From time to time storms break out in the landlady’s room. Sometimes
it happens that the lieutenant, with the assistance of his pupil
Romka, sells a heap of somebody else’s books to a second-hand dealer.
Sometimes he takes advantage of the landlady’s absence to intercept
the payment for a room by day. Or he secretly begins to have playful
relations with the servant-maid. Just the other day the lieutenant
abused Anna Friedrichovna’s credit in the public-house over the way.
This came to light, and a quarrel raged, with abuse and a fight in the
corridor. The doors of all the rooms opened, and men and women poked
their heads out in curiosity. Anna Friedrichovna shouted so loud that
she was heard in the street:
‘You get out of here, you blackguard, get out, you tramp! I’ve spent on
you every penny of the money I’ve earned by sweating blood. You fill
your belly with the farthings I sweat for my children!’
‘You fill your belly with our farthings,’ squalled the schoolboy Romka,
making faces at him from behind his mother’s skirt.
‘You fill your belly!’ Adka and Edka accompanied from a distance.
Arseny the porter, in stony silence, pressed his chest against the
lieutenant. From room No. 9, the valiant possessor of a magnificently
parted black beard leaned out to his waist in his underclothes, with a
round hat for some reason perched on his head, and resolutely gave his
advice:
‘Arseny, give him one between the eyes.’
Thus the lieutenant was driven to the stairs; but there was a broad
window opening on to these very stairs from the corridor. Anna
Friedrichovna hung out of it and still went on shouting after the
lieutenant:
‘You dirty beast ... you murderer ... scoundrel ... Kiev
gutter-sweeping!’
‘Gutter-sweeping!’ ‘Gutter-sweeping!’ the brats in the corridor
strained their voices, shouting.
‘Don’t come eating here any more! Take your filthy things away with
you. Take them. Take them!’
The things the lieutenant had left upstairs in his haste descended on
him: a stick, his paper collar, and his notebook. The lieutenant halted
on the bottom stair, raised his head, and brandished his fist. His face
was pale, a bruise showed red beneath his left eye.
‘You just wait, you scum. I tell everything in the proper quarter. Ah!
ah.... They’re a lot of pimps, robbing the lodgers!’
‘You just sling your hook while you’ve got a whole skin,’ said Arseny
sternly, pressing on the lieutenant from behind and pushing him with
his shoulder.
‘Get away, you swine! You’ve not the right to lay a finger on an
officer,’ the lieutenant proudly exclaimed. ‘I know about everything!
You let people in here without passports! You receive--you receive
stolen goods.... You keep a broth----’
At this point Arseny seized the lieutenant adroitly from behind. The
door slammed with a shattering noise. The two men rolled out into the
street together like a ball, and thence came an angry: ‘Brothel!’
This morning, as it had always happened before, Lieutenant Tchijhevich
came back penitent, with a bouquet of lilac torn out of somebody’s
garden. His face was weary. A dim blue surrounded his hollow eyes. His
forehead was yellow, his clothes unbrushed, and there were feathers in
his hair. The reconciliation goes slowly. Anna Friedrichovna hasn’t
yet had her fill of her lover’s submissive look and repentant words.
Besides, she is a little jealous of the three nights her Valerian has
passed, she knows not where.
‘Anna, darling, ... where ...’ the lieutenant began in an
extraordinarily meek and tender falsetto, slightly tremulous even.
‘Wha-at! Who’s Anna darling, I’d like to know,’ the landlady
contemptuously cut him short. ‘I’m not Anna darling to any scum of a
road sweeper!’
‘But I only wanted to ask what address I was to write for “Praskovia
Uvertiesheva, 34 years old,” there’s nothing written down here.’
‘Put her down at the Rag-market, and put yourself there, too. You’re a
pretty pair. Or put yourself in a doss-house.’
‘Dirty beast,’ thinks the lieutenant, but he only gives a deep,
submissive sigh. ‘You’re very nervous to-day, Anna, darling!’
‘Nervous! Whatever I am, I know I’m an honest, hard-working woman....
Get out of the way, you bastards,’ she shouts at the children, and
suddenly, ‘Shlop, shlop’--two well-aimed smacks with the spoon come
down on Adka’s and Edka’s foreheads. The boys begin to snivel.
