie- gin said angrily, looking at Strukov with disgust, “but I was at the front and know that in 1914 we also wanted to fight and to destroy. Now we don’t want it. We de- stroyed, but we fought. Whereas you who have stayed behind in the rear are only now getting a taste for war. You've got the souls of marauders and hooligans; your idea is to plunder, burn! I’ve studied you for some time. You want to destroy, but when you yourself have ‘to touch blood, you find it horrible... .” “Vou’re a small man, Teliegin; you’ve got a lower middle-class mind.” “Perhaps, perhaps. . . .« 99 Ivan Ilyitch returned home early and immediately went to bed. He went to sleep for a moment only, however, then he sighed, turned over on his back and opened his eyes, wide awake. On the ceiling of his [ 369 | THE ROAD TO CALVARY bedroom the light of a street-lamp was reflected. There was a smell of leather; an open trunk stood on the table. In the trunk, which he had bought in Stockholm, was a beautiful leather and silver dressing-case, a present for Dasha. Ivan Ilyitch experienced a tender feeling for it and every day he took it out of its silky paper wrap- pings and looked at it. He could see a picture of Dasha in a railway carriage with long windows, as in all Russian trains, sitting on the seat in a travelling dress and on her lap, this thing, smelling of leather and perfumes, this token of carefree happiness, of wonder- ful journeys with unfamiliar landscapes without and Dasha’s pensive face within. If he could but lift the end of her veil, tied in a knot at the nape of her neck, and press it to his lips... . “Oh, dear! Something irreparable has happened to- day!” Ivan Ilyitch thought, and his memory, recalling everything he had seen, replied confidently: “In the town there is a sinister non-resistance to anything that may happen.