‘There’s a curse on my business, and on me,’ the landlady growls
angrily. ‘When I lived with my husband I never had any sorrows. Now,
all the porters are drunkards, and all the maids are thieves. Sh! you
cursed brats!... That Proska ... she hasn’t been here two days when she
steals the stockings from the girl in No. 12. Other people go off to
pubs with other people’s money, and never do a stroke....’
The lieutenant knew perfectly who Anna Friedrichovna was speaking
about, but he maintained a concentrated silence. The smell of the
_bigoss_ inspired him with some faint hopes. Then the door opened and
Arseny the porter entered without taking off his hat with the three
gold braids. He looks like an Albino eunuch, and his dirty face is
pitted. This is at least the fortieth time he has had this place with
Anna Friedrichovna. He keeps it until the first fit of drinking, when
the landlady herself beats him and puts him into the streets, first
having taken away the symbol of his authority, his three-braided cap.
Then Arseny puts a white Caucasian fur hat on his head and a dark blue
pince-nez on his nose, and swaggers in the public-house opposite until
he’s drunk everything on him away, and at the end of his spree he will
cry on the bosom of the indifferent waiter about his hopeless love for
Friedrich and threaten to murder Lieutenant Tchijhevich. When he sobers
down he comes to the ‘Serbia’ and falls at his landlady’s feet. And
she takes him back again, because the porter who succeeded Arseny had
already managed in this short time to steal from her, to get drunk, to
make a row and be taken off to the police station.
‘You ... have you come from the steamer?’ Anna Friedrichovna asked.
‘Yes. I’ve brought half a dozen pilgrims. It was a job to get ’em away
from Jacob--the “Commercial.” He was just leading them off, when I
comes up to him and says, “It’s all the same to me, I says, go wherever
you like. But as there are people who don’t know these places, and I’m
very sorry for you, I tell you straight you’d better not go with that
man. In their hotel last week they put some powder in a pilgrim’s food
and robbed him.” So I got them away. Afterwards Jacob shook his fist at
me in the distance, and called out: “You just wait, Arseny. I’ll get
you. You won’t get away from me!” But when that happens, I’ll do it
myself....’
‘All right,’ the landlady interrupted. ‘I don’t care twopence about
your Jacob. What price did you fix?’
‘Thirty kopeks. I did my best, but I couldn’t make them give more.’
‘You fool. You can’t do anything.... Give them No. 2.’
‘All in the one room?’
‘You fool. Two rooms, each.... Of course, all in one room. Bring three
mattresses from the old ones, and tell them that they’re not to lie on
the sofa. These pilgrims have always got bugs. Get along!’
When he had gone the lieutenant said in a tender and solicitous
undertone: ‘Anna, darling, I wonder why you allow him to enter the
room in his hat. It is disrespectful to you, both as a lady and
proprietress. And then--consider my position. I’m an officer in
Reserve, and he is a private. It’s rather awkward.’
But Anna Friedrichovna leapt upon him in fresh exasperation: ‘Don’t you
poke your nose in where it’s not wanted. Of-ficer indeed! There are
plenty of officers like you spending the night in a shelter. Arseny’s
a working man. He earns his bread ... not like.... Get away, you lazy
brats, take your hands away!’
‘Ye-es, but give us something to eat,’ roars Adka.
‘Give us something to eat....’
Meanwhile the _bigoss_ is ready. Anna Friedrichovna clatters the dishes
on the table. The lieutenant keeps his head busily down over the
register. He is completely absorbed in his business.
‘Well, sit down,’ the landlady abruptly invited him.
‘No thanks, Anna, darling. Eat, yourself. I’m not very keen,’
Tchijhevich said, without turning round, in a stifled voice, loudly
swallowing.
‘You do what you are told.... He’s giving himself airs, too.... Come
on!’
‘Immediately, this very minute. I’ll just finish the last page. “The
certificate issued by the Bilden Rural District Council ... of the
province ... number 2039....” Ready.’ The lieutenant rose and rubbed
his hands. ‘I love working.’
‘H’m. You call that work,’ the landlady snorted in disdain. ‘Sit down.’
‘Anna, darling, just one ... little....’
‘You can manage without.’
But since peace is already almost restored, Anna Friedrichovna takes a
small, fat-bodied cut-glass decanter from the cupboard, out of which
the deceased’s father used to drink. Adka spreads his cabbage all over
his plate and teases his brother because he has more. Edka is upset and
screams:
‘Adka’s got more. You gave him----’
Shlop! Edka gets a sounding smack with the spoon upon his forehead.
Immediately Anna Friedrichovna continues the conversation as if nothing
had happened:
‘Tell us another of your lies. I bet you were with some woman.’
‘Anna, darling!’ the lieutenant exclaimed reproachfully. Then he
stopped eating and pressed his hands--in one of which was a fork with a
piece of sausage--to his chest. ‘I ... oh, how little you know me. I’d
rather have my head cut off than let such a thing happen. When I went
away that time, I felt so bitter, so hard! I just walked in the street,
and you can imagine, I was drowned in tears. My God,’ I thought, ‘and
I’ve let myself insult that woman--the one woman whom I love sacredly,
madly....’
‘That’s a pretty story,’ put in the landlady, gratified, but still
somewhat suspicious.
‘You don’t believe me,’ the lieutenant replied in a quiet, deep, tragic
voice. ‘Well, I’ve deserved it. Every night I came to your window and
prayed for you in my soul.’ The lieutenant instantly tipped the glass
into his mouth, took a bite, and went on with his mouth full and his
eyes watering:
‘I was thinking that if a fire were to break out suddenly or murderers
attack, I would prove to you then.... I’d have given my life joyfully.
Alas! my life is short without that. My days are numbered....’
Meanwhile the landlady fumbled in her purse.
‘Go on!’ she replied, coquettishly. ‘Adka, here’s the money. Run to
Vasily Vasilich’s and get a bottle of beer. But tell him it’s got to be
fresh. Quick!’
Breakfast is finished, the _bigoss_ eaten, and the beer all drunk, when
Romka, the depraved member of the preparatory class of the gymnasium,
appears covered in chalk and ink. Still standing at the door he pouts
and looks angrily. Then he flings his satchel down on the floor and
begins to howl:
‘There!... you’ve been and eaten everything without me. I’m as hungry
as a do-og.’
‘I’ve got some more. But I shan’t give you any,’ Adka teases him,
showing him his plate across the room.
‘There!... it’s a dirty trick,’ Romka drags out the words. ‘Mother,
tell Adka----’
‘Be _quiet_!’ Anna Friedrichovna cries in a piercing voice. ‘Dawdle
till it’s dark, why don’t you? Take twopence. Buy yourself some
sausage. That’ll do for you.’
‘Ye-es, twopence! You and Valerian Ivanich eat _bigoss_, and you make
me go to school. I’m just like a do-o-o-g.’
‘Get _out_!’ Anna Friedrichovna shouts in a terrible voice, and Romka
precipitately disappears. Still he managed to pick his satchel up from
the floor. A thought had suddenly come into his head. He would go and
sell his books in the Rag-market. In the doorway he ran into his elder
sister Alychka, and seized the opportunity to pinch her arm very hard.
Alychka entered grumbling aloud:
‘Mamma! tell Romka not to pinch.’
She is a handsome girl of thirteen, beginning to develop early, a
swarthy, olive brunette, with beautiful dark eyes, which are not at
all childish. Her lips are red, full and shining, and on her upper
lip, which is lightly covered with a fine black down, there are two
delightful moles. She is a general favourite in the house. The men
give her chocolates, often invite her into their rooms, kiss her and
say impudent things to her. She knows as much as any grown-up, but
in these cases she never blushes, but just casts down her long black
eyelashes which throw a blue shade on her amber cheeks, and smiles with
a strange, modest, tender yet voluptuous, and somehow expectant smile.
Her best friend is the woman Eugenia who lives in No. 12--a quiet
girl, punctual in paying for her room, a stout blonde, who is kept by
a timber merchant, but on her free days invites her cavaliers from the
street. Anna Friedrichovna holds her in high esteem, and says of her:
‘Well, what does it matter if Eugenia is not quite respectable, she’s
an independent woman anyhow.’
Seeing that breakfast is over Alychka gives one of her constrained
smiles and says aloud in her thin voice, rather theatrically: ‘Ah!
you’ve finished already. I’m too late. Mamma! may I go to Eugenia
Nicolaievna?’
‘Go wherever you like!’
‘_Merci!_’
She goes away. After breakfast complete peace reigns. The lieutenant
whispers the most ardent words into the widow’s ear, and presses her
generous knee under the table. Flushing with the food and beer, she
presses her shoulder close to him, then pushes him away and sighs with
nervous laughter.
‘Yes, Valerian. You’re shameless. The children!’
Adka and Edka look at them, with their fingers in their mouths and
their eyes wide open. Their mother suddenly springs upon them.
‘Go for a run, you ruffians. Sitting there like dummies in a museum.
Quick march!’
‘But I don’t want to,’ roars Adka.
‘I don’ wan’----’
‘I’ll teach you “Don’t want to.” A half-penny for candy, and out you
go.’
She locks the door after them, sits on the lieutenant’s knee, and they
begin to kiss.
‘You’re not cross, my treasure?’ the lieutenant whispers in her ear.
But there is a knock at the door. They have to open. The new
chambermaid enters, a tall, gloomy woman with one eye, and says
hoarsely, with a ferocious look:
‘No. 12 wants a samovar, some tea, and some sugar.’
Anna Friedrichovna impatiently gives out what is wanted. The lieutenant
says languidly, stretched on the sofa:
‘I would like to rest a bit, Anna, dear. Isn’t there a room empty?
People are always knocking about here.’
There is only one room empty, No. 5, and there they go. Their room is
long, narrow, and dark, like a skittle-alley, with one window. A bed,
a chest of drawers, a blistered brown washstand, and a commode are all
its furniture. The landlady and the lieutenant once more begin to kiss;
and they moan like doves on the roof in springtime.
‘Anna, darling, if you love me, send for a packet of ten “Cigarettes
Plaisir,” six kopeks,’ says the lieutenant coaxingly, while he
undresses.
‘Later----’
* * * * *
The spring evening darkens quickly, and it is already night. Through
the window comes the whistling of the steamers on the Dnieper, and with
it creeps a faint smell of hay, dust, lilac and warm stone. The water
falls into the washstand, dripping regularly. There is another knock.
‘Who’s there? What the devil are you prowling about for?’ cries Anna
Friedrichovna awakened. She jumps barefoot from the bed and angrily
opens the door. ‘Well, what do you want?’
Lieutenant Tchijhevich modestly pulls the blanket over his head.
‘A student wants a room,’ Arseny says behind the door in a stage
whisper.
‘What student? Tell him there’s only one room, and that’s two roubles.
Is he alone, or with a woman?’
‘Alone.’
‘Tell him then: passport and money in advance. I know these students.’
The lieutenant dressed hurriedly. From habit he takes ten seconds over
his toilette. Anna Friedrichovna tidies the bed quickly and cleverly.
Arseny returns.
‘He’s paid in advance,’ he said gloomily. ‘And here’s the passport.’
The landlady went out into the corridor. Her hair was dishevelled and
a fringe was sticking to her forehead. The folds of the pillow were
imprinted on her crimson cheeks. Her eyes were unnaturally brilliant.
The lieutenant, under cover of her back, slipped into the landlady’s
room as noiseless as a shadow.
The student was waiting by the window on the stairs. He was already no
longer a young man. He was thin and fair-haired, and his face was long
and pale, tender and sickly. His good-natured, short-sighted blue eyes,
with the faintest shade of a squint, look out as through a mist. He
bowed politely to the landlady, at which she smiled in confusion and
fastened the top hook of her blouse.
‘I should like a room,’ he said softly, as if his courage was ebbing.
‘I have to go on from here. But I should be obliged for a candle and
pen and ink.’
He was shown the skittle-alley.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t want anything better. It’s wonderful
here. Just let me have a pen and ink, please.’ He did not require tea
or bed-linen